and Pascal run the tech great, and yes that’s what it’s built for, but there must be some way to offer a cut down, less accurate version for slower hardware. Lionhead’s LPVs were very performance heavy at first as well, now it’s more or less free in comparison, without any change in the hardware running it. Even if the lower spec settings for VXGI are as problematic as LPVs are when it comes to problems like light leaking, the option to be able to do something like that at least opens up the VXGI workflow a bit more. Right now, if you make a scene focused around VXGI, even if it runs great on high end machines, without doubling the workload the scene flat out does not run on even something like the GTX 680 well enough to call it playable. Setting a GTX 780 as the game’s minimum spec in 2015/2016 is unreasonable to ask of the consumers right now.
Even making a change like lowering the minimum mapsize from 32 to maybe 16 or even lower, probably wouldn’t need a significant rewrite to the systems while still lowering the performance hit that it has. The Sci-fi Hallway example included with the build is a great example of why disabling VXGI in a scene built for it isn’t going to work out too well.
I’m all for future proofing the visuals in games, that’s part of why I’m trying to make tech work in the first place, but it is very difficult to convince non-artists on the team that the system is a good idea when their own computers can’t comfortably play the game they’re working on. Not to mention, as you said, VR, which when combined with VXGI will ensure nothing until 2020 can even consider running at the 90 fps that something like that requires (Unless Nvidia has a trick up their sleeve to not incur a performance hit when using the tech in VR). I do want tech to work, been messing with the settings for over a week to try and get it going well enough on lower end systems now that I have a few scenes that can use it well, it’s just a challenge to get it in a state where it runs well for it. For now at least, my solution is just to fill the scene with fill lights that only turn on with VXGI disabled and try to make it look as close as it can.