Computing giant NVIDIA has got in early for CES 2019, holding the first major press event for the tech show today. Recently the company has chosen conferences to highlight the work it has been doing on AI and autonomous cars, rather than gaming. That’s been flipped on its head today with CEO Jensen Huang purely focusing on gaming, and in particular Ray Tracing. Huang has previously announced the RTX series designed to provide Ray Tracing for gamers, with today’s reveal being the new GeForce RTX 2060.
The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 is the baby of the 20 series range, yet still offers a powerhouse of a GPU when it comes to graphical processing, whether that’s on a standard screen or in virtual reality (VR). Specs revealed so far reveal the RTX 2060 has 52T Tensor Flops, can do 5 GigaRay’s / Sec, and has 6GB G6 RAM built in. What’s more impressive is the price, the GPU will retail for a wallet-friendly $349 USD.
Huang really has been touting the impressive visual quality of Ray Tracing, a technique that will help videogames look even more realistic. Most of the demos have showcased how good reflections look, whether that’s in glass, a puddle, or a shiny surface, each managing to replicate the scenery around it.
And it’s not just Huang who’s excited:
“GeForce RTX has made real-time ray tracing a reality,” said Epic Games founder and CEO Tim Sweeney in a blog statement. ”By making RTX technology available in Unreal Engine 4, we are shaping the future of game graphics.”
“Real-time Ray Tracing moves real-time graphics significantly closer to realism, opening the gates to global rendering effects never before possible in real-time domain,” said Natalya Tatarchuk, vice president of graphics at Unity Technologies.
So what does this mean for VR? Well right away not a great deal. Real-time ray-traced reflections will first be seen in Battlefield V which is due this October. As developers get used to the tech, and GPU’s supporting it become more ubiquitous then it’ll trickle into VR where it should make immersive experiences even prettier.
The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 will launch next week on 15th January. For any further updates form the company, keep reading VRFocus.
via Mint VR