Ahead of the November 20th release, GSC Game World has now shared the full PC system requirements for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl. Powered by Epic's Unreal Engine 5, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl will definitely push hardware to its limits, despite the fact that it won't support any hardware ray tracing effects at launch.

The released PC system requirements are quite high, but at least GSC Game World, as well as NVIDIA and AMD, have confirmed it will feature DLSS and FSR 3.1. NVIDIA already added the support for both DLSS 3 and Reflex with its latest GeForce drivers, and AMD has it on its list of games as "upcoming." The game will run on Windows 10 and Windows 11 and need around 160 GB of SSD storage.

More than 600 games and applications feature RTX technologies, and each week new games integrating NVIDIA DLSS, NVIDIA Reflex and advanced ray-traced effects are released or announced, delivering the definitive PC experience for GeForce RTX players. In the very near future, both Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl will be launching with day-one support for DLSS 3 with Frame Generation and Super Resolution. Farming Simulator 25 launches today with day-one support for DLSS Super Resolution. And Mortal Rite is out now with DLSS Super Resolution. Additionally, our new Indiana Jones and the Great Circle GeForce RTX 40 Series GPU and laptop bundle is available now.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl Launches November 20th With DLSS 3 & Reflex
GSC Game World's S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl is a brand-new entry in the legendary series, enjoyed by millions of players worldwide. The unique combination of first-person shooter, immersive sim, and horror is back. With unprecedented scale, advanced graphics, freedom of choices, and the thickest atmosphere of a deadly adventure, it's going to be the ultimate S.T.A.L.K.E.R. experience.

Uncover one of history's greatest mysteries in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle with the ultimate power and performance of the GeForce RTX 40 Series. Live the adventure as Indy and immerse yourself in fully ray-traced graphics as you venture around the globe across iconic locations, accelerated and enhanced by AI-powered NVIDIA DLSS for the definitive PC experience. Step into the shoes of Indiana Jones and embark on a single-player, narrative-driven journey that spans the globe during the height of the legendary archaeologist's career. From the hallowed halls of the Vatican and the sunken temples of Sukhothai to the pyramids of Egypt and the snowy peaks of the Himalayas, you'll experience Indy's adventure at the highest levels of fidelity, performance and responsiveness on GeForce RTX 40 Series GPUs and laptops.

Until December 29th, as part of our Indiana Jones and the Great Circle GeForce RTX 40 Series Bundle, get the Digital Premium Edition of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle (a $99.99 value) with the purchase of a qualifying GeForce RTX 4090, 4080 SUPER, 4080, 4070 Ti SUPER, 4070 Ti, 4070 SUPER, or 4070 desktop or graphics card, or laptop with a GeForce RTX 4090 Laptop GPU, RTX 4080 Laptop GPU, RTX 4070 Laptop GPU. And as an added bonus, the Digital Premium Edition enables Advanced Access to Indiana Jones and the Great Circle on December 6th, three days before the official December 9th release date.

Today, Sony Interactive Entertainment expands the PlayStation 5 (PS5) family of products with the release of the new PlayStation 5 Pro (PS5 Pro) console - the company's most advanced and innovative gaming console to date. PlayStation 5 Pro was designed with deeply engaged players and game creators in mind and includes key performance features that allow games to run with higher fidelity graphics at smoother frame rates.

"With PlayStation 5 Pro, we wanted to make sure that the most dedicated gamers, as well as game creators, could utilize the most advanced console technology, taking the PlayStation 5 experience even farther," said Hideaki Nishino, CEO Platform Business Group, Sony Interactive Entertainment. "This is our most advanced PlayStation to date, and it gives our community of players the opportunity to experience games the way that developers intended for them to be. Players will be thrilled with how this console enhances some of their favorite titles, while opening avenues to discover new ones."

