Nvidia’s RTX 50-series GPUs are making quite a splash regarding the incredible capabilities of DLSS 4, all of the neural rendering techniques, and AI, which is now used to achieve some bonkers frame rates in PC games.
One of the more exciting things for me to reminisce about my gaming heyday has been seeing that RTX Remix is finally launching after a couple of years of teasing. This is an AI-driven modding platform that developers can use to overhaul the textures and lighting. They can even add DLSS and full ray/path tracing to their games.
The main demo we’ve seen over the past year has been Half-Life 2 RTX — a fantastic-looking upgrade to my favorite game of all time. But trailers are one thing. How well does it perform?
Well, to see what RTX Remix can do, the demo for Half-Life 2 RTX is now available on Steam (for free to owners of the original game), and I got to return to Ravenholm over the weekend.
And the result is pure nightmare fuel (in a good way). Let me explain.
Disclaimer: just scratching the surface
I played the Half-Life 2 RTX demo on my trusty Lenovo Legion Pro 7i Gen 8 with RTX 4070. Here are the settings I used:
- Resolution: 2560 x 1600 pixels
- DLSS 4: Transformer model (Auto)
- Rendering preset: Medium
- All enhanced assets enabled
- Full ray tracing and limited path tracing
For transparency — with these settings, I hit an average of 94 frames per second. I will be testing the game this week on an RTX 50-series gaming PC — to really see the full suite of DLSS 4 features like frame generation, full ray-tracing and RTX neural rendering techniques like RTX Skin in full effect.
But on the system I currently have, I definitely felt some kind of way coming out of this, and that “way” is a little nervous to go to sleep at night.
Remixing the horror
From the word “go,” I was immediately immersed — the minimal lighting volumetrically and atmospherically bringing the world of this terrifying town to life. The gameplay remains untouched, which is great for me as it still has one of the best physics engines to date (fight me on this one).
But the real star of the show in working my way through Ravenholm was how all of Nvidia’s new graphical tech comes together to really enhance the experience and amp up the scares.
DLSS 4 on the new transformer model improves frame rate and virtually eliminates any ghosting around fast-moving objects — really highlighting the remastered textures.
The Neural Radiance Cache brings a new sense of realism to direct and indirect lighting with full ray tracing. This tech uses AI neural networks to calculate all the beams of light from real-time game data, to figure out what should be lit up.
The end result for me is that those normally kinda scary zombies now form a terrifying silhouette in front of a burning car.
RTX Volumetrics combines with this by making calculations on realistic fog, particle and atmospheric effects. This brought a whole lot more moodiness to each scene and made the fast zombie jump scares all the more impactful.
And when you get up close in combat, RTX Skin takes center stage by making the enemies look all the more disgustingly biological. Ray-traced surfaces across the skin are calculated on a per-pixel basis and even offer subsurface scattering of lighting.
Put it all together (along with those performance bumps thanks to reducing texture sizes by 10% and RTX Remix Runtime giving an up to 15% uplift in FPS), and Orbifold Studios has done an incredible job faithfully remastering Half-Life 2. This is a new level of terror.
Outlook
I’ve always had one belief when it comes to gaming — graphics don’t make a game great. You can have the most basic-looking title that’s still addictive purely because of the stylism and gameplay.
But there’s no doubt about it that RTX Remix and the wealth of new technologies afforded to Half-Life 2 here breathes entirely new life into it, and brings one of my personal favorite games of all time even better.
The combination of updated textures, vastly upgraded lighting, volumetric fog and smoke makes Ravenholm so much more terrifying, and now I just want to see so many more games get the RTX Remix treatment.
Setting up a prayer circle for Bioshock as we speak…
More from Tom's Guide
- I played with Nvidia's AI NPC prototypes — now they're real, and I fear I'll never finish a game again
- 11 insider tips to make your games fun faster (without a new GPU)
- We tested Nvidia’s RTX 5090 desktop GPU — gaming performance gains are HUGE
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