Half-Life 2 RTX. A reason to return to City 17
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Ever since nVidia introduced its new graphics technology "ray tracing," which allows real-time calculation of lighting in three-dimensional scenes, several years have passed. During this time, this technology has not been frequently used in the creation of new games, possibly because there are still not enough RTX graphics card owners to cater to this audience.

It is possible that the shortage of graphics cards due to the mining boom has hindered the active growth of new graphics card owners.

I remind you that according to Steam statistics, only recently did the share of owners of any model of RTX card exceed 25%, with the most popular model being the GeForce RTX 3060 — 4.71%. This suggests that only now is the moment of growing interest among developers in paying more attention to ray tracing technology.

It can also be assumed that many developers consciously avoid ray tracing to not overload the system requirements of new games and to maintain high frame rate performance.

However, where there is room to unleash this technology is with modifications that transform the appearance of past games. This allows developers to practice using the new tool and attracts the attention of a consistently large audience of players — fans of hits from previous years.

Ray tracing has already been added to Quake, enhanced the look of Portal, and has been used for many other games.

This time, the initiative came from NVIDIA.

[Half-Life 2](/games?search=Half-Life 2) RTX — is an updated version of the iconic shooter with improved graphics and ray tracing.

[Half-Life 2](/games?search=Half-Life 2) RTX is being developed by Orbifold Studios, which comprises four leading modding teams. The remaster is being created using modern technologies, including the RTX Remix platform. This toolset enables the creation of remasters of classic games on DirectX 8 and 9. It utilizes automated methods for graphic enhancement and provides the ability to add ray tracing support and DLSS image scaling technology to the games.

In addition to new lighting, the developers notably updated the quality of textures. Gordon's suit, for instance, now contains 20 times more geometric details.

The release date of [Half-Life 2](/games?search=Half-Life 2) RTX is still unknown. The project is currently in the early stages of development.

Official project website: https://www.hl2rtx.com/