Skip to content

Runtime User Guide

Jump to bottom
Alexander Jaus edited this page Oct 6, 2023 · 8 revisions

Adding RTX Remix to a game

When you download the RTX Remix runtime, you should get a zip file with the necessary components to prep a supported game for RTX Remix. Unzipping the file, you should see a folder structure like the following:

remix-0.1.0/
|--- d3d9.dll        <-- Bridge interposer
|--- ...
\--- .trex/
    |--- NvRemixBridge.exe
    |--- d3d9.dll    <-- Remix renderer
    \--- ...

To prep the game, simply copy the contents of the remix-0.1.0 directory into the game’s directory, right next to the main executable of the game. You should end up with the d3d9.dll and .trex/ folder sitting right next to the main game executable. Note: Some games will search for d3d9.dll in a different directory other than the directory of the main game executable. For example, Source Engine games will search in the bin directory next to the main game executable for d3d9.dll instead.

Once RTX Remix files are in place, you can start the game normally. You can verify RTX Remix is working by checking for the splash message at the top of the screen when the game starts. It should say: “Welcome to NVIDIA Remix… ” and provide hotkey information to access the Remix menus.

Performing Per Game Setup

If this is the first time RTX Remix is added for a given game, you may need to do some setup in order to get game menus and the game itself to display properly. You will need to open the RTX Remix developer menu to do this (more detailed documentation on this menu below).

  1. Press Alt-X on the keyboard to bring up the User Graphics Settings Menu, and from here select Developer Settings Menu.
  2. In Developer Settings, choose the tab for Game Setup, and then go to Step 1 – UI Textures. This section will give you a visual list of textures in the current scene. You need to tag every texture associated with UI components by clicking on them. This will let RTX Remix handle them properly, and not confuse them with in-game textures.
  3. Once done, chances are you will be seeing the main menu of the game render correctly, as well as the game world itself.
  4. Finally, press Save Settings at the bottom of the menu, to store your texture tagging configuration in a file called rtx.conf, which is generated next to your game executable. This way, you won’t have to go through setup again when restarting the game.
  5. You can always return to the UI tagging menu if you encounter new UI textures while exploring the game.

With UI setup out of the way, you can perform an additional test to ensure RTX Remix is functioning correctly.

  1. Go to the Enhancements tab in the RTX Remix Developer Menu, and press Capture Frame in USD.
  2. This will create your first capture of the game, which you can use to remaster assets, materials and lights. Capture files will be placed in a special folder called rtx-remix/captures – this will be placed next to the game executable, when first created. The rtx_remix folder is also where pre-made RTX Remix mods will go, under folder mods.

Support for Other Graphics APIs

While support for D3D9 is included in Remix out of the box, games that use other graphics APIs can also be made to work by utilizing translation layers that target D3D9. You will have to acquire these separately. For example, D3D8 games can be supported through D3D8to9 (link).

RTX Remix Runtime Settings

RTX Remix comes with a runtime overlay menu containing detailed settings for all the major functions: Rendering, Asset Replacement, and Capture. You can access this menu by pressing Alt-X once in game (this hotkey can also be customized using the rtx.conf config file).

When pressing Alt-X, you will first be taken to the User Graphics Settings menu. This menu has various high-level settings intended for end users of RTX Remix mods to quickly customize their experience. There are three tabs: General, Rendering and Content. All the settings are described with a tooltip when you hover over them.

The General settings deal mostly with performance and include various upscaling and latency reduction options.

The Rendering settings contain high level image quality settings for the RTX Remix Path Tracing renderer. You can select one of the provided presets or customize each individual setting.

The Content settings allow you to turn off and on each of the three types of replacements supported by RTX Remix: Material, Mesh and Light replacements. These settings can be of interest when you want to evaluate the impact of each type of replacement on the mod project. Note however, that turning all the replacements off does not mean reverting to the original rendering that the underlying game uses. You are still Path Tracing, just with global defaults in place for materials and lights, and without any replacement meshes.

At the bottom of the User Graphics Settings menu, you should see a button for Developer Settings Menu. This will take you to a deeper and more detailed RTX Remix Developer Menu. It contains three main tabs. The Rendering tab is intended mostly for mod authors and runtime developers who need the ultimate control of renderer internals to achieve compatibility or the intended look for a mod or game. The Game Setup tab contains the key capture and tagging workflow that will be needed to make a game moddable and compatible with RTX Remix (described in more detail here ) . The Enhancements tab allows for toggling various types of replacements on and off, as well as highlighting unreplaced assets, all useful for testing and validating mod content.

Tip: there is a checkbox at the top of the Developer Settings Menu that says "Always Developer Menu." Turning this checkbox on (and saving settings) will take you directly to the Developer menu when pressing Alt-X, saving you a click!

The Rendering tab in the Developer Settings Menu allows you to customize the Remix Path Tracing renderer. You can change options for upscaling, path tracing and lighting. Every option here has a corresponding setting in the rtx.conf file. You can view detailed documentation on all these options in the section on config files below.

Any settings you change in the menus can be saved as new defaults. They will be stored in a file named rtx.conf placed next to the .trex/ runtime folder. This file will be created if it does not already exist. The next time you start the game with RTX Remix, settings will be read from this file, and applied automatically.

