Advertisement
Engadget has been testing and reviewing consumer tech since 2004. Our stories may include affiliate links; if you buy something through a link, we may earn a commission. Read more about how we evaluate products.

'Fortnite' will add ray tracing and DLSS on September 17th

A new Creative Mode map will help players explore the visual effects.

NVIDIA / Epic Games

As promised, Fortnite is about to look a whole lot better. At NVIDIA’s RTX 3000 GPU event last week, NVIDIA and Epic revealed that ray-tracing and DLSS tech were on their way to Fortnite and would arrive “soon.” Today, Epic and NVIDIA announced that the patch to add RTX will go live on September 17th.

Fornite’s Save the World, Creative and Battle Royale modes will get support for ray-traced reflections, shadows, global illumination and ambient occlusions. That means you’ll see detailed, realistic reflections in bodies of water, windows, face shields and more. Shadows will realistically stretch across the screen, softening as the distance from the shadow to the source increases, and light sources will appear more accurate. The changes should make the game feel a bit more dynamic — that is, if you have a next-gen console or a GPU like NVIDIA’s new RTX cards.

To help players explore the perks of RTX, NVIDIA worked with Fortnite content creators to develop “RTX Treasure Run,” a new map available in Creative Mode. Players will land at the entrance to a museum and be challenged to a scavenger hunt. As they explore halls of mirrors, a medieval castle, jungle and shrunken science lab, RTX Treasure Run will highlight ray tracing effects.

The upcoming improvements aren’t just surface level. In addition to generating beautiful, sharp images, NVIDIA’s DLSS tech will boost frame rates using its AI-powered deep learning neural network and Tensor Cores. Plus, the upcoming patch will add support for NVIDIA’s Reflex tech, which reduces latency.