Ray tracing may not work particularly well on modern AAA games due to the huge overhead of such a technology, but it's proved an effective method of beautifying classics. We've seen Quake II transformed with ray tracing, and Minecraft looks stunning with it in play too. Now Nvidia is hoping to bring the RTX technology to more classic games, making them look far more photo-realistic, even if their textures and models remain resolutely blocky.
Although not officially announced by Nvidia, DSOGaming discovered a job listing that suggests Nvidia is putting together a team to help developers remaster old games with RTX ray traced lighting.
Nvidia stated in the listing:
"We’re cherry-picking some of the greatest titles from the past decades and bringing them into the ray tracing age. Thus, we’ll be giving them state-of-the-art visuals while keeping the gameplay that made them great. The NVIDIA Lightspeed Studios team is picking up the challenge starting with a title that you know and love but we can’t talk about here."
What that first game being worked on is, is anyone's guess, but we'd put our money on Unreal or Unreal Tournament, both of which would look phenomenal with ray traced lighting. There's also the possibility of Doom 3, which looked great in its day and would do so again with some uprated lighting.
What would you like to see Nvidia help remaster with RTX-powered ray tracing?