Rendering

Here is an overview of the setting groups in the Rendering tab. For more detailed information on each parameter individually, see the dxvk.conf/rtx.conf options documentation:

  • General – similar settings to the User Graphics Settings / General menu.
  • Pathtracing – allows you to tweak the behavior of the Path Tracer in both subtle and profound ways. The technical details go deep into Ray Tracing theory – you can find a detailed documentation of all the options here.
  • Lighting – allows you to adjust global lighting intensity and other parameters, as well as go deep under the hood of two of the core lighting algorithms used by the Remix Path Tracing renderer: RTXDI and Restir GI. You can read more about each technology here and here.
  • Volumetrics – allows you to adjust everything related to the volumetric fog in Remix. You can also turn the volumetric fog off or on via the Enable Volumetric Lighting Checkbox. Turning on “Enable Legacy Fog Remapping” will allow the volumetric fog to take in information from the legacy fog in the game and attempt to match its look.
  • Alpha Test / Blending – allows you to toggle alpha testing and blending in the Remix renderer.
  • Denoising – allows you to toggle denoising on and off, as well as tune denoising parameters in detail. Denoising is a critical part of modern Path Tracing renderers and turning it off entirely has mainly educational value. Adjusting the individual settings may be beneficial for image quality or compatibility, depending on the game and mod in question.
  • Post-Processing – allows you to toggle on and off, as well as tune the look of each of the supported post-processing effects in Remix.
  • Debug – allows you to access a large variety of debug views in order to troubleshoot compatibility, content or rendering issues in a game or mod. Please refer to this document for an in depth guide to the Debug Display modes.
  • Geometry – various compatibility options for geometry handling.
  • Player Model – allows you to toggle compatibility options related to first person character rendering here, as well as toggle first person character shadows.
  • Light Translation – allows you to control how game lights are translated into Path Tracing compatible physical light sources in the Remix renderer.
  • Material Filtering – allows you to adjust material filtering options or render all white materials for an easier time when tuning lighting.

Game Setup

The Game Setup tab in Developer Settings Menu is where you adapt Remix to a particular game by helping it recognize things like UI textures, decals, particles, sky, terrain and water. Most of this work is done by tagging special textures as different types, so that Remix will know how to render them, and won’t confuse them with the main game world object textures.

Here is an overview of the setting groups in the Game Setup tab. For more detailed information on each parameter individually, you should check for tooltips on mouse-hover, or see the dxvk.conf/rtx.conf options documentation:

  • Step 1: UI Textures – allows you to tag all textures known to be part of the UI. This will enable Remix to skip them when Path Tracing and render a complete UI view on top.
  • Step 1.2: Worldspace UI Textures – like Step 1, this section allows you to tag UI textures, but this time for world-space rendering (as opposed to screen-space) – think user interface elements that exist in the 3D game world with the characters, not as a flat overlay on the screen.
  • Step 2: Parameter tuning – allows you to specify the coordinate system used in the game, to help ensure Remix can match the rendering correctly, and that captures look correct with the proper up direction in the Remix App. You can also enable shader-based vertex capture here and adjust its parameters.
  • Step 3: Sky Parameters – allows you to adjust the look of the Path Traced sky, as well as tune compatibility parameters to allow for better sky detection.
  • Step 4: Ignore textures – allows you to ignore certain objects by texture entirely.
  • Step 5: Ignore lights – allows you to ignore certain lights by texture entirely.
  • Step 6: Particle Textures – allows you to tag certain textures as belonging to particles. This enables Remix to detect these particles properly and render them correctly in Path Tracing.
  • Step 7: Decal Textures – allows you to tag certain textures as belonging to decal objects. This enables Remix to detect these decals properly and render them flat against the relevant surface.
  • Step 7.1: Dynamic Decal Textures – Same as above, but for dynamic decals. Dynamic decals are used for effects like bullet holes that appear during gameplay. Static decals are parts of the map.
  • Step 8.1: Legacy Cutout Textures – allows you to tag certain textures as alpha tested (“cutout”) even if the original game used alpha blending to represent surfaces with “holes.” For a Path Tracing renderer there is a big difference in whether alpha testing or blending is used, so this tagging can help these surfaces render correctly.
  • Step 8.2: Terrain Textures – like Decals, tagging Terrain textures can help Remix render terrain correctly.
  • Step 8.3: Water Textures – like Decals and Terrain, tagging water textures can help Remix render water correctly.
  • Step 9: Material Options – here you can adjust the properties of the Remix default Path Tracing material. This material gets used if there is no material replacement found for a given mesh or texture in the game (this happens when you have no mod loaded for example or decide to turn replacements off). You can also set modifiers for PBR materials in general – whether default or loaded from a Mod – that can adjust their general properties like roughness or color scale.

Enhancements

The Enhancements tab allows you to review the impact and extent of replacements in the active mod. Remix mods can replace virtually any mesh, texture or light in the modded game, and this menu allows you to toggle these enhancements on and off at will to help compare with unmodded assets.

The Enhancements tab also contains the all-important Capture Frame in USD button, at the top. Clicking on this button will create a capture of the game world in that location and point of time and store it in USD format on disk. These captures are the basis of all remastering work in the Remix App, where you can replace materials, meshes and lights with physically correct modern equivalents.

Clone this wiki locally