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(I know this sounds ridiculous at first glance but plz hear me out)

With ray tracing finally coming out in some of the big AAA games, the general first reaction is: wow the fps tanks like hell not worth it. But RS isn't that graphically demanding. My 1050(mobile) uses 50% at high settings. So what if RS implements ray tracing for water and windows? It'll give the game (even more) stunning looks for those with an RTX graphics card and (hopefully) without over-taxing the GPU.

With Nvidia pushing RTX like there's no tomorrow, AMD rumoured to be following soon, it's probably not exaggerating that everyone and their mother will be using ray tracing and having an RTX graphics card in a few years. With Jagex's track record, every major thing, especially when it involves engine work, will need a few years (if not more) to get it done. So why not start now?

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about 6 years ago - /u/Darkimmortal - Direct link

The Ultra water quality setting actually does what could be described as ray tracing (using modern shader functionality, nothing to do with RTX) to produce the caustics effect visible on ground beneath water and on objects above water (such as sides of some ships and under the lumbridge bridge). It might not look like it, but it's a dynamic realtime effect and not an animated texture like most other games use