Do you remember the port of Super Mario 64 for PC that appeared out of nowhere with the help of the great leak of the Nintendo files? Well, it seems that someone is working on improving it, and for this they have decided to add one of the effects and technologies of the moment: the ray tracing.
Lightning strikes the Mushroom Kingdom
Darío (@dariosamo on Twitter) is a YouTube user who has decided to upload a video with one of his latest graphic modifications. And this time the chosen game has been none other than Super Mario 64, although hey, it's actually the PC port of Super Mario 64 that came to light a few months ago.
As you can see in the video, the lighting interpretation of the settings is really impressive, since in addition to maintaining the traditional aesthetics of the game, this modification allows you to enjoy reflections in the water, interpretation of light effects as they would happen in reality and other effects that basically show the great benefits of ray-tracing.
The best thing about the video is that its creator has carried out the tests on a computer with an RTX 3090, so it has plenty of graphic potential.
A very striking combination
The peculiarity of the mod is that we continue to enjoy the polygonal graphics of the time with a rejuvenated and strangely striking aesthetic caused by the incorporation of light effects in real time. The reflection of the water is especially striking, since at the beginning of the video you can see the reflection of the many elements of the stage, even that of Mario himself when he is submerged.
I bought a $1500 GPU to play Mario 64 with RTX https://t.co/8iBljjPWAI via @YouTube
— Dario (@dariosamo) November 15, 2020
Mario already knew ray tracing from before
In any case, this is not the first time we have seen Mario wrapped in ray tracing magic. With the appearance of the Super Mario 64 port, some people rushed to create the final version, and thus the version with the HD texture pack and ray tracing effects was born.
As I'm sure many will remember, this version looked spectacular, and it practically became the remake that many had dreamed of seeing for a long time (which Nintendo finally decided not to do for the plumber's 35th anniversary).
one of many mods
Dario is quite good at hyper-realistic mods, and previously he had already made some interesting patches, like the one for Sonic Unleashed, as well as brought some tools to life like a Sonic Generations level editor, or various tools to create Dragon Ball Xenoverse mods.