MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries – RTX Beta Analysis
Raytraced Shadows and Raytraced Reflections – What does and doesn’t work
In MechWarrior 5, raytracing’s impact can currently be best seen inside of your ship’s hanger, where more reflective surfaces and complex lighting setups are available than elsewhere in the game.
Below, we can see that shadows become more diffuse and appear across more areas of the Mech below, thanks to the more accurate representation of the scene’s lighting and the ability of raytraced shadows to cover areas which are often missed by normal shadow-creating techniques.
The example below showcases contact shadows, which become more diffuse and blurred as you move away from the object, in this case an NPC, who cast it. We can also see ammunition rear the rear of the shelving system almost disappear within shadow, something which didn’t happen without raytracing.
(See Full Sized Comparison)
Moving on to reflections, we can see that the glass in front of this plant gains semi-transparent reflections, allowing players to see everything at the other side of the glass as well as a raytraced reflection.
While this is a great example of raytracing in action, these scenes are not seen within the meat of MechWarrior 5’s gameplay, as you would never be near such a large glass surface when inside your mech.
(See Full-Sized Comparison)
When Raytracing doesn’t work
We found an area within MechWarrior 5’s campaign where we were sure that raytraced reflections would come into play. Surely Pirahna games would use raytracing to create better reflections on the surface of the water?
Nope, as it stands, raytracing has no impact on MechWarrior 5’s water, presenting gamers with the same screen space type reflections as before, which themselves don’t look that good. When you are in missions, raytraced reflections are a waste of a graphics option, as it has no tangible impact on MechWarrior 5’s visuals, at least in the areas that we tested.
