NVIDIA RTXGI 2.0 Now Available: The Next Frontier of Ray Traced Visuals With Neural Radiance Cache, Spatial Hash Radiance Cache & Dynamic Diffuse Global Illumination Support

20.03.2024 - 14:42 / wccftech.com / Hassan Mujtaba

NVIDIA has updated its ray tracing global illumination SDK to the latest feature set in the RTXGI 2.0 update, offering support for new technologies.

NVIDIA Adds Neural Radiance Cache, Spatial Hash Radiance Case & Dynamic Diffuse Global Illumination Features To RTXGI 2.0 SDK, Powering The Next-Generation of Ray Tracing Visuals

At GDC 2024, NVIDIA is announcing its brand new RTXGI 2.0 update which adds a range of new technologies that the company has previously teased.

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The new feature set makes it easier for developers to harness fast and efficient radiance caching techniques for faster performance in the most demanding applications such as games. The best part is that the solutions provided by NVIDIA under its RTXGI SDK are accessible for any ray-tracing-capable GPU and further take advantage of AI-accelerated algorithms such as the Tensor core architecture featured on NVIDIA's RTX GPUs. The full SDK is available on Github at this link.

The three major features being introduced in NVIDIA's RTXGI 2.0 update are:

• NRC - Neural Radiance Cache
• SHaRC - Spatial Hash Radiance Cache
• DDGI - Dynamic Diffuse Global Illumination

First up, let's talk about NRC or Neural Radiance Cache which was proposed as a technique back at Siggraph 2021. The fundamental aim of this technique is to make advanced ray tracing and path tracing effects faster on NVIDIA GPUs by utilizing AI-accelerated hardware such as Tensor Core technology.

The algorithm works by training the radiance cache about a scene in real time without assuming lighting, geometry, and materials. AI does the main work here by training the radiance cache in real-time for improved performance and accurate GI (Global Illumination). Following is a before and after comparison showcasing how NRC enhances the signal quality of the radiance data:

NVIDIA Neural Radiance Cache Disabled:

NVIDIA Neural Radiance Cache Enabled:

NVIDIA states that the NRC library is currently available in experimental mode and is being actively developed.

Next up, we have SHaRC or Spatial Hash Radiance Cache which is built upon Spatial hashing data structures and provides a fast plus scalable global illumination technique for path tracing. SHaRC works very similar to NRC but it doesn't leverage AI or neural networks and works with any DirectX or Vulkan ray-tracing GPU.

Following is a scene in Cyberpunk 2077 with SHaRC enabled & disabled. The advantage shown here is that with SHaRC, the GI lighting covers a much larger area and works accurately while having a negligible impact on performance.

NVIDIA Spatial Hash Radiance Cache Disabled:

NVIDIA Spatial Hash Radiance Cache Enabled:

Lastly, we have the