Nvidia's latest update enables ray tracing support on GTX 10 and 16 series GPUs

Nvidia has finally demonstrated how well ray tracing would work on its GTX 10 and 16 series GPUs. The chipmaker has introduced a new driver update that allows users to turn on the feature on GTX 10 and 16 series cards, despite their lack of RT and Tensor cores.

To take advantage of the new feature you’ll need to download the latest Game Ready drivers. Apart from the GTX 1050 and 1050 Ti, all other GPUs now support the feature through DirectX Ray Tracing.

But before you start celebrating, there are two things you need to consider.

• The first of the two being dialling-down the graphics settings on the supported game.
• The second would be to keep in mind that frame rates for games that support ray tracing would depend on how it is utilised in the game.

Source: Nvidia

Battlefield V yields pretty decent results with ray tracing turned on as the game only uses the technique to render basic reflections.

Source: Nvidia

There's a pretty big drop in frame rates for Metro Exodus uses ray tracing for Global Illumination, which produces accurate lighting by taking every object in an environment into account.

Nvidia: Source

Shadow of the Tomb Raider also tends to offer decent results as the game uses the technique to improve the fidelity, detail and appearance of shadows across the entire game.

If you've noticed from the results, frame rates can vary depending on the amount of ray tracing used in the game. Additionally, the RT and Tensor cores help the RTX cards gain a significant advantage against their GTX counterparts. Take Metro Exodus, for example, the RTX 2080 Ti card offers almost thrice the frame rate as the GTX 1080 Ti.

Nvidia also claims that developers won't adjust games to have lower-quality ray tracing or update them for GTX cards. The best way to experience the feature is by getting an RTX GPU or turning down the settings on the game if your gadget houses a GTX 10 or 16 series graphics card.