PS5 ray-tracing tech is hardware-accelerated, Cerny confirms

PlayStation 5’s ray-tracing technology will be hardware-accelerated, system architect Mark Cerny has confirmed.

Real-time ray tracing is a headline feature of many high-end PC graphics cards, allowing for realistic reflections similar to that seen in CGI movies.

Currently only a small number of PC games support the feature and very high spec systems are required to use it.

PS5 was confirmed to support ray tracing earlier this year, however confirmation that the technology will be accelerated by the console’s GPU hardware should mean it will require less resources than if it was purely reliant on software.

“There is ray-tracing acceleration in the GPU hardware,” Cerny told Wired, “which I believe is the statement that people were looking for.”

Microsoft confirmed earlier this year that its next-gen Xbox console, Project Scarlett, will support hardware-accelerated ray-tracing.

Tuesday’s PS5 ray-tracing news came as part of a larger PlayStation 5 article published on Wired, which also confirms a holiday 2020 launch date for the console and goes into detail on the PS5 controller, which is set to feature haptic feedback, “adaptive” triggers and more.

It was previously revealed that PlayStation 5 features a “customised ultra-fast, broadband SSD” which delivers dramatically reduced loading times compared to PS4 Pro.