Gearbox Publishing and Blackbird Interactive have officially unveiled the system requirements for Homeworld 3, the highly anticipated next installment in the GOTY-winning sci-fi RTS series, launching in 2024. Blackbird Interactive continues its work to optimize the game to ensure the fidelity, scale and immersiveness of Homeworld 3's gameplay can be experienced across a wide array of PCs.

Players with the latest graphics cards and processors can enjoy the game in 4K with all of the settings turned up while players with older components can still experience Homeworld 3's hallmark 3D strategy experience with dynamic space battles and incredible visuals.

Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), an Amazon.com, Inc. company (NASDAQ: AMZN), and NVIDIA (NASDAQ: NVDA) today announced an expansion of their strategic collaboration to deliver the most-advanced infrastructure, software and services to power customers' generative artificial intelligence (AI) innovations. The companies will bring together the best of NVIDIA and AWS technologies—from NVIDIA's newest multi-node systems featuring next-generation GPUs, CPUs and AI software, to AWS Nitro System advanced virtualization and security, Elastic Fabric Adapter (EFA) interconnect, and UltraCluster scalability—that are ideal for training foundation models and building generative AI applications.

The expanded collaboration builds on a longstanding relationship that has fueled the generative AI era by offering early machine learning (ML) pioneers the compute performance required to advance the state-of-the-art in these technologies.

In Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition, immerse yourself in every story the world of the dark future has to offer, featuring every gameplay update and all previously released content in one package - including the acclaimed spy-thriller expansion Phantom Liberty. Get the ultimate Cyberpunk experience with full ray tracing, NVIDIA DLSS 3.5 with Ray Reconstruction, and NVIDIA Reflex, powered by GeForce RTX 40 Series GPUs and laptops. Become an urban outlaw equipped with cybernetic enhancements and build your legend on the streets of Night City. Go on daring adventures and build relationships with unforgettable characters whose fates are shaped by the choices you make, and decide how V's story ends. Your choices in the base game and Phantom Liberty create interweaving webs of consequences, ones that shape the fate of the characters around you - and your own.

Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition is the complete package, including every update, add-on and in-game item CD PROJEKT RED has released. For PC gamers with GeForce RTX graphics cards, you can experience all of Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition's content with the incredible technical and graphical enhancements NVIDIA and CD PROJEKT RED have partnered on pre and post release.

This week, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III, Jusant, RIPOUT, RoboCop: Rogue City, and The Talos Principle 2 all launch with day-one support for DLSS 3, giving GeForce RTX 40 Series gamers the fastest frame rates possible at the highest settings and resolutions.

Additionally, RIPOUT just entered Early Access with DLSS 3, Desynced is adding support for DLSS 3 in the near future, EA SPORTS WRC launches this week with DLSS 2, and NVIDIA Omniverse has just added support for DLSS 3.5 and Ray Reconstruction. This bumper selection of anticipated releases follow last week's launch of Alan Wake 2, featuring full ray tracing, DLSS 3.5, Ray Reconstruction, and NVIDIA Reflex.

The highly anticipated NVIDIA DLSS 3.5 update, including Ray Reconstruction for NVIDIA Omniverse - a platform for connecting and building custom 3D tools and apps - is now available. RTX Video Super Resolution (VSR) will be available with tomorrow's NVIDIA Studio Driver release - which also supports the DLSS 3.5 update in Omniverse and is free for RTX GPU owners. The version 1.5 update delivers greater overall graphical fidelity, upscaling for native videos and support for GeForce RTX 20 Series GPUs. NVIDIA Creative Director and visual effects producer Sabour Amirazodi returns In the NVIDIA Studio to share his Halloween-themed project: a full projection mapping show on his house, featuring haunting songs, frightful animation, spooky props and more.

Creators can join the #SeasonalArtChallenge by submitting harvest- and fall-themed pieces through November The latest Halloween-themed Studio Standouts video features ghouls, creepy monsters, haunted hospitals, dimly lit homes and is not for the faint-of-heart.

This week, Alan Wake 2 launches with incredible fully ray-traced graphics, accelerated and enhanced by NVIDIA DLSS 3.5's complete suite of AI-powered technologies. GeForce RTX 40 Series gamers will receive the definitive day-one experience: frame rates are multiplied by an average of 4.5X at 4K, ray tracing is even more immersive thanks to Ray Reconstruction, and Reflex makes gameplay even more responsive. Additionally, gamers can soon enable DLSS in Ikonei Island: An Earthlock Adventure, and Shadows of Doubt, two highly rated indie games.

