In recent months you may have been hearing the term Ray Tracing on many occasions, however, it is possible that you are still confused about what is ray tracing. Well, there is nothing better than a practical example, so NVIDIA He is going to bring us the best possible so that we all get rid of doubts at once.
NVIDIA, the standard bearer of ray tracing
The new generation of NVIDIA graphics stood out for the incorporation of a technology with a striking name that claimed to be the new visual experience. responded to the name of ray tracing (ray tracing in English) and although it is a term that dates back to 1980, the novelty this time is that thanks to the new RTX cards we were going to be able to enjoy it for the first time in real time.
This technology is responsible with the help of algorithms to represent the way in which light falls on three-dimensional objects, thus achieving an incredibly real appearance and far superior to what we were used to seeing until now. Thanks to ray tracing, the level of photorealism that is achieved is spectacular, and it is that the representation of light (reflections and refractions) and the generated shadows manage to better represent how we would see a scene in question in real life.
Quake II RTX: The classic now with ray tracing
That NVIDIA is interested in promoting and making ray tracing known to sell even more graphics cards is something we have no doubt about, and for this it has played a very intelligent card with which it will attract attention immediately. This is where it comes into play Quake II, the famous first-person shooter from ID Software that marked an era and that has now been rescued by NVIDIA to offer it a major facelift.
As you will be able to see in the introduction video, the changes applied by the ray tracing technology make Quake II look completely different, obtaining a higher volume in the stages and enjoying spectacular lighting that changes the game completely.
Quake II RTX The next one will be free to download. 6 June, allowing you to play the first three levels on both Windows and Linux. Those who own the original game (worth 5 euros on Steam), will be able to play the entire campaign with the new technology by installing Quake II RTX over the original installation.
Minimum requirements to play Quake II RTX
The problem, however, will be when it comes to being able to play this new version of Quake II, since ray tracing requires the use of one of the new NVIDIA cards (obviously). According to the manufacturer, these will be the minimum requirements that
- Operating System: Windows 7 64-bit or Ubuntu 16.04 LTS 64-bit
- Processor: Intel Core i3-3220 or AMD equivalent
- Memory: 8 GB RAM
- Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 or better
- Storage: 2GB available space