You've seen it mentioned on GPU spec sheets, game settings menus, and gaming laptop advertisements: ray tracing. It's often accompanied by dramatic comparison screenshots showing impossibly realistic reflections and shadows. But what actually is it, does it matter, and should you care when buying your next GPU or gaming laptop in Malaysia?
This is the beginner-friendly explainer you've been looking for.
What Is Ray Tracing?
Ray tracing is a method of rendering light in video games that more closely simulates how light actually behaves in the real world.
In traditional game graphics (called "rasterisation"), developers use clever tricks and pre-baked lighting to simulate how light bounces, reflects, and casts shadows. It's fast and efficient, but it's always an approximation.
Ray tracing calculates the path of actual light rays — thousands or millions of them — bouncing off surfaces, creating realistic reflections, shadows, and global illumination (how light fills a room naturally). The result is graphics that can look almost photographic.
Think of it this way:
- Rasterisation: A skilled painter approximating what a scene looks like
- Ray tracing: A photograph of that scene
What Does Ray Tracing Actually Look Like?
The most dramatic differences appear in:
Reflections: In a game with ray tracing, a puddle on the street will accurately reflect the buildings around it, the sky, and even moving characters. Without ray tracing, reflections are often static cube maps (a 360 photo taken at one point) that don't update in real time.
Shadows: Ray-traced shadows have accurate soft edges — closer objects cast harder shadows, distant ones cast softer ones. Traditional shadow maps often look blocky or have jagged edges.
Global Illumination: When light enters a room, ray tracing calculates how it bounces off walls and fills dark corners. This makes interiors look dramatically more realistic.
Ambient Occlusion: Corners, crevices, and areas where surfaces meet are subtly darker — exactly as in real life. Ray-traced AO is far more accurate than screen-space approximations.
The Performance Cost — This Is the Catch
Ray tracing is computationally expensive. Very expensive.
When you turn on ray tracing in a game like Cyberpunk 2077 or Alan Wake 2, expect your frame rate to drop by 30–60% depending on which RT effects are enabled and at what quality level.
Here's a rough idea of performance impact at 1080p:
| GPU | Without RT (avg fps) | With RT Ultra (avg fps) | |---|---|---| | RTX 4060 | ~80–100fps | ~35–50fps | | RTX 4070 | ~120–140fps | ~60–80fps | | RTX 4080 | ~160+ fps | ~90–110fps | | RTX 4090 | ~200+ fps | ~120–140fps |
This is why DLSS (NVIDIA's AI upscaling) exists — and why it's now inseparable from ray tracing for most gamers.
DLSS Saves the Day
NVIDIA's DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling) uses AI to upscale a lower-resolution image to your target resolution, recovering the frames lost to ray tracing.
With DLSS 3 and Frame Generation:
- RTX 4060 + RT Ultra + DLSS Performance mode = back to 60–80fps
- RTX 4070 + RT Ultra + DLSS Quality mode = 90–120fps
- RTX 4080 + RT Ultra + DLSS Quality = 120–150fps
AMD has FSR (FidelityFX Super Resolution) as an equivalent — less effective at recovering frames from RT but still useful, and works on any GPU including AMD and Intel.
Which GPUs Support Ray Tracing in Malaysia?
NVIDIA RTX Series — best ray tracing performance by far:
- RTX 3060, 3070, 3080 (previous gen, still relevant, prices dropped significantly)
- RTX 4060, 4070, 4080, 4090 (current gen, best DLSS support)
- RTX 5000 series (if available — early 2026 launch, limited Malaysia stock initially)
AMD RX 6000 and 7000 series — supports ray tracing but with lower performance:
- RX 7900 XT, 7900 XTX handle RT better than previous AMD generations
- RX 7600, 7700 XT are budget options that support RT but struggle with it enabled
Intel Arc A770, A750 — surprisingly capable RT performance via XeSS upscaling
Mobile (for gaming laptops): All RTX 40 series mobile chips support ray tracing. The performance in laptops is lower than desktop equivalents due to power limits.
Games Where Ray Tracing Actually Matters
Not every game benefits equally. Here are games where RT makes a genuinely dramatic visual difference:
Stunning RT Implementation:
- Cyberpunk 2077 (Overdrive mode with Path Tracing is the best-looking game ever rendered)
- Alan Wake 2
- Control
- Minecraft RTX (yes, Minecraft with full ray tracing is jaw-dropping)
- Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition
Moderate Improvement:
- Spider-Man 2 (water reflections, city reflections)
- Call of Duty Modern Warfare II/III
- Fortnite (RT shadows and reflections)
Negligible Improvement:
- Most competitive games (Valorant, CS2, Apex Legends) — these are stylised and run at high fps by design. RT adds almost nothing useful here.
Should Malaysian Gamers Actually Enable Ray Tracing?
If you have an RTX 4070 or above: Yes. Enable DLSS Quality + RT Medium or High. You get great visuals at playable frame rates.
If you have an RTX 4060: Selectively. Enable RT in single-player story games at medium settings with DLSS. Turn it off for competitive multiplayer to maximise frame rates.
If you have an RTX 3060 or lower: Skip ray tracing for most games. The performance hit isn't worth it. Enjoy the excellent rasterisation performance these cards offer.
If you have AMD GPUs: Use FSR upscaling with RT on at lower settings — feasible on RX 7000 series for single-player games.
Is It Worth Paying More for RT Performance?
In Malaysia, the RTX 4070 (around RM2,000–2,200) versus the RTX 4060 (around RM1,300–1,400) is a common debate. If ray tracing matters to you for upcoming single-player games, the RTX 4070 is worth the jump. If you primarily play Valorant, Mobile Legends, PUBG, and similar titles, the RTX 4060's raw rasterisation performance is more than enough.
The Takeaway
Ray tracing is genuinely impressive technology that makes specific games look extraordinary. In 2026, with DLSS and FSR making the performance cost manageable, it's no longer the frame-rate killer it once was.
But it's not required. Malaysian gamers playing competitive titles will gain nothing from enabling it. Those who want the best possible single-player visual experience on supported titles — and own an RTX 4070 or better — will find it genuinely rewarding.
It's a "nice to have" that's becoming a more compelling "should have" as GPU power increases and more games implement it well.