Tuesday, April 30th 2024
NVIDIA RTX Remix Gets DLSS 3.5 With Ray Reconstruction
NVIDIA RTX Remix enables modders to reimagine classic games with full ray tracing, also known as path tracing, and to update models and textures with modern rendering features that work hand in hand with ray-traced effects to deliver the level of graphical fidelity seen in Portal with RTX, our ray-traced reimagining of Valve's classic game. And with a few additional clicks, support for NVIDIA DLSS and NVIDIA Reflex can be introduced, accelerating performance and making gameplay even more responsive.
Following the launch of the RTX Remix Open Beta in January, we're today introducing new features and optimizations, headlined by the addition of NVIDIA DLSS 3.5 with Ray Reconstruction, an AI model that creates higher quality ray-traced images for intensive ray-traced games and apps. Additionally, we're taking a look at some work in progress RTX Remix mods, and checking in with Half-Life 2 RTX: An RTX Remix Project, to demonstrate the toolkit's capabilities.
NVIDIA RTX Remix Upgrades To DLSS 3.5 With Ray Reconstruction
Last month, we updated Portal with RTX to add support for NVIDIA DLSS 3.5 with Ray Reconstruction. This advanced AI-powered neural renderer improves upon previously available rendering techniques to heighten the fidelity, responsiveness and quality of ray-traced effects, giving all GeForce RTX gamers an even better experience.
Now, DLSS 3.5 with Ray Reconstruction has been added to the NVIDIA RTX Remix modding toolkit, opening the floodgates for many more classic titles with higher quality ray-traced images. With just a few clicks, RTX Remix mods can be updated to DLSS 3.5, enhancing ray tracing as in Portal with RTX.
DLSS 3.5 with Ray Reconstruction is especially helpful in a modding tool like RTX Remix, since it tackles a variety of content that would be normally challenging for traditional hand-tuned denoisers. Modders don't need to worry about hand-tuning environments for different scenes and lighting conditions-the AI model powering Ray Reconstruction has been trained on a variety of scenarios already, and can adapt automatically.
In addition to adding Ray Reconstruction to the Remix Open Beta, we're introducing new Toolkit and Runtime enhancements that improve mod image quality, expand compatibility, and make the modding process easier. Five of these changes come from our GitHub community, who contributed new code that has now been incorporated into Remix:
If you're a modder with the RTX Remix beta, install the latest update by opening the NVIDIA Omniverse Launcher, and clicking the menu next to the "Launch" button. Updating the RTX Remix Application also gives you the latest RTX Remix Runtime that contains DLSS 3.5 Ray Reconstruction, or you can download the latest release of the RTX Remix Runtime from GitHub.
Replace the old RTX Remix Runtime in your mod projects and give all of your players access to Ray Reconstruction by following the instructions here.
If you are interested in trying the RTX Remix beta for the first time, download and install the NVIDIA RTX Remix Open Beta for access to all of its features, including its generative AI tools that can enhance textures by increasing their resolution and adding PBR material properties. If you're unsure what you need, or how to use RTX Remix, check out our complete Remix rundown here.
And for the full release notes for the new release, head here.
RTX Remix Mod Showcase
On ModDB and the RTX Remix Showcase Discord, modders are uploading and documenting their in-development RTX Remix projects. These range from rtx.conf files to activate ray tracing and DLSS in classic games, all the way up to full remasters such as Portal with RTX, Portal: Prelude RTX, and Half-Life 2 RTX: An RTX Remix Project. Let's take a look at three work in progress RTX Remix mods below to see the community is leveraging its powerful toolkit.
Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, By wiltOS Technologies
A small team of modders under the banner of wiltOS Technologies have been working to update Ubisoft and Arkane Studios' 2006 first-person action RPG set in the Might & Magic Fantasy universe.
To showcase their progress, wiltOS Technologies shared exclusive new Dark Messiah of Might and Magic Co-Op & RTX Remix Mod screenshots, featuring enhanced textures, remastered models, increased geometric detail, full ray tracing, and NVIDIA DLSS 3.5 with Ray Reconstruction. Using Ray Reconstruction, texture clarity is improved, ray tracing fidelity is enhanced, and transparency rendering is improved.
You can follow wiltOS Technologies' progress on this fantastic-looking project on ModDB, Knockout!, YouTube, and the RTX Remix Showcase Discord.
If you're a modder and want to assist the wiltOS Technologies team, reach out to project lead and creator David Wiltos on Twitter or apply directly by going to their website. Also, if you have any feedback, the team would love to hear from you, so they can make an even better mod - reach out via the links above.
