With Minecraft for Windows 10 opening its block-shaped doors to the world of real-time ray-traced reflections, shadows, lighting, and all other goodness on April 16 as Minecraft with RTX moves to open beta. Working with Microsoft and Minecraft developer Mojang, NVIDIA has showcased a fully path-traced Minecraft RTX in the past, powered by the company’s line of GeForce RTX GPUs. The results of which have been stunning.

Something we’ve seen first hand these past few days thanks to early access to this week's release update. Minecraft with RTX also adds NVIDIA DLSS 2.0 support, where AI-powered rendering has led to performance improvements of around 1.7-times in the frames-per-second department. And with no perceived loss in visual quality (DLSS 2.0 is something of a game-changer), this has led to a situation where the entry-level GeForce RTX 2060 GPU has no problem running the Minecraft with RTX update.



The visual difference is not only striking, bringing a level of detail to the best-selling game of all time that nobody though was possible, but a glimpse into a future where raytracing is used across the board. The full path-tracing in Minecraft’s RTX update includes:

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

Actually, as you can create anything and everything in Minecraft (including the entire planet Earth), perhaps this means – as a certain Cable Guy once said – the future is now.

“We teamed up with Mojang Studios to bring next-generation ray tracing and AI to Minecraft and the results are truly amazing,” Jeff Fisher, senior vice president of gaming at NVIDIA says. “There is a ton of excitement from the community for Minecraft with RTX, and we can’t wait to see what they create.”

“The next big evolution for Minecraft has arrived with Minecraft with RTX,” adds Saxs Persson, franchise creative director of Minecraft at Microsoft. “The core of regular Minecraft is building with blocks. GeForce RTX GPUs transform the Minecraft world with a dramatically more realistic look by adding life-like lighting effects, shadows, reflections, refraction and more to the builder’s tool kit.”

Access will be easy with players able to sign-up to the beta via the Xbox Insider Hub, where six new RTX-powered worlds will be available to download for free via the Minecraft Marketplace. Created in collaboration between NVIDIA and Minecraft creators, these worlds have been designed to showcase both the freedom to create within Minecraft and the truly stunning difference that ‘RTX-On’ brings.

The six new worlds are:

Aquatic Adventure RTX by Dr_Bond

Color, Light and Shadow RTX by PearlescentMoon (Australian Content Creator)

Crystal Palace RTX by GeminiTay

Imagination Island RTX by BlockWorks

Neon District RTX by Elysium Fire

Of Temples and Totems RTX by Razzleberries

According to Razzleberries, “The added dimension these incredible visuals add to Minecraft has reinvigorated our collective creativity and enabled us to create amazing new worlds and experiences for Minecraft that just were not possible before.”

Here’s a closer look.









Minecraft with RTX is expected to get a full release later in the year.