Wow that's a big difference.
It reminds me of what it was like to first see 3dfx OpenGL mode in Quake II when I got a Voodoo graphics card.
It reminds me of what it was like to first see 3dfx OpenGL mode in Quake II when I got a Voodoo graphics card.
Other things like more accurate reflections and specular effects add more to VR where subtle head movements that don't produce the correct response our brain expects impact immersion even when we're not able to consciously identify why the rendering is not quite right.
The additional performance demands of VR mean it will be a while before we really see these benefits realized but I think when it all comes together it will really improve immersion.
There are some other potential benefits to basing VR rendering around ray tracing too that might take even longer to realize. For example you can directly compensate for the optics of the lenses when generating rays and avoid the whole post process warping step and foveated rendering is very easy to incorporate naturally.
I just remember seeing all of the ambient lights and glows and thinking how amazing it looked. Specifically some early campaign map where you're going through dark sewers that had a bunch of little lights that emit a glow.
But after the coolness factor wore off, it was back to using the most minimal settings possible to maximize visibility and frame rates to play it online.
But yeah, the biggest improvement was putting it into Glide/OpenGL and watching all the new lights appear.
http://dk.toastednet.org/Q2DOS/
No Glide though, so it won't run under emulation it needs an actual 3dFX card.