Max Payne RTX Remix mod jazzes it up nicely - but destroys frame rate of NVIDIA's RTX 4080 GPU

Max Payne is a DX8 classic of a PC game, and a great candidate for pepping up with RTX Remix - and indeed it looks tons better with a new mod that adds path tracing.

The catch is that the frame rate takes a serious nosedive with the RTX Remix mod - which officially kicked off in open beta last week- as shown off by MxBenchmarkPC on YouTube (the developer of the mod is Slasks Psykbunker on ModDB).

Check out the video above to see the results in the demo, but bear in mind that with the base graphics (the before footage), on an RTX 4080 the YouTuber was achieving up to 1400 fps - something like 900 fps to 1400 fps we're told - but that dropped to around 65 fps with path tracing.

So, while the remixed Max Payne looks vastly better - though some scenes are pretty dark, that's an extra dose of realism - there is a heavy price to pay. (Another interesting point to note: the power usage of the RTX 4080 goes from 120W to 180W pre-mod, all the way up to hit 300W at times with path tracing).

Is it worth sacrificing smoothness for a better looking game? Well, that's a somewhat subjective matter, but to be fair, in single player games, over 60 fps is still decently smooth, so some folks will be happy enough no doubt. (Competitive games are another matter entirely, of course - smoothness of gameplay is paramount in that case).

The catch is that you need an RTX 4080, hardly a mainstream graphics card, to be hitting the 60 fps mark in an ancient DX8 game. Those with a lesser NVIDIA GPU are obviously going to struggle to get something palatable in terms of frame rates.

Even so, it's very cool to see this in action, and remember that this is an initial take on a mod (it's just a demo, as mentioned). With further work, a more optimized version could be ushered in, and indeed the mileage modders get with other games will likely vary considerably in terms of the impact on fps.

A sizeable team is needed, really, to be able to take on revamping a game's graphics even with the help of RTX Remix, and the creator of this Max Payne mod is looking for further people to help.

RTX Remix is capable of a lot of other tricks besides adding ray tracing shininess, and that includes improving textures with AI, and implementing NVIDIA tech like Reflex (to combat input lag) or DLSS 3.