Now, to experience Minecraft with ray tracing on Windows 10, you must first have a ray tracing capable GPU, for example, a GeForce RTX 2060 GPU or better. Players who install Minecraft ray tracing will by default see everything enhanced with a special physically based rendering texture pack, which interplays with the ray-traced effects to further enhance the experience. There are plenty of maps and worlds with this feature – all available on the Minecraft Marketplace.
You can also create your own ray tracing worlds with physically based rendered texture packs (PBRs). Sounds complex? Don’t worry! NVIDIA has created a great starter pack and helpful guide that explains it on a level that even a caveman like me can understand. A perfect opportunity to turn my hideous dirt houses into extravagant eco-lodges!
A good thing to keep in mind is that ray tracing-supported maps and worlds doesn’t affect gameplay mechanics or the way Minecraft works, so you can still play together with anyone using a Bedrock version of Minecraft. Players without ray tracing-capable hardware will see Minecraft’s standard visuals – which means they’ll see my dirt h… er, lodges… for what they truly are. Good thing I only accept ratings from ray tracing players!
There’s more! After all, what would a luxurious lighting launch be without some sort of dazzling multiplayer content to dive into? The release comes with two new free worlds – Colosseum RTX (available now) and Dungeon Dash RTX (coming soon). You can download both from the Minecraft Marketplace.