A new one-hour Half-Life 2 RTX gameplay video shows off the current state of the Orbifold Studios/NVIDIA RTX remix project. It’s been a year since the Half-Life 2 RTX remix project was first announced and the original game is now approaching its 20th anniversary so what better time to release a video updating its progress? From full path ray tracing, DLSS 3.5, 8x pixels of the original, new textures, models, and more, there’s plenty to be excited about for the modern remaster. The game is still a work in progress involving over 100 artists at Orbifold Studios who are working with NVIDIA to update the classic action RPG.
The gameplay video begins with close-ups of some of the new hi-res textures and full path ray tracing lighting and shadows. After a bit, fans get a glimpse of the reworked gun models including the revolver, shotgun, and AR2 pulse rifle. Updated textures are not limited to environmental settings but also include Combine soldiers, monsters, and more. No release date for the RTX remix project has been made yet, but it will launch on Steam similarly to how Portal RTX did.
Nova Prospekt Trailer
NVIDIA has also released a short side-by-side comparison video showcasing how Nova Prospekt has been rebuilt for the remix project. Additionally, an assortment of updated hi-res models are now available on an NVIDIA post celebrating over 600 games featuring RTX along with 20 new games, including Half-Life 2 RTX. Below is just a small sample of the newly released model images which can be found here.
Per NVIDIA:
- “Using NVIDIA RTX Remix, Orbifold Studios are rebuilding materials with PBR properties, adding extra geometric detail via Valve’s Hammer editor, and leveraging NVIDIA technologies, including full ray tracing, DLSS 3.5 with Ray Reconstruction, Reflex, and RTX IO to deliver a fantastic experience for GeForce RTX gamers.”
- “Orbifold Studios’ new trailer also reveals their remasters of Gordon’s revolver, shotgun and Overwatch Standard Issue Pulse Rifle, along with remasters of the Combine soldiers, and the Antlions. Players familiar with the Nova Prospekt can also see the addition of new geometry and detail, leveraging the capabilities of modern PCs to increase realism and enable interplay with the fully ray-traced lighting, shadows and effects.”
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Discussion (12 replies)
Join Discussion →Portal RTX looks super nice as well. I have a Radeon 7800xt, and I can run it at medium ray tracing, but it looks super sweet--especially the cube.
Let's not forget about Quake II RTX. I was actually playing it a little bit about two weeks ago.
Someone, please, pretty please, give JK Outcast/Jedi Academy the RTX remix treatment.
Looks really nice, like a new game.
When did Jacob from evga start working for nvidia? Interesting.....
At any rate, this seems like a first class re-do. Cant wait .
Why would you bother putting ray tracing on 20-30 year old games? Again, its like putting brand new fake tits on a 90 year old woman. New tits might look ok and all but she's still wearing depends and putting her teeth in a jar every night. What's the point? Part of the game looks new, the rest looks like it belongs in a museum. You can't fix 20-30 year old textures and primitive low poly models with ray tracing.
I just don't get the excitement for this kind of thing.
I'm guessing that their age is what makes it an option to do so, the games run on a potato so you have all the extra power for the RT stuff.
Now I did only watch a small porttion of the video, but they did add new higher res textures to the game and remade the weapon models, not sure about anything else, but it seems a worthwile effort, might make me go back to the game like I did with Quake 2
I had an absolute blast going through Quake 2 RTX, and it was really interesting to see the path-traced light physics and play around with them. It was also interesting just to see how different the game looks from the original version. It was a nice change of pace. An interesting and fascinating technology demonstration and programming exercise. I also went through Portal RTX (which was real rough for me, I had to use DLSS Performance mode on a 1440p monitor just to get a playable framerate!), and that was actually less impressive to me. I was very "meh" on it.
I've been planning on doing yet another playthrough of HL2 for some time now. I've been through various versions of the game, with the last run being done with HL2: Update. When I found out last year that there was gonna be a HL2 RTX, I decided to wait for that. So yeah when this drops, I will definitely be going through it. It will be interesting to see the change in atmosphere and ambience for the environments. This is what has been the most interesting thing so far about the Doom 2 path-tracing mod.
"Slag-King, post: 88681, member: 5436" wrote:Portal RTX looks super nice as well.
I wasn't as impressed with that one.
