Path tracing has officially become part of the id Tech 8 engine.

DOOM: The Dark Ages became not only one of the first games with full-fledged path tracing, but also a platform for implementing this technology into the engine itself id Tech 8id Software's Director of Engine Technology, Billy Kahn, spoke about this in a technical interview with NVIDIA. He said the path tracing system took about six months to develop, and it is now a core part of the studio's engine.

Key achievements include high performance even in complex scenes thanks to the active use of Shader Execution Reordering (SER) и Opacity Micro Maps (OMM)These technologies allow for flexible optimization of shading costs and efficient removal of invisible pixels, which is especially important when dealing with numerous translucent objects and complex materials.

An important part of the visual leap was integration DLSS Ray ReconstructionAccording to Kahn, classic denoising methods couldn't handle the load, and only DLSS RR allowed for the preservation of all the subtle details revealed by path tracing. This not only made the image cleaner but also closer to "real-time rendering" in the cinematic sense.

Path tracing is now part of the standard id Tech 8 stack., and id Software will continue to explore its capabilities in future projects. The studio emphasizes that despite the technology's expense, it will be used where it truly delivers value to players and supports the game's artistic vision.