Blocky builders all over the world are experiencing major changes.
Even though the highly sought-after Super Duper Graphics Pack for Minecraft was cancelled but there's a new official update to the blocky building game. Feah While graphical enhancements are among the top Minecraft mods wouldn't it be nice if the game was designed to look more professional? Well, that's what Minecraft RTX can do.
Minecraft RTX is an official Nvidia-developed patch for Minecraft adding real-time DXR Raytracing to the Windows 10 version of the game. Nvidia describes the whole game as "refit" by using path tracing. This dramatically alters the ways light, reflections and shadows interact in the game engine. Given how malleable Minecraft's procedurally generated sandboxes are and how flexible they are, it's the perfect place to experiment with the technology.
If you aren't worried about fancy lighting, Minecraft is still one of the top laptop games for playing on low-spec machines.
Here's everything you should know about Minecraft RTX.
Minecraft RTX is out now
Minecraft with RTX is now out of beta as of the 8th of December, 2020. If you own a GeForce RTX graphics card you can give the RTX-enabled Minecraft a go yourself.
Here are the Minecraft requirements for the RTX system.
OS: Windows 10 64 bit GPU: DirectX hardware ray tracing-capable GPUs such as NVIDIA GeForce(r), RTX 20 Series or higher and AMD Radeon (tm) RX 6000 series and higher
CPU: Intel Core i5 (or equivalent)
RAM: >8 GB of RAM
Minecraft version: 1.16.200 or higher
How does ray tracing affect Minecraft?
We played Minecraft RTX at PAX Australia in October, and it was so great it wanted us to go to the grave and be reincarnated inside Minecraft. Read our impressions.
Every aspect of Minecraft's appearance is affected by Nvidia's implementation of ray tracing. Lighting is the most significant upgrade. By taking advantage of real time global illumination the direction and the brightness of the sun will affect every surface and shadow. In a game like Minecraft where the world's landscape can shift dramatically in a single moment, it's an impressive improvement.
The same principle applies to emissive block, like glowstones and lava, as well as some new emissive blocks that will come bundled with the Minecraft RTX update.
Real-time reflections will also be added in the RTX update, meaning that all reflective surfaces including water and glass, will reflect precisely the environments surrounding them. The combination of real-time global illumination and real-time reflections creates a phenomenon known as specular reflectivity which means that light of any colour is visible on reflective surfaces around them, even opaque ones.
The image below provides an excellent illustration of this: notice how the emissive, colored disco blocks are affecting colors reflecting off the reflective surfaces that are adjacent to them. It's beautiful, ain't it?
But don't take my word for it, you must to see it in action.
Watch the official Minecraft RTX gameplay video (opens in a new tab)
The video above was released in concert with the official Minecraft RTX announcement back in August of this year. As you'll see, the video gives a compelling reason to be excited about this update that includes footage of before and after showing off real-time global illumination, and how the implementation will really make those glowstone emissive blocks sound.
A month later, Nvidia released yet another video (opens in new tab) showing off Minecraft RTX-this time with the addition of its own custom blocks. Most of these are emissive blocks or else reflective and will be available with the Minecraft RTX update.
How much will Minecraft RTX cost?
The Minecraft RTX update will be free-of-charge to all existing owners of the Windows 10 edition of Minecraft. While Microsoft has confirmed (opens in new tab) that ray tracing support in Minecraft is not exclusive to Nvidia cards at the time of writing Nvidia's RTX series of cards are the best method to experience Minecraft RTX. They're also not at a bargain price.
Shaun Prescott is the Australian editor of PC Gamer. His work has been featured on GamesRadar+ and TechRadar as well as PLAY Magazine, The Guardian, The Guardian, The Guardian, The Guardian, The Guardian, The Guardian, The Guardian, The Guardian, The Guardian, The Sydney Morning Herald, and numerous other websites. His main interests are indie games and obscure Metroidvanias, speedrunning, FPSs and games that are experimental. He believes that Lulu by Metallica, Lou Reed is an all-time classic and will receive its critique.
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