You can sign up to get a daily email of our articles, see the Mailing List page.
We do often include affiliate links to earn us some pennies. See more here.

Quake II RTX released with a demo along and the source code

By - | Views: 16,290

For those with newer NVIDIA GPUs, you can now try out Quake II RTX which just released with Linux support. Really nice to see Lightspeed Studios and NVIDIA make Linux a first-class citizen for this with same-day support.

As a reminder on what it is:

Quake II RTX is fully ray-traced and includes the 3 levels from the original shareware distribution.

Quake II RTX builds on the work of Christoph Schied and the team at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, who added ray tracing to Quake II to create Q2VKPT (in turn building upon the Q2PRO code base). NVIDIA has introduced new path-traced visual effects, has improved texturing, and has made dozens of other changes and improvements, resulting in an experience that rivals games created today, and pushes your RTX hardware to the limit.

YouTube Thumbnail
YouTube videos require cookies, you must accept their cookies to view. View cookie preferences.
Accept Cookies & Show   Direct Link

If you own the original Quake II, it can work with the files to unlock the full game and give you online multiplayer too.

For the Linux version, if you have a card older than the GeForce 20 series, you will need to use the NVIDIA Vulkan Beta Driver at least version 418.52.05 which included support for the VK_NV_ray_tracing extension for certain older models. For those with newer NVIDIA GPUs like the NVIDIA 2060 and above you will need at least driver version 410.66, which added in the ray tracing support.

You can grab it from Steam or the official NVIDIA website. You can also find the full source code (minus assets) on GitHub.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
13 Likes
About the author -
author picture
I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly came back to check on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly. Find me on Mastodon.
See more from me
The comments on this article are closed.
16 comments
Page: 1/2»
  Go to:

Krovikan Jun 6, 2019
Nvidia Vulkan Beta Driver 418.52.05, 418.52.07 and 418.52.10 don't build kernel modules with Kernel 5.0.7+

With my Kernel Linux 5.1.6 the only method for compile is:

sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-418.52.10.run --no-unified-memory --no-drm

But, with these switches I don't have CUDA. Seems important for Nvidia card, if not tell me please.
Avehicle7887 Jun 6, 2019
Well I did give it a shot with my humble GPU, at least it runs. With a lower resolution it runs a tad faster, not very playable though, aiming is a pain :)






Last edited by Avehicle7887 on 6 June 2019 at 4:59 pm UTC
Jollt Jun 6, 2019
https://steamcommunity.com/app/1089130/discussions/0/1638661595046127529/ created with vim autoexec.cfg with seta vid_rtx "0" at the baseq2 folder and it works on my R7 240 hahah
Ehvis Jun 6, 2019
View PC info
  • Supporter Plus
Everything maxed out @ 3440x1440 gave me 35-40 fps. Which with gsync would normally be reasonable to play something, but I couldn't aim with it to save my life. Lowering the rendering resolution to 80% upped it to 60 fps and got me a long much much better.

Even though it may not seem like much, I'm still quite impressed with it as a tech demo. Doing diffuse path tracing for lighting in insanely computationally expensive. My own little renders in Blender's Cycles renderer took 10 hours to do. Doing anything in realtime at all is pretty amazing.
rustybroomhandle Jun 6, 2019
This is nice as a tech demo and great as a source reference for developers, but compared to the original, this looks uuuuugly. It's so bright and all the atmosphere has been lost.
iwantlinuxgames Jun 6, 2019
sweet! there is a linux version available from the steam page
Dunc Jun 6, 2019
Quoting: rustybroomhandleThis is nice as a tech demo and great as a source reference for developers, but compared to the original, this looks uuuuugly. It's so bright and all the atmosphere has been lost.
Yeah, it's a bit like the “sitcom effect” (or “soap-opera effect” if you prefer) you get with high-framerate video. It looks too real. Sometimes “better” is worse.
slaapliedje Jun 7, 2019
We should keep in mind that this is the first official release of Quake II since forever for Linux. Pretty sweet that nvidia released it for Linux too.
Solitary Jun 7, 2019
Quoting: rustybroomhandleThis is nice as a tech demo and great as a source reference for developers, but compared to the original, this looks uuuuugly. It's so bright and all the atmosphere has been lost.
You can change the time of day in the game to either specific time period (dusk, dawn, noon, evening) or your local time. When I started the game (at night) it was so dark I thought the skybox was bugged because it was just black. The first level outside area was so dark I couldnt see the enemies.
hardpenguin Jun 7, 2019
Quoting: Avehicle7887(...)

Wait, is it Windows or Linux in the screenshot? I am confused :D
While you're here, please consider supporting GamingOnLinux on:

Reward Tiers: Patreon. Plain Donations: PayPal.

This ensures all of our main content remains totally free for everyone! Patreon supporters can also remove all adverts and sponsors! Supporting us helps bring good, fresh content. Without your continued support, we simply could not continue!

You can find even more ways to support us on this dedicated page any time. If you already are, thank you!
The comments on this article are closed.