These new DLSS integrations follow last week's DLSS launches, which saw NARAKA: BLADEPOINT, Slender: The Arrival, and Warhammer: Vermintide 2 introduce support for DLSS 3, and HOT WHEELS UNLEASHED 2 - Turbocharged and AirportSim release with DLSS 2.

Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty is now available on PC with full ray tracing, DLSS 3.5, and Ray Reconstruction. Phantom Liberty is a new spy-thriller adventure for Cyberpunk 2077. When the orbital shuttle of the President of the New United States of America is shot down over the deadliest district of Night City, there's only one person who can save her - you. Become V, a cyberpunk for hire, and dive deep into a tangled web of espionage and political intrigue, unraveling a story that connects the highest echelons of power with the brutal world of black-market mercenaries. If you don't own the expansion, return to the neon lights of Night City in Cyberpunk 2077's 2.0 update, available now, featuring support for NVIDIA DLSS 3.5 and its new Ray Reconstruction technology, enhancing the quality of full ray tracing in Cyberpunk 2077's Ray Tracing: Overdrive Mode.

Crank Ray Tracing Up To Overdrive
Both Cyberpunk 2077 and Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty feature full ray tracing in the technology preview for the Ray Tracing: Overdrive Mode. Full ray tracing, also known as path tracing, accurately simulates light throughout an entire scene. It is used by visual effects artists to create film and TV graphics that are indistinguishable from reality, but until the arrival of GeForce RTX GPUs with RT Cores, and the AI-powered acceleration of NVIDIA DLSS, real-time video game full ray tracing was impossible because it is extremely GPU intensive.

Hot on the heels of news that DLSS 3.5 Ray Reconstruction can be made to work with DLAA (DLSS at native resolution) using a DLSS-modding utility, we're coming across yet another hack. This one gets you to use DLSS 3.5 Ray Reconstruction on Cyberpunk Phantom Liberty without the need for Path Tracing, and using the game's regular ray tracing technology. Path tracing is very hardware intensive feature, and in our testing, we've only been able to get playable frame-rates at 4K Ultra HD using the two fastest GPUs in the market, the RTX 4090 and RTX 4080. A user on Reddit discovered how to get Phantom Liberty to use regular ray tracing with Ray Reconstruction. We don't know who the original author of this hack is, but it was re-posted to Reddit by Daemoni73. Here are the steps:

• Launch Cyberpunk 2077, enable Ray Tracing and DLSS Super Resolution (in other words apply your preferable settings).
• Exit the game and go to your %LOCALAPPDATA%\CD Projekt Red\Cyberpunk 2077 and open the UserSettings.json file.
• Search for "DLSS_D", set the "value" and "default_value" from "false" to "true".
• Save the config file and set it as "read only".
• Launch the game and play with Ray Tracing and DLSS Ray Reconstruction.

On September 21st, NVIDIA DLSS 3.5 debuts in Cyberpunk 2077 and Chaos Vantage. NVIDIA DLSS 3.5 makes your games even more beautiful, immersive and realistic with the introduction of Ray Reconstruction, a new AI-powered technique that further enhances the quality of ray tracing. And in apps, ray-traced previews and viewports are greatly improved, enabling creators to better visualize the final result before time-consuming renders. DLSS 3.5 is available for all GeForce RTX and NVIDIA RTX users; for the complete breakdown on this new technology, head to our NVIDIA DLSS 3.5 announcement article.

In other DLSS news, Lies of P, Party Animals, Warhaven and Witchfire are all launching this week with day-one DLSS support, and gamers can check out an open beta for The First Descendant, an upcoming DLSS 3-accelerated game. In each game, GeForce RTX users will receive the definitive experience - read on for all the details.

On September 26th, Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty launches with full ray tracing, DLSS 3.5, and Ray Reconstruction. Phantom Liberty is a new spy-thriller adventure for Cyberpunk 2077. When the orbital shuttle of the President of the New United States of America is shot down over the deadliest district of Night City, there's only one person who can save her—you. Become V, a cyberpunk for hire, and dive deep into a tangled web of espionage and political intrigue, unraveling a story that connects the highest echelons of power with the brutal world of black-market mercenaries.

"Thanks to DLSS 3.5's smart technology, fuelled by AI rendering power, you can experience Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty's newest location Dogtown at its very best—with sharper images, more accurate lighting, and the highest frame rates possible." said Jakub Knapik, VP of Art, Global Art Director, CD Projekt RED. On September 21st, return to the neon lights of Night City when Cyberpunk 2077's 2.0 update launches, featuring support for NVIDIA DLSS 3.5 and its new Ray Reconstruction technology, enhancing the quality of full ray tracing in Cyberpunk 2077's Ray Tracing: Overdrive Mode.

