For the more tech savvy members: Could Nvidia's new technology, "RTX Remix" be used to mod/improve Train Sim World? Nvidia claims that "With NVIDIA RTX Remix, we’re enabling modders to remaster their favorite classic games with full ray tracing (also known as path tracing), NVIDIA DLSS, NVIDIA Reflex, modern physically-based rendering (PBR) assets, and generative AI texture tools". "RTX Remix is an open-sourced platform that allows modders to easily capture game assets, automatically enhance materials with generative AI tools, and create stunning RTX remasters that feature full ray tracing and neural rendering technologies including DLSS 4 with Multi Frame Generation". Looking at examples on their site, existing games (even old ones) that have been enhanced with this new AI technology are massively improved and quite stunning to watch. Any comments?
Quoting the documentation: "RTX Remix is designed for DirectX 8 and 9 games that use a fixed function pipeline. It’s unlikely to work with other types of games." Train Sim World is DirectX 11 game.
Maybe, but it's already very heavy on the GPU, so it's only pratical to run on older games at this time. Some good examples with mixed results here:
It's got a somewhat passably decent texture upscaler, though the results can be cartoonish, TBH the best mods I've seen using it are ones which required a bunch of genuine handmade retexturing work incorporating some decent photogrammetry prior to adding the material properties. A lot of what it adds are baseline features of Unreal Engine, such as PBR, and the way to get the raytracing features in Unreal is... Make a game in UE5. Technically UE4 4.27 supports a version of them (TSW is on 4.26), but you really need a game built from the ground up to incorporate them, see something like Bright Memory: Infinite for a solid tech demo of such.
The problem with that lies in the way it interfaces with those older graphics pipelines in a way that modern ones do not support, in order to seamlessly add things the modern equivalents already do internally. If a train analogy would help, think of it like sticking an electrically-powered firebox connected to a pantograph into a steam locomotive to allow the train to run from the overhead wires. There's physically no way to hook this up to a diesel or electric locomotive, and it would not accomplish anything useful if it could be. It makes use of a specific limitation of the older technology to accomplish things on a par with the newer technology without interfering or conflicting.
