I splurged on a Geforce RTX 3080 instead of waiting for the release of the 4000 series like a smart person, but I wanted an upgrade and I almost never spend cash on myself (or on much besides basic necessities). I'll do a review on my EVGA card eventually, but first I want to talk about Quake 2 RTX, which is obviously the reason anyone would spend 800 dollars on a ray-tracing capable graphics card. For those not in the know, Quake 2 is a classic first person shooter developed by id Software back in 1997. It featured id's most developed campaign to date, along with an upgraded graphics engine supporting hardware acceleration, colored lighting, texture filtering, and other stuff that was innovative at the time. Twenty-five years later, Quake 2 looks just as dated as Quake, and I would argue its art direction hasn't aged as well, considering retro shooters like Amid Evil are clearly inspired by the pixelated look of the original (although Dusk definitely looks like a Quake 2 era game). However, Nvidia have added full ray traced lighting, shadows, and reflections, and boy, does Quake 2 suddenly shine. Having previously owned a Radeon 5700 xt, which lacked hardware ray-tracing, I was always on the fence about the tech. In screenshots and youtube videos, the realistic lighting didn't really appear worth the massive hit it cost frame times. After playing Quake 2 RTX however, I've changed my tune, at least in this one case. The dull oranges, browns, and greys of Quake 2's military installations have been replaced by the brilliant lights of hyperblaster fire or the flickering shadows of a flare. Glass consoles reflect light as well as the player character; corridors hide monstrous enemies in inky blackness, waiting for you to illuminate their lo-fi visages. Suddenly I'm transported to the wonder of playing games back in the 1990's, when every other year brought an amazing technical advance, and my imagination filled in the blanks that primitive 3d graphics engines could not. Quake 2 RTX feels a lot like Doom 3. It's a corridor shooter with fewer enemies than Doom, and you'll use your flare like Doom's flashlight. Unlike Doom 3, Quake 2 features a kickass arsenal, including id's best supershotgun. You'll never tire of rending Strogg into gruesome giblets, and it sounds like God's thunder. For all the brilliance of ray-tracing, the conventions of late nineties level design limits some of the fun. You'll find yourself backtracking an awful lot, hunting down key cards, and while the reflective surfaces and realistic shadows help differentiate some rooms, you're still running through low-poly environments that don't do much to distinguish themselves. A map would really help, but to my knowledge, Doom is the only id series that ever had a map toggle. Anyway, I think Quake 2 RTX is worth checking out if you have a capable gpu. The game is still pretty fun if you have a high tolerance for wandering around searching for keys.
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