"Peter_Brosdahl, post: 88685, member: 87" wrote:Let's not forget about Quake II RTX. I was actually playing it a little bit about two weeks ago.
This was my very first experience with path-tracing, all thanks to you hooking me up with that RTX 3090! Still really appreciate it man!
Yeah I went all the way through Quake 2 with the RTX version, and then not long after that, Nightdive dropped the Quake 2 remaster. I wasn't in the mood to mess around with Quake 2 again any dang time soon. So who the f*ck knows when I'll get around to messing with it.
"Dan_D, post: 88713, member: 6" wrote:Why would you bother putting ray tracing on 20-30 year old games?
As a programming experiment and technology demonstration. The simple geometry of Quake 2 (by today's standards) allowed it to become the first game rendered entirely via path-tracing, with an acceptable, playable framerate. It helped carve the way for both Vulkan ray-tracing and DXR, and helped nVidia develop their ray-tracing libraries. It was good programming practice for those involved to get their feet with with ray-tracing/path-tracing and the relevant APIs.
"Dan_D, post: 88713, member: 6" wrote:Again, its like putting brand new fake tits on a 90 year old woman. New tits might look ok and all but she's still wearing depends and putting her teeth in a jar every night.
As horrible as the mental image is, your analogy still cracks me up!
"Dan_D, post: 88713, member: 6" wrote:You can't fix 20-30 year old textures and primitive low poly models with ray tracing.
Nope, nor is that the point. The light physics are the focus. And you'd be surprised by how much of a difference a change in lighting and light behavior can make in a game.
"Denpepe, post: 88714, member: 284" wrote:I'm guessing that their age is what makes it an option to do so, the games run on a potato so you have all the extra power for the RT stuff.
Exactly.
"Dan_D, post: 88713, member: 6" wrote:Why would you bother putting ray tracing on 20-30 year old games? Again, its like putting brand new fake tits on a 90 year old woman. New tits might look ok and all but she's still wearing depends and putting her teeth in a jar every night. What's the point? Part of the game looks new, the rest looks like it belongs in a museum. You can't fix 20-30 year old textures and primitive low poly models with ray tracing.
I just don't get the excitement for this kind of thing.
My god, what's your thing with 90yo tits? :oops: :rolleyes: :p
"Dan_D, post: 88713, member: 6" wrote:What's the point? Part of the game looks new, the rest looks like it belongs in a museum. You can't fix 20-30 year old textures and primitive low poly models with ray tracing.
I just don't get the excitement for this kind of thing.
Actually, with RTX Remix you can put higher res textures and models.
"Stoly, post: 88746, member: 1474" wrote:My god, what's your thing with 90yo tits? :oops: :rolleyes: :p
Only analogy I can think of that fits this kind of stuff. I'd call it turd polishing but these games weren't turds. They are just primitive graphically and sometimes from a gameplay perspective.
"Dan_D, post: 88749, member: 6" wrote:Only analogy I can think of that fits this kind of stuff. I'd call it turd polishing but these games weren't turds. They are just primitive graphically and sometimes from a gameplay perspective.
BTW I'm not sure I agree with the analogy.
RTXRemix is a lot more than just adding fancy RT effects, as I mentioned, you can modify/add models, textures, add particle effects and even animations. You can even add DLSS and Reflex. It's the ultimate MOD tool. Even better, I think it just got open source, so surely more/better features and improved AMD compatibility is on the horizon.
So to go with your analogy it would not just be new tits, its new @ss, botox, lip fillers, drastic surgery, lipo, flattened stomach, eyelids, chemical peel, hair transplant and vag rejuvenation plus lots of makeup. So yes its still the old 90yo, but do you really care? :p :p :D
"Stoly, post: 88773, member: 1474" wrote:BTW I'm not sure I agree with the analogy.
RTXRemix is a lot more than just adding fancy RT effects, as I mentioned, you can modify/add models, textures, add particle effects and even animations. You can even add DLSS and Reflex. It's the ultimate MOD tool. Even better, I think it just got open source, so surely more/better features and improved AMD compatibility is on the horizon.
So to go with your analogy it would not just be new tits, its new @ss, botox, lip fillers, drastic surgery, lipo, flattened stomach, eyelids, chemical peel, hair transplant and vag rejuvenation plus lots of makeup. So yes its still the old 90yo, but do you really care? :p :p :D
In this case maybe. But with Quake / Quake II RTX, the game is largely unchanged. They just added ray tracing and that's it. Half-Life 2 RTX looks quite a bit better as a result of larger changes.
