Half-Life 2 RTX demo arrives March 18, RTX Remix modding suite leaves beta

[Daniel Sims]

Something to look forward to: Nvidia has spent years showcasing how its ray tracing technology can enhance classic games like Quake 2 and Portal. As development continues on a fan-made Half-Life 2 remaster, the company has released a free demo along with its ray-traced modding toolkit to highlight DLSS 4 and other new features.

Nvidia's complete RTX Remix modding suite is now available through the Nvidia app and website. To demonstrate the technology, a free demo of the upcoming fully path-traced version of Half-Life 2 will launch on March 18.

Nvidia's RTX Remix allows modders to add ray tracing, DLSS, new art assets, and other advanced features to PC games that utilize DirectX 8 and 9. The GPU giant previously used the toolset to create an ambitious remaster of Portal. Meanwhile, independent tinkerers have used early versions of the company's code on early 2000s classics like Max Payne, Dark Messiah: Might and Magic, SWAT 4, and Need for Speed Underground 2.

A drag-and-drop interface makes it easy for users to add physical properties to old textures so they respond to new ray-traced lighting correctly. Modders can also create new textures or use machine learning to upscale the originals. The tool replaces a game's original renderer with Vulkan to facilitate the insertion of new assets in real-time.

The full release adds new features to simplify modding and showcase Nvidia's latest neural rendering techniques. The transformer ray reconstruction model for DLSS 4 and multi-frame generation are key highlights, but the Half-Life 2 RTX demo will also introduce additional tools.

Previous versions of RTX Remix enabled replacing textures and lights, but modders can now swap upgraded character models and quickly match them to their original animations. For example, characters in Half-Life 2 RTX will feature 30 times as many polygons as the original.

A new tool called RTX Skin combines ray tracing and subsurface scattering, allowing ray-traced light to penetrate semi-transparent materials like skin, wax, marble, or jade. Neural Radiance Cache trains a neural network on gameplay content to enhance indirect lighting detail while improving performance by up to 15 percent. The new RTX IO feature dynamically manages texture settings to maintain maximum texture detail without exceeding the GPU's VRAM limit. Additionally, RTX volumetrics uses ray tracing to enhance fog and god rays more efficiently than traditional rasterization.

Clearly, Nvidia has packed a lot of power into this toolkit. The Half-Life 2 RTX demo should thoroughly showcase RTX Remix's abilities in the Ravenholm and Nova Prospect chapters. The completed HL2 conversion still needs work and has no launch date yet. However, it will be free to Half-Life 2 owners upon its eventual release.

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Half-Life 2 RTX demo arrives March 18, RTX Remix modding suite leaves beta

 

[NumberNine]

For those wanting to see their high end gaming PC struggle with software old enough to legally drink, this will get you there.

 

[bviktor]

Make this full both for HL1 and 2, please.

 

[opckieran]

It’d be nice to see something like this from AMD.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

It’d be nice to see something like this from AMD.

-The RTX'd titles aren't exclusive to Nvidia. They'll run "better" on NV hardware, but I don't believe there is anything there that prevents AMD from launching as well.

In all likelihood however, only the 9070xt will really have any chance in hell of running these titles with acceptable framerates with a good upscaler.

This is an admittedly very cool piece of technology, a lot of older games look fine except for their very dated lighting models, so this can potentially make for some really nice remasters of some golden oldies.

 

[airbornex]

Gabe Newell watching this from his castle of uncounted Steam sales revenue: “Ah yes, another way to re-release Half-Life 2 without making Half-Life 3. Excellent work, modders.”

 

[Megalomaniac]

Half Life 2 was such a good game that I really don't think adding ray tracing is going to make it significantly better. I played through Quake 2 RTX and found that Ray Tracing, even on my 3090, made the game feel horribly laggy. Multiplayer was terrible compared to what I remember just playing on Open GL.

 

[Megalomaniac]

If you really want to impress me, make it so RTX can handle walking in front of a mirror without crashing the computer.

 

[RudyBob]

I'm playing the all black mod. Next up is the all white mod. I play Doom with the screen off too. No more reruns let's move along.

 

[amghwk]

Sigh...the "RTX" nonsense still lives on....

(This is coming from someone who has the "RTX" to handle this game.)

[PS - I didn't buy it for the RTX, but since it's the fastest card that can keep up minimum 60fps at 4K in the games that I like to play.]

You want RTX? Just walk in a dark alley with flickering lights. It's much much better than punishing your whole PC.

 

[loki1944]

Raytracing; the new, equally fake looking, bloom fad equivalen of the 00s in the 2020s.

 

[Milkyjoe]

Half Life 2 was such a good game that I really don't think adding ray tracing is going to make it significantly better. I played through Quake 2 RTX and found that Ray Tracing, even on my 3090, made the game feel horribly laggy. Multiplayer was terrible compared to what I remember just playing on Open GL.

