Ray tracing is the hot new graphics tech of the moment, but while it’s been looking very nice in current and future games, the real good stuff is when the technique makes its way into some of the best old games on PC. Nvidia has been showcasing Quake II RTX for ages, and now it’s finally set to launch to the public on June 6.
You’ll get the first three levels of the ray tracing-enhanced game for free – shareware style – if you own an RTX card or “other capable hardware.” If you already own a copy of Quake II, you can extend the remaster to the entire campaign or multiplayer. Nvidia will also release the source code to GitHub so further expansions can come from the community.
In addition to the ray tracing itself, the release also comes with plenty of other remaster-style image quality improvements. There are new textures and models for weapons, new effects work, dynamic lighting, and real-time reflections for the player model and weapons on appropriate surfaces.
Check out the video below to see the new features in motion.
You can get more details on what to expect at the official site.
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Between Skyrim and The Witcher 3, or Minecraft, or Grand Theft Auto 5, or any other number of mods for ray tracing and similar techniques, this certainly isn’t the first time we’ve seen the tech applied to older titles. Given how cool the results look, it won’t be the last, either.