World of Tanks gets ray tracing support for all DirectX 11 graphics cards

When Nvidia launched the graphics cards in the Geforce RTX family, it was the starting shot for an escalated focus on ray tracing in game development. Support for the new technology has also been announced for future graphics chips from AMD, but at present the support is limited to Nvidia’s range of Geforce RTX graphics cards.

However, this may change in the future. Game developer Wargaming, which is behind the war title World of Tanks, is currently hosting the event Wargaming Fest. One of the news that is revealed is that the developer has collaborated with Intel to add support for ray tracing i World of Tanks.

In World of Tanks ska ray tracing be used to make the shading of tanks more detailed and realistic. According to the developer, small details on the tanks will cast detailed shadows on the surroundings. The remarkable thing about this support is that it is not limited to Nvidia’s RTX graphics card. Instead, all DirectX 11-compatible graphics cards on the market are supported.

With the introduction of our Ray Tracing (RT) technology—developed at Wargaming with close collaboration with Intel—we can recreate the “main actors” of our game in higher quality; their smallest details will give super-realistic shadows when the sun hits them. Ray Tracing further immerses you in an atmosphere of furious tank combat and provides an even more enjoyable gameplay experience.

Ray Tracing technology will work on all graphics cards that support DirectX 11 API and higher, but only for intact vehicles that are in direct sunlight. You can enable/disable this function in the game settings. The support for brand-new shadows on tanks will be added in the upcoming updates of World of Tanks, after the tests have been completed.

To ray tracingThe support developed in collaboration with Intel may be an indication of the company’s plans for the first wave of graphics cards based on the Xe architectures. Early reports indicate that the first Intel Xe architectures lack hardware-accelerated support ray tracing. Widespread support for the technology in existing DirectX 11 titles would then allow first-wave Xe graphics cards to support ray tracing.

The support for ray tracing will be added in an upcoming update that will also add new content to the game. World of Tanks is available on PC / Windows, Xbox One, Playstation 4 and mobile platforms. The support for ray tracing refers to the PC platform.

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