Minecraft with RTX ray tracing launches for Windows 10 | Hacker News Reader

Minecraft with RTX ray tracing launches for Windows 10

theverge.com

17 pointsTomte16 comments

And in order to run it, you have to purchase it from the Microsoft Store, which means you have to have a Microsoft account, which means you have to login to your own PC using your Microsoft account.

No thanks.

This is kinda unrelated to the Minecraft stuff, but I agree - it's very difficult to Windows anymore.

Windows installation now requires you to be logged in with a Microsoft account (no way to set it up with a local account).

That must be very new, since I installed Windows with a local account a few weeks ago. Using an ISO from Microsoft...

Last time this rumor made the rounds, the facts were that the way to install without a Microsoft account was made less visible: a tiny link at the bottom of the screen.

This isn't a rumor. Non-LTSC builds do not have an opt out, unless the machine was booted with no access to the network. Not configuring wifi or leaving ethernet unplugged allows you to bypass it.

You could have left out the “This isn’t a rumor.” statement and not made a self-contradiction.

My understanding is the following: Home Edition needs to be disconnected from the Internet before booting to allow the creation of a local account during setup. Otherwise the option does not show up. I don't know about Pro Edition, but it seems it was still possible to create a local account during setup in late 2019.

"Windows installation now requires you to be logged in with a Microsoft account (no way to set it up with a local account)."

That's not exactly a true statement - you can make a local account, depending on Windows version, but have to jump through hoops to find that setting.

I do get the point though.

I've done dozens of Windows 10 installs this year, w/o an online account. It's a matter of overcoming the dark patterns MS incorporates into it's Win10 setups.

For Pro/Ent, I choose to set it up on a domain (there's no domain). Following that, I get options to setup a local account.

I've done Edu w/ local accounts as well but I don't recall the procedure.

As an alternative, the SEUS PTGI shader for Java Minecraft works and does basically the same. It will absolutely hammer your GPU, though.

Does the shader take advantage of the ray tracing hardware on newer graphic cards?

No, it doesn't. However, the shader makes heavy advantage of the fact that Minecraft is made out of cubes, of which you may simplify a hundred into a single cuboid, and that checking ray-cuboid intersection is cheap, to do real path traced GI without needing ray tracing acceleration.