Raytracing in the Palm of your Hand: Challenges and Opportunities in Mobile Video Game Development

Keywords: Graphics API's, Graphics evolution, Graphics engines, Game engine, Optimisasion, Raytracing, Mobile video games

Abstract

In the last decade, mobile applications and games have undergone a significant evolution in their visualisation and handling of graphical elements, with ray tracing standing out as a revolutionary technique for rendering light and shadows in 3D environments, offering high realism now on mobile devices.

This article examines how the evolution of graphics engines such as Unity and Unreal, along with graphics APIs such as Vulkan and OpenGL, has facilitated the implementation of ray tracing. These technologies allow developers to manipulate 3D graphics more precisely, integrating ray tracing for immersive visual experiences.

However, the adoption of ray tracing in mobile visualisation faces several challenges, especially in optimisation and power consumption of mobile devices. We explore these challenges and analyse strategies implemented by the industry to overcome them, discuss examples of successful implementations, optimisation tools and possible future developments to improve the capabilities of ray tracing on mobile devices.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

References

Mordor Intelligence Research & Advisory. GPU Market Size & Share Analysis - Growth Trends & Forecasts (2024 - 2029) [Internet]. 2024 Feb [cited 2024 Apr 10]. Available from: https://www.mordorintelligence.com/industry-reports/graphics-processing-unit-market

González Valenzuela C. ¿Qué es el raytracing y cómo cambia la experiencia de los videojuegos? [Internet]. 2023 Feb 11 [cited 2024 Apr 10]. Available from: https://computerhoy.com/tecnologia/raytracing-como-cambia-experiencia-videojuegos-1183652

Samsung. Ray Tracing, la nueva función que permite gráficos más realistas en tiempo real para los gamers [Internet]. 2023 May 29 [cited 2024 Apr 10]. Available from: https://news.samsung.com/co/ray-tracing-la-nueva-funcion-que-permite-graficos-mas-realistas-en-tiempo-real-para-los-gamers

BeHumans. La renderización 3D en la construcción de humanos digitales [Internet]. Linkedin. BeHumans; 2023 [cited 2024 Apr 10]. Available from: https://es.linkedin.com/pulse/la-renderizaci%C3%B3n-3d-en-construcci%C3%B3n-de-humanos-digitales-behumans?trk=article-ssr-frontend-pulse_more-articles_related-content-card

Records E. ¿Qué es el trazado de rayos en tiempo real y por qué es importante? [Internet]. [cited 2024 Apr 10]. Available from: https://www.unrealengine.com/es-ES/explainers/ray-tracing/what-is-real-time-ray-tracing

Champagne R. Real-Time Ray Tracing Realized: RTX Brings the Future of Graphics to Millions [Internet]. 2020 Aug 25 [cited 2024 Apr 10]. Available from: https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/rtx-real-time-ray-tracing/

Mordor Intelligence Research & Advisory. Industria del juego - Análisis de tamaño y participación - Tendencias y pronósticos de crecimiento (2024 - 2029) [Internet]. 2024 Jan [cited 2024 Apr 11]. Available from:

https://www.mordorintelligence.com/es/industry-reports/global-gaming-market

Beshimov M. Innovating with genre mashing in mobile gaming [Internet]. Medium. Google Play Apps & Games; 2017 [cited 2024 Apr 10]. Available from: https://medium.com/googleplaydev/innovating-with-genre-mashing-in-mobile-gaming-286abdf816f0

Whitted JT. A Ray-Tracing Pioneer Explains How He Stumbled into Global Illumination [Internet]. 2018 Aug 01 [cited 2024 Apr 10]. Available from: https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/ray-tracing-global-illumination-turner-whitted/

. Rizzo D. Bryan. 10 Years in the Making: NVIDIA Brings Real-Time Ray Tracing to Gamers with GeForce RTX [Internet]. Nvidia Newsroom. 2018, August 20. Available from: https://nvidianews.nvidia.com/news/10-years-in-the-making-nvidia-brings-real-time-ray-tracing-to-gamers-with-geforce-rtx

