Technology Wizard Gets Ray Tracing Working On A SNES

A feature of video games unique from other mediums of art and entertainment is that sometimes people can make incredibly complex achievements with old hardware. Revisiting and modding old gaming tech isn't exactly easy, but although games are moving forward each year, everyone still loves revisiting the past and messing with it. Example A - getting ray tracing to work on a SNES. Why? Who knows. Does it look cool? Literally, the coolest.

GameSpot first reported the engineering genius from Ben Carter. The software engineer has constructed the hardware to get raytracing to work (and look gorgeous) on the SNES by creating his very own "Super RT" chip for the console.

The video opens looking at a desk with a far more complex set up than the average person has the smarts to construct. The creator switches the console on and much to our surprise, the scene we see on the monitor next to the console is obvious ray-traced. It's polygonal and blocky like SNES games are - but the light in the world is reactive to the ship hovering over the ground. Which is to say, the most impressive SNES graphics have ever looked.

The creator explains that the SNES has a unique quality in that it had extra expansion chips in the game cards used to play titles. Functionality was increased by the game card itself which is a strange notion for anyone who had discs and downloads as their first gaming experiences. And so, Carter made his own expansion chip - the SuperRT which although not commercially viable during the yeard of the SNES, was probably possible.

The result of the SuperRT is a beautiful small landscape which shows how the real-time raytracing deals with shadows and reflections - as well as being able to emulate inverted reflections on concave mirrors. It's astoundingly impressive.

We could rant all day about how cool this project is, but it's probably worth checking out the entire video from Carter himself as he explains the intricacies of his project better than we ever could.