PAX Aus 2019 - Checking out the latest from Nvidia

One of the best parts about PAX Australia is that it is not just about the games, there are many hardware makes that take part in the show and showcase their latest and greatest. Nvidia has been attending PAX Australia now for a few years and last year was big for them, as they had just announced and released RTX enabled cards, or Ray Tracing, but now 12 months have passed, has this latest gaming innovation, been accepted by the gaming public.

Last year the showcase title for RTX was Metro Exodus, which allowed for players to see the world in entirely new ways, with their use of Ray Tracing and the Global Illumination aspect, other games that were being used to demo the tech were things like Battlefield V and a special Star Wars video, created by Industrial Light and Magic, or ILM. These presentations were spectacular and really showed off just what games could look like and they did a great job at that, but since then, developers have had the time to really get into the tech behind the scenes and now we have games like Control, which shipped in August, but uses RTX tech, to bring the world to life in new ways, but the game that they were using to show off just how powerful RTX is, Minecraft.

Yes, that blocky little game from Microsoft, which it’s very low-res visuals is a showcase for RTX and for a good reason, with the tech being enabled, it looks like a completely different game. The best way to show it off, is to watch the video below, as you won’t believe the difference that Ray Tracing being enabled shows off.

Now it is important to note that this is not a texture pack, this is the same Minecraft that you can download right now for your PC, though the RTX release might require a new download.

In addition to more games supporting the platform, more engines are now offering support, so more developers can use the tools to help make their games look better. Game engines like Unreal and Unity support it, so even one person studios can now throw Ray Tracing into their game, without the need to code thousands of lines of code, which will make games feel very different. The example that the presenters provided was that in the past, games would simulate when someone was in shadow, meaning that a different colour texture was basically applied to the lighting, to show that they were hidden, but now, with light working the way it needs to, if someone steps into shadow, they are hidden, much like it happens in the real world. This can make a game that was moderately scary before, seem downright foreboding as you can no longer see the things that go bump in the night as easily.

There are many games to come to that will be RTX enabled, with big names like Watch_Dogs Legion and Dying Light 2 and announced at PAX Australia, Call of Duty Modern Warfare will also support the tech, giving players a vastly different experience when playing with it enabled, see in action below.

RTX might have started slow, but the evolution of the tech in just 12 months has proven that it is going nowhere and that is a great thing as games are now going to look as we think they should and with a game like Minecraft showing just how amazing, even a basic style can look, we should see some amazing games from even the smallest of teams.