Portal’s free ray-tracing DLC will release on December 8th

Portal, the first-person puzzle game that spawned a thousand memes, is getting a glow-up on December 8th, courtesy of a free piece of DLC. Portal with RTX was originally announced alongside Nvidia’s new RTX 4080 and 4090 graphics cards...

Portal’s free ray-tracing DLC will release on December 8th

Portal, the first-person puzzle game that spawned a thousand memes, is getting a glow-up on December 8th, courtesy of a free piece of DLC. Portal with RTX was originally announced alongside Nvidia’s new RTX 4080 and 4090 graphics cards and adds ray-tracing support along with remade hi-res textures and models to the game. The result is much more realistic lighting and reflections, making the 15-year-old title look almost brand new.

Nvidia says the DLC was created with RTX Remix, its new modding platform that’s designed to make it easier to add support for modern technologies like ray tracing, enhanced materials, and DLSS to classic titles. Portal with RTX supports DLSS 3, the latest version of Nvidia’s AI upscaling technology, which is designed to boost resolution and frame rate when used with the latest generation of Nvidia’s graphics cards.

Portal with RTX system requirements.

Portal with RTX system requirements.

Image: Nvidia

DLSS 3 is exclusive to Nvidia’s 40-series GPUs, while those with older Nvidia graphics cards are limited to the slightly less advanced DLSS 2. A full list of the recommended specs can be found in the image above, but expect to need at least an RTX 3060 to run the game at 30fps in 1080p with DLSS 2, rising to an RTX 4080 for 60fps 4K with DLSS 3.

If you want to get your hands on the DLC for yourself, head on over to its Steam page to download it on December 8th. It’ll be completely free so long as you own the original Portal. If you’re looking for more ray-tracing mods for classic games, check out this RTX version of Quake II. For something a little more modern, here’s Minecraft, with similarly lavish lighting.