World of Tanks gets ray-traced shadows for all video cards – Update

Free-to-play game World of Tanks gains support for ray-traced shadows via the Intel oneAPI. The technique works with video cards from all manufacturers. Developer Wargaming is working with Intel on the integration into its Core engine.

The addition of ray tracing should provide realistic shadows on the tanks in the game. It is only applied to tanks that are intact and that are in direct sunlight. “The tiniest details of the tanks will create super realistic shadows when hit by the sun,” the developer writes. A Wargaming developer has posted examples on his website.

World of Tanks will have an option to enable ray tracing, which will work with all video cards that support DirectX 11. The feature will be available in the next version of the game, which will be released sometime in October.

Wargaming has partnered with Intel for the implementation of ray tracing. The Intel oneAPI is used, a rendering framework that allows rendering tasks to be handled by CPUs. Further details about the implementation have not been disclosed. The impact on performance is still unclear.

World of Tanks came out in 2010 and is constantly being updated. Last year, the game made the switch to its own Core engine. The game is particularly popular in Russia but has millions of active players worldwide.

Update, 10:27 AM: Screenshots and link to examples added.