Deus Ex Echelon Renderer, By Onno Jongbloed
Ion Storm's Deus Ex is one of the highest-rated PC games of all time, but was previously incompatible with RTX Remix. That's now changed with the release of the new Echelon Renderer from Onno Jongbloed, which adds a Remix-compatible fixed-function rendering pipeline, finally enabling gamers to enhance the much-loved classic game.
Though it's early days for this work in progress mod, it's already playable, select lights are now fully ray-traced, and DLSS Ray Reconstruction further improves the clarity of textures and fidelity of ray tracing.
To download and play on your GeForce RTX system, follow the instructions here, and download the newest version from Github. If you're a modder and would like to collaborate with the developer on overcoming remaining challenges, head to the project's RTX Remix Showcase Discord channel.
New Half-Life 2 RTX Progress Update
Half-Life 2 RTX: An RTX Remix Project is being developed by four of Half-Life 2's top mod teams, now working together as Orbifold Studios. Using the latest version of RTX Remix beta, the modders are rebuilding materials with PBR properties, adding extra geometric detail via Valve's Hammer editor, and leveraging NVIDIA technologies including full ray tracing, DLSS 3.5, Reflex, and RTX IO to deliver a fantastic experience for GeForce RTX gamers.
In the time since our previous showcase, Orbifold Studios has been hard at work remastering the game with high-fidelity PBR assets, taking full advantage of the Remix runtime to integrate cutting-edge graphics into Half-Life 2. Utilizing Parallax Occlusion Mapping (POM), world materials like the metal walls texture seen above will have simulated depth and self-shadowing, whilst Remix's efficient polygon rendering allows for assets with polycounts many times that of the 2004 original models.
Find out more and sign up to help the team complete the mod on the Half-Life 2 RTX: An RTX Remix Project website.
Download The RTX Remix Beta Now
If you want to make your own ray-traced mod for a classic game, the NVIDIA RTX Remix Beta is available to download now with Tutorial Videos to walk you through the process. Check out ModDB to find the latest RTX Remix mods and visit NVIDIA Studio to learn more about RTX-accelerated software, like Omniverse, Adobe Substance and Blender.
Source:
NVIDIA
Following the launch of the RTX Remix Open Beta in January, we're today introducing new features and optimizations, headlined by the addition of NVIDIA DLSS 3.5 with Ray Reconstruction, an AI model that creates higher quality ray-traced images for intensive ray-traced games and apps. Additionally, we're taking a look at some work in progress RTX Remix mods, and checking in with Half-Life 2 RTX: An RTX Remix Project, to demonstrate the toolkit's capabilities.
Last month, we updated Portal with RTX to add support for NVIDIA DLSS 3.5 with Ray Reconstruction. This advanced AI-powered neural renderer improves upon previously available rendering techniques to heighten the fidelity, responsiveness and quality of ray-traced effects, giving all GeForce RTX gamers an even better experience.
Now, DLSS 3.5 with Ray Reconstruction has been added to the NVIDIA RTX Remix modding toolkit, opening the floodgates for many more classic titles with higher quality ray-traced images. With just a few clicks, RTX Remix mods can be updated to DLSS 3.5, enhancing ray tracing as in Portal with RTX.
DLSS 3.5 with Ray Reconstruction is especially helpful in a modding tool like RTX Remix, since it tackles a variety of content that would be normally challenging for traditional hand-tuned denoisers. Modders don't need to worry about hand-tuning environments for different scenes and lighting conditions-the AI model powering Ray Reconstruction has been trained on a variety of scenarios already, and can adapt automatically.
In addition to adding Ray Reconstruction to the Remix Open Beta, we're introducing new Toolkit and Runtime enhancements that improve mod image quality, expand compatibility, and make the modding process easier. Five of these changes come from our GitHub community, who contributed new code that has now been incorporated into Remix:
- Mod developer "pixelcluster" improved how well RTX Remix mods run for Steam Deck and Linux AMD users, thanks to optimizations for RADV drivers
- Mod developer "mmdanggg2" made improvements to the consistency of distant lights, making them update properly when changing or reorienting them
- Mod developer "jdswebb" made improvements to how terrain baking and other features work with games that use a left-handed coordinate system
- Mod developer "xoxor4d" made several improvements that streamline the texture tagging process, which is essential to properly setting up a game with RTX Remix
- Mod developer "xoxor4d" also added an option to use AABBs to differentiate instances, and therefore track them better across frames. For gamers, that means less ghosting and flickering for animated objects and skinned meshes in motion. See the difference in the example from a test scenario below.