Discussion (12 replies)
Join Discussion →Portal RTX looks super nice as well. I have a Radeon 7800xt, and I can run it at medium ray tracing, but it looks super sweet--especially the cube.
Let's not forget about Quake II RTX. I was actually playing it a little bit about two weeks ago.
Someone, please, pretty please, give JK Outcast/Jedi Academy the RTX remix treatment.
Looks really nice, like a new game.
When did Jacob from evga start working for nvidia? Interesting.....
At any rate, this seems like a first class re-do. Cant wait .
Why would you bother putting ray tracing on 20-30 year old games? Again, its like putting brand new fake tits on a 90 year old woman. New tits might look ok and all but she's still wearing depends and putting her teeth in a jar every night. What's the point? Part of the game looks new, the rest looks like it belongs in a museum. You can't fix 20-30 year old textures and primitive low poly models with ray tracing.
I just don't get the excitement for this kind of thing.
I'm guessing that their age is what makes it an option to do so, the games run on a potato so you have all the extra power for the RT stuff.
Now I did only watch a small porttion of the video, but they did add new higher res textures to the game and remade the weapon models, not sure about anything else, but it seems a worthwile effort, might make me go back to the game like I did with Quake 2
I had an absolute blast going through Quake 2 RTX, and it was really interesting to see the path-traced light physics and play around with them. It was also interesting just to see how different the game looks from the original version. It was a nice change of pace. An interesting and fascinating technology demonstration and programming exercise. I also went through Portal RTX (which was real rough for me, I had to use DLSS Performance mode on a 1440p monitor just to get a playable framerate!), and that was actually less impressive to me. I was very "meh" on it.
I've been planning on doing yet another playthrough of HL2 for some time now. I've been through various versions of the game, with the last run being done with HL2: Update. When I found out last year that there was gonna be a HL2 RTX, I decided to wait for that. So yeah when this drops, I will definitely be going through it. It will be interesting to see the change in atmosphere and ambience for the environments. This is what has been the most interesting thing so far about the Doom 2 path-tracing mod.
I wasn't as impressed with that one.
This was my very first experience with path-tracing, all thanks to you hooking me up with that RTX 3090! Still really appreciate it man!
Yeah I went all the way through Quake 2 with the RTX version, and then not long after that, Nightdive dropped the Quake 2 remaster. I wasn't in the mood to mess around with Quake 2 again any dang time soon. So who the f*ck knows when I'll get around to messing with it.
As a programming experiment and technology demonstration. The simple geometry of Quake 2 (by today's standards) allowed it to become the first game rendered entirely via path-tracing, with an acceptable, playable framerate. It helped carve the way for both Vulkan ray-tracing and DXR, and helped nVidia develop their ray-tracing libraries. It was good programming practice for those involved to get their feet with with ray-tracing/path-tracing and the relevant APIs.
As horrible as the mental image is, your analogy still cracks me up!
Nope, nor is that the point. The light physics are the focus. And you'd be surprised by how much of a difference a change in lighting and light behavior can make in a game.
Exactly.
My god, what's your thing with 90yo tits? :oops: :rolleyes: :p
Actually, with RTX Remix you can put higher res textures and models.
Only analogy I can think of that fits this kind of stuff. I'd call it turd polishing but these games weren't turds. They are just primitive graphically and sometimes from a gameplay perspective.
BTW I'm not sure I agree with the analogy.
RTXRemix is a lot more than just adding fancy RT effects, as I mentioned, you can modify/add models, textures, add particle effects and even animations. You can even add DLSS and Reflex. It's the ultimate MOD tool. Even better, I think it just got open source, so surely more/better features and improved AMD compatibility is on the horizon.
So to go with your analogy it would not just be new tits, its new @ss, botox, lip fillers, drastic surgery, lipo, flattened stomach, eyelids, chemical peel, hair transplant and vag rejuvenation plus lots of makeup. So yes its still the old 90yo, but do you really care? :p :p :D
In this case maybe. But with Quake / Quake II RTX, the game is largely unchanged. They just added ray tracing and that's it. Half-Life 2 RTX looks quite a bit better as a result of larger changes.