Group of modders has managed to implement full RayTracing in Quake 2 as a concept sample of this new technology.
One of the great classics in the history of videogames is Quake 2. This title was launched in 1997 and is back on track because they have managed to implement RayTracing. Using a mod you can run the game with light ray traces. Logically, for the mod to work, you need an NVIDIA GeForce RTX.
Quake 2 now with RayTracing
A group of modders have developed Q2VKPT, who have described it as the first playable game to include light ray tracing technology. They have managed to efficiently simulate dynamic lighting in real time within the game.
To date, only Battlefield V implemented shadow and reflection enhancements in a basic RayTracing implementation. Q2VKPT is the first time that a unified solution of all types of lighting has been implemented. So with direct, scattered and reflected light implemented in a game, we see what this new technology is capable of.
The developers of this marvel point out that this is intended to be a proof of concept for computer graphics researchers. It also aims to offer gaming enthusiasts a glimpse into the potential of future graphics. In addition to hardware-accelerated RayTracing, they wanted to highlight that they have achieved this through an efficient adaptive image filtering technique that intelligently tracks all changes in lights in a scene that seeks to reuse as much information as possible. This reduces the number of calculations, of course.
RayTracing has a lot of potential
It has only been possible thanks to Vulkan and the RT cores of an RTX 2080 Ti, which is the only one that comes close in a resolution of 2560 × 1440 pixels at 60 FPS. In this case, DLSS is not used, which improves efficiency and performance through AI. We can say that we observe a totally dynamic global illumination using RayTracing. All of this with Path Tracing, real-time shadows, bright reflections, and direct lighting reflections.
“It is a physical simulation of light that allows a highly realistic representation. Route tracing uses RayTracing to determine visibility between dispersal events. However, RayTracing is simply a primitive operation that can be used for many things. Therefore, RayTracing not only automatically produces realistic images. For this, light transport algorithms such as route tracing can be used. However, while elegant and very powerful, routing is very expensive and time consuming to produce stable images.
This project uses an intelligent adaptive filter that reuses as much information as possible in many frames and pixels to produce robust and stable images.
