News Nvidia Delivers Ray Tracing Driver for Previous-Gen Pascal Cards, New Demos

[abryant]

Nvidia has released a driver that enables ray tracing for its previous-generation Pascal cards, along with new demos and some benchmarks. Read more here.

Matt Safford
@islandwalker
Matt Safford is Tom's Hardware's Managing Editor. When not writing about tech, he is often walking—through the streets of New York or at home in front of the 50-inch 4K HDR TV that serves as his PC monitor.

 

[justin.m.beauvais]

Yay?

So, what are the differences here in this form of ray tracing and the ray tracing enabled by having RT cores? I thought NVidia was trying to sell the idea that rat tracing was just too demanding for cards without RT cores.

I have a feeling that NVidia is offering this as a "demo" of RTX. Like, "Look how pretty it is! But you can't use it properly on old cards, so if you like it buy an RTX!" It is like they are trying to prove to people on the fence that the visuals are worth it.

I'm going to try it on my 1060, but if 480p is the only playable resolution I'm not sure it is going to be a convincing demo. Also, why hasn't NVidia released some kind of performance guide or other information about how well it works on what hardware? It is their driver, surely they've tested it on their hardware. Could they not be bothered or are we to assume performance is so poor that they don't want to highlight it?

Sooooooooo, I guess RTX on... on non RTX.

 

[littleleo]

Why on earth would anyone want this when it turns the new GPUs into slugs. I guess they figure if they make all Nvidia GPUs run like snails we'll think the new RTX are fast with RT turned on. Really no interest from anyone I've talked to about this. I just hope it doesn't make current GPUs run like crap, but to be on the safe side I'm avoiding it like the plague.