Quake II RTX is the new makeover of the old-school game Quake II that uses ray-tracing to enhance the game's graphic quality.
You can see the effect of ray-tracing technology on the game in the trailer below:
Quake II receive a ray-tracing makeover
Quake II is an old school first-person shooter video game. The developer id Software has worked with Activision to publish the game back in 1997.
At that time, many people have agreed that the game has decent graphical quality. But as time goes, the 4:3 resolution with pixel dot being easily visible was not highly appreciated by players anymore.
But this time, it is back and even prettier with the rework from Nvidia. LightSpeed Studios has introduced Quake II RTX, the complete remastered version of Quake II, but using ray tracing technology. And it even has a new gun, too.
Quake II RTX will use a technique called "path tracing" - a combination of ray tracing mechanics that were independently applied. Specifically, it will enhance the texturizing of shadows, reflections, and refraction, therefore enhance the game's image quality.
The RTX enhanced version of the game was previously built by Christoph Shied from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in March. Later, Nvidia picked up the so-called "Q2VKPT", and further optimize the RTX technique to bring the game to the audience today. The studio even added a new flare gun, which will somewhat help the players to further experience the game's goodness.
PC requirements
Other recent RTX games such as Battlefield V or Shadow of the Tomb Raider only chose certain ray traced effects to apply in the game. The reason behind is that using the whole package will be very computer-demanding. But Quake II RTX has chosen that difficult path.
As the game uses the whole package of ray-tracing effects, it will have "the highest workload of any ray-traced game released to date".
This means that even though Nvidia has added ray tracing support for their Turing and Pascal-based cards such as the GTX 1660, you won't be able to play the game on them.
The minimum requirements for the game will be a PC with at least an RTX 2060, Intel i3 3220, 8GB RAM, and at least 2GB of free disk space.
Yikes!
How to get the game?
If you've already owned the 1997 version, then congrats! You can get the full version of Quake II RTX for absolutely free.
But if you haven't got the game yet, don't worry. Steam provides the first three levels of the game for free, and you can unlock the full version with a one-time purchase of $4.99.
The game will be PC-exclusive through Steam, and players can head to its official Steam page to get more information.