Fortnite to support RTX ray tracing on Nvidia graphics cards

By Jon Martindale Updated September 17, 2020

Nvidia has teamed up with Epic Games to bring its RTX technology to Fortnite, adding its ray tracing to the world’s most popular competitive game. That means real-time ray-traced reflections, ray-traced shadows, ambient occlusion, and support for the second-generation of Nvidia’s deep learning super sampling (DLSS) technology.

That should make the game look better than ever before, but also open up the option of improved performance, and even the potential for new competitive tricks made possible through tracking the shadows and other effects created by the actions of your opponents.

While ray tracing took some time to build up steam after its original debut on Nvidia’s RTX 2000-series Turing graphics cards, it’s now supported by a wider array of games than ever before. It’s also been shown to make a dramatic impact on the visuals of even low-tech games like Minecraft, leading to near life-like visuals.

Fortnite Ray Tracing

An early look at ray tracing in Fortnite during Nvidia’s major technology announcement in September didn’t showcase a true-to-life Fortnite world, but it did look pretty.

Perhaps Epic can leverage this new partnership in its ongoing legal scuffle with Apple and Google.

Follow along with Nvidia’s other announcements as the event continues live.

Topics

Computing Coordinator

Jon Martindale is the Evergreen Coordinator for Computing, overseeing a team of writers addressing all the latest how to…

Computing

Nvidia RTX 4090 cables may be melting in a worrying new way

A hand holding the RTX 4090 GPU.

Over the past few months, we’ve seen frequent reports of melting power connectors on Nvidia’s RTX 4090 graphics cards, leading to a wave of worry and speculation that something is seriously amiss. Now, a user has claimed their cable has melted in a dramatic new way -- and it could suggest that the headaches are far from over for Nvidia.

According to Shiftyeyes67k on Reddit, the 12VHPWR cable that came with their RTX 4090 GPU melted on the power supply (PSU) side. In other words, the problem occurred where the cable connectors fed into the power supply, not where they met the graphics card, as has been the case with every other report of melting 12VHPWR connectors.

Computing

Nvidia’s RTX 4060 might arrive sooner than expected

It looks like Nvidia's upcoming RTX 4060 might arrive sooner than expected. Although initial predictions put its arrival sometime in July, Nvidia may still launch it before June is over.

With a questionable set of specifications, but a highly affordable price, will the RTX 4060 become one of this year's best GPUs?

Computing

Why the Nvidia RTX 4060 Ti simply isn’t enough for 2023

The RTX 4060 Ti isn't one of the best graphics cards you can buy. It's hard to even call it a good graphics card, with reports suggesting that there has been "zero" interest in Nvidia's latest GPU. I've tested the card, and I was going to review it, but this is a GPU that challenges the status quo.

If you visit several sites that review graphics cards, you'll find that scores are all over the place. Some are praising the card for solid power efficiency improvements and Nvidia's Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) at a lower price, while others are focusing on its limited VRAM and the implications that has in modern games.