The Half-Life 2 RTX Remix Demo launched today but be prepared for another Remix project that can bring most GPUs to their ray-tracing knees. Valve has been celebrating the Half-Life franchise for the last couple of years with a free 25th-anniversary release of the first game with updates and fixes for modern PC systems, a documentary video with its developers detailing their experiences in making the historical game, and a number of online events. Let’s not forget the seemingly endless rumors along with bits of information about unfinished demos that manage to pop up regarding unreleased levels or a long-awaited 3rd game.
Valve has also been fueling the fire for fans of Half-Life 2 by releasing its episodes for free but formally announced in 2023 that a collaboration between the mod community, specifically Orbifold Studios, and NVIDIA was in the works to create a Half-Life 2 RTX Remix project. This latest remix project follows the very successful Quake II RTX (our review here) and Portal RTX projects but all of these have something in common, those with anything less than the most powerful GPUs will have a difficult time playing this game at 1440p, let alone 4K, at 60 FPS or higher. However, for those who can play it with max settings, there’s a pretty spectacular experience to be had.
Per Orbifold Studios:
“Experience the award-winning game that has captivated millions of players worldwide with its immersive story, thrilling combat, and mind-bending physics, fully overhauled with full ray tracing (also known as path tracing), new hand-crafted, physically based textures, enhanced high-poly models, and updated lighting, powered by NVIDIA DLSS 4 with Multi Frame Generation, all in stunning 4K.”
Recommended Settings
The good news is that NVIDIA has provided recommended settings to help users get the best experience in playing the demo. The demo is available to download from Steam here and the minimum recommended GPU is a GeForce RTX 3060 Ti.
User reviews on Steam are currently understandably mixed given the demanding nature of the demo. Odds are probable there will be optimization updates to help ease the pains of struggling graphics cards but much like other RTX remix projects this one too has been made to push the envelope with ray tracing effects and technology.
Known issues:
- Build size reads as 82.8 GB~, but is only 41.4 GB on disk
- Steam Hotkey for Screenshots (F12) will crash Half-Life 2 RTX. We recommend using NVIDIA app’s Alt+F1 screenshot feature, NVIDIA app’s Alt+F9 video recording feature, or OBS “Display Capture” to take screenshots and video.
- When Desktop Capture is active in NVIDIA app’s settings (Alt+Z –> settings cog –> Video capture) video recording can at times cease working in the Half-Life 2 RTX demo, requiring users to restart the demo. To prevent this, please disable Desktop Capture in NVIDIA app’s settings.
- Blood splatters from bullet impacts are unreplaced/low resolution.
- Father Grigori’s eyes occasionally face away from the player.
- Father Grigori occasionally will not throw the player the shotgun in d1_town_02. If this occurs, please reload a save from before exiting to the rooftop.
- When using certain performance overlays alongside DLSS Frame Generation, crashes can occur
- AR2 secondary fire and suit battery assets have temporary placeholders