Quickly you’ll be capable of don Gordon Freeman’s HEV swimsuit in full ray-traced glory, smashing your trusty crowbar into headcrabs with life like shadows and reflections, as Nvidia has simply introduced {that a} playable Half-Life 2 RTX demo will likely be accessible to obtain in March 2025. Not solely that, however for those who already personal Half-Life 2 (and type that out for those who don’t), the demo will likely be a free obtain.
The launch comes as Nvidia pronounces that RTX Remix is now formally out of open beta, with a number of recent neural rendering options on the platform. In keeping with Nvidia, you’ll get round two hours of gameplay within the new Half-Life 2 demo, which is not going to solely deliver ray tracing to the basic FPS, but in addition a number of recent options, together with RTX Pores and skin, neural radiance cache, and DLSS 4. I had an opportunity to play with a few of these Half-Life 2 RTX neural rendering options at CES, the place Nvidia was displaying off the sport, and I got here away actually impressed by them.
At a media briefing to announce the launch, Nvidia RTX challenge supervisor Nyle Usmani gave us some particulars on the brand new demo. In keeping with Usmani, it “comprises nearly all of Ravenholm, which persons are going to be very enthusiastic about. They’ve a whole lot of nostalgia for going by way of that very spooky locale.” That’s not the one map going into the demo, although.
“We even have a good portion of a a lot later map from the sport,” says Usmani, “which is the Nova Prospekt chapter, which at that time within the recreation you’ve got each weapon, so this can be a nice demo for attending to see how all of those weapons have been remade with stunning RTX results in thoughts.” Usmani added that “you get into a whole lot of frenetic firefights with Mix troopers and gigantic insect aliens, and it’s only a blast.”
Usmani says the demo will function full ray tracing, in addition to “a bunch of remade belongings that look beautiful.” As I discussed earlier, although, we’re not simply speaking about merely including ray tracing right here, but in addition some neat neural rendering options. Considered one of these is neural radiance cache, which makes use of AI to calculate gentle extra effectively to enhance body charges, whereas additionally making the lighting extra correct. I had a play with this tech at CES, and you’ll see on the paving picture above that the shadows are extra life like with neural radiance cache (on the fitting), with far more depth.
RTX Pores and skin can even be supported, which makes use of AI to course of the best way gentle bounces off surfaces equivalent to pores and skin, leading to life like translucency results. As you’ll be able to see within the picture under, the headcrab just isn’t solely realistically-lit, however it additionally glows pink the place the daylight shines by way of it, making the veins seen.
Usmani additionally steered that Half-Life 2 Episodes 1 and a couple of might get the RTX Remix therapy. “As of now their [Orbifold Studios] plan is to concentrate on finishing the unique recreation in full constancy… That mentioned, Episode 1 and a couple of share a big proportion of the identical belongings. ..Speculating right here… however I wouldn’t be shocked if some portion of them went on to finish the 10-20% of belongings left for Half-Life 2 Episodes 1 and a couple of.” Nevertheless, Usmani clarified that “as of now, the plan is simply to launch the unique recreation.”
Half-Life 2 RTX demo launch date
The Half-Life 2 RTX demo launch date is Tuesday, March 18, 2025, at 6am (PST).
For extra details about DLSS 4, take a look at our full RTX 5090 evaluation, the place we check out multi body gen and the brand new transformer mannequin for upscaling. If all this discuss of Half-Life 2 with ray tracing is making you desire a GPU improve, then be sure to additionally learn our full information to the perfect graphics card, the place we run you thru all our suggestions to swimsuit a variety of budgets,
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