Tag Archives: Quake II RTX

Vulkan Ray Tracing (Quake 2 RTX) On AMD Radeon RX 6800!

Take a look at the AMD Radeon RX 6800’s Vulkan Ray Tracing performance in Quake 2 RTX – the world’s first cross-vendor Vulkan Ray Tracing game!

 

Vulkan Ray Tracing : What Is It?

Vulkan is an open-source and cross-platform graphics API. It offers better performance to graphics APIs like OpenGL, DirectX and Metal.

In November 2020, The Khronos Group released the final Vulkan Ray Tracing extension specifications, followed by an upgraded Vulkan SDK with full Ray Tracing support on 15 December 2020.

This allows developers to easily integrate ray tracing into their games for any GPU that supports the “VK_KHR_ray_tracing_pipeline” extension.

 

Vulkan Ray Tracing (Quake 2 RTX) On AMD Radeon RX 6800!

On 15 December 2020, Quake 2 RTX was updated to support Vulkan Ray Tracing, becoming the world’s first game to support it!

With support for Vulkan Ray Tracing, not only can NVIDIA RTX cards run Quake 2 RTX, so can the new AMD Radeon 6000 series graphics cards!

So we thought – what the heck, let’s give the Radeon RX 6800 a spin, and see how well it does in Quake 2 RTX!

1080p Resolution

At the 1080p resolution, the Radeon RX 6800 was able to maintain an average frame rate of between 55-65 fps. Definitely the best resolution to play.

1440p Resolution

At the 1440p resolution, the Radeon RX 6800 was able to maintain an average frame rate of between 35-42 fps. Quite playable.

4K Resolution

At the 4K resolution, the Radeon RX 6800 was only able to deliver an average frame rate of between 15-18 fps. Real jerky!

 

Quake 2 RTX : Vulkan Ray Tracing Requirements

This is what you require :

  • Download and install Quake 2 RTX 1.4.0 or newer
  • AMD
    – Requires Radeon RX 6000 series, or future RDNA 2, cards.
    – Upgrade to Radeon Software Adrenalin 2020 Edition 20.11.2 Beta or newer
  • NVIDIA
    – Requires GeForce RTX / Quadro RTX graphics cards.
    – Upgrade to Game Ready Driver 460.89 (Windows) or 460.27.04 (Linux), or newer

 

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Quake 2 RTX Now Supports Vulkan Ray Tracing!

Quake 2 RTX now supports Vulkan Ray Tracing, which means it will also work on AMD graphics cards! Here are the details!

 

Quake 2 RTX : What Is It?

Initially released in June 2019, Quake II RTX revamps the classic first-person shooter game with ray-traced lighting, shadows and reflections.

In addition to the ray tracing effects, NVIDIA also introduced new path-traced visual effects, improved texturing and dozens of other changes and improvements.

 

Quake 2 RTX Now Supports Vulkan Ray Tracing!

Quake 2 RTX originally supported only NVIDIA RTX cards, but the newly-released version 1.4.0 adds support for the new Vulkan Ray Tracing API.

Quake 2 RTX 1.4.0 will dynamically between the pre-existing NVIDIA VKRay and the new Khronos Vulkan ray tracing extension, making it the world’s first cross-vendor ray tracing Vulkan game!

This means it can now run on any GPU that supports the “VK_KHR_ray_tracing_pipeline” extension, including the recently-launched AMD Radeon RX 6000 series graphics cards.

The Quake 2 RTX 1.4.0 also adds temporal upscaling, TAAU, for improved image quality at lower resolution scales.

 

Quake 2 RTX : Vulkan Ray Tracing Requirements

To try out its new Vulkan Ray Tracing capability, this is what you require :

  • Download and install Quake 2 RTX 1.4.0 or newer
  • AMD
    – Requires Radeon RX 6000 series, or future RDNA 2, cards.
    – Upgrade to Radeon Software Adrenalin 2020 Edition 20.11.2 Beta or newer
  • NVIDIA
    – Requires GeForce RTX / Quadro RTX graphics cards.
    – Upgrade to Game Ready Driver 460.89 (Windows) or 460.27.04 (Linux), or newer

 

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Quake II RTX : What NVIDIA Changed In New Version 1.2!

