NVIDIA has announced the full launch of its RTX Remix feature, a suite of powerful AI tools designed to help modders enhance classic games. The suite of tools uses the same neural rendering technology found in RTX 50-series GPUs. Perhaps the most notable use of RTX Remix so far is Half-Life 2 RTX. This is a version of the game that was essentially redone with RTX Remix to add tons of new graphical enhancements and features.
It boasts support for DLSS, Ray Tracing, remastered assets, and DLSS 4 with multi-frame generation. The tools that made this all possible are now generally available as RTX Remix has officially exited its beta phase. As NVIDIA points out in its official blog post, PC game modding is huge. There are over 5 billion mods that are downloaded annually. The modding community is a passionate bunch that spends countless hours creating mods for games both new and old.
And while new games get tons of love from modders, classic games have a chance to live again with RTX Remix. This modding platform has been used by thousands of modders since it was released in beta. So, it’s clear that there’s a desire for these tools to breathe new life into older titles. “Since its initial beta release, RTX Remix has been experimented with by over 30,000 modders, bringing ray-traced mods of hundreds of classic titles to over 1 million gamers,” NVIDIA says.
The launch of RTX Remix brings several AI-powered upgrades
For modders looking to enhance classic games, RTX Remix has a suite of tools to help upgrade the game’s visuals and overall experience. This includes tools like DLSS 4, RTX Neural Radiance Cache, and PBRFusion 3. PBRFusion 3 is a community-published AI Model that was created by RTX Remix modder NightRaven. What this tool does is upscale textures. It also “generates high-quality normal, roughness and height maps for physically-based materials.”
With the power of RTX Remix, older games can have their low-resolution textures upscaled. NVIDIA says that the upscaling can be as much as up to 4x what they were originally. So, classic games end up looking more modern and more visually appealing on newer, more powerful hardware.
Classic games look and play better than ever
There’s always going to be a place for classic games to stay the way they were originally released. For some, this is how they prefer to play these titles. That being said, there’s also a place for upgraded versions of these games. NVIDIA RTX Remix makes this possible.
Using PBRFusion 3, NVIDIA says modders can choose to build 4K physically-based rendering assets by hand. It’s also possible to speed up this process by using RTX Remix’s suite of AI tools. A big part of getting things done appears to be with the use of PBRFusion 3. NVIDIA says that once the mod is installed, modders can “select a number of textures from the RTX Remix Viewport” and then process things in the included ComfyUI.
According to NVIDIA, this enables smaller modding teams to remaster classic games “extensively.” This suggests that even hobbyist mod teams can take on big projects with much less effort.
