Quake II: RTX Edition

[Djuntas]

Kinda feelt like playing Quake 2 lately...Can you play it online easily, and do you haft to buy the game legally as well for that?

The RTX stuff is fun through, cool project.

[endersblade]

Does it work on AMD yet?

It blows my mind that people still use AMD hardware.

And the fact you are asking this question about an Nvidia exclusive explains everything.

[Guardian Bob]

It blows my mind that people still use AMD hardware.

And the fact you are asking this question about an Nvidia exclusive explains everything.

Back in my day, you didn't need a graphics card to play Quake 2. But the project to add Ray-Tracing wasn't originally from Nvidia so that's why I'm wondering why it's exclusive to Nvidia. If it uses DXR and other open standards then why lock out AMD? Not a great practice for PC gamers.

[Kumorii]

It's so fun playing this game again. It feels way more real than any poly count or texture size could do. Lighting is so important and seeing the raytracing in game makes me giddy.

[dadev]

Back in my day, you didn't need a graphics card to play Quake 2. But the project to add Ray-Tracing wasn't originally from Nvidia so that's why I'm wondering why it's exclusive to Nvidia. If it uses DXR and other open standards then why lock out AMD? Not a great practice for PC gamers.

There were two quake 2 path tracing projects. One was general purpose and was done on OpenGL while doing the ray tracing in software. The other was done with Vulkan and was using NVIDIA's extension for doing ray tracing. Besides that, the latter was using a sophisticated denoiser, while the former didn't have any real denoising (iirc).
To use DXR it has to be DX12, but neither ports are using DX12.

So the latter was exclusive to NVIDIA to begin with (and it was the one that was used as the basis for the final thing). Though as all things in Vulkan, this was AMD's choice to not implement the extension. They're not obligated to as well, it's NVIDIA proposed extension, nobody is obligated to implement it.
So it's not that AMD was locked out, AMD chose to not support it. Why? Simple, they don't want to show how much faster ray tracing hardware is than doing it in software. They have literally nothing to gain from it, and only to lose.
Not the first time a company does business decision which hampers technology in order to prevent damage to their business. In fact, during the last years AMD are notorious for this behavior (on the GPU side).

[PelinalWhitestrake]

The best thing about Q2RTX and its models and textures is that you can use them on Q2XP(Fuk berserkerq2), like the flaregun replacing Zaero Mission Pack Flaregun

[Guardian Bob]

There were two quake 2 path tracing projects. One was general purpose and was done on OpenGL while doing the ray tracing in software. The other was done with Vulkan and was using NVIDIA's extension for doing ray tracing. Besides that, the latter was using a sophisticated denoiser, while the former didn't have any real denoising (iirc).
To use DXR it has to be DX12, but neither ports are using DX12.

So the latter was exclusive to NVIDIA to begin with (and it was the one that was used as the basis for the final thing). Though as all things in Vulkan, this was AMD's choice to not implement the extension. They're not obligated to as well, it's NVIDIA proposed extension, nobody is obligated to implement it.
So it's not that AMD was locked out, AMD chose to not support it. Why? Simple, they don't want to show how much faster ray tracing hardware is than doing it in software. They have literally nothing to gain from it, and only to lose.
Not the first time a company does business decision which hampers technology in order to prevent damage to their business. In fact, during the last years AMD are notorious for this behavior (on the GPU side).

That sounds like Nvidia is breaking off from the Vulkan standard and expects everyone to use it. Isn't that the reason why OpenGL is such a mess today?

[dadev]

That sounds like Nvidia is breaking off from the Vulkan standard and expects everyone to use it. Isn't that the reason why OpenGL is such a mess today?

No, this is the spirit of Vulkan standard. Every vendor is encouraged to introduce extensions, so that other vendors will adapt them, and the best ones will make it into the core spec.

OpenGL was a mess because the board could not agree on what should be in the core spec, so it progressed so slowly that nobody wanted to touch it. So far, Vulkan has a similar issue because of mobile vendors who strongly object to almost any PC related feature. I think Khronos still has a year or two to fix its ways, otherwise Vulkan will be just like OpenGL.

[PelinalWhitestrake]

There were two quake 2 path tracing projects. One was general purpose and was done on OpenGL while doing the ray tracing in software. The other was done with Vulkan and was using NVIDIA's extension for doing ray tracing. Besides that, the latter was using a sophisticated denoiser, while the former didn't have any real denoising (iirc).
To use DXR it has to be DX12, but neither ports are using DX12.

So the latter was exclusive to NVIDIA to begin with (and it was the one that was used as the basis for the final thing). Though as all things in Vulkan, this was AMD's choice to not implement the extension. They're not obligated to as well, it's NVIDIA proposed extension, nobody is obligated to implement it.
So it's not that AMD was locked out, AMD chose to not support it. Why? Simple, they don't want to show how much faster ray tracing hardware is than doing it in software. They have literally nothing to gain from it, and only to lose.
Not the first time a company does business decision which hampers technology in order to prevent damage to their business. In fact, during the last years AMD are notorious for this behavior (on the GPU side).

If you look at the Source code is another history, Vulkan works but as per yesterday's AMA, Q2RTX is Simply an Techdemo whit no future updates.

[dadev]

If you look at the Source code is another history, Vulkan works but as per yesterday's AMA, Q2RTX is Simply an Techdemo whit no future updates.

Why it's a different story and what does this source code has to do with AMD?
Furthermore, it seems there's actually going to be an update: https://github.com/NVIDIA/Q2RTX/comm...9ca2c5b2083c92

[PelinalWhitestrake]

Why it's a different story and what does this source code has to do with AMD?
Furthermore, it seems there's actually going to be an update: https://github.com/NVIDIA/Q2RTX/comm...9ca2c5b2083c92

They dont know that you can upscale the monster and player skin models ingame with AI Enhancement since High Res uses TGA format

one guy posted it there and the results are neat
https://github.com/NVIDIA/Q2RTX/issues/8

[dadev]

They dont know that you can upscale the monster and player skin models ingame with AI Enhancement since High Res uses TGA format

one guy posted it there and the results are neat
https://github.com/NVIDIA/Q2RTX/issues/8

According to the answer in your link they did try upscaling textures, but manual artist work proved to be superior. Besides that they needed more channels for PBR which were not in the original game.

However, if you're modding the game already, can you use your own model or texture pack over what there is in the RTX mod?

[PelinalWhitestrake]

According to the answer in your link they did try upscaling textures, but manual artist work proved to be superior. Besides that they needed more channels for PBR which were not in the original game.

However, if you're modding the game already, can you use your own model or texture pack over what there is in the RTX mod?

You can, its always pak files, but the game will ALWAYS prioritize external files instead of Pak.

same goes to Quake 3