(Ray Traced Global Illumination) is a specific shader developed by Marty McFly. Unlike simple color grading or ambient occlusion (AO) shaders, RTGI simulates how light bounces off surfaces to create realistic indirect lighting and shadows.
For gamers running older titles—from Mass Effect to Half-Life 2 to Grand Theft Auto V — became the definitive tool to bridge the graphical gap between generations. But what made this specific version so iconic? Why do modding communities still refer back to it years later?
Test results (1080p, High Quality preset): reshade ray tracing shader rtgi 033 2021
Before 2021, most "fake ray tracing" shaders were simply screen-space reflections. changed the game by implementing a hybrid approach: screen-space ray marching combined with depth buffer information to create plausible light bounces. 2. The Evolution to Version 0.33 (2021) The RTGI shader had been in development since 2019, but versions prior to 0.33 were plagued with noise, heavy flickering, and a "halo" effect around objects. By early 2021, Marty McFly had refined the temporal accumulation algorithm.
Published: 2021 (Retrospective Analysis) (Ray Traced Global Illumination) is a specific shader
| GPU | Game | Native FPS | With RTGI 0.33 | Penalty | | :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- | | RTX 2060 | Mass Effect Legendary | 120 | 78 | -35% | | GTX 1080 Ti | Witcher 3 | 90 | 72 | -20% | | RX 5700 XT | Resident Evil 2 | 110 | 65 | -41% | | GTX 1660 Ti | Skyrim SE (ENB) | 60 | 42 | -30% |
While hardware ray tracing has since become mainstream (with UE5’s Lumen and RTX Remix), there is a certain charm to forcing a 2012 game like Dishonored to compute light bounces using a screen-space shader from 2021. It feels like hacking reality. But what made this specific version so iconic
In the world of PC gaming graphics modding, few releases have caused as significant a ripple as the , which surfaced in early 2021. At a time when native ray tracing was still a luxury reserved for AAA titles like Cyberpunk 2077 and Control , modder Pascal "Marty McFly" Gilcher delivered a software-based solution that democratized path-traced global illumination.