TECH NEWS – The beta version of the complete Nvidia RTX Remix creator toolkit announced in 2022 is almost here.

Nvidia’s RTX Remix modding platform was initially reported back in September 2022. Finally, according to Nvidia, the entire creator toolkit will appear in an open beta version on January 22. This raises the possibility that a whole host of old games could be updated with ray-traced visuals, AI-enhanced textures and more.

Last April, Nvidia released the platform’s RTX Remix runtime, which can capture a game scene in real-time and swap devices during playback while also injecting RTX technology such as path tracing, DLSS 3, and Reflex.

It was kind of a quick and dirty way to experience what RTX Remix could do on an old game. As part of the CES announcements surrounding the new RTX 40 series Super GPUs, Nvidia has also set the release date for the complete set of devices to January 22. This gives game modders much more control to assign new tools and lights within a remastered scene. Also, they can use AI tools to rebuild the appearance of any device in the game.

Ahead of the entire open-source release of the toolkit, Nvidia has worked with a select few game modders to update some classic titles. Perhaps the most significant is the long-awaited Half-Life 2: RTX Remix, which is currently being developed by a team of four modders working under the name Orbifold Studios. Of course, there was also Portal RTX, which was also made using RTX Remix.

Without first-hand experience coding games and using mod tools, it’s hard to say precisely how easy the toolkit will be to use and what the results will be like.

However, the toolset is said to allow modders to import game assets into the app with the click of a button. Then, the assets are converted to the commonly used USD (Universal Scene Description) format. This, in turn, allows these assets to be easily modified or replaced using applications such as Unreal Engine, Blender, or Nvidia’s own Omniverse applications.

Best of all, once these RTX Remix mods are done, they can be easily exported and shared with other players online. And DLSS 3 support is automatically included in all mods made with the Remix tool. Beautiful.

Either way, the prospect of Half-Life 2 updated with ray-traced visuals and AI-enhanced and upscaled textures is more than exciting.

Plus, the toolkit means we don’t have to rely on the original developers to revamp their older games. In the case of Valve, this would typically mean a wait measured in millennia or, more likely, an eternity.

Source: Nvidia