Damn just look at this

Does it require fake frame-generation and a $2000 card?

The only thing needed was the smartness of the game devs to achieve it

whoa have you heard this yet?

Tomb Raider Legend (Xbox 360, 2006)

planar reflections... old tech that worked well with old hardware because all it involved back then is rendering a static mesh with one (diffuse) texture and pre-baked vertex lighting you try doing that today with complex, deferred renderers and you will bring the graphics card to it's knees ray tracing is a more efficient solution with how complex modern renderers are tl;dr you are looking at an orange and wondering why apples are different

TECHNOLOGY DEVOLVES OVER TIME FUCK ALL THIS SHIT ABOUT UNREAL 5 OR SHIT WE NEED TO GO BACK Sorry for yelling, too excited.

2000s era water was such a vibe

NG is generally very well made, especially Black. Lots of clever tricks used, they really knew the hardware. DoA2U is also like that (same dev)

I just cannot comprehend the hard push for ray-tracing, yeah it's cool but rasterized graphics will always have better performance, simply by virtue of pure mathematics. Not to mention, lightmapping and light probes gives the artist more direct control.

Check out the Baldur's Gate games on the OG Xbox. You'll love the water effects.

Doing planar reflections in my volleyball game now, no fancy hardware needed :)