If you're a modder with the RTX Remix beta, install the latest update by opening the NVIDIA Omniverse Launcher, and clicking the menu next to the "Launch" button. Updating the RTX Remix Application also gives you the latest RTX Remix Runtime that contains DLSS 3.5 Ray Reconstruction, or you can download the latest release of the RTX Remix Runtime from GitHub.
Replace the old RTX Remix Runtime in your mod projects and give all of your players access to Ray Reconstruction by following the instructions here.
If you are interested in trying the RTX Remix beta for the first time, download and install the NVIDIA RTX Remix Open Beta for access to all of its features, including its generative AI tools that can enhance textures by increasing their resolution and adding PBR material properties. If you're unsure what you need, or how to use RTX Remix, check out our complete Remix rundown here.
And for the full release notes for the new release, head here.
RTX Remix Mod Showcase
On ModDB and the RTX Remix Showcase Discord, modders are uploading and documenting their in-development RTX Remix projects. These range from rtx.conf files to activate ray tracing and DLSS in classic games, all the way up to full remasters such as Portal with RTX, Portal: Prelude RTX, and Half-Life 2 RTX: An RTX Remix Project. Let's take a look at three work in progress RTX Remix mods below to see the community is leveraging its powerful toolkit.
Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, By wiltOS Technologies
A small team of modders under the banner of wiltOS Technologies have been working to update Ubisoft and Arkane Studios' 2006 first-person action RPG set in the Might & Magic Fantasy universe.
To showcase their progress, wiltOS Technologies shared exclusive new Dark Messiah of Might and Magic Co-Op & RTX Remix Mod screenshots, featuring enhanced textures, remastered models, increased geometric detail, full ray tracing, and NVIDIA DLSS 3.5 with Ray Reconstruction. Using Ray Reconstruction, texture clarity is improved, ray tracing fidelity is enhanced, and transparency rendering is improved.
You can follow wiltOS Technologies' progress on this fantastic-looking project on ModDB, Knockout!, YouTube, and the RTX Remix Showcase Discord.
If you're a modder and want to assist the wiltOS Technologies team, reach out to project lead and creator David Wiltos on Twitter or apply directly by going to their website. Also, if you have any feedback, the team would love to hear from you, so they can make an even better mod - reach out via the links above.
Ion Storm's Deus Ex is one of the highest-rated PC games of all time, but was previously incompatible with RTX Remix. That's now changed with the release of the new Echelon Renderer from Onno Jongbloed, which adds a Remix-compatible fixed-function rendering pipeline, finally enabling gamers to enhance the much-loved classic game.
Though it's early days for this work in progress mod, it's already playable, select lights are now fully ray-traced, and DLSS Ray Reconstruction further improves the clarity of textures and fidelity of ray tracing.
To download and play on your GeForce RTX system, follow the instructions here, and download the newest version from Github. If you're a modder and would like to collaborate with the developer on overcoming remaining challenges, head to the project's RTX Remix Showcase Discord channel.
New Half-Life 2 RTX Progress Update
Half-Life 2 RTX: An RTX Remix Project is being developed by four of Half-Life 2's top mod teams, now working together as Orbifold Studios. Using the latest version of RTX Remix beta, the modders are rebuilding materials with PBR properties, adding extra geometric detail via Valve's Hammer editor, and leveraging NVIDIA technologies including full ray tracing, DLSS 3.5, Reflex, and RTX IO to deliver a fantastic experience for GeForce RTX gamers.
In the time since our previous showcase, Orbifold Studios has been hard at work remastering the game with high-fidelity PBR assets, taking full advantage of the Remix runtime to integrate cutting-edge graphics into Half-Life 2. Utilizing Parallax Occlusion Mapping (POM), world materials like the metal walls texture seen above will have simulated depth and self-shadowing, whilst Remix's efficient polygon rendering allows for assets with polycounts many times that of the 2004 original models.
Find out more and sign up to help the team complete the mod on the Half-Life 2 RTX: An RTX Remix Project website.
Download The RTX Remix Beta Now
If you want to make your own ray-traced mod for a classic game, the NVIDIA RTX Remix Beta is available to download now with Tutorial Videos to walk you through the process. Check out ModDB to find the latest RTX Remix mods and visit NVIDIA Studio to learn more about RTX-accelerated software, like Omniverse, Adobe Substance and Blender.