Electronic Arts Inc. and BioWare announced today that Dragon Age: The Veilguard is now available for PlayStation 5 (also enhanced for PS5 Pro), Xbox Series X|S and PC via Steam (Steam Deck Verified), EA app and Epic Games Store. This bold, heroic adventure is built to deliver on what the series is best known for: rich storytelling, fantasy worldbuilding, companions & fellowship, and a world where you matter. The next installment in BioWare's beloved franchise has captivated critics worldwide, with outlets such as IGN and GamesRadar+ proclaiming it "deserves its place in the RPG pantheon" and is "A true return to RPG form for BioWare" in their 9/10 and 4.5/5 reviews.

In Dragon Age: The Veilguard, Solas, the Dread Wolf, wants to tear down the Veil that separates Thedas from the world of demons, restoring his people's immortality and glory - even at the cost of countless lives. But his ritual goes awry, and his worst fears are realized, as two of his most ancient and powerful adversaries are released. Players will step into the role of Rook, a fully-customizable protagonist who must rise up and unite their companions to stop these two powerful deities on a journey that will span across Thedas' bustling cities, lush tropics, boreal forests, fettered swamps and deepest depths.

More than 600 games and applications feature RTX technologies, and each week new games integrating NVIDIA DLSS, NVIDIA Reflex and advanced ray-traced effects are released or announced, delivering the definitive PC experience for GeForce RTX players. This week, there's a ton of new releases and announcements, so let's dive on in. Following the launch of several great DLSS games last week, this week sees Dragon Age: The Veilguard, Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered, and Red Dead Redemption all launch with DLSS. And Torque Drift 2 is adding support for DLSS 3 Frame Generation.

Dragon Age: The Veilguard Launches October 31st With DLSS 3, Reflex & Ray Tracing
Rise as Rook, Dragon Age's newest hero. Be who you want to be and play how you want to play as you fight to stop the gods from blighting the world in Dragon Age: The Veilguard. But you can't do this alone - the odds are stacked against you. Lead a team of seven companions, each with their own rich story to discover and shape, and together you will become The Veilguard. When BioWare and Electronic Arts' Dragon Age: The Veilguard launches on October 31st, you'll be able to accelerate performance with DLSS 3, and enhance image quality and immersion with ray-traced reflections and ray-traced ambient occlusion.

More than 600 games and applications feature RTX technologies, and each week new games integrating NVIDIA DLSS, NVIDIA Reflex and advanced ray-traced effects are released or announced, delivering the definitive PC experience for GeForce RTX players. Today, GreedFall II: The Dying World launches with support for DLSS Super Resolution, The Casting of Frank Stone and Witchfire are now available on Steam with DLSS 3 with Frame Generation support, and Satisfactory has exited Early Access with support for DLSS Super Resolution and DLAA.

Witchfire Now Available On Steam With Support For DLSS 3 & Reflex
The Astronauts' Witchfire is a dark fantasy first-person shooter from the creative leads behind Painkiller, Bulletstorm, and The Vanishing of Ethan Carter. Desperate for a chance to triumph in the deadly war against witches, the Church calls on forbidden pagan magic to turn willing sinners into immortal witch hunters called preyers. Armed with powerful spells and fearsome firearms conjured by the best Vatican sorcerers, your mission is to find the infamous witch of the Black Sea, destroy the phantom army that protects her, and retrieve a mysterious artifact that can finally turn the tide of war.

More than 600 games and applications feature RTX technologies, and each week new games integrating NVIDIA DLSS, NVIDIA Reflex and advanced ray-traced effects are released or announced, delivering the definitive PC experience for GeForce RTX players. Read on to learn about this week's new integrations of DLSS.

Supermoves Out Now, Featuring DLSS 3
Makea Games' Supermoves is a competitive parkour showdown for you and your friends. Soar through skylines in both first and third person. Grind on your feet across rails, trapeze on high wires, wall run, scramble, and pull off epic backflips and frontflips on trampolines. Go head to head in Bomb Tag, reach the finish line before the Rising Tide, or race up to 40 players in Royale. Make your own games and levels with the included tools. Check out the single-player Career Mode. And never stop running. If you're rocking a GeForce RTX GPU in your PC or laptop, ensure you enable DLSS Super Resolution and Frame Generation in Supermoves to accelerate frame rates, making your parkour adventures even better.

