Ray Tracing Remains a Niche in Popular PC Games
Eight years after Nvidia introduced hardware-accelerated ray tracing with RTX, only about five of the 21 most popular PC games in 2025 actually use it, with many mainstream titles and some high-profile games skipping or limiting ray tracing in favor of software-based global illumination like Unreal Engine 5’s Lumen; broader adoption may come as new engines and RDNA 5 hardware mature, but price and performance costs keep it limited for now.
