Valve’s basic Portal was just lately re-released on Steam with some very fancy new visuals, together with ray-tracing and DLSS help. That was nice information for Portal followers, nevertheless it’s additionally nice information for followers of all types of outdated PC video games.
Earlier than we go any additional, I’ll clarify the tech we’re speaking about. RTX is the identify given to a set of applied sciences utilized by graphics card firm Nvidia that makes use of “ray tracing and AI applied sciences” to, very merely, make PC video games look unbelievable. Right here’s a trailer for Portal With RTX, the re-release of the sport made with this tech, exhibiting the enhancements made to a sport that almost all of us bear in mind trying very 2007:
Now, the factor with RTX is that whereas on this case (and with Quake and Minecraft) it needed to be put into the sport by builders, Nvidia are additionally releasing a model of the tech with modders in thoughts. It’s referred to as RTX Remix:
With RTX Remix, the sport runs within the background and we substitute the outdated rendering APIs and methods with RTX Remix’s 64-bit Vulkan renderer. This permits the addition of ray-tracing to basic video games and all of it updates in real-time as lights and objects transfer. Mild may be forged from behind the participant, or from one other room, and in Portal with RTX, mild even travels by means of portals. Glass refracts mild, surfaces mirror element based mostly on their glossiness, reflections may be forged into the scene from behind the participant, objects can self-reflect, and oblique mild from off-screen illuminates and impacts what you see.
In comparison with Quake II RTX and Minecraft with RTX, the path-traced ray tracing launched by RTX Remix is much more superior, bouncing mild 4 instances as an alternative of as soon as, enhancing high quality, immersion, and the simulation of real-world mild. Moreover, we’ve additionally launched a number of new ray tracing strategies that additional enhance high quality whereas additionally being extra performant.
Nvidia says that RTX Remix is “a modding platform” that can enable “modders of all potential ranges to convey ray tracing and NVIDIA applied sciences to basic video games”. Given it’s not out till 2023 I used to be anticipating we had been nonetheless months away from seeing what advantages it might convey to older video games, however nope!
Modders like LordVulcan have discovered you possibly can add RTX juice to some basic titles, proper now, and typically it’s achieved simply by…dropping some information from one folder to a different in your laborious drive and enabling some developer stuff within the console. That’s it. And it’s engaged on video games like SWAT 4 and the unique Max Payne.
G/O Media could get a fee
Whereas the outcomes aren’t good, at the least in comparison with the skilled jobs achieved over months on video games like Minecraft, they nonetheless look implausible! Right here’s Max Payne, for instance, courtesy of Alex Coulter:
That lighting. These shadows. That is magic.
Right here’s some footage of SWAT 4 taken by EiermannTelevision, which was launched in 2005 and most positively didn’t appear like this on the time:
And right here’s Half-Life 1, together with a bit explainer on the way it was achieved:
None of these examples are good, nevertheless it’s unbelievable they work this effectively given how fast their implementation was. That is going to be so good when the precise RTX Remix is launched in 2023, however till then it’s going to be cool seeing what different basic titles this slapdash workaround is suitable with!