In December we celebrated the release of over 500 RTX-enhanced games and apps. And now, we've already surpassed 600 RTX games and apps, as adoption of NVIDIA DLSS, NVIDIA Reflex and advanced ray-traced effects continues to accelerate! RTX encompasses an ecosystem of technologies that make high-performance, high fidelity gaming a reality. Ray Tracing, powered by dedicated RT Cores, brings immersive and realistic lighting and reflections to games. NVIDIA DLSS, made possible by Tensor Cores, enables industry-leading AI graphics acceleration, capable of delivering up to 5 times faster performance in the most immersive games, like Alan Wake 2, Black Myth: Wukong, Cyberpunk 2077, and Star Wars Outlaws.

RTX is also integrated in the world's leading creative applications, accelerating workflows by orders of magnitude, powering exciting AI tools and enhancements, and enabling real-time ray-traced previews in apps that previously took hours to render even a single frame. And the RTX momentum continues - at Gamescom 2024, we're announcing 20 new RTX and DLSS integrations.

Take on high-risk, high-reward missions as the galaxy's most wanted in Star Wars Outlaws and marvel at iconic ray-traced Star Wars locations, enhanced with NVIDIA DLSS 3.5's AI-powered graphics, using the power of the GeForce RTX 40 Series to deliver an unparalleled PC experience. And gain the upper hand in thrilling dogfights with The Empire thanks to NVIDIA Reflex and its unbeatable responsiveness. As the Galactic Empire relentlessly pursues the final defeat of the Rebel Alliance, the criminal underworld thrives. Fans will play as cunning scoundrel Kay Vess and her loyal companion Nix, as they attempt one of the greatest heists the Outer Rim has ever seen. Seeking the means to start a new life, players will join Kay and Nix as they fight, steal, and outwit their way through the galaxy's crime syndicates and join the galaxy's most wanted.

As part of our collaboration with Ubisoft, Massive Entertainment and Lucasfilm Games on Star Wars Outlaws, we're today introducing a new Star Wars Outlaws GeForce RTX 40 Series Bundle, available until September 19th. Buyers of eligible products from select retailers and etailers, including GeForce RTX 4090, 4080 SUPER, 4080, 4070 Ti SUPER, 4070 Ti, 4070 SUPER and 4070 graphics cards and desktop PCs, and laptops with a GeForce RTX 4090 Laptop GPU, RTX 4080 Laptop GPU, or RTX 4070 Laptop GPU, will receive a digital copy of the Standard Edition (valued at $69.99) to play when released on August 30th.

A GZDOOM community mod called "DOOM II: Ray Traced" has done the unthinkable—added path-traced lighting, shadows, and reflections to DOOM II. The mod uses high-resolution voxel models and other game assets from the Voxel DOOM Project, which replaces the game's 2D sprites as fully-fledged 3D models. Pretty much all of the game's textures also see an improvement. Where "DOOM II: Ray Traced" comes to light is its path-traced lighting, which uses ray tracing hardware of modern GPUs—nothing is pre-baked. The mod also supports NVIDIA DLSS 3 Frame Generation and AMD FSR 3.0 Frame Generation, to help step up performance. A gameplay video sees a GeForce RTX 4080 break a sweat rendering it at 4K. And to think the original DOOM II could run on an 80386—a processor simpler than a single NVIDIA CUDA core.

More than 500 games and applications feature RTX technologies, and each week new games integrating NVIDIA DLSS, NVIDIA Reflex and advanced ray-traced effects are released or announced, delivering the definitive PC experience for GeForce RTX players. Starting today, Marvel Rivals Closed Beta is available with DLSS 3 and Reflex support. Plus, Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess recently launched with DLSS 3. FINAL FANTASY XIV Online: Dawntrail, F1 Manager 2024, and Dark and Darker are available now with DLSS 2, Trepang 2 Bladekisser DLC launches July 25 with DLSS 2, and the newly announced open-world RPG Neverness to Everness will launch with DLSS and ray tracing. Learn more about each game below.

Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess Available Now With DLSS 3, Ray Tracing & Reflex
In Capcom's unique, Japanese-inspired, visually captivating Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess, players will play as protagonist Soh, making sharp strategic decisions and use of skillful dancing sword skills, while working with rescued villagers and the Maiden Yoshiro to overcome the challenges ahead. During the day, explore the village and purge demonic defilement by rescuing villagers and wisely assigning them roles and positions to help attack the evil Seethe at night. During the night, the villagers will fight alongside Soh to protect Yoshiro from the swarm of Seethe. In this intense action-strategy game, face the formidable Festering Seethe, purge the village's defilement, and return peace to the mountain.

We've known since May that AMD is giving its next generation RDNA 4 graphics architecture a significant upgrade with ray tracing performance, and had some clue since then, that the company is working on putting more of the ray tracing workflow through dedicated, fixed function hardware, unburdening the shader engine further. Kepler_L2, a reliable source with GPU leaks sheds light on some of the many new hardware features AMD is introducing with RDNA 4 to better accelerate ray tracing, which should give its GPUs a reduced performance cost of having ray tracing enabled. Kepler_L2 believes that these hardware features should also make it to the GPU of the upcoming Sony PlayStation 5 Pro.

To begin with, the RDNA 4 ray accelerator introduces the new Double Ray Tracing Intersect Engine, which should at least mean a 100% ray intersection performance increase over RDNA 3, which in turn offered a 50% increase over that of RDNA 2. The new RT instance node transform instruction should improve the way the ray accelerators handle geometry. Some of the other features we have trouble describing include a 64-byte RT node, ray tracing tri-pair optimization, Change flags encoded in barycentrics to simplify detection of procedural nodes; improved BVH footprint (possibly memory footprint): and RT support for oriented bounding box and instance node intersection. AMD is expected to debut Radeon RX series gaming GPUs based on RDNA 4 in early 2025.

Intel has released its latest version of Arc GPU Graphics drivers for A-series discrete GPUs and Arc Graphics iGPUs, version 101.5762 Beta. The new drivers bring Game On Driver support on Intel Arc A-series GPUs and Intel Core Ultra with Intel Arc GPUs for Once Human and Zenless Zone Zero games, as well as improve performance in Diablo IV under DirectX 12 by up to 35 percent at 1440p resolution and by up to 30 percent at 1080p resolution with Ray Tracing Ultra settings.

The new drivers also fix the issue seen in Plants vs. Zombies Game of the Year Edition when 3D acceleration is enabled on Intel Arc A-series GPUs and Core Ultra CPUs with Intel Arc GPUs, as well as issues with Endurance Gaming in games on Intel Core Ultra CPUs with Intel Arc GPUs. Intel also fixed an issue With Intel Arc Control where it may report incorrect Shader Model version in System Capabilities.

DOWNLOAD: Intel Arc GPU Graphics Drivers 101.5762 Beta

Basemark announced today the release of a groundbreaking cross-platform ray tracing benchmark, GPUScore: Breaking Limit. This new benchmark is designed to evaluate the performance of the full range of ray tracing capable devices, including smartphones, tablets, laptops and high-end desktops with discrete GPUs. With support for multiple operating systems and graphics APIs, Breaking Limit provides a comprehensive performance evaluation across various platforms and devices.

As ray tracing technology becomes increasingly prevalent in consumer electronics, from high-end desktops to portable devices like laptops and smartphones, there is a critical need for a benchmark that can accurately assess and compare performance across different devices and platforms. Breaking Limit addresses this gap, providing valuable insights into how various devices handle hardware-accelerated graphics rendering. The benchmark is an essential tool for developers, manufacturers, and consumers to measure and compare the performance of real-time ray tracing rendering across different hardware and software environments reliably.

More than 500 games and applications feature RTX technologies, and each week new games integrating NVIDIA DLSS, NVIDIA Reflex and advanced ray-traced effects are released or announced, delivering the definitive PC experience for GeForce RTX players. Following yet another week of excellent DLSS game launches and announcements, we've got even more DLSS news to share this week - PAYDAY 3 and TRIBES 3: Rivals have upgraded from DLSS 2 to DLSS 3, and the Riven remake has launched with support for DLSS 2! And next week, The First Descendant launches with day-one support for DLSS 3.5 with Ray Reconstruction, ray tracing, Reflex, and DLAA. Learn more about each integration of our experience-enhancing technologies below.

