Ray Tracing & DLSS 2.0 Hitting Fortnite Tomorrow!

While it has been a slow and steady road for ray tracing, it has been growing at a steady rate. I do feel for 2000 series early adopters, as we haven’t had as much to play. However, coming into the 3000 series launch, that’s changing really fast. Now with both ray tracing and DLSS 2.0 heading to Fortnite this month, the library of next-gen graphics just got a little bit bigger.

Furthermore, while Nvidia and Fortnite will release the update, there will also be a brand new GeForce Game Ready Driver on the same day, ensuring everyone gets a little performance pickup.

It seems Nvidia and many game developers are pushing to add such features now. Of course, with the next-gen consoles supporting similar features out of the box, I expected we’ll be seeing a few games every month offering the latest graphical features. I can’t wait for something else. However, I’ll have to, as I can’t stand Fortnite, doh!

Fortnite Ray Tracing Details

Ray-Traced Reflections. This setting adds beautiful, realistic, super-accurate reflections to bodies of water and other suitably reflective surfaces in Fortnite. See game detail, characters, enemies, weapon effects, and more, perfectly reflected throughout the world. And experience improved lighting, as light sources and other illumination will be accurately reflected onto nearby surfaces and objects, making gameplay look and feel even more dynamic.

Ray-Traced Shadows. With ray tracing enabled, Fortnite’s dynamic shadows get a significant upgrade, enabling them to realistically stretch across the scene, with accurate softening as the distance from the shadow source increases. Particularly of note is the enhanced resolution of Ray-Traced Shadows. You can see this clearly in fine detail shadows, such as those created by chain-link fences. Furthermore, Ray-Traced Shadows dynamically update as the time of day changes, with effectively infinite precision.

Ray-Traced Ambient Occlusion. Where objects or surfaces meet, light is occluded, creating subtle shadows. In games, this Ambient Occlusion (AO) is key to grounding objects and the smallest details. With ray tracing, we can make AO shadowing far more accurate, further improving Fortnite’s fidelity.

Ray-Traced Global Illumination. Fortnite’s maps and worlds are composed of dynamically built and destroyed objects, preventing pre-baked light interaction. Due to this, sky lights provide the only real-time environmental lighting. Ray traced global illumination adds additional bounced light that is otherwise impossible to simulate in Fortnite.