. Sjoholm Juha. Effectively Integrating RTX Ray Tracing into a Real-Time Rendering Engine [Internet]. Nvidia Technical Blog. 2018. Available from: https://developer.nvidia.com/blog/effectively-integrating-rtx-ray-tracing-real-time-rendering-engine/

Unity. Getting started with ray tracing [Internet]. [cited 2024 Apr 10]. Available from: https://docs.unity3d.com/Packages/com.unity.render-pipelines.high-definition@8.2/manual/Ray-Tracing-Getting-Started.html

Unity. Mapeo de rayos en tiempo real de Unity [Internet]. [cited 2024 Apr 10]. Available from: https://unity.com/es/ray-tracing

. Vulkan Documentation. Ray Tracing [Internet]. Vulkan.org. 2024 [cited 2024 Apr 15]. Available from: https://docs.vulkan.org/guide/latest/extensions/ray_tracing.html

. GFreeman. Solutions Launches 3DMark Solar Bay, New Cross-Platform Ray Tracing Benchmark [Internet]. TechPowerUp. TechPowerUp; 2023 [cited 2024 Apr 15]. Available from: https://www.techpowerup.com/312355/ul-solutions-launches-3dmark-solar-bay-new-cross-platform-ray-tracing-benchmark

. Beets Kritof. Real-time Ray Tracing Technology: A Game-Changer for Mobile Graphics [Internet]. Embedded Computing Design; 2021 [cited 2024 Apr 21]. Available from: https://embeddedcomputing.com/technology/processing/eda-tools/real-time-ray-tracing-technology-a-game-changer-for-mobile-graphics

Mordor Intelligence Research & Advisory. Análisis del tamaño y la participación del mercado de juegos móviles tendencias de crecimiento y pronósticos (2023 - 2028) [Internet]. 2023 [cited 2024 Apr 10]. Available from: https://www.mordorintelligence.com/es/industry-reports/mobile-games-market

Burnes A. Ray Tracing, Respuestas a Tus Preguntas: Tipos de Ray Tracing, Rendimiento en las GPU GeForce y Más [Internet]. Nvidia News. Nvidia; 2019 [cited 2024 Apr 5]. Available from: https://www.nvidia.com/es-la/geforce/news/geforce-gtx-dxr-ray-tracing-available-now/

Frid I. Why a new game classification in the app stores is in order [Internet]. Appsflyer; 2023 [cited 2024 Apr 9]. Available from: https://www.appsflyer.com/blog/mobile-marketing/game-classification-app-stores/

Orús A. Industria mundial del videojuego - Datos estadísticos [Internet]. 2023 Dec 31 [cited 2024 Apr 10]. Available from: https://es.statista.com/temas/9150/industria-mundial-del-videojuego/#topicOverview

Tori R, et al. Introdução a Realidade Virtual e Aumentada. SBC; 2018. Available from: http://www.de.ufpb.br/~labteve/publi/2018_livroRVA.pdf

Samsung. Gráficos realistas en tiempo real: los expertos de Samsung explican el Ray Tracing para la serie Galaxy S23 [Internet]. 2023 May 01 [cited 2024 Apr 10]. Available from: https://news.samsung.com/mx/entrevista-graficos-realistas-en-tiempo-real-los-expertos-de-samsung-explican-el-ray-tracing-para-la-serie-galaxy-s23

Published
2024-07-05
How to Cite
Cabello-Carranza, A. Y., & Domínguez Jiménez, I. (2024). Raytracing in the Palm of your Hand: Challenges and Opportunities in Mobile Video Game Development . XIKUA Boletín Científico De La Escuela Superior De Tlahuelilpan, 12(24), 45-53. https://doi.org/10.29057/xikua.v12i24.12724