The First Descendant Launches July 2nd, Featuring DLSS 3.5 with Ray Reconstruction, Reflex & Ray Tracing
The First Descendant is a free, third-person cooperative action-RPG shooter powered by Unreal Engine 5. Experience the fun of strategic boss fights through 4-player co-op, using an extensive range of unique characters, with exciting gunplay, and looting. Battle through the engrossing story, and tackle World Missions against huge bosses in The First Descendant.

More than 500 games and applications feature RTX technologies, and each week new games integrating NVIDIA DLSS, NVIDIA Reflex and advanced ray-traced effects are released or announced, delivering the definitive PC experience for GeForce RTX players. Following a jam-packed week full of new DLSS announcements and launches, we've got even more DLSS news to share this week. Deep Rock Galactic now features support for DLSS 3, Pax Dei launches today with DLSS 3 and Reflex, Still Wakes The Deep also launches today with DLSS 3 and Reflex, Skye: The Misty Isle launches tomorrow with DLSS 3 and Reflex, and THE FINALS Season 3 is available now with DLSS 3, Reflex and ray tracing. Learn more about each integration of our experience-enhancing technologies below.

#GeForceSummer of RTX Is Back! Win GPUs, PCs, Laptops, Monitors & More!
The #GeForceSummer of RTX rolls on, and we're continuing our prize-filled journey to celebrate the best of PC gaming with our community. Celebrate the best PC gaming moments and anticipated #RTXOn games like Black Myth: Wukong, Pax Dei, Star Wars Outlaws, and more. Relive great moments in gaming history alongside the GeForce community. And of course, interact with our social media posts using #GeForceSummer to win great GeForce prizes, including GeForce RTX 40 Series GPUs, sleeper PC builds, RTX laptops, G-Sync gaming monitors, backplates, keycaps, posters, and more!

More than 500 games and applications feature RTX technologies, and each week new games integrating NVIDIA DLSS, NVIDIA Reflex and advanced ray-traced effects are released or announced, delivering the definitive PC experience for GeForce RTX players. This week, we've got a ton of DLSS news. Alan Wake 2: Night Springs is out now with full ray tracing and DLSS 3.5, Black Myth: Wukong is launching August 20th with full ray tracing and DLSS 3.5, and there's a new gameplay trailer from Star Wars Outlaws, which launches August 30th with ray tracing and DLSS 3.5. Also, Pax Dei enters Early Access on June 18th with DLSS 3, The First Descendant launches July 2nd with DLSS 3, and a Dragon's Dogma 2 game update has introduced support for DLSS 3. Additionally, the Final Fantasy XIV Online: Dawntrail benchmark, Killer Klowns from Outer Space: The Game, and Soulmask are all available now with day-one DLSS 2 support.

Alan Wake 2: Night Springs Expansion Available Now
Night Springs, a new expansion for Remedy Entertainment's critically acclaimed Alan Wake 2 is now available to download and play. Alan Wake is trying to find a way out of the endless loops of the Dark Place by penning new scripts for a TV show he once wrote for: Night Springs. Play as several characters from the world of Alan Wake and experience the familiar turned strange in multiple self-contained episodes. By playing on a GeForce RTX 40 Series PC, you'll receive the definitive experience in Alan Wake 2 and the new Night Springs expansion. Crank fidelity and immersion to 11 with fully ray-traced visuals, further refined by DLSS Ray Reconstruction. Play at over 80 frames per second at 4K thanks to our AI-powered DLSS Super Resolution and Frame Generation technologies. And maximize responsiveness with NVIDIA Reflex.

More than 500 games and applications feature RTX technologies, and each week new games integrating NVIDIA DLSS, NVIDIA Reflex and advanced ray-traced effects are released or announced, delivering the definitive PC experience for GeForce RTX players. Last week, the stunningly-rendered, critically-acclaimed Senua's Saga: Hellblade II launched with day-one support for DLSS 3 and Reflex, followed by the release of Serum with DLSS 3, DLAA and Reflex, and Ships At Sea and Wuthering Waves with DLSS 2. This week, DLSS momentum continues with the launch of DLSS 3 in EA SPORTS F1 24, and DLSS 2 in Capes.

