Ray Tracing and Variable Rate Shading Support Spotted In World of Warcraft: Shadowlands Alpha

[Tsing]

Image: Blizzard



Blizzard had merely teased that its next World of Warcraft expansion could be getting next-gen graphics features, but it appears that plan is already coming to fruition. Reddit user LemonKing looked into the alpha version of Shadowlands’s engine and discovered flags for DirectX ray tracing support – more specifically, ray-traced shadows. There is also indication that the MMORPG will feature Variable Rate Shading (VRS), a rendering technique that, as NVIDIA explains, “increases rendering performance and quality by varying the shading rate for different regions of the frame.”

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[Grimlakin]

I only have 1 question here. WHY? This game can barely stress a 1060 running at 4k with everything maxed. (hyperbole)

But seriously this is the most under demanding engine out that I have seen in a very very long time. Why do they even WANT these features. That's like adding ray tracing to minecraft. A compelte waste of time. It's still a game about stacking two foot blocks at the highest of detail levels being that two foot block.