20 Comments on NVIDIA RTX Remix Gets DLSS 3.5 With Ray Reconstruction
meh I can take it or leave it personally, it destroys any detail of your enemies, its just dark blobs coming at you. that's not natural in any environment that has a little light.
Physically based rendering requires physically based design for peak effect.
As games start to be designed from the ground up with RT implemented from the beginning, we are seeing better and better results.
Slapping RT effects on top of old games without changing the design will have mixed results.
Everyone repeat after me:
ALL COMPUTER GRAPHICS ARE FAKE.
Even the physics-based imagery is fake There are tons of assumptions being made about light temperature, falloff, micro diffraction from dust in the air, you name it. Ray tracing isn't real. It's just a little more use of physics (sometimes in a ham-fisted way) because it replaces a lot of work that traditional 3D graphics specialists have to do manually to get similar results. Plus the fact that most of these algorithms aren't suitable to run on conventional CPU cores.
That's why there is differentiated silicon to begin with. Yeah, the CPU could handle all the rendering procedures itself without GPU cores. Ever watch a Cinebench benchmark in progress? Yeah, that's your CPU maxed out trying to paint one teeny still image. There are GPU cores now because they handle many graphics related tasks better than traditional CPU cores. Then there were RT cores and ML cores. There are special cores for media coding (which is not a static technology). Digital signal processing. And there will be more differentiated cores in the future.
Just because you use a fancier, more technologically advanced tool doesn't always guarantee more aesthetically pleasing results. Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier was written for a keyboard with 2 manuals (two sets of keys, one for each hand). Today the piece is typically played on a modern concert piano with one manual which results in challenging fingerings. And what if you play it on a Yamaha DX-7? Sound better or worse? Crammed into a MIDI file?
Remember that all of these new graphics techniques are simply tools. Just because you bought the latest nail gun or cordless screwdriver isn't going to necessarily turn you into the guy who restores Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris.
That said, I would like to applaud these mostly unpaid volunteers who are trying out some of these new tools on much beloved games. As we have gone over time and time before, no one can please everyone all the time. But it's worth it for people to try out new things even if they don't always succeed. Otherwise we would be staring at cave paintings instead of Oppenheimer on the big screen.
This is a great example on how this tech will be completely mis-used. The dark lifeless environment is probably an artistic choice, bumping the brightness, lighting everything and adding colorfull windows is not reconstruction, is reimagining things.
Should we be playing Mozart sonatas solely on harpsichords? Is the modern concert piano too radically different (sonically) for his masterworks? Do you watch Star Wars exclusively on a theater cinema screen using Seventies-era projection equipment or are you streaming a remastered digitized version onto your fancy LCD or OLED television?
In the end it really comes down to the individual consumer and current tastes.
If a certain percentage of the gaming community wants to slap on some mods to brighten up City 17, Windholm, or Los Santos, that reflects a change in what people want.
I have no beef if they decide to just reimagine stuff left and right if I'm able to ignore it, i.e. Crystal Dynamic released a remaster of the original first 3 Tomb Raider games recently and they even added a toggle in the settings to disable all updated graphics and control remappings, they made an actual effort not to screw with the original. As far as I know they also didn't went out of their way to make the older version unavailable like with GTA. Again, problem is this is the exception to the norm.I watch the unadulterated version restored from tape, without the changes George Lucas decided to make and impose on everyone decades later - going so far as to try to get the library of congress historic records changed! #hanshotfirst
However that is NOT Nvidia's fault.
And by the way, Tomb Raider I-II-III Remastered was not Crystal Dynamics. The developers were Aspyr and Saber Interactive with the former assuming publishing duties. It's great that they implemented that one-button toggle between original graphics and new. I hope more devs/publishers consider that approach in the future.The victors write the history books, don't they? Han did shoot first but there's nothing that says that an artist can't revise earlier works. Artists have edited themselves throughout all of human history.
It's nice when videogame publishers keep things around for historic purposes but there's no law stating it must be so.
Even Botticelli tossed a bunch of his paintings on a bonfire of the vanities. Plenty more artists have churned out multiple copies of the same piece. Handel was notorious for reusing the same theme in multiple pieces. And it was easy to get away with in his time. No one had streaming music back then to compare.
The concept of archival integrity is actually very new (about 100 years old) and very, Very, VERY Western.
Back to the original topic, Ray Reconstruction for RTX Remix is just another tool for game developers. They can use it, they can misuse it. But by itself it is not malicious or harmful. It's just like the incredible controversy choosing between Phong or Gouraud shading.