EA SPORTS F1 24 Arrives On The Grid May 31st, Featuring DLSS 3, DLAA, Reflex & Ray Tracing
Race as one of the 20 real-life drivers in EA SPORTS F1 24, the official video game of the 2024 FIA Formula One World Championship. Unleash your champion in pursuit of a legacy-defining F1 Career, the mode's first major update since 2016. Drive like the greatest and feel at one with the car through the all-new EA SPORTS Dynamic Handling System, and experience the best F1 racing to date thanks to all of the game's new additions and enhancements.

AMD's next generation RDNA 4 graphics architecture is expected to feature a completely new ray tracing engine, Kepler L2, a reliable source with GPU leaks, claims. Currently, AMD uses a component called Ray Accelerator, which performs the most compute-intensive portion of the ray intersection and testing pipeline, while AMD's approach to ray tracing on a hardware level still relies greatly on the shader engines. The company had debuted the ray accelerator with RDNA 2, its first architecture to meet DirectX 12 Ultimate specs, and improved the component with RDNA 3, by optimizing certain aspects of its ray testing, to bring about a 50% improvement in ray intersection performance over RDNA 2.

The way Kepler L2 puts it, RDNA 4 will feature a fundamentally transformed ray tracing hardware solution from the ones on RDNA 2 and RDNA 3. This could probably delegate more of the ray tracing workflow onto fixed-function hardware, unburdening the shader engines further. AMD is expected to debut RDNA 4 with its next line of discrete Radeon RX GPUs in the second half of 2024. Given the chatter about a power-packed event by AMD at Computex, with the company expected to unveil "Zen 5" CPU microarchitecture on both server and client processors; we might expect some talk on RDNA 4, too.

Capcom has released the newest update for Dragon's Dogma 2 on PC and PlayStation 5, while Xbox will get it in next few days. On the PC, the update improves quality when DLSS Super Resolution is enabled, and fixes various bugs. Earlier, Dragon's Dogma 2 Devs have already announced an investigation for PC performance and stability issues, specifically frame rate and various crashes, bugs and the option to start a new game, which has been addressed with this update.

According to the release notes release by Capcom, PC specific updates include improved quality when NVIDIA DLSS Super Resolution is enabled and a fix for an issue related to the display of models under some specific settings. On both PlayStation 5 and the PC, the update adds the option to start a new game when save game data already exists, changes the number of "Art of Metamorphosis" items available in Pawn Shops to 99, makes the "dwelling quest" available earlier in the game, as well as fixes various bugs and text display issues. On the PlayStation 5, the update also adds the option to switch on/off the Motion Blur and Ray Tracing, as well as to set the maximum frame rate to 30 FPS. Capcom also notes that motion blur and ray tracing options should not affect frame rate significantly, and that improvements to frame rate are planned for future updates. The release notes also say that updates to Xbox Series X/S version of the game are planned in the next few days.

Over 500 games and applications feature RTX technologies, and barely a week goes by without new blockbuster games and incredible indie releases integrating NVIDIA DLSS, NVIDIA Reflex, and advanced ray-traced effects to deliver the definitive PC experience for GeForce RTX gamers.

This week, we're highlighting the release of DLSS 3-accelerated release of Outpost: Infinity Siege, and the launch of Alone In The Dark and Lightyear Frontier, which both feature DLSS 2. This batch of great new RTX releases follows the release of Horizon Forbidden West Complete Edition, which boasted day-one support for NVIDIA DLSS 3, NVIDIA DLAA, and NVIDIA Reflex. Additionally, Diablo IV's ray tracing update is out now—learn more about each new announcement below.

