Thursday, March 13th 2025

Half-Life 2 RTX Demo Coming on March 18

by
GFreeman
 Discuss (19 Comments)
NVIDIA has announced that the Half-Life 2 RTX Demo will be available on March 18th and include a two-hour gameplay demo with full ray tracing, remade assets, and animations. The demo is remastered with RTX Remix by Orbifold Studios and will be a free mod on Steam for all Half-Life 2 owners.

The demo will feature NVIDIA DLSS 4, NVIDIA RTX Neural Radiance Cache, RTX Skin, RTX Volumetrics, and other new NVIDIA technologies. The release of Half-Life 2 RTX Demo marks the official release of RTX Remix, which was released a year ago in beta. According to NVIDIA, over 30,000 modders have since used the platform to mod a bunch of classic titles, with over 1 million gamers playing those modded games like Portal with RTX and Portal: prelude RTX. As said, the new demo will go live on Steam on March 18th.

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19 Comments on Half-Life 2 RTX Demo Coming on March 18

#1
Quicks
Really hope I don't need upscaling and fake frames to run this game. Would love another playthrough with updated graphics.

Where is the system requirements and stuff?

System Requirements
Minimum:
OS: TBD
Processor: TBD
Graphics: TBD
Sound Card: TBD
VR Support: TBD
Additional Notes: TBD
Posted on Reply
#2
Scattergrunt
QuicksReally hope I don't need upscaling and fake frames to run this game. Would love another playthrough with updated graphics.
I'd expect it to be heavier than Portal RTX, but not by much I think. Thought this project was imagined around the tail end of the 40 series tbf (when I heard of it, anyway)
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#3
Onasi
Ehhhh… We’ll see. For how technically impressive Portal RTX was it DID completely butcher the original art-style. And HL2 also has a very distinct look, which is why the vast majority of mods that tried to “improve” it visually fell flat. Modders that love working on improving the visuals, unfortunately, by and large suffer from a crippling lack of taste and artistic vision.
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#4
Scattergrunt
OnasiEhhhh… We’ll see. For how technically impressive Portal RTX was it DID completely butcher the original art-style. And HL2 also has a very distinct look, which is why the vast majority of mods that tried to “improve” it visually fell flat.
Seconded, but I don't really mind it as much as some people do. This comes naturally from modding honestly.
OnasiModders that love working on improving the visuals, unfortunately, by and large suffer from a crippling lack of taste and artistic vision.
I think whats worse is when they try to 'recapture' the art style (or what they think it was) rather than just going in their own direction. We don't really get to modders try to change the art style really, at least not on purpose. Which to be fair, it's alot easier to 'remaster' or 'improve' a art style (big air quotes) than it is to completely change it.
I guess the HL2 Beta recreation mods would be the closet example I could think of, as HL2 Beta and HL2 have different aesthetics (they're still very similar, its just HL2 is more dull and tame, whereas the beta was pretty grim and dark, going off the concept art anyway)
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#5
mrnagant
OnasiEhhhh… We’ll see. For how technically impressive Portal RTX was it DID completely butcher the original art-style. And HL2 also has a very distinct look, which is why the vast majority of mods that tried to “improve” it visually fell flat. Modders that love working on improving the visuals, unfortunately, by and large suffer from a crippling lack of taste and artistic vision.
I mean, there is a YT link. First impressions are impressive staying true to the original look of the game.
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#6
King Mustard
I presume this is locked to Nvidia GPUs?
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#7
Daven
This trend of applying ray tracing to old games is quite disturbing. I feel like they would look just as good on modern day general rasterization engines.
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#9
Prima.Vera
Sorry, but actually it looks worst, by far. The original lighting actually looks way more creepier and atmospheric which fits the mood of the game much better than the RT version.
Also, only on RTX 5000 series??? GTFO of here!!
Posted on Reply
#10
Chane
King MustardI presume this is locked to Nvidia GPUs?
No, Portal RTX and other RTX Remix made titles work on AMD hardware as well. Can't speak for certainty about Intel, but don't see why it wouldn't. DLSS doesn't work, but it has TAAU as a fallback upscaler. The RT/Path-tracing all works, albeit not as performant on my 9070XT as it is on my 4070Ti Super.
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#11
FierceRed
Playing HL2 with a texture mod and the crosshair off has been some of the best PC gaming you can do for ~15 years now.

Unfortunately this RT remaster makes Ravenholm brighter and less moody. A real shame given its such a fun area when spooky.
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#13
Visible Noise
Prima.VeraAlso, only on RTX 5000 series??? GTFO of here!!
Ummm, no?

And even if it was 5000 series exclusive, so what?
adilazimdegilxYea..

Your point? Full raytracing is heavy? Huh, who woulda thought? It’s only been years, right?

Oh, sorry, yeah, your 6800XT isn’t going to run anything modern.

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#14
Carillon
will DLSS 4, NVIDIA RTX Neural Radiance Cache, RTX Skin, RTX Volumetrics, and other new NVIDIA technologies be supported on the next gen gpus?
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#15
Visible Noise
Carillonwill DLSS 4, NVIDIA RTX Neural Radiance Cache, RTX Skin, RTX Volumetrics, and other new NVIDIA technologies be supported on the next gen gpus?
No.

Why would they?
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#16
_roman_
** NVIDIA ** Marketing ** Tech ** DEMO ** RTX ** Raytracing - graphic visual test game -- most likely sponsored by Nvidia to boost sales for NVIDIA graphic cards. I'll ignore it - as those fancy stuff like CP2077 is always quoted for RAytracing. These are just here to market the fabulous advanced nvidia technology. Regardless if many game now or in the possible future really uses it or not.

I prefer proper game mechanics and proper game ideas with low hardware requirements over any raytracing game so far.
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#17
tpa-pr
I just realised I never downloaded Portal RTX to test on my 7900 XTX. I think i'll grab it and this too, just for laughs (if I can). It'd be fun if we could get one of our resident 9070 XT owners to test it too :)
Posted on Reply
#18
Visible Noise
_roman_** NVIDIA ** Marketing ** Tech ** DEMO ** RTX ** Raytracing - graphic visual test game -- most likely sponsored by Nvidia to boost sales for NVIDIA graphic cards. I'll ignore it - as those fancy stuff like CP2077 is always quoted for RAytracing. These are just here to market the fabulous advanced nvidia technology. Regardless if many game now or in the possible future really uses it or not.

I prefer proper game mechanics and proper game ideas with low hardware requirements over any raytracing game so far.
You’re saying Half-Life 2 doesn’t have proper game mechanics and ideas???

How much have you had to drink today?
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#19
EsaT
And here I'm trying to remember when Half Life 2 Episode Three was supposed to come out...
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