Fortnite to support RTX ray tracing on Nvidia graphics cards

By Jon Martindale Published 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.

Recommended Videos

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 — Image used with permission by copyright holder

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.

Get your weekly teardown of the tech behind PC gaming

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

Evergreen writer

Jon Martindale is a freelance evergreen writer and occasional section coordinator, covering how to guides, best-of lists, and…

Computing

Nvidia’s RTX 50-series may launch ‘soon,’ whatever that means

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang with an RTX 4090 graphics card.

As we inch closer to the expected release date of Nvidia's RTX 50-series, the number of leaks is growing by the minute. Today, a reputable leaker weighed in on when we might see the RTX 50-series join the ranks of the best graphics cards. Could Blackwell make an appearance sooner than currently expected? It's certainly possible, but who even knows at this point?

The information comes from kopite7kimi, who, in typical tipster fashion, dropped a vague message on X (formerly Twitter) and then left without answering any questions. However, at this point in the GPU release cycle, even one vague sentence is enough to send the internet for a spin, which is what's happening in the reply section of Kopite's tweet.

Computing

It’s finally time to stop buying Nvidia’s RTX 30-series GPUs

RTX 3080 Ti in front of a window.

If you're looking for a budget GPU, the general advice is usually to buy from the previous generation of graphics cards. After all, as the new cards take over the market, the older ones are still waiting to be sold -- and while they're no longer among the best graphics cards, they're still perfectly acceptable alternatives.

We've now reached the point in the current generation of Nvidia GPUs where that advice no longer applies. If you want to get the best bang for your buck, it's time to stop buying Nvidia's RTX 30-series and look for other options.
The RTX 30-series arrived at the worst possible time

Computing

Nvidia’s RTX 5090 may not be such a power-hungry beast after all

The RTX 4090 graphics card on a table alongside a set of cables held in hand.

The RTX 5090 will undoubtedly claim its spot atop the rankings of the best graphics cards when it's here, but that kind of power comes with a lot of ... well, power -- or more specifically, a high power draw. To that end, we've heard a lot of speculation about the RTX 5090 potentially decimating your power supply and needing over 600 watts of power. However, Segotep, a China-based PSU manufacturer, weighed in on the matter, and it seems that enthusiasts can hold off on buying a new monstrous PSU for a while yet.

It all started with claims that the RTX 5090 may feature not one, but two 16-pin power connectors. We've already seen some high-end PSUs sporting dual 12V-2x6 power connectors (made by manufacturers such as MSI), which could potentially power a GPU that draws far more than 600 watts.