Need for Speed Underground RTX Remix mod gets one step closer to racing perfection

Earlier this year, we reported on one of the most popular and iconic games in the Need For Speed franchise getting the RTX Remix treatment, with alessandro893's impressive Need For Speed: Underground (RTX Remix) mod. As a game from 2003, it's the perfect candidate for NVIDIA's groundbreaking RTX Remix tool, making it easier to bring full ray-tracing and modern rendering tech to classic games.

RTX Remix also makes it easy to replace in-game textures and materials with PBR or Physically Based Rendered versions, allowing advanced lighting, depth, and other effects. In addition, RTX Remix includes baked-in support for DLSS upscaling, Ray Reconstruction, and Frame Generation to improve image fidelity and performance. NVIDIA Lightspeed Studios made Portal with RTX using the RTX Remix toolset, which is so impressive that it looks and feels like a build-from-the-ground-up remake.

Earlier this week, the Need For Speed: Underground (RTX Remix) mod got updated to Version 0.1, and it's shaping up nicely.

Still a work in progress, this new version improves performance while adding many new PBR textures, giving elements like the road and walls more detail and depth. Also added are volumetric lights for the head and tail lights and over 2,500 lights for the environments. This is crucial because this version of the game features full ray-traced lighting, shadows, and reflections, so the fake in-game lights of the 2003 original must be replaced by the real thing.

The modder also notes that existing textures have been upscaled using RTX Remix's AI features, while some have been generated using Stable Diffusion. Based on the new version and some 4K gameplay footage above, there's still room for improvement regarding some of the environments and even the detail - but it's looking great so far. The fact that RTX Remix allows a single developer or modder to remaster and effectively remake a classic like this is pretty incredible.

Check out the Need For Speed: Underground (RTX Remix) modDB page to follow the progress, download the mod, and try it out yourself.