Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Gaming
  3. News

Minecraft’s RTX ray-tracing beta goes live on April 16

Matthew S. Smith
By
Minecraft with RTX | Official Beta Announce Trailer

Nvidia and Microsoft have finally announced a beta for Minecraft’s gorgeous RTX ray-tracing update. It will be available on Thursday, April 16.

Recommended Videos

I had a chance to play the beta over the weekend. Unfortunately, my thoughts on the beta are embargoed until Thursday, so I can’t go into detail on my experience with it yet.

Nvidia says the game’s RTX update will include support for DLSS 2.0. That acronym stands for Deep Learning Super Sampling, a technique used by Nvidia to improve game performance. DLSS uses machine learning algorithms to upscale the render resolution of a game. For example, DLSS can be used to upscale the output of a game rendered at 1080p resolution to 4K.

Related

This technique is important because it can boost the performance of a game significantly. Nvidia claims that the average framerate in Minecraft with RTX on, at 1080p resolution, improves from 56.8 frames per second with DLSS off to 93.6 FPS with DLSS on. At 4K, the average improves from 16.3 FPS to 49.4 frames per second. That is on a system with a Core i9-9900K, Nvidia RTX 2080 Ti, and 32GB of RAM, with game detail set to maximum and draw distance set to eight “chunks.”

RTX is a whole new world. Literally

Minecraft’s RTX mode can improve the game’s visuals on any map, but the impact is most dramatic when colored lighting, light shafts, and reflections can come into play. To highlight this, Nvidia has partnered with select community creators, who have built custom worlds with RTX ray tracing in mind. They are:

  • Aquatic Adventure RTX by Dr_Bond
  • Imagination Island RTX by BlockWorks
  • Crystal Palace RTX by GeminiTay
  • Of Temples & Totems RTX: A Tale of Elemental Artifacts by Razzleberries
  • Color, Light, and Shadow RTX by PearlescentMoon
  • Neon District RTX by Elysium Fire

These new worlds will be available for anyone to download for free in the Minecraft RTX beta.

How to play the Minecraft RTX beta

The Minecraft RTX beta will be publicly available when it launches on April 16, but it won’t automatically arrive to those who have Minecraft installed.

You’ll need the Xbox Insider Hub app, which is available for free on the Microsoft Store. Once you have that, you should find the Minecraft for Windows 10 Beta listed as available content –provided you’re looking for it after it launches, of course.

Yes, you’ll need to own Minecraft for Windows 10 to access the beta. You’ll also need an Nvidia card with RTX support, an up-to-date video card driver, and the Windows 10 May 2019 update.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Matthew S. Smith
Matthew S. Smith
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Matthew S. Smith is the former Lead Editor, Reviews at Digital Trends. He previously guided the Products Team, which dives…
Intel Arc A770 16GB vs. A770 8GB vs. Nvidia RTX 3060
The backs of the Arc A770 and Arc A750 graphics cards.

Intel Arc Alchemist is here, and the flagship comes in two different versions: Arc A770 16GB and Arc A770 8GB. Both of these GPUs have been compared to Nvidia's GeForce RTX 3060 and RTX 3060 Ti, but how do they really match up?

For many years, the GPU arena has been a two-horse race. Dominated by AMD and Nvidia, it lacked any extra competition. Now, with Intel joining the fray, do these two industry stalwarts need to start worrying? We've tested both Intel Arc and Nvidia extensively, so we have all the answers. Read on to find out which GPU wins the battle.
Specs

Read more
The RTX 4090 is begging for a game that can take advantage of it
The RTX 4090 among green stripes.

The new Nvidia RTX 4090 looks to be absurdly powerful. It's a hot and power-hungry card too, and even without third-party benchmarks to confirm it, it's already clear that the RTX 4090 is leaps and bounds ahead of even the best cards from the previous generation.

But is there actually any point to all that power? Sure you can run the existing catalog of AAA games at 4K with ray tracing enabled at over 100 fps, but there's nothing on the docket that will really push the 4090, and that's a problem for Nvidia. It may be a while before an exciting new game can show how much the RTX 4090 can really do.
Useless bang for all that buck

Read more
What is ray tracing, and how will it change games?
Ray tracing in Quake 2.

Ray tracing is a lighting technique that brings an extra level of realism to games. It emulates the way light reflects and refracts in the real world, providing a more believable environment than what's typically seen using static lighting in more traditional games. But what is ray tracing, exactly? And more importantly, how does it work? 

A good graphics card can use ray tracing to enhance immersion, but not all GPUs can handle this technique. Read on to decide if ray tracing is essential to your gaming experience and if it justifies spending hundreds on an upgraded GPU.
Virtual photons
To understand just how ray tracing's revolutionary lighting system works, we need to step back and understand how games previously rendered light, as well as what needs to be emulated for a photorealistic experience.

Read more