And that's after the fact, that the Source (1) alsready had the great window and glass detalisation, and looked quite realistic already. And the HL2/Dark Messiah textures and other stuff already fit the atmosphere pretty well. If devs and modders only could upscale the textures, it would do a trick.
This whole RTX remaster thing, reminds how back in the day, all game devs were trying to make all surfaces to be glossy, just because of thrend.
May people still prefer the original version of things done the way they were intended to be done. There was a recent release of the movie Mad God Mad God (2021) - IMDb which was done by the guy who did all the stop motion, model, and puppets for Star Wars and he pulled it off all on his own. It's amazing. Many people still prefer animatronics and puppets because as good as CGI has gotten your eyes and brain can still tell it's not a physical thing that's there. And CGI looks really odd and fake when it's put next to an actual animatronic because CGI is obviously fake and the animatronic is obviously a real thing. Just as you can fake film grain, but the greats actually go out and use the type of film that actually does it naturally.
All this stuff is still around and very much a thing. When it comes to video games it's a tad different because it's all utterly fake bullshit to start with. There are just different ways of faking it.
Digital twins of cities and factories, physics simulations etc. Of course not perfect enough to replace the real thing every time, but close enough most of the time to be practically functionally useful. Fluid simulations etc. Good enough to prototype with and find issues with design.
I'm thinking the RTX push etc is partly to consolidate professional and consumer software to streamline development etc.
Why do two concurrent development builds of rendering/simulation software when you can make one. Sure, it will be more taxing on hardware but it seems we're getting there.
Enterprise etc have no patience for non functional software/hardware and in many ways consumers do, or at least aren't proactive enough to do something about it when handed a crappy product.
So I see the convergence of physically based rendering that used to be for film studios or engineering companies into gaming as a good thing.
Of course there's still grades of detail etc. How many light bounces for example. But it's progress.
And I'm not saying that the water in games is currently accurately stimulated physically. But one day it will be.
All these shortcuts and "fake" are temporary things, until we're able to simulate at a level that's indistinguishable from reality.
All these shortcuts and "fake" are temporary things, until we're able to simulate at a level that's indistinguishable from reality.
In the consumer space it doesn't matter if it's half assed, janky, buggy, what matters is if it's affordable. If you screw up a video game it's no big deal.
tl:dr Behead all graphics snobs, inshallah.
The argument you're making is fundamentally flawed. Just because many modern studios pump out slop, doesn't mean some incredible games haven't been made with cutting edge tech, that was essential to their design, or that there's some argument to never progress because what we have now is "good enough".
Build it and they will come. Even Hades II uses tech that was cutting edge at some point.
Minecraft would be a good example of a game that received incredible improvements in immersion and enjoyability from RTX.
Some companies do pump out gorgeous 2D hand drawn games that look amazing. There are games in the HD era that look like cartoons or water color paintings. The catch is they often get panned by people because they are 3D. Though that art style is still very popular in Japan.
As for me I like both old and new. Though I will fully admit the most fun games I've played lately have been 2D where the devs just sort of had a blast with it. And there are a lot of great pixel style games that have been cranked out lately as well.
If you want to see a company that is utterly dedicated to 2D games look up Vanillaware. They have a style and it's not for everyone but the amount of artistry and love that goes into that shows.No, video games do not matter. They are not mechanical design or other items where if something goes wrong it is catastrophic. It's just entertainment.
It is perfectly OK to use half assed solutions, cludgy fixes, dodgy processes, and delivery shoddy products if it's gaming. You can't do this in mechanical design, physics calculations, fluid dynamics, architecure, chemical reaction simulations, nuclear modeling, scientific research, and any of the myriad of items that actually matter.
Like it or not gaming is joke computing. There's nothing really at stake with them it's bullshit. It's fun bullshit, but it's stiill a joke. But the massive upside of this is that you can do all sorts of tricks and stunts because it does not matter.
Not only that gamers don't actually want quality stuff. People here already scream like scaled ferrets about 70 dollar games and the cost of GPUs. To do it to where it actually works you're talking the costs of things that actually work. You'd be paying quadro prices for your cards to make sure you get proper drivers and all that. Games would go from 70 bucks to hundreds or thousands of dollars. You think you have delays now, oh tripple that time easily to make sure it works. You'd also be paying the developers hundreds or thousands to suppor their product while you are using it the moment you don't you have a brick and goes away.
If you want shit done correctly fork up the cash. But since people are already complaining about the prices as they are it's clear people don't want things that work. Because at the end of the day it is just a video game.