A Half-Life mod that adds ray tracing to Valve's classic game is out right now on PC.
The mod for the original Half-Life on PC only just launched earlier this week on February 22, adding ray-traced graphics to the iconic game. You can see a launch trailer for the new mod just below, giving you a quick look at how the revamped shooter runs with ray-traced capabilities.
With this new mod though, you'll want to make sure your PC is up to par. As per the mod's GitHub page, the recommended specs for this Half-Life mod are an Intel Pentium II with 32MB RAM, 6GB HDD, and a GeForce 4090 RTX. These specs aren't anything to sniff at, that's for damn sure.
- Valve literally gives Half-Life away now, but 27 years ago it was carefully crushing its angry pirates: "None of them had actually bought the game"
- Some GTA 5 players can't bring their characters to the new PC upgrade, and the open-world game's mixed Steam reviews are hammering FPS caps and a lack of text chat
However, be warned that AMD GPUs might have some incompatibility issues with the Half-Life mod. There's a 'Known Issues' section on the mod's GitHub page, and it also reveals that although custom maps are supported, they might be a little darker than they're meant to look.
Over on the dedicated PC Gaming subreddit, users are quick to praise the new mod. "Great excuse to replay a classic, thanks!" writes one user, while another adds "Wow! This looks amazing. I LOVE being able to switch between the two renderers like in halo mcc, such a cool detail."
Once you've installed the new mod, you can switch between the old graphics of Half-Life and the ray-traced mod's output by simply pressing 'X.' That's a nice little touch for those who really want to see just how much the new mod overhauls Valve's game.
Considering Valve has already given its blessing to Half-Life games to launch on Steam, there could be some official praise in store for this mod's creator.
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