# NVIDIA/Q2RTX

NVIDIA’s implementation of RTX ray-tracing in Quake II

Repository: https://github.com/NVIDIA/Q2RTX
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/q2rtx
Language: C
License: NOASSERTION
License Family: other
Archived: true
Last push: 2025-12-11T04:41:41+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 10/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-02T17:46:02.011165+00:00)
- activity 56, release rhythm 28, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 2651, "days_push": 265, "days_rel": 265, "gap_med": 259, "n_releases_24m": 2}
- flags: archived, no_license
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 1317, forks 212 (observed 2026-08-28T04:04:20.942294+00:00)

## What it is
Quake II RTX is NVIDIA's fully path-traced reimplementation of Id Software's 1997 game Quake II, built on the Q2VKPT and Q2PRO engine branches using Vulkan ray tracing. It showcases RTX global illumination, denoising, and physically based materials, and is distributed as a playable game via GitHub Releases.

## Use cases
- play Quake II with real-time path-traced global illumination
- study a production implementation of Vulkan RTX ray tracing in C
- experiment with real-time denoising and path tracing techniques
- run a modernized Quake II engine with multiplayer deathmatch and co-op
- benchmark GPU ray tracing performance with multi-GPU SLI support
- fork a ray-traced game engine to build community improvements

## When to choose
- you want to play or showcase Quake II with cutting-edge ray-traced lighting
- you need a real-world reference codebase for Vulkan ray tracing and denoising
- you want a modernized Quake II engine with path tracing features like volumetric lighting and dynamic time-of-day

## When to avoid
- you need an actively maintained project - the repository is officially discontinued
- you want to redistribute the game - original Quake II pak files remain under id Software's copyright
- you need a general-purpose game engine rather than a Quake II-specific implementation

## Facets
- artifact type: application
- maturity: abandoned
- function: game-engine, graphics, simulation
- domain: graphics, gaming-tools
- platform: windows, cross-platform
- tags: ray-tracing, path-tracing, vulkan, quake-ii, rtx, game-remake, nvidia, game-development, linux, gpu

## Member repositories
- NVIDIA/Q2RTX (main) score 10

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:04:20.942294+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-30T04:48:11.887147+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/NVIDIA/Q2RTX (fetched 2026-08-28T04:04:20.942294+00:00, sha dd054b931df9)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.