AMD's Latest GPU Driver Reveals Why Ratchet And Clank Skips Ray Tracing On Radeon Cards
Unfortunately, despite that the original platform is based on AMD hardware, the PC version doesn't support all of the aforementioned graphics technology on AMD GPUs. Specifically, ray-tracing features are not supported in the game for its launch today. PC port developer Nixxes didn't give a reason for the delay, but said that it is working closely with AMD to get the advanced lighting functions functional on the Red Team's GPUs.
AMD was more forthcoming with its findings. The company released a new graphics driver today, naturally named AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition 23.7.2. In the patch notes for this version, AMD notes that you could run into an "application crash or driver timeout" when playing Rift Apart with ray-tracing and dynamic resolution scaling enabled "on some AMD graphics products, such as the Radeon RX 7900 XTX."
Honestly, it's a good thing that AMD is pointing this out this way, as otherwise it could be a pretty poor look for developer Nixxes. We say that because Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart's PC version did ship with ray-tracing support on competitor NVIDIA's GPUs—as well as the whole suite of NVIDIA technologies, including DLSS 3 Frame Generation, Reflex, DLAA, and RTX IO.
With all that NVIDIA branding, some folks might cry foul, but considering AMD's announcement in its patch notes, we suspect the subject of ray-tracing on Radeons in Ratchet & Clank is simply down to an AMD driver issue rather than a problem with the game itself or any sort of intentional misdoing.
Notably, the game is also the second to ship with DirectStorage support, and indeed, the very first to have DirectStorage 1.2 support with GPU decompression. We're not completely clear on what separates DirectStorage 1.2 in Ratchet & Clank from RTX IO (like that seen in Portal: Prelude RTX), but NVIDIA seems pleased about it anyway.
If you're a Ratchet & Clank fan with a suitable PC, you may want to play through Rift Apart again on said system, as it has improved visuals with extra ray-tracing effects and higher-detail textures. Neophyte PC gamers can check out this handy article on Insomniac Games' website to get some great PC performance tuning tips.