Microsoft has filed for a new and even potentially groundbreaking patent that could transform the way ray tracing graphics are processed, especially when video memory (VRAM) is scarce. The patent proposes a technique to minimize the memory footprint of ray tracing graphics, tackling the escalating concerns about the growing memory demands for ray tracing and path tracing. The innovation outlined in Microsoft's patent employs a dynamic level of detail (LOD) approach to adaptively modify the quality of ray tracing effects based on accessible resources. The patent portrays the ray tracing pipeline as an acceleration structure that can be streamlined using this LOD system. The cornerstone of this optimization is a residency map that aligns with a bounding volume hierarchy of objects. The graphics processing system can then utilize this map to ascertain the suitable quality level for objects at any given moment. This methodology enables a more reasonable allocation of resources, guaranteeing that the most crucial objects receive the highest quality rendering. At the same time, less important elements can be rendered at lower quality to conserve memory.

Microsoft's patent could have far-reaching ramifications for the design and performance of upcoming GPUs. By implementing this novel LOD system, GPUs with more modest VRAM capacities, such as those with 8 GB, could provide ray tracing performance on par with higher-end models boasting larger memory buffers, given enough compute capacity. This advancement could pave the way for more budget-friendly GPUs that still deliver adequate ray tracing capabilities, making the technology more accessible. Moreover, the adaptive nature of the LOD system could contribute to a more reliable performance across diverse scenarios, as the GPU would be capable of adjusting to the available resources in real time. Microsoft's patent could emerge as a game-changer in the realm of GPU design and performance, and we are now waiting to see if any real-world implementations appear.

Konstantin Seurer, a Mesa developer, has spent the past couple of months working on CPU-based Vulkan ray tracing—naturally, some folks will express scepticism about this project's practicality. Seurer has already set expectations with a brief message: "don't ask about performance." His GitLab merge request page attracted Michael Larabel's attention—the Phoronix founder and principal author was suitably impressed with Seurer's coding wizardry. He: "managed to implement support for VK_KHR_acceleration_structure, VK_KHR_deferred_host_operations, and VK_KHR_ray_query for Lavapipe. This Lavapipe Vulkan ray tracing support is based in part on porting code from the emulated ray tracing worked on for RADV with older Radeon GPUs." A lone screenshot provided evidence of Quake II running at 1 FPS with Vulkan ray tracing enabled—this "atrocious" performance was achieved thanks to a Mesa Lavapipe driver "implementing the Vulkan API for CPU-based execution."

VideoCardz has highlighted an older example of CPU-based rendering techniques: "this is not the first time we heard about ray tracing on the CPU in Quake. In 2008, Intel demonstrated Enemy Territory: Quake Wars running at 720p resolution at 14 to 29 FPS on 16 core and 20-35 FPS at 24 core CPUs (quad-socket). The basic implementation of ray tracing in 2008 is not comparable to complex ray tracing techniques designed for GPUs, thus the performance on modern system is actually much lower. Beyond that, that game was specifically designed for the Intel architecture and used a specific API to achieve that. Sadly, the original ET demo is no longer available, it would be interesting to see how it performs today." CPU-based Vulkan ray tracing is expected to hit public distribution channels with the rollout of Mesa 24.1. Several members of the Phoronix community reckon that modern AMD Threadripper PRO processors have the potential to post double-digit in-game frame rates.

Patch 2.11 for Cyberpunk 2077 and Phantom Liberty is being rolled out on PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S. In this update we focused on fixing the most common issues encountered by players, including Finisher animations, and added a little something for Rayfield enthusiasts! PC-specific changes include the addition of a Hybrid CPU Utilization setting, which can be found under Gameplay → Performance. It can be set either to "Auto" (lets the operating system automatically decide how to distribute threads among the cores) or "Prioritize P-Cores" (prioritizes performance cores). It is set to "Auto" by default. We have also implemented a fix that improves graphics performance, especially on AMD Radeon RX Vega GPUs.

Visual Changes
Patch 2.11 adds Neon-lit rims for the Yaiba Kusanagi CT-3X—these parts will now light up properly. We also fixed shadows appearing on V's torso when wearing tank tops, as well as dark shadows appearing on V's hands when holding some weapons with Ray Tracing enabled. The Devil and Judgment tarot cards will now be properly displayed on the end-game reward screen. For complete patch details, check out the full list of changes below.