Regarding video games, one of the hottest subjects to talk about right now is ray tracing. This feature allows games to render realistic lighting by rendering each beam of light individually, which requires using your computer’s RAM. But how much Ram does your computer need for ray tracing?
Most games require a minimum of 8GB of RAM to run with a minimum of 16GB of RAM requirement to run with ray tracing. Although, some more demanding games can even require 32GB of RAM to run with ray tracing at its highest quality.
There are also requirements besides RAM that your computer needs to run a game with ray tracing. So let’s get into the topic of ray tracing’s requirements in more detail to help you run your games at their highest quality.
What is Ray Tracing?
Since 2018, ray tracing has been the talk of the town in the gaming market, even being referred to by some as one of the most significant developments in the gaming industry in recent times. But what exactly is ray tracing? What does it do?
Ray tracing is an advanced way of rendering light and shadows in virtual environments.
We say “virtual environments” rather than “video games” because ray tracing was originally developed for use in film. Ray tracing’s original purpose was for use with CG lighting in movies.
Ray tracing was initially thought impossible in video games due to the high demand it would put on the system. Ray tracing renders every ray of light in a scene individually, and even some of the most powerful computers used to be unable to handle that and gameplay simultaneously.
However, with the advent of newer and newer computer hardware, ray tracing has finally become achievable for modern games. Specifically, ray tracing in video games became possible with the release of Nvidia’s Turing graphics cards.
What RAM Specs Do You Need for Ray Tracing?
RAM, or Random Access Memory, is essential to play modern games, especially those using ray tracing. RAM is your computer’s short-term memory and is critical to increasing your system’s responsiveness, improving your games’ frame rate, and loading your games faster. But how much RAM do you need to play games with ray tracing?
Sadly, this question does not have a definitive answer. This is because the amount of RAM you will need will depend on the game you’re trying to play.
For example, 2022’s Spider-Man Remastered’s Steam port requires a minimum of 8GB of RAM to play the game without ray tracing. However, you will need a minimum of 16GB of RAM, or a package like this (on Amazon), for the ray tracing to be active.
They also list that for their ray tracing to be at its best, you need 32 GB of RAM.
For another example, 2020’s Cyberpunk 2077 requires a minimum of 8GB of RAM to play the game with no ray tracing. The minimum amount of RAM needed for the game to have ray tracing is 16GB. 16GB of RAM is also the maximum amount to play the game.
Does Ray Tracing Require More RAM?
As we’ve already gone over, ray tracing typically requires more RAM. For example, Spider-Man Remastered requires 8 GB of RAM to play without ray tracing, while it requires 16 GB of RAM to play with ray tracing. Although, other factors go into how well your ray tracing performs.
For instance, in the last section, we discussed that Cyberpunk 2077 requires 16 GB of RAM to play the game with the minimum amount of ray tracing.
Still, it also requires a minimum amount of 16 GB of RAM to play the game with the maximum amount of ray tracing.
This is because while the 16 GB RAM requirement between the two performances remains constant, they also have two different graphics cards.
To play Cyberpunk with the minimum amount of ray tracing, you need an RTX 2060 graphics card. While to play it with the maximum amount, you need an RTX 3080.
RTX (Ray Tracing Texel eXtreme) is a line of graphics cards developed by Nvidia to support ray tracing. By upgrading your graphics card to an RTX model or your RTX model, your computer can handle higher and higher-quality ray tracing.