Published May 29, 2026, 5:00 PM EDT

Hamlin has been in the tech field for over seven years. Since 2017, his work has appeared on MakeUseOf , OSXDaily, Beebom, MashTips, and more. He served as the Senior Editor for MUO for two years before joining XDA. He uses a Windows PC for desktop use and a MacBook for traveling, but dislikes some of the quirks of macOS. You're more likely to catch him at the gym or on a flight than anywhere else.

I don't know if you still remember, but Nvidia made a big deal about ray tracing when it launched the RTX 20-series GPUs back in 2018. The company's CEO, Jensen Huang, even said, "Computer graphics will never be the same again." At the time, a lot of us bought into that idea. The demos did make it look like the next big leap for gaming, with realistic lighting, shadows, and reflections.…