NVIDIA RTX Remix Version 0.2 Released; Full Update Notes Inside

A new version of NVIDIA RTX Remix is now available for download, packing a variety of improvements as well as compatibility fixes and more that will further help developers introduce path tracing to old games.

Version 0.2.0, which can be downloaded from GitHub, introduces multiple bridge improvements to address game compatibility issues. Among them are fixes for issues with shader parser logic that helps with Shader Model 2+ games, proper initialization of render state according to the official DirectX9 documentation to fix geometry corruption in some games, fixes for mouse input processing in certain titles where the mouse pointer would not move in-game or with the Remix menu opened, better matching of the native D3D9 behavior when dealing with shaders and swapchain initialization and more.

• Many Bridge improvements have gone into this release to address various game compatibility issues:
  • Fixed issues with shader parser logic that helps with Shader Model 2+ games.
  • Fixed surface data pitch issue that was leading to crashes in some games.
  • Added support for games that change the main window handle on Reset().
  • Allow null vertex declaration on server to fix unnecessary failures in some situations.
  • Properly initialize render state according to the official DirectX9 documentation to fix geometry corruption in some games.
  • Handle CreateTextureXXX() calls with levels = 0 to fix geometry corruption in some games.
  • Fixed mouse input processing for games where the mouse pointer would not move in the game or with the Remix menu opened, and added other DirectInput fixes for games using different exclusive modes. Also added optional input message pump hook that is needed for some games.
  • Better matching of the native D3D9 behavior when dealing with shaders and swapchain initialization.
  • Added more input validation on client and server side – the server is now properly returning failure codes to the client where failure is allowable.
  • Added DPI awareness to the bridge client so that the game window gets scaled and mouse input is handled properly on displays with higher than 100% DPI.
  • Optimized how the SharedHeap works to reduce crashes at launch and require less finetuning of its settings. Since the SharedHeap can still lead to issues in certain games we switched it to be turned off by default, but it can be enabled in bridge.conf with the useSharedHeap setting.
  • Added forced window client option client.forceWindowed to bridge.conf.

The new NVIDIA RTX Remix version also brings DXVK-Remix improvements and game compatibility fixes, improvements to menus and documentation, and tooltips in the UI to make the tool more accessible.

• DXVK-Remix improvements and game compatibility fixes:
  • Improvements to culling issues–Remix now includes an initial set of heuristics to work around engine-side culling.
  • Improved handling of alpha-tested geometry that uses fractional (“feathered”) alpha.
  • Improved detection of shadow volumes.
  • Support for capturing normals in vertex capture path.

Despite it being still in early access, NVIDIA RTX Remix is already being used to improve the visuals of plenty of old games such as Torchlight, Half-Life 2, World of Warcraft, and many others. Sadly, the tool is not yet compatible with DirectX 10 and above games, so many are the popular games that cannot get path tracing modded in. You can learn more about the tool by going here.