NVIDIA is showcasing a suite of advanced AI tools and technologies at this year’s Game Developers Conference (GDC). The technologies showcase breakthroughs in neural rendering, NVIDIA RTX, and digital human technologies—all focused on enabling game developers to achieve greater immersion and realism.
Neural Shaders: Advancing photorealistic worlds
At the heart of NVIDIA’s efforts are RTX Neural Shaders, a technology that facilitates the training and deployment of small neural networks within shaders to generate textures, materials, lighting, volumes, and more. This technology will deliver improvements in game performance, image quality, and interactivity for more realistic and dynamic worlds.
Building on the RTX Kit introduced at CES, NVIDIA is expanding its neural rendering capabilities with Microsoft DirectX support and Unreal Engine 5 plug-ins. NVIDIA is collaborating with Microsoft to integrate neural shading support into the DirectX 12 Agility SDK preview in April, providing developers with access to RTX Tensor Cores for accelerated performance.
Unreal Engine 5 developers will gain access to RTX Kit features such as RTX Mega Geometry and RTX Hair through an experimental NVIDIA RTX branch, enabling the rendering of highly detailed assets and bringing cinematic-quality visuals to real-time experiences.
The updated ‘Zorah’ technology demo illustrated these advancements, featuring detailed scenes with millions of triangles, complex hair systems, and cinematic lighting in real time, utilising technologies like ReSTIR Path Tracing, ReSTIR Direct Illumination, RTX Mega Geometry, and RTX Hair. Additionally, the Neural Radiance Cache, the first neural shader, is now available in RTX Remix.
DLSS 4: Rapid adoption and impressive performance gains
NVIDIA’s DLSS 4 has experienced rapid adoption, with over 100 games and applications now supporting it. This milestone was reached faster than with DLSS 3, making DLSS 4 the most quickly adopted NVIDIA game technology to date.
DLSS 4 introduces Multi Frame Generation, which uses AI to generate “up to three additional frames per traditionally rendered frame,” working with the complete suite of DLSS technologies to “multiply frame rates by up to 8x over traditional brute-force rendering.”
Titles such as Lost Soul Aside, Mecha BREAK, Phantom Blade Zero, Stellar Blade, Tides of Annihilation, and Wild Assault will launch with DLSS 4, providing GeForce RTX gamers with enhanced PC experiences. Developers can access DLSS 4 through the DLSS 4 Unreal Engine plug-in.
NVIDIA RTX Remix showcases AI upgrades for classic games
The ‘Half-Life 2 RTX’ demo will be available for free download from Steam for Half-Life 2 owners. This community-made remaster features Orbifold Studios’ work on the Ravenholm and Nova Prospekt maps, with improved assets and textures, full ray tracing, DLSS 4 with Multi Frame Generation, and RTX neural rendering technologies.
Half-Life 2 RTX was created using NVIDIA RTX Remix, an open-source platform officially released for modders to create RTX remasters of classic games. This platform allows modders to enhance classic titles with ray tracing and AI-driven upgrades. NVIDIA says over 30,000 modders have experimented with RTX Remix since its beta release, enabling over one million gamers to experience ray-traced mods.
NVIDIA ACE: Enhancing game characters with AI
NVIDIA ACE, a suite of RTX-accelerated digital human technologies, aims to bring game characters to life with generative AI. ACE autonomous game characters introduce autonomous teammates, NPCs, and self-learning enemies to games, creating new narrative possibilities and enhancing player immersion.
ACE autonomous game characters are debuting in the anticipated life sim inZOI, where “Smart Zoi” NPCs will respond more realistically and intelligently to their environment based on their personalities:
With these advancements, NVIDIA empowers developers to push the boundaries of game creation and deliver immersive and more engaging AI-powered experiences.
(Image credit: NVIDIA)
See also: OpenAI launches tools to build AI agents faster
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