AI-enhanced remaster free for fans

NVIDIA has announced that its remaster of the original Portal game will be free for fans when it launches next week

Portal with RTX is a complete visual overhaul of the classic game Portal, with AI-enhanced visuals. Picture: NVIDIA Lightspeed Studios

NVIDIA has been working on a free graphical overhaul for the classic Valve game Portal, complete with new textures, lighting systems, and gameplay improvements that should make the game a lot nicer to look at and play.

The remaster, called Portal with RTX, uses a host of fancy features available on NVIDIA graphics cards. The major draw here is a technology called raytracing, which allows for more realistic lighting by using AI to calculate how light beams would interact with the world.

Portal with RTX will also use Deep Learning Super Sampling, or DLSS, which is a method of extrapolating detail from lower-detail assets and scenes in a video game using AI to boost the perceived image quality and performance of a game. The remaster will also have brand-new textures and models, which will help even further to make the game look better.

The remaster is a technical showcase for a new modding platform called RTX Remix, which promises to allow modders to easily enhance existing games. NVIDIA says that RTX Remix will allow anybody to simply capture a scene in a video game that uses the DirectX 8 or 9 rendering engine, automatically enhance it using the aforementioned technologies, and then share it with other players.

The developer of the remaster, Lightspeed Studios, is well-known for its conversions and ports of Valve games, having recently ported both Portal games to the Nintendo Switch. It’s also worked on raytraced versions of both Minecraft and Quake II. Head of Lightspeed Studios John Spitzer said that it’s important to keep the original spirit of the game when working on a remaster like this.

“Updating much-loved games requires a balance of applying new, bleeding-edge techniques, while staying true to the original spirit of the game,” Spitzer said, “The experience NVIDIA’s Lightspeed Studios gained working on RTX versions of renowned games such as Minecraft and Quake II gave Valve the confidence to entrust us to bring modern graphics techniques to their legendary game, and NVIDIA RTX Remix gave us the perfect tool to complete the task.”

Portal is now 15 years old, and was beginning to show its age, something that this remaster aims to address. Picture: NVIDIA Lightspeed Studios

The best part about all of this is that Portal with RTX will be free to all players who already own Portal on Steam, as well as anybody who buys the game on the platform going forward. The remaster will be available to download in the DLC section of Portal’s Steam page from December 8.

Portal isn’t the only game getting a major overhaul. CD Projekt recently announced that its The Witcher remake will be open-world, which will let players fully explore the world with minimal loading screens. No release date has been set yet, but it’s likely to be many years away, as it’s still in the early stages of production.

The Witcher 3 developer also showed off its next-gen update for that game, and much like the Portal remaster, it will feature massively improved visuals and enhanced performance. It will also include new content inspired by the Netflix adaptation of The Witcher.

Written by Oliver Brandt on behalf of GLHF.