Best Ray-Traced Games (2026)

Ray tracing is the most oversold graphics setting in PC gaming, and also, in a handful of games, the most transformative. In some titles, flipping the switch changes little except your frame rate. In others, it changes how light moves through a room so completely that going back feels like downgrading. The trick is knowing which category a game belongs to before you spend an evening tuning it.

This list is built around that distinction. Instead of ranking games by sales or review scores, it groups them by how much ray tracing actually earns its cost, and it explains what kind of graphics card you need to enjoy each one. If you own an RTX card, any RTX card, it will help you decide where to spend your performance budget.

The Short Answer

The best ray traced games in 2026 are the ones where light is the main character: Cyberpunk 2077, Alan Wake 2, Control, Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition, Portal with RTX, Black Myth: Wukong, and the newer titles that require ray tracing hardware to run at all, such as Indiana Jones and the Great Circle and Doom: The Dark Ages. The one condition that changes the list is your GPU. Full path tracing is demanding enough that it is realistic mainly on higher-end cards, and usually with DLSS upscaling turned on.

How to Tell If Ray Tracing Is Worth Turning On

Before you accept a big frame-rate drop, run a quick test. Pick a scene with lots of reflective surfaces or complex lighting, such as a rainy street, a glass-filled office, or a dark interior with a few light sources. Then check these things:

• Toggle the setting off and on while standing still, and compare the same view. If you cannot spot the difference in five seconds, the effect is subtle.
• Open an overlay such as the one in GeForce Experience, or the performance tab in Task Manager, and watch GPU usage. If it sits near 100 percent with ray tracing on, you are GPU-limited and upscaling will help.
• Watch the frame time graph if the game offers one. Spikes and stutter matter more than the average, and heavier effects tend to make them worse.
• Check CPU usage too. Some games, especially crowded open-world titles, load the processor more with ray tracing enabled, and a weak CPU becomes the limit.

The Games, Grouped by What Ray Tracing Actually Does

Where it transforms the look

Cyberpunk 2077 offers a path tracing mode that changes how neon, rain, and interiors look, and it is the common showcase for that technology. Alan Wake 2 uses ray-traced and path-traced lighting to sell its dark, moody spaces. Portal with RTX and Minecraft with RTX show what full path tracing does to older, simple visuals. Black Myth: Wukong includes full ray tracing options that are among the more demanding in recent releases.

Where it is built in

Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition uses ray-traced global illumination as the core lighting system, so it looks right on a capable card and runs predictably. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle and Doom: The Dark Ages need hardware capable of ray tracing to run, so the question there is how much extra to add, not whether to turn it on.

Where it is a helpful extra

Control, Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered, Hogwarts Legacy, and Dying Light 2 offer ray-traced reflections, shadows, or global illumination that look better in motion, but you can also play them well without it. These are good choices when you want to turn on one or two effects, not the full set.

By Resolution

1080p

Entry-level RTX cards, such as the RTX 3060 (12GB), RTX 4060 (8GB), and RTX 5060 (8GB), can run lighter ray tracing implementations with DLSS upscaling. Full path tracing is a stretch, and 8GB cards can run short of memory when ray tracing and high textures are combined.

1440p

This is the sweet spot for mixing ray tracing with good frame rates. Cards in the class of the RTX 4070 Super (12GB), RTX 5070 (12GB), and RTX 5070 Ti (16GB) can handle most ray-traced games with DLSS enabled, and the faster ones can try path tracing in select titles with upscaling and frame generation.

4K

Full ray tracing at 4K is the domain of the top cards: RTX 5080, RTX 4090, and RTX 5090. Even then, most players rely on DLSS upscaling, and frame generation (RTX 40 and newer) or multi frame generation (RTX 50 only) to keep frame rates smooth. Check each game’s settings for what is supported.

What to Do About It

If a game runs poorly with ray tracing on, change one thing at a time. Turn on DLSS upscaling first, since it is the single biggest gain. If your card supports it, enable frame generation next, but make sure the base frame rate is healthy first or latency will feel off. Lower ray tracing quality from ultra to a medium preset, which often preserves most of the look. Turn down volumetric effects or shadow quality if you need further gains. For an 8GB card, lower texture quality before you cut ray tracing, because memory pressure causes stutter that upscaling cannot fix.

Recommendation by User Type

• Budget 1080p player: pick Control, Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition, or Spider-Man Remastered, and use upscaling.
• 1440p high-refresh player: Cyberpunk 2077 with ray tracing on and upscaling, and Alan Wake 2 for a single-player showcase.
• 4K player with a top card: Cyberpunk 2077 with path tracing, Black Myth: Wukong with full ray tracing, and Portal with RTX.
• Owners of older RTX cards: choose games where ray tracing is a toggle rather than a requirement, so you can scale it down.

FAQ

Which game has the best ray tracing?

Cyberpunk 2077 with its path tracing mode and Alan Wake 2 are commonly cited as the leading examples. Which is best for you depends on your GPU and what you enjoy playing.

Do I need an RTX 50 series card for ray tracing?

No. Every RTX card from the 20 series up has ray tracing hardware. Newer cards are faster at it, and multi frame generation is exclusive to the RTX 50 series.

Is ray tracing worth the performance hit?

It depends on the game. In titles with strong implementations it is a clear upgrade; in others it is a small improvement for a large cost. Test it in your own scene before committing.

Can AMD cards run ray traced games?

Yes. AMD’s RDNA 4 cards, such as the RX 9070 XT and RX 9070, support ray tracing, and many of these games run on them. Performance varies by game, so check reviews for your specific title.

Sources and Methodology

This article does not present any measurements taken by this site. The qualitative performance descriptions reflect how launch reviews and game-specific performance analyses from TechPowerUp, Tom’s Hardware, Gamers Nexus, Hardware Unboxed, and TechSpot characterized each GPU class at the time of release. Game feature descriptions are drawn from public game settings and the developers’ published information. Because patches, drivers, and settings change performance over time, treat the table as a starting point and verify with the in-game overlay on your own system.