AMD's Hangar 21 demo video shows off Big Navi RX 6800 XT ray-tracing chops, drops on November 19th

AMD recently released a teaser for its Hangar 21 ray-tracing and DirectX 12 Ultimate demo video. The teaser was released shortly before Big Navi reviews arrived and tempered expectations about AMD's ray-tracing capabilities. 

While the Radeon RX 6800 XT falls significantly behind the GeForce RTX 3080 in ray-traced workloads, and while AMD's AI upscaling solution is still months away at best, Hangar 21 is an interesting capability demonstrator. While AMD didn't specifically name-drop ray-tracing, it mentioned that Hangar 21 showcases DX 12 Ultimate, a significant component of which is DXR ray-tracing. A range of effects in the game, from reflections to indirect lighting, showcase Big Navi's hardware-accelerated ray tracing chops. 

It's interesting to see the demo in motion because it's far more ambitious than the ray-tracing efforts we've seen so far on console. With AMD's AI upscaling tech MIA, developers have been forced to limit ray-tracing to sub-native or 30 FPS modes. Once FidelityFX Super Resolution arrives next year, consoles (and Big Navi PC graphics cards) should have much more GPU headroom. It'll be interesting to see developers push the boat out with Hangar 21-like effects in-game. 

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