Developers at Insomniac Games have confirmed that Spider-Man 2's ray tracing feature will be running as standard/by default within the PlayStation 5 version—a player's adjustments of graphical performance settings will have no bearing on this being turned on or off. Mike Fitzgerald, Insomniac's director of core technology, shared technical information in an interview with IGN, although he stopped short of making any promises for an inevitable PC conversion—gamers on that platform will likely be waiting another 18 months post-October 20. It is possible that Nixxes Software has been contracted to work on a port, given their recent-ish track record. The Insomniac dev cites advanced experience gained by working on past titles—notably Spider-Man Remastered, Miles Morales, and Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart—as the main factor behind the confident push into implementing an "always-on" ray tracing graphical feature. Fitzgerald stated: "We've really gotten to leverage everything we've seen in developing those games."

He continued: "Our performance mode for this title has ray tracing on by default. We've really expanded ray traced reflections throughout the game. It's on the water and the oceans and really gives a more realistic picture everywhere...For this game we're really able to deliver (ray tracing) as a baseline performance mode. There's no mode of this game that has the ray tracing turned off, no need for it. We've really figured out how to deliver what we feel like is the right Spider-Man visuals and we want to make sure every player is seeing that." Fitzgerald also praises PlayStation 5's storage solution—SSDs allow for "faster traversal" across the New York City environment. Players can look forward to traversing the urban landscape at about "three times as fast" as the pace experienced in Spider-Man 1.

A new version of Minecraft for Xbox Series X and S consoles has been registered with ratings boards around the world—as reported by Eurogamer, the first appearance arrived back in August through Germany's USK system, and more recently with the ESRB (USA). This lead to speculation that Mojang Studios was prepping a visually-upgraded variant of the game for current generation consoles. Microsoft and Xbox teased a significant ray tracing graphical option back in 2020, prior to Series X launching, but we have not heard much since then. Bedrock Edition, utilizing the RenderDragon engine, is set to improve graphics across most platforms, yet only PC gamers get to enjoy ray tracing features on capable/compatible hardware.

Microsoft has seemingly become fed up with the latest batch of news reports, and reached out to media outlets in order to shutdown further conjecture on the topic.
A company spokesperson informed Eurogamer and other sites about the situation: "Given the number of platforms and geographies in which Minecraft is available, we periodically go through rating reviews and updates with different regional boards. This recent rating is not indicative of any new versions or platform support for Minecraft in the near future." A 2022 test build inadvertently included "prototype code for ray tracing support on Xbox consoles," but was swiftly eliminated from public view soon after release. A spokesperson stated back then: "this early prototype code has been removed from Preview and doesn't signal near future plans to bring ray tracing support to consoles."

We're excited to announce that Unreal Engine 5.3 is now available. This release brings numerous wide-ranging improvements as we continue to expand UE5's functionality and potential for game developers and creators across industries. As well as enhancements to core rendering, developer iteration, and virtual production toolsets, we're introducing Experimental new rendering, animation, and simulation features to give you the opportunity to test extended creative workflows inside UE5—reducing the need to round-trip with external applications.

Refinements to core UE5 rendering features
With this release, we've continued to refine all core UE5 rendering features to address our ongoing goal of making it easier for developers to leverage them at higher quality in games running at 60 FPS on next-gen consoles; the improvements also offer higher-quality results and enhanced performance for linear content creators. Specifically, Nanite has faster performance for masked materials, including foliage, and can represent a greater range of surfaces due to the new Explicit Tangents option, while Lumen with Hardware Ray Tracing has expanded capabilities that include multiple reflection bounces, and delivers faster performance on consoles. Other areas with notable advancements include Virtual Shadow Maps (VSM)—which is now Production-Ready—Temporal Super Resolution (TSR), Hair Grooms, Path Tracing, and Substrate.

AMD and Ubisoft have officially announced the PC features players will be able to enjoy in Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora. A trailer that debuted at Gamescom showed off exactly what you can expect; check out the details below.

Ray Tracing and Extended Graphic Settings
Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora will include ray traced reflections and shadows for more immersive environmental exploration, and extended graphic settings that allow for granular tweaks to a multitude of visuals such as environment reflection quality, and distant shadows.

