Why are you arguing about SDFs? The demo you linked proves nothing about what either games do nor what RTX does, in the context of this thread it’s irrelevant whether z-buffers save you one iteration of ray marching.
Not needing a special shadow map or stencil volume or a big bag of tricky tricks for area lights is one of the reasons to use ray tracing & RTX.
The main point of RTX is faster ray tracing. You’re complaining about the screenshot marketing of specific games, not really demonstrating an understanding the tradeoffs of ray tracing. It’s fine if you don’t see any advantage to having ray tracing in Control or Battlefield, and/or don’t like the idea that some people see value in better visuals or easier development. That means you don’t like it. I see a point even if you don’t.
Not needing a special shadow map or stencil volume or a big bag of tricky tricks for area lights is one of the reasons to use ray tracing & RTX.
The main point of RTX is faster ray tracing. You’re complaining about the screenshot marketing of specific games, not really demonstrating an understanding the tradeoffs of ray tracing. It’s fine if you don’t see any advantage to having ray tracing in Control or Battlefield, and/or don’t like the idea that some people see value in better visuals or easier development. That means you don’t like it. I see a point even if you don’t.