Nvidia’s ray-tracing tech shines in Battlefield V and Metro: Exodus

Ray tracing is the next generation of lighting technology for computer graphics, and Nvidia held a lengthy event in Germany today to reveal how its new GeForce RTX 2000-series cards will implement what it calls the “holy grail” for video game visuals. Ray tracing is the technical term for rendering the physical properties of light beams in 3D, and it’s such a huge jump because it can quickly and accurately replicate the behavior of light. Up to this point, for real-time games, developers have had to fake that effect by tweaking finicky tools.

But with the RTX 2070, 2080, and 2080 Ti launching next month for $500, $800, and $1,000, respectively, developers can now bring ray tracing into their games using Nvidia’s RTX tool and Microsoft’s DirectX Ray Tracing graphics protocol. Now, you may have some skepticism about the improvements that ray tracing will bring into games, so Nvidia used a portion of its event to parade multiple upcoming games to demonstrate just how stunning RTX illumination is.