On the afternoon of March 23, Apple CEO Tim Cook suddenly appeared at the Sanlitun Apple Store in Beijing to participate in the “Today at Apple: Ni Shuihan Mobile Game and Ray Tracing” experience event held in the store that day.
At the event, two Nishuihan mobile game developers used iPhone 15 Pro For this series of mobile phones, Cook shared the light chasing level of the Nishuihan mobile game. They introduced in detail the breakthrough of Nishuihan mobile game in improving the game quality. After seeing the game screen, Cook gave a thumbs up and said, “That's really great!”
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According to Gamingdeputy’s previous reports, Nishuihan mobile game has launched a ray tracing level in the 1.3 season update on March 22. Officials said that mobile phones equipped with “flagship chips” can now enable ray tracing effects (such as Apple A17, Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, etc.), it is claimed that this is the first time an MMO mobile game supports both ray tracing and real-time global illumination on an Apple mobile phone.
Admittedly, you can understand that this is Cook's “consistent” business bragging, but it is undeniable that the once unreachable mobile game light pursuit has now become a reality in the game “Backwater”.
So the question is, can the light chasing of the mobile game “Ni Shui Han” bring players a different gaming experience, or is it just an eye-catching gimmick?
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With this curiosity, Gamingdeputy conducted an in-depth experience of the mobile game “Ni Shui Han” to find out.
In the 1.3 season of the “Ni Shui Han” mobile game, the specially introduced light chasing level is hidden in the newly added adventure “The Old Sword Returns to the Clan”. In this level, players can step into the mysterious “Light Chasing Cave” and experience the application of light tracing technology on mobile phones.
To start this fantasy journey, players must first reach level 25 and complete the main mission of The Lady on the Boat. Then, go to Sanqing Mountain, enter the coordinates 1201.943, and find senior sister Ye Xueqing.
After a brief dialogue, the adventure “The Return of the Old Sword to the Clan” was officially triggered.
In the memory level of “The Return of the Old Sword to the Sect”, the player will play the role of senior sister Ye Xueqing and travel to the plot scene – the Cave of Ten Thousand Buddhas.
Before entering the Cave of Ten Thousand Buddhas, you need to sneak attack and eliminate a few guards, then use the Shadow Bearing Sword to climb up the hillside, open the door, and finally step into the Cave of Ten Thousand Buddhas.
Inside the Ten Thousand Buddhas Cave, it is the legendary “Light Chase Cave”. The light and shadow effects here are truly stunning, especially the texture of the water surface is particularly delicate.
Of course, this is just an appetizer.
When the player triggers the mechanism to turn the sundial, the light of the sun, moon and stars will change in real time. At this time, you will clearly see that the game scene has changed from the cold light of the stars and the moon to the warm light of the sun. As the light from the top of the cave jumps and reflects on the water and stone slabs, the overall atmosphere of the entire cave also flows, presenting a stunning real-time global illumination effect.
Although there is still a certain gap between the light chasing effect created by this kind of ambient light and today's top 3A console game masterpieces, in the past, it was difficult for us to imagine that a mobile game could present such realistic light and shadow effects.
What surprised the author even more was the cutscene that appeared when the player pulled out the sword. The cold blade seemed to become a mirror, and the player's face was clearly visible, as if blending with the light on the blade.
Who can believe that this real and shocking light chasing effect actually comes from a mobile phone?
In addition to being able to deeply experience the charm of light chasing in the mobile game in the cave level of “The Return of the Sword”, in the scene of “Mirror Lake”, the bamboo forest and the sky are clearly reflected in the water, and the light and shadow effects are very strong. Especially when the player runs in the lake, the ripples caused by the light chasing are intertwined with soft refraction and real reflection, showing delicate and rich lighting details.
Finally, it should be noted that real-time ray tracing technology is still in its infancy on the mobile terminal. Especially for mobile games with extremely large content such as “Backwater”, there are still many areas waiting for optimization.
In the test, the model used by Gamingdeputy is vivo X Fold3 Proequipped with the latest Snapdragon 8 Gen3 processor, the performance can be said to beAndroidThe first echelon of the camp. However, in some light chasing scenes, there is still a certain amount of frame drops, and the number of frame drops is obviously more than in other scenes. This is accompanied by the heat of the phone, which more or less affects the overall gaming experience.
This is true for Snapdragon 8 Gen3, not to mention some other products. This is a fly in the ointment.
However, considering that the current ray tracing technology is still in the stage of continuous exploration and improvement on the mobile terminal, as well as the complexity of the content of the mobile game itself, this performance can be considered excusable, long live understanding.
Therefore, if you want to fully experience the light chasing mobile game “Ni Shui Han”, there is indeed a certain performance threshold. We also look forward to the “Ni Shui Han” mobile game team to conduct in-depth development and optimization to address these issues, further improve the game's operational stability and smoothness, and allow players to immerse themselves in a more realistic and delicate martial arts world.
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At the beginning of 2024, NetEase announced that the number of active players in the mobile game “Ni Shui Han” has officially exceeded 100 million. In the context of low production volume and high development difficulties of domestic MMO-type games, the popularity of “Backwater Cold” is both expected and reasonable.
In the view of Gamingdeputy, the reason why “Ni Shui Han” has become so popular is that, in addition to the constantly optimized game content itself, it is also inseparable from the attitude of the “Ni Shui Han” development team towards “high image quality”.
Over the past year, “Backwater Cold” has become a frequent guest at the press conferences of major top mobile phone manufacturers and chip manufacturers.
For example, last September Apple iPhone At the press conference, the mobile game “Ni Shui Han” made a high-profile appearance, becoming the only Chinese element in the entire press conference. Apple also specifically announced that the mobile game “Backwater” is a major representative game of its A17 Pro chip in terms of gaming experience.
Then at the Qualcomm Snapdragon Technology Summit in late October, the mobile game “Backwater Cold” became a demonstration game for the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 ray tracing effect. According to reports, relying on the powerful performance support of the new 3rd generation Snapdragon 8 mobile platform, the mobile game “Backwater Cold” is the first to simultaneously implement ray tracing (Ray Tracing), real-time global illumination technology (Global Illumination), and Snapdragon super resolution ( Game Super Resolution) and many other technologies, it is unique in global games.
In November, the mobile game “Ni Shui Han” also announced the launch of MediaTek Dimensity 9300 game frame doubling technology; even, inHuawei Mate 60 During the research and development period before the series of mobile phones were released, Ni Shuihan completed the adaptation work ahead of schedule.
“Ni Shui Han” frequently appears at chip manufacturers and mobile phone conferences, with only one purpose – to achieve a better gaming experience. This also reflects the Ni Shuihan team's respect and commitment to game players.
“Good picture quality” is certainly eye-catching, but the persistence in technology behind “good picture quality” is actually more worthy of learning and promotion by the industry.
With the rapid development of mobile game technology, it is expected that more and more mobile games will enter the “roller image quality” track, accelerating the arrival of the singularity moment of mobile game image quality.