NVIDIA just released Quake II RTX version 1.2, which delivers greatly improved image quality and new graphics options over version 1.1.

In this article, we will share with you what they improved, as well as 13 image comparisons of Quake II RTX 1.2 versus Quake II RTX 1.1!

 

What Is Quake II RTX?

Quake II RTX is a FREE ray-traced remastering of the 1997 classic game – Quake II. It is fully ray-traced, and includes 3 levels of the original shareware distribution.

Quake II RTX builds on the work of Christoph Schied and the team at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, who added ray tracing to Quake II to create Q2VKPT (in turn building upon the Q2PRO code base).

NVIDIA introduced new path-traced visual effects, has improved texturing, and has made dozens of other changes and improvements, resulting in an experience that rivals games created today, and pushes your RTX hardware to the limit.

Recommended : How To Enable NVIDIA NULL For G-SYNC Monitors Correctly!

 

What’s Improved In Quake II RTX 1.2?

Quake II RTX version 1.2 sounds like a minor update to version 1.1, but it is actually a major update with a whole lot of graphics improvements, including :

  • Over 400 textures updated  to improve overall image quality in the game.
  • Water has improved, with the rendering of underwater god rays, and the display of god rays in reflections and refractions. This improves the realism and illumination of surrounding detail.
  • Real-time ray-traced graphics are shown on security monitors and other displays, improving scene detail and immersion.
  • Recursive reflections (reflections reflected on other reflections) are rendered on select surfaces, creating a hall of mirrors effect.
  • The rendering of glass has been improved, along with the rendering of reflections, refractions and god rays through glass. We’ve also introduced a new optional setting that further improves the quality of glass rendering.
  • Numerous changes and improvements to denoising and other rendering features, improving image quality in all levels, and greatly improving quality in certain scenes.

Recommended : Learn How To Add ReShade Filters To GeForce Experience!

NVIDIA also introduced new graphics options and toggles :

  • Resolution Scaling Options : there are now options to enable dynamic resolution scaling – the game will try to keep the target frame rate by adjusting the scale between minimum and maximum.
    By default, the option will try to keep your gameplay at 60 FPS by scaling between 50% and 100% resolution scaling. If your frame rate is faster than 60 FPS at 100%, it will not increase the scale further, so if you see you have a ton of extra performance, increase the “Maximum Scale”
  • Reflection and Refraction Depth : configure the number of allowed reflection or refraction bounces, which most prominently affects the recursive reflections demonstrated earlier
  • Temporal Anti-Aliasing : enable or disable our post-process anti-aliasing
  • Security Cameras : enable security camera monitors to display real-time gameplay, as shown earlier
  • Thick Glass Refraction : experimental option that renders more physically accurate representations of thick glass, with internal reflection and refraction

 

Quake II RTX 1.2 : How To Get It?

If you have Quake II RTX on Steam, it will automatically install the version 1.2 update.

If you have a standalone Windows or Linux installation, download the update here.

Recommended : NVIDIA Image Sharpening For DirectX, Vulkan + OpenGL

 

Quake II RTX 1.2 vs 1.1 Comparison

First and foremost, NVIDIA updated over 400 textures to improve image quality, and have improved the rendering of metals, which together significantly enhance the look of many levels and areas.

Water has been improved, with the rendering of underwater god rays, and the display of god rays in reflections and refractions, which can improve the realism and illumination of surrounding detail.

Real-time ray-traced graphics can now be shown on security monitors and other displays, improving scene detail and immersion.

Recursive reflections (reflections reflected in other reflections) are now rendered on select surfaces, creating a hall of mirrors effect.

The rendering of glass has been improved, along with the rendering of reflections, refractions and god rays through glass. NVIDIA also introduced a new optional Thick Glass setting that further improves the quality of glass rendering.

NVIDIA also made numerous changes and improvements to denoising and other rendering features, improving image quality in all levels, and greatly improving quality in certain scenes.

Here are additional screenshot comparisons of Quake II RTX version 1.2 vs 1.1.

 

Recommended Reading

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If you like our work, you can help support our work by visiting our sponsors, participating in the Tech ARP Forums, or even donating to our fund. Any help you can render is greatly appreciated!