Revolutionary Path Tracing Mod Takes Gaming to Dazzling New Heights – Beyond Skyrim

Highlights

The new path tracing mod for Skyrim introduces a visually stunning lighting system that enhances the game's graphics significantly.

The modder asserts that this path tracing mod can be integrated into other contemporary games that have ray tracing capabilities, such as Control. Despite potential performance challenges and the need for upscaling techniques like DLSS or FSR to ensure smooth gameplay, it displays potential in enhancing Skyrim's visuals and encouraging the development of comparable mods by the community.

A new mod for Skyrim is in the works that will greatly enhance the game's visuals by implementing a path-traced lighting system. Path tracing is considered the most advanced version of ray tracing and is the ideal choice for developers looking to improve their games' lighting systems. However, it does heavily impact performance. Despite the availability of numerous graphics mods for Skyrim, none of them have sufficiently utilized path tracing thus far. Most modders have focused on creating high-quality assets instead of making systemic upgrades to the game's aging visuals. This makes the upcoming path racing mod particularly noteworthy.

Skyrim modder Pascal Gilcher has successfully developed a Special Edition mod that introduces a path-traced global illumination system into the game. In a demonstration video, the mod showcases a remarkable visual enhancement to the game's graphics. What sets Gilcher's work apart is the fact that his mod can potentially be applied to almost any DX9+ game where his ReShade plugin is compatible. This opens up the possibility of adding path tracing to a wide range of modern games.

An interesting aspect of Gilcher's mod is its ability to improve games that already support ray-tracing on PC, such as Control from Remedy Entertainment. While Control already has graphics mods that enhance its ray tracing and DLSS capabilities, Gilcher's mod can utilize buffer data from Control, suggesting that it won't be long before it incorporates path tracing as well.

It is uncertain whether Gilcher's PTGI mod will gain popularity within the Skyrim community and make its way to the top lists of Skyrim mods. It should be noted that path tracing significantly decreases performance and is only suitable for RT-enabled graphics cards, such as Nvidia's RTX lineup. Additionally, some form of upscaling, such as DLSS or FSR, may be necessary for the mod to maintain playability. Fortunately, both DLSS and FSR have already been integrated into Skyrim.

Interestingly, Gilcher's mod seems to be on a similar level as Nvidia's RTX Remix feature. As seen with the Portal: Prelude RTX mod, path tracing alone greatly enhances a game's visual quality. Although Gilcher's PTGI injector does not upgrade all of the game's assets like RTX Remix does, the Skyrim community's other mods should offer similar improvements.

Skyrim is available now for PC, PS3, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox 360, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.

Source: Marty's Mods