The importance given by NVIDIA to the upcoming real-time, ray tracing powered revolution cannot be understated. One need only stop and reflect that the GPU manufacturer decided to change the branding from NVIDIA GTX to NVIDIA RTX after about a decade.

　　In order to further demonstrate the new visual bar enabled by the NVIDIA RTX technology, a new cinematic demo has been created with Unreal Engine 4. You can check out the stunning footage below, as well as all the details on what powers the NVIDIA RTX development platform in terms of hardware and software.

　　So far, the only confirmed game to feature real-time ray tracing is Metro Exodus, now due to release on February 22nd, 2019. We're hoping more game developers will come out and announce their support of the technology during next week's Gamescom 2018. Our intrepid reporters Chris Wray and Rosh Kelly will be there, by the way, so expect plenty of articles on all the most exciting games in development showcased in Cologne.

　　Turing is NVIDIA’s most important innovation in computer graphics in more than a decade and makes possible a new generation of applications that will simulate the physical world at unprecedented speeds. NVIDIA has enhanced its RTX development platform with new AI, ray tracing and simulation SDKs, to take full advantage of Turing’s capabilities. The result? Incredible designs, highly realistic simulations and stunning visual effects —faster than ever before.

　　

CORE TECHNOLOGIES

　　

RT CORES FOR REAL-TIME RAY TRACING

The Turing architecture is armed with dedicated ray-tracing processors called RT Cores that accelerate the computation of how light and sound travel in 3D environments at up to 10 Giga Rays per second. Turing accelerates real-time ray tracing by 25x over previous Pascal generation, and can be used for final frame rendering for film effects at more than 30x the speed of CPUs.

　　

RAY TRACING

The RTX platform realizes the dream of real-time cinematic-quality rendering through Turing-optimized ray tracing APIs such as NVIDIA OptiX, Microsoft DXR and Vulkan. The ability to render photorealistic objects and environments in real time, with perfectly accurate shadows, reflections and refractions, now makes it possible for artists and designers to create amazing content faster than ever before.

　　

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

The RTX platform features the new NGX SDK to infuse powerful AI-enhanced capabilities into visual applications. This dramatically accelerates creativity for artists and designers by freeing up time and resources through intelligent manipulation of images, automation of repetitive tasks, and optimization of compute-intensive processes.

　　

RASTERIZATION

The RTX platform features new Turing-based advances in programmable shading such as variable-rate shading, texture-space shading and multi-view rendering. These enable the creation of richer visuals with more fluid interactivity with large models and scenes, and improved VR experiences.

　　

SIMULATION

Lifelike visuals are the result of not only how something looks, but also of how it behaves. With the power of Turing CUDA cores and APIs such as NVIDIA’s PhysX, FleX and CUDA 10, the RTX platform enables accurate modelling of the behavior of real-world objects in everything from games to virtual environments and special effects.

　　

ASSET & MATERIAL INTERCHANGE

The RTX Platform supports industry standards such as Universal Scene Description (USD) from Pixar and the open-source NVIDIA Material Definition Language (MDL) to provide efficient asset interchange between applications and maximizes productivity for artists and designers.