We're excited to announce the launch of 3DMark Solar Bay, a new cross-platform benchmark for testing ray traced graphics performance on Windows PCs and high-end Android devices. This benchmark measures games-related graphics performance by rendering a demanding, ray-traced scene in real time. Solar Bay is available now for Android on the Google Play Store and for Windows on Steam, Epic Games or directly from UL Solutions.

Compare ray tracing performance across platforms
Ray tracing is the showcase technology for Solar Bay, simulating real-time reflections. Compared to traditional rasterization, ray-traced scenes produce far more realistic lighting. While dedicated desktop and laptop graphics processing units (GPUs) have supported ray tracing for several years, it's only recently that integrated GPUs and Android devices have been capable of running real-time ray-traced games at frame rates acceptable to gamers.

The latest patch of "Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart" released on Wednesday, finally adds real time ray tracing support for AMD Radeon GPUs. Patch version v1.808.0.0 went live on Wednesday, which calls upon AMD Radeon users to have at least the one-off 23.10.23.03 drivers that AMD released specifically for the game. The company latest main-trunk driver remains the Adrenalin 23.7.2 WHQL, so you'll need the off-trunk driver to use ray tracing for now. "Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart" on PC leverages ray tracing for reflections, shadows, and ambient-occlusion. These toggles in the game's external setup program were grayed out on older AMD drivers.

Every week, we bring you news of the latest DLSS and ray tracing integrations in games and apps. Last week, we celebrated the launch of Portal: Prelude RTX, a path-traced remaster of a classic mod, made in NVIDIA RTX Remix and enhanced with full ray tracing, NVIDIA DLSS 3, NVIDIA Reflex, and our new, game-changing NVIDIA RTX IO GPU-accelerated storage technology. The good times keep rolling this week with the arrival of Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart on PC on July 26th, featuring NVIDIA DLSS 3, NVIDIA DLAA, NVIDIA Reflex, ray tracing, and NVIDIA RTX IO, giving GeForce RTX gamers the definitive PC experience, with the fastest possible PC frame rates, the most responsive gameplay, and the highest levels of detail.

And DLSS is also coming to more of your favorite games. Today, the eagerly anticipated Remnant II launches with DLSS 2. Additionally, the action game SYNCED is launching this Summer with DLSS 3, and Wuthering Waves announced that it will launch with DLSS 3, too. Finally, the ever-popular DLSS 2-enhanced NARAKA: BLADEPOINT celebrates its second anniversary with a special event and by transitioning to a free-to-play model, enabling even more people to play.

Intel's software engineers are working on path-traced light simulation and conducting neural graphics research, as documented in a recent company news article, with an ambition to create a more efficient solution for integrated graphics cards. The company's Graphics Research Organization is set to present their path-traced optimizations at SIGGRAPH 2023. Their papers have been showcased at recent EGSR and HPG events. The team is aiming to get iGPUs running path-tracing in real time, by reducing the number of calculations required to simulate light bounces.

The article covers three different techniques, all designed to improve GPU performance: "Across the process of path tracing, the research presented in these papers demonstrates improvements in efficiency in path tracing's main building blocks, namely ray tracing, shading, and sampling. These are important components to make photorealistic rendering with path tracing available on more affordable GPUs, such as Intel Arc GPUs, and a step toward real-time performance on integrated GPUs." Although there is an emphasis on in-house products in the article, Intel's "open source-first mindset" hints that their R&D could be shared with others—NVIDIA and AMD are likely still struggling to make ray tracing practical on their modest graphics card models.

See the features bringing F1 23 to life on PC - ray tracing, custom graphics, control support, exclusive VR, and more bring the sport to life on PC. Be the last to brake in EA SPORTS F1 23, the official videogame of the 2023 FIA Formula One World Championship and discover the features bringing the pinnacle of motorsport to life on PC.

RAY TRACING
Ray tracing accurately simulates the behavior of light to closely resemble real-world physics, creating lifelike reflections, refractions, and shadows in real time. In F1 2023, further advancements have been made where certain scenes now include more complex ray tracing in the form of Dynamic Diffuse Global Illumination, which simulates the way light bounces off objects in the environment, creating more complex indirect lighting effects in real time.

Each week, we're bringing you news about the latest DLSS and ray tracing integrations in games and apps. Last week, D5 Render got a DLSS 3-powered upgrade, DLSS 2 boarded Bus Simulator 21, and The Outlast Trials launched into Early Access with day-1 DLSS 2 support.

This week, The Lord of the Rings: Gollum launches with support for DLSS 3 and many other NVIDIA technologies, and two new DLSS 2 titles are available now - Firmament and Togges.

