As promised by NVIDIA, Quake II RTX is now available on Steam or directly at NVIDIA:
Just a quick test on Win10 v1809 + GeForce RTX 2080 (driver 430.86).
Average framerate:
– 3840×2160 fullscreen: 20 FPS
– 1920×1080 fullscreen: 75 FPS
Some screenshots:
– environment reflection on the gun (3840×2160):
– Shadow and hi-res…. euh…. low-res textures… (1920×1080):
– reflection on the water (1920×1080):
– reflection on the control panel (we can see the player for the first time!) (1920×1080):
NVIDIA is planning to release Quake II RTX as a free download on June 6th 2019. Quake II RTX is a serious refresh of the popular Quake II game launched by id Software in 1997!
Quake II RTX will include the first 3 levels of the game for free fully remastered with path-traced graphics and a variety of other enhancements. And if you own a copy of Quake II, you can play the campaign in its entirety, and play against others in online multiplayer.
Quake II RTX is based on Q2VKPT (Quake2 revisited with Realtime Raytracing in Vulkan using VK_NV_ray_tracing). Quake II RTX will also support OpenGL, enabling the player to switch between RTX ON and RTX OFF.
Quake II RTX will be available on Windows and Linux and requires a RTX 2060 or higher (RTX 2070 or RTX 2080).
Quake II RTX: Official Announce Trailer
Remastering 1997’s Quake II with Ray Tracing
Features included in Quake II RTX:
– Improved Global Illumination rendering, with three selectable quality presets, including two-bounce GI
– Multiplayer support
– Time of day options that radically change the appearance of some levels
– New weapon models & textures
– New dynamic environments (Stroggos surface, and space)
– Better physically based atmospheric scattering, including settings for Stroggos sky
– Real-time reflectivity of the player and weapon model on water and glass surfaces, and player model shadows, for owners of the complete game (the original Shareware release does not include player models)
– Improved ray tracing denoising technology
– All 3,000+ original game textures have been updated with a mix of Q2XP mod-pack textures and our own enhancements
– Updated effects with new sprites and particle animations
– Dynamic lighting for items such as blinking lights, signs, switches, elevators and moving objects
– Caustics approximation to improve water lighting effects
– High-quality screenshot mode that makes your screenshots look even better
– Support for the old OpenGL renderer, enabling you to switch between RTX ON and RTX OFF
– Cylindrical projection mode for wide-angle field of view on widescreen displays
Press release:
Computex — NVIDIA today announced that Quake II RTX will be available on GeForce.com as a free download on June 6.
Quake II RTX is the world’s first game that is fully path-traced, a ray-tracing technique that unifies all lighting effects such as shadows, reflections, refractions and more into a single ray-tracing algorithm. The result is a stunning new look for id Software’s Quake II, one of the world’s most popular games, originally launched in 1997.
Quake II RTX includes the first three single-player levels of the beloved PC gaming classic. Gamers that already own Quake II can experience the whole game in its entirety, including multiplayer deathmatch and cooperative multiplayer modes, all fully path traced.
“Quake II RTX is an expression of our love and passion for PC gaming,” said Matt Wuebbling, head of GeForce marketing at NVIDIA. “By applying next-generation ray-traced graphics technologies and using the Vulkan API, we are able to share this PC classic with a new generation of gamers who can download and play it for free.”
“It’s rare that a PC game has the impact and longevity of Quake II, and seeing it reimagined with ray tracing 20 years later is something special for me,” said Tim Willits, studio director of id Software and one of the creators of the original Quake franchise. “Equally special is the relationship with NVIDIA, whom we have worked with since the early days of first-person shooters. Seeing how NVIDIA integrated modern features into this classic game is really exciting.”
…
Same Great Game, Stunning New Look
The visually stunning new look of the classic game is achieved by a ray-tracing technique known as path tracing, which traces light rays (paths) through the scene in a way that unifies all lighting effects into a single ray-traced algorithm. This elegant form of rendering is used in computer graphics in films but has previously been too expensive for games.The lighting effects in Quake II RTX are so advanced they require hardware support for ray tracing, such as the specialized RT Cores found in the Turing™ architecture and NVIDIA GeForce RTX™ GPUs, to run in real time. The minimum specification for running Quake II RTX in real time is a GeForce RTX 2060 GPU.
New levels of realism seen in Quake II RTX include real-time, high-dynamic range time of day lighting, with accurate sun light and indirect illumination. Physically based materials are rendered accurately. For example, water and glass refract light accurately, emissive surfaces get dramatic soft lighting effects, surfaces deliver accurate reflections and light sources illuminate surrounding objects. Weapon model details and textures have also been increased, and an improved denoiser has been added to increase image quality.
Quake II RTX uses NVIDIA VKRay, an extension that allows any developer using the Vulkan API to add ray-traced effects to their games. Building on Q2VKPT, a version of the game created by Christoph Schied using the open-sourced Quake II game engine, Quake II RTX is a pure ray-traced game that runs on a Vulkan renderer with support for Linux.
“Quake II RTX demonstrates that the Vulkan API with real-time ray tracing can be used to create stunning gaming experiences using some of the most advanced rendering techniques available to game developers,” said Neil Trevett, president of the Khronos Group and vice president of developer ecosystems at NVIDIA. “And, having Quake II RTX available as a free download makes it accessible to both Windows and Linux gamers everywhere.”
Links:
– Quake II RTX Available On Windows and Linux June 6th
– Press release: Relive a Classic! NVIDIA Remakes ‘Quake II’ with Stunning Ray-Traced Graphics, Gifts to PC Gamers
– Quake II RTX: Re-Engineering a Classic with Ray Tracing Effects on Vulkan