OnePlus releases "Ray Tracing" wallpapers (OnePlus 11 & Open)
EDIT
As expected, OnePlus Open (their first-ever foldable device) also supports these wallpapers, because it's powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. There's a new APK this time around, with 10 more ray tracing wallpapers available: PhysRay_Wallpaper_Release_Aug_2023_Flip.apk.
OnePlus also provided a demo video showcasing how it looks:
We've updated our Google Drive folder with static previews of all 10 new wallpapers in their original resolution, so you can apply them to your device if you wish. Just remember that they are preview/thumbnail-sized, so they may not look crisp. As before, they were extracted directly from the APK linked above.
The original article — prepared for the OnePlus 11 — is preserved below.
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OnePlus 11 was announced yesterday in their Cloud 11 event, which has the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 SoC under-the-hood. It has native support for Vulkan-based raytracing, and to show it off, OnePlus has released an APK that includes four "3D real-time hardware-accelerated ray tracing" wallpapers.
Ray tracing as a concept goes back to the early 16th century, but was first applied in computer-generated media only in the 1960/70s. It quickly became a common rendering technique in movie VFX work — animated, live-action, whatever. Most people might think of ray tracing in terms of video games, because Nvidia's GeForce RTX 20-series was the first set of graphics cards that brought hardware ray tracing capabilities in the hands of consumers — 4 years ago, 2018.
In the smartphone world, some MediaTek chips have had hardware ray tracing support for a while, but it seems nobody took advantage of this tech. Or perhaps it wasn't nearly as capable as dedicated PC hardware. Anyway, the OnePlus 11 supports it, likely because of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 SoC.
The community post claims it's meant only for the new OnePlus 11, but maybe it'll work on other Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 / Adreno 740 devices when they release. It certainly doesn't work on my older 8T (Snapdragon 865 / Adreno 650), and users also report black screens — both on preview and when you apply them — on the 10R, 9R, and other older devices. Quick specs summary of the 11:
- Compute: Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, Adreno 740
- RAM: 8GB/16GB LPDDR5X
- Storage: 128GB UFS 3.1/256GB UFS 4.0
- Cameras:
- Front: 16MP
- Back: 50MP Sony IMX890 (primary), 48MP Sony IMX581 (ultra-wide), 32MP Sony IMX709 (portrait tele)
- Display: 120Hz 6.7" 3216x1440 (QHD+) Super Fluid AMOLED with LTPO (1-120), 1000Hz touch response rate
- Battery: 5000 mAh (dual-cell)
- Charging: 100W SuperVOOC
As for the software, the 11 will launch with OxygenOS 13 out-of-the-box. Here's a 720p video outlining the process of using the PhysRay Wallpaper app and applying the "Vitality of Light" wallpaper:
We recommend going through the community post linked above, as it contains ON/OFF comparisons and more details about each wallpaper.
You can download the PhysRay_Wallpaper_Feb_2023_Release_v1.0.apk straight from OnePlus. In case it downloads as a ZIP/JAR, replace the extension at the end with “.apk” in your file manager. Also, make sure you've enabled “Install unknown apps” for whatever app you're opening this APK from. Find this in Settings -> Apps & notifications -> Special app access -> Install unknown apps. We recommend granting this permission only to very few applications, e.g. just the file manager or your browser.
It's based on Oppo's open-source PhysRay SDK, which was first used in the Oppo Find X5 Pro (see video). The few users who own a OnePlus 11 have tried this out, and apparently performance is sluggish.
Given that this most likely won't work on any device except the OnePlus 11 (or future 8 Gen 2 devices), you can download static previews of these wallpapers from Google Drive in their original resolution. We extracted these from the APK itself:
Unfortunately, these previews are in a low 444x792 resolution, so they may not look crisp at all. If you're looking for other high-definition OnePlus device-specific wallpapers, check our coverage in most recent order (most of them follow the same style, but the 10T is unique and stands out):
OnePlus holds the copyright to these wallpapers. They should not be used for commercial purposes.