"Half-Life 2 RTX": Demo of the ray tracing mod now on Steam
A 20-year-old game that suddenly overwhelms the very best GPUs: The demo of "Half-Life 2 RTX" is now available on Steam.
(Image: Orbifold)
The modder team at Orbifold Studios has released a demo version of their raytracing remake of "Half-Life 2": "Half-Life 2 RTX" can be downloaded from Steam. The demo includes the levels Ravenholm and Nova Prospekt.
The developers behind the project are using Nividia's tools from the RTX remix kit to give the game, which is now over 20 years old, a new look. The game is completely rendered using ray tracing. Ray tracing is a rendering technique in which rays from the camera scan a virtual space. Compared to traditional raster rendering, ray tracing enables considerably more realistic lighting, reflections and shadows.
Even an outdated game like "Half-Life 2" looks dazzling, as videos of "Half-Life 2 RTX" prove. In addition to RTX functions, the modders have also recreated many assets to give the classic game a new look.
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Overstretched graphics cards
However, the performance costs are exorbitant: even for FullHD resolution, Nvidia recommends an RTX 4070 with activated DLSS functions. Ultimately, you won't get a particularly good gaming experience on such a GPU because DLSS upscaling at low resolutions and DLSS frame generation at low frame rates are flawed. If you want to play "Half-Life 2 RTX" at higher resolutions without too many DLSS compromises, you will inevitably need an RTX 4090/5080/5090 graphics card. AMD graphics cards are excluded anyway.
Videos by heise
It is therefore not necessarily surprising that the Steam ratings for "Half-Life 2 RTX" are mixed: Only 57 percent currently recommend the RTX mod. The consensus in the comments: "Half-Life 2 RTX" is pretty, but very difficult to play even with powerful hardware. Some users think it's more of a tech demo than a video game. The ratings are similar for "Portal with RTX", which was built using the same RTX remix toolset.
Owners of "Half-Life 2" can at least try out the RTX demo for free. The full version of the remake modification is due to be released later this year, but there is no exact date yet.
(dahe)
