Half-Life 2 with ray-tracing looks incredible, thanks to NVIDIA's newly open-source tool

NVIDIA just made one of its most powerful creator tools open-source, meaning modders are now able to add ray-tracing to classic older games like Half-Life 2.

According to the announcement on the Nvidia News page, mod creators can now use the platform to "remaster classic DirectX 8 and 9 games with path tracing, NVIDIA DLSS, AI-enhanced textures, and user-created assets." 

This means some of the best classic PC games might be in for a modern facelift – starting with Half-Life 2, as shared by Twitter user LambdaGeneration. 

"Nvidia just open-sourced their Portal RTX Remix Runtime for the modding community to use. This allows modders to add ray tracing to existing Source games/mods without changes to runtime," they said. "Modder igorzdrowowicz has already got this working on Half-Life 2 and it looks stunning." Honestly? We have to agree.

Ray-tracing is something many of us take for granted in modern games, but you only need look at the screenshots shared in another tweet to see how this bit of tech has brought Half-Life 2 firmly into the 2020s. 

It's all down to how RTX Remix "allows modders to assign new assets and lights within their remastered scene," NVIDIA said in their announcement, "and use AI tools to rebuild the look of any asset." With all these extra light sources adding depth, tone, and temperature to a scene, this handful of screenshots shows how something as simple as ray-tracing can powerfully revamp some of the best FPS games from your PC back-catalog. Ray-traced F.E.A.R, anyone?

Check out some of the best PC games you can play right now, from Half-Life to Doom Eternal.