Hey, everyone! Today we're releasing v1.4.0, featuring added support for final Vulkan Ray Tracing API, and enabling dynamic selection between the pre-existing NVIDIA VKRay and the new Khronos extension backends.
New Features:
- Added support for final Vulkan Ray Tracing API. The game can now run on any GPU supporting `VK_KHR_ray_tracing_pipeline` extension
- Added temporal upscaling, or TAAU, for improved image quality at lower resolution scales.
Fixed Issues:
- Fixed a crash that happened when there are no available sound devices.
- Fixed a few issues with the tone mapper and the profiler for AMD GPU compatibility.
- Fixed a server crash: https://github.com/NVIDIA/Q2RTX/issues/86
- Fixed black materials and some light leaks: https://github.com/NVIDIA/Q2RTX/issues/55
- Fixed missing railgun lights in photo mode: https://github.com/NVIDIA/Q2RTX/issues/75
- Fixed missing sun light on geometry with invalid clusters.
- Fixed the CFLAGS for MinSizeRel and RelWithDebInfo builds to generate correct debug symbols.
- Fixed the game stuttering on Linux: https://github.com/NVIDIA/Q2RTX/issues/62
- Fixed the issue with all models being missing or corrupted on some maps during network play.
- Fixed the nearest filter when DRS was enabled and then disabled.
- Fixed building the game with GCC10 on Linux: https://github.com/NVIDIA/Q2RTX/issues/80
Denoiser Improvements:
- Implemented a new gradient estimation algorithm that makes the image more stable in reflections and refractions.
- Implemented sampling across checkerboard fields in the temporal filter to reduce blurring.
- Improved motion vectors for multiple refraction, in particular when thick glass is enabled.
- Improved the temporal filter to avoid smearing on surfaces that appear at small glancing angles, e.g. on the floor when going up the stairs.
- Improved the temporal filter to make lighting more stable on high-detail surfaces.
Misc Improvements:
- Added git branch name to the game version info.
- Improved the console log to get more information in case of game crashes.
- Increased precision of printed FPS when running timedemos.
- Reduced the amount of stutter that happened when new geometry is loaded, like on weapon pickup.
- Replaced the Vulkan headers stored in the repository with a submodule pointing to https://github.com/KhronosGroup/Vulkan-Headers
- Static resolution scale can now be set to as low as 25%.
- Vulkan validation layer can now be enabled through the `vk_validation` cvar.
- Updated SDL2 version to changeset 13784.