I got it running acceptable level with FSR and a 3070 monitor@1440p

 

[yRaz]

Half Life 2 was such a good game that I really don't think adding ray tracing is going to make it significantly better. I played through Quake 2 RTX and found that Ray Tracing, even on my 3090, made the game feel horribly laggy. Multiplayer was terrible compared to what I remember just playing on Open GL.

HL2 wasn't that good of a game. It had ground breaking mechanics and graphics FOR THE TIME. The story was moderately interesting at best. What really had peoples minds blown was how smooth the source engine was compared to other graphics engines. If only something like that could happen today.....

 

[FaTaL]

Its still a 20 year old game... just make HL3 already jesuschrist

 

[kiwigraeme]

Raytracing; the new, equally fake looking, bloom fad equivalen of the 00s in the 2020s.

I wouldn't call it fake per se , doubt is close to true full RTX, but it will do.

Would have expected comments already that the games directors lighting intent IS NOT preserved

ie dark halls vs lit up like a coke fiends eyes

 

[ZedRM]

As long as this can be applied to the original disc versions of the game, I'd be interested. If it's only for the Steam store version, no thank you.

 

[MakeMSGreatAgain]

Would have expected comments already that the games directors lighting intent IS NOT preserved

ie dark halls vs lit up like a coke fiends eyes

Yeah that was one of the reasons I didn't care for RTX modded Quake. Yes it is technically very cool and amazing the old game is still getting love, but it does completely change the lighting and how the areas feel. The lighting in the original is as intended, to change it is being unfaithful to the original design.

 

[Thrackerzod]

As long as this can be applied to the original disc versions of the game, I'd be interested. If it's only for the Steam store version, no thank you.

How long has it been since games came on discs? I haven't bought a game on CD in over 20 years. Do you just not play new games? Plus you realize that if you own the retail disc version you also own the Steam version right? Just enter your CD key. I don't understand the dilemma.

 

[ZedRM]

How long has it been since games came on discs? I haven't bought a game on CD in over 20 years. Do you just not play new games? Plus you realize that if you own the retail disc version you also own the Steam version right? Just enter your CD key. I don't understand the dilemma.

HL2 came out on disc before Steam was ever a thing. So what do you think you've missed?

 

[Megalomaniac]

HL2 wasn't that good of a game. It had ground breaking mechanics and graphics FOR THE TIME. The story was moderately interesting at best. What really had peoples minds blown was how smooth the source engine was compared to other graphics engines. If only something like that could happen today.....

I completely disagree with you on that.
Half Life and Half Life 2 were both excellent games by any measure.
They were linear, yes, but the level design, storytelling, soundtrack, sound effects and overall fun factor made them good games - so much so that we're still talking about them in 2025.

 

[yRaz]

I completely disagree with you on that.
Half Life and Half Life 2 were both excellent games by any measure.
They were linear, yes, but the level design, storytelling, soundtrack, sound effects and overall fun factor made them good games - so much so that we're still talking about them in 2025.

I think the main reason that we're talking about them in 2025 is that so many games made in the last ~5 years are garbage that these are quality by comparison. It represent and era of freedom and innovation that so many of use miss. A magical era of computing where there was always something exciting right around the corner.

So I'd argue that by today's standards, the half-life series is innovative, but only because today games are filled with monetization and political agendas. So few games today are actually about having fun and respect the players time. The half-life series did respect the players time and I think that's what people miss about it, not the actual game or story. I think very few people will actually play the entire RTX version of this game. They'll play the first few levels, enjoy the updated graphics and walk away with an over-all positive experience without ever completing the game.

 

[Watzupken]

The game was fun without RT, so I am not sure how adding RT will change anything. Sure it looks visually better, but I am playing a game and I prefer higher FPS over picture perfect graphics. This is exactly the reason why AAA games are 95% terrible nowadays. They may look better (not always the case) but runs terribly and introduces nothing fun or engaging.

 

[yannus]

The worst selling point in the video was "more details", showing just a sharpened image. My question is, are we supposed to be impressed by that demo ? In the first image the two pipes on the left don't even cast shadows!

 

[IksPiks]

Sigh...the "RTX" nonsense still lives on....

(This is coming from someone who has the "RTX" to handle this game.)

[PS - I didn't buy it for the RTX, but since it's the fastest card that can keep up minimum 60fps at 4K in the games that I like to play.]

You want RTX? Just walk in a dark alley with flickering lights. It's much much better than punishing your whole PC.

Nothing like good old grumpy common-sense... (cracked me up pretty good too)
I salute you, comrade !

 

[IksPiks]

It's best to let the people who can't see the way forward to toil in their ignorance without input from the rest of us.

Every innovation is not THE way forward. Remember "3D" ? Also VR... not that popular.
Sometimes they want to push something on you, claiming it's worth heaps of your hard earned money...
Try thinking by yourself, buddy, instead of labeling people "ignorant".