NVIDIA has introduced its RTX Mega Geometry technology at the recent CES 2025 event, alongside the launch of new RTX branches. During the presentation, Team Green announced that Remedy Entertainment would be enhancing their Northlight Engine with RTX Mega Geometry technology. Digital Foundry recently shared their initial impressions of an upgraded version of Alan Wake 2, highlighting "clear and measurable" enhancements, especially on previous-generation GeForce RTX gaming hardware, particularly on an RTX 4060 GPU. NVIDIA has rolled out version 9.0 of their OptiX SDK, indicating a broader availability of the Mega Geometry tech to game development and visualization studios. This new API, designed for building clusters, is said to significantly accelerate BVH builds of large meshes.
Last week, NVIDIA updated its Neural Texture Compression (NTC) toolkit BETA. The quick start guide for RTXNTC version 0.5.0 explains the core functions of Team Green's AI-enhanced image compression technology, which compresses all PBR textures used for a single material together. NTC is most effective when texture channels are correlated, such as detail in the albedo texture corresponding to detail in the normal texture. Up to 16 texture channels can be compressed into one NTC texture set, with typical PBR materials having 9-10 channels. NVIDIA recommends implementing an "Inference on Load" mode for developers targeting lower-end hardware, with a minimum requirement of compatibility with Shader Model 6, preferably NVIDIA's Turing generation (RTX 2000 series) or newer for optimal performance.
NVIDIA states that Alan Wake 2 is the first game to showcase their new RTX Mega Geometry technology. Digital Foundry delves into the details of Mega Geometry, its impact on Alan Wake 2, and the benefits for memory, CPU, and GPU. Surprisingly, RTX Mega Geometry appears to have a greater effect on RTX 20-series and 30-series GPUs rather than the latest models. Additionally, the article explores the new ultra path tracing options in Alan Wake 2.
