Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart PC developer Nixxes Software has taken to the PlayStation Blog to detail a couple of new features headed to the game following confirmation on the PC specs last week.
First up, Nixxes Software Senior Lead Programmer, Richard van der Laan, revealed that the PC port of the dynamic duo’s latest adventure supports DIrectStorage 1.2 and GPU compression, which enables quick loading and a seamless transition between dimensions.
To enable quick loading and instant transition between dimensions, the game needs to be able to load assets quickly. DirectStorage ensures quick loading times, and GPU decompression is used at high graphics settings to stream assets in the background while playing. Traditionally, this decompression is handled by the CPU, but at a certain point, there is an advantage to letting the GPU handle this, as this enables a higher bandwidth for streaming assets from storage to the graphics card. We use this to quickly load high-quality textures and environments with a high level of detail.
However, one of the biggest additions is the inclusion of ray-traced ambient occlusion and XeGTAO. Menno Bil, Graphics Programmer for Nixxes Software, explains:
Ambient occlusion is a technique used in games to simulate how ambient lighting affects a scene. Ambient lighting is a form of indirect lighting: the light reflected from other surfaces. This effect mostly appears at creases, cracks, and corners where surfaces are close to each other. Commonly used AO techniques are SSAO (Screen Space Ambient Occlusion) and HBAO+ (Horizon-Based Ambient Occlusion). These are not very demanding on the hardware, but they do not provide physically accurate results. RTAO utilizes ray tracing further to enhance the realism of ambient occlusion in the game. We have implemented RTAO as an addition for those with high-end systems with ray-tracing compatible hardware and processing power to spare.
XeGTAO generates a very high-resolution ambient occlusion that shows even the smallest details in geometry. Overall, the output quality of XeGTAO is very high and results in a pleasant look.
Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart will be release for PC on July 26.
[Source – PlayStation Blog]