The world’s most popular open-world sandbox title is about to get a whole lot prettier. NVIDIA has announced that Minecraft with RTX Beta for Windows 10 will be available on April 16, bringing fully path-traced rendering, physically-based materials, and DLSS 2.0 to Mojang’s hit game.
“The results of Minecraft with ray tracing are astounding – realistic hard and soft shadows are seen everywhere; global illumination realistically lights the world, with that light filling interiors through windows and gaps in the terrain; illuminated blocks and other light sources cast pixel-perfect lighting; reflections are seen on all reflective surfaces and blocks, with a level of fidelity far surpassing that of screen space reflections; light reflects, refracts and scatters through water, ice, stained glass, and other transparencies; and atmospheric effects occur naturally, resulting in high quality volumetric fog, and pixel-perfect god rays,” described NVIDIA.
Minecraft with RTX Beta will launch with six beautiful worlds for players to mess around in: Dr_Bond’s “Aquatic Adventure RTX,” Razzleberries’s “Of Temples and Totems RTX,” GeminiTay’s “Crystal Palace RTX,” BlockWorks’s “Imagination Island RTX,” PearlescentMoon’s “Color, Light and Shadow RTX,” and Elysium Fire’s “Neon District RTX.” There’s also an RTX Texture Showcase by Razzleberries, which serves to demonstrate every block, entity and biome that exists in Minecraft.
Ray tracing aside, Minecraft with RTX Beta also supports DLSS 2.0 for higher frame rates. According to NVIDIA, performance “instantly increases by up to 1.7x at 1920×1080, and by up to 3x at 4K.”