Lightspeed Studios has released a new major update for Portal RTX. This new update adds support for NVIDIA DLSS 4’s Transformer Model and Multi-Frame Gen. It also implements RTX Neural Radiance Cache. So, let’s take a closer look at them.
As we’ve showcased, Portal RTX is one of the most demanding games on PC right now. To give you an idea, at Native 4K, the game runs with only 20FPS on the NVIDIA RTX 5090. It’s THAT brutal.
Thankfully, with DLSS 4, owners of an RTX-50 series GPU will be able to at least get playable framerates. Thanks to the Transformer Model, it will now be possible to use the Performance Mode. This will provide you with a great image quality, alongside Ray Reconstruction. Then, you can use MFG X2 (or X4) to further improve the smoothness.
And yes, I know. MFG X3 or X4 may introduce some input latency. However, for this particular title, that’s the only way via which you can achieve framerates over 60FPS at 4K. It sucks, but it is what it is. Path Tracing is demanding and that’s perhaps the only case in which you may need to use MFG X3 or X4.
As mentioned, this update also adds a new feature called RTX Neural Radiance Cache (NRC). This is a smart shader that uses neural networks to make indirect lighting look better and run faster. With NRC, fully ray traced lighting will look more realistic and will be more responsive. This should make everything look smoother and more natural.
It’s also good to know that NRC (Neural Radiance Cache) comes with different quality levels. This means you can choose how detailed and realistic the lighting looks, depending on what works best for your PC. You can change the NRC quality settings by going to the advanced graphics menu in the game. Look under the “indirect illumination” section, and you’ll find the option there. If you have a powerful PC, you can set it to a higher quality for the best lighting effects. If your computer is slower, you can choose a lower setting to help the game run more smoothly.
And that’s not all. This new patch adds a new texture streaming system. According to the devs, it will optimize VRAM usage to maximize texture quality within the available video memory budget. It also optimizes RTX Remix’s shader compilation process, reducing shader compilation time.
The devs have made various performance improvements and memory usage optimizations. Thus, the game should run better than before. Plus, they have updated the NVIDIA Real-time Denoising (NRD) library to 4.13. This should offer better performance, as well as sharper and more stable denoising.
All in all, this is a major new patch for Portal RTX. In theory, even without DLSS 4 Frame Gen, the game should run better than before. So, this should be great news for pretty much everyone.
Like always, Steam will download this update the next time you launch its client. Below, you can also find its complete changelog.
Enjoy and stay tuned for more!
Portal RTX May 19th Patch Notes
- Added DLSS 4 with Multi Frame Generation, and the new AI transformer models for DLSS Ray Reconstruction and DLAA. RTX 50-Series owners can now multiply framerates with 3X and 4X modes, generating up to 3 additional frames per rendered frame, while all RTX users can experience the transformer model for Ray Reconstruction and DLAA to elevate image quality with greater detail, improved stability, and reduced ghosting. To activate DLAA, navigate to the advanced graphical menu and choose “Full Resolution” in the DLSS mode menu.
- Added RTX Neural Radiance Cache (NRC), a neural shader that leverages neural networks to estimate indirect lighting more accurately and performantly. With NRC, fully ray traced lighting not only looks better but is more responsive as well. NRC features multiple quality levels, each automatically selected based on the graphical preset being used. NRC quality levels can also be manually adjusted from the advanced graphics menu under the “indirect illumination” options.
- Added a new texture streaming system that optimizes VRAM usage to maximize texture quality within the available video memory budget
- Made various performance improvements and memory usage optimizations
- Changed the behavior of default graphical presets.
- Optimized RTX Remix’s shader compilation process, reducing shader compilation time. Also added an on screen notification when shaders are actively being compiled.
- Updated NVIDIA Real-time Denoising (NRD) library to 4.13 for better performance, as well as sharper and more stable denoising
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
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