GIGABYTE TECHNOLOGY Co. Ltd, a leading manufacturer of premium gaming hardware, today launches NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16 GB, GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 8 GB and GeForce RTX 4060 8 GB series graphics cards powered by NVIDIA ADA Lovelace architecture. GIGABYTE offers a wide range of graphics cards, including the AORUS and GIGABYTE series, to cater to the diverse needs of gamers. These cards are designed to meet the demands of gamers seeking the ultimate in performance and stunning aesthetics, as well as those who prioritize fundamental performance and durability. These graphics cards will enhance the gaming experience for a vast number of gamers.

The GeForce RTX 4060 family is designed to deliver incredible performance for mainstream gamers and creators at 1080p resolution at 100 frames per second with Ray Tracing and DLSS 3. The GeForce RTX 4060 product family delivers all the advancements of the NVIDIA Ada Lovelace architecture—including DLSS 3 neural rendering, third-generation ray tracing technologies at high frame rates, and an eighth generation NVIDIA Encoder (NVENC) with AV1 encoding.

CD Projekt RED has released the newest update for The Witcher 3 Next-Gen, bringing performance improvements for ray tracing, adding support for Intel XeSS, and fixing some issues seen earlier.

According to the update release notes, the latest The Witcher 3 Next-Gen Update 4.03 introduces general performance improvements for ray-traced global illumination and ray-traced reflections, and fixes some issues seen with ray-traced shadows. It also addresses issue with DirectX 11 crashing on certain AMD GPUs, adds support for Intel Xe Super Sampling, and fixes lighting issues with Screen Space Reflection when ray-traced global illumination is off. There are also plenty of visual, quest, and gameplay fixes on both the PC and other platforms.

Real-time ray tracing (RT), using Microsoft DirectX ray tracing (DXR) and Vulkan Ray Tracing, adds a new level of incredible realism to games through effects like ray-traced reflections, shadows, ambient occlusion, and global illumination. Ray tracing is used in many of the latest games such as The Callisto Protocol, F1 22, Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales, and Returnal to maximize graphics fidelity and deliver the ultimate visual experience.

AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution 2 (AMD FSR 2) is the cutting-edge temporal upscaling technology designed to produce incredible image quality and boost framerates in supported games. AMD Radeon RX 7900 Series graphics feature advanced AMD RDNA 3 compute units with 2nd generation ray tracing accelerators to help deliver incredible RT performance in games.

Experience the visually stunning world of Layers of Fear, one of the first games to utilize the power of Unreal Engine 5 and advanced technological tools. Come with us on an immersive journey as we explore how we incorporated these cutting-edge features to bring you one of the most visually striking horror games out there. With the latest engine, we expedited the development process and introduced a host of technical novelties that make this game a spectacular visual treat. The Lumen, Ray Tracing, and Niagara effects helped us create visuals and effects that are beyond words and feel lifelike.

The canvas awaits its final brushstrokes. The stage calls for its lead actor. The novel needs its final chapter. It's time to face your fears. One. Last. Time. The series, which has left a mark on narrative-driven first-person psychological horror games, returns to tell its final spine-chilling story in Layers of Fear.. The series' crowning work is the definitive way to experience the critically acclaimed franchise as it features Layers of Fear and Layers of Fear 2, as well as all DLCs (including the new 'The Final Note' DLC that will give you a new perspective on the Layers of Fear storyline) and the never-before-told story of The Writer, which will tie everything together. Built on Unreal Engine 5, Layers of Fear supports Ray Tracing, HDR and 4K resolution to make the stunning visuals, and your nightmarish experience, as immersive and realistic as possible.

A Half Life 2 modder, Igor Zdrowowicz, has managed to integrate path tracing into the game - with striking results, even at an early stage in development. His project - codenamed "HL2RTX" - has been in-progress for a handful of months, and the modder has managed to integrate a ray tracing system into Valve's classic shooter (sort of) via NVIDIA's RTX Remix SDK. That package has become open source only very recently, so Zdrowowicz stated that a Portal RTX-derived binary was the tool of choice.

NVIDIA's Lightspeed Studios has already created an impressive RTX conversion of Valve's fan favorite puzzle-platform game Portal (2007), and modders have been poring over the underlying technology and update technique processes. A number of old favorites, running on past iterations of the Source Engine (DirectX 8 and 9), are getting the amateur mod community sprucing up treatment. It is posited that Zdrowowicz will have an easier time with his current conversion project, thanks to an official release of NVIDIA's RTX Remix toolkit (albeit in early access).