The Minecraft RTX beta is set to begin this week. Here’s what you need to know.
Details were provided in a press release which included a statement from Jeff Fisher, the Senior VP of Gaming at Nvidia,
“We teamed up with Mojang Studios to bring next-generation ray tracing and AI to Minecraft and the results are truly amazing. There is a ton of excitement from the community for Minecraft with RTX, and we can’t wait to see what they create.”
On Thursday (April 16) at around 10a PDT, you’ll be able to download the beta if you own Minecraft on PC. The update will include the RTX implementation which includes ray tracing and DLSS 2.0. Here’s some of what is included in this RTX update:
- Direct lighting from the sun, sky and various light sources
- Realistic hard and soft shadows
- Emissive lighting from surfaces such as glowstone and lava
- Global illumination
- Accurate reflections in water and metallic surfaces
- Transparent materials such as stained glass, water and ice with reflection and refraction
- Volumetric fog and light shafts
Six new Minecraft worlds will also be available to download for free from the Minecraft Marketplace.
- Aquatic Adventure RTX by Dr_Bond
- Color, Light and Shadow RTX by PearlescentMoon
- Crystal Palace RTX by GeminiTay
- Imagination Island RTX by BlockWorks
- Neon District RTX by Elysium Fire
- Of Temples and Totems RTX by Razzleberries
Minecraft with RTX will come as a free update later this year to users that own Minecraft on Windows 10. Players will need to sign up for the Minecraft Windows 10 RTX beta through the Xbox Insider Hub on April 16. The beta worlds will be downloadable for free from the Minecraft Marketplace on April 16. Players will also need a GeForce RTX 2060 GPU or higher and the latest NVIDIA Game Ready Driver.
