Nvidia hits major RTX GPU milestone with 500 games (and apps) now supporting DLSS or ray tracing

RTX games are played for 87 million hours per week

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

Nvidiais celebrating a major milestone with its RTX technology, announcing that 500 games and apps now incorporate RTX support in one form or another.

Those are games and applications runningray tracingor DLSS (or both), making use of the dedicated cores on RTX graphics cards.

AsNvidia reminds us, the first RTX GPU was the RTX 2080 which was launched over five years ago now (how time flies when you’re having fun gaming).

Only a handful of pieces of software and games came with initial support, but now there are 500, with RTX games being played for 87 million hours per week, Nvidia tells us.

Naturally, Nvidia has a bunch of other stats to share, and that includes the fairly unsurprising revelation that most PC gamers with anRTX graphics carduse ray tracing and/or DLSS in big-name titles that support it.

For example, 97% of those playing Cyberpunk 2077 go ‘RTX On’ as Nvidia puts it, and 99% of Alan Wake 2 players (and 99% of those engaging inMinecraft, too).

It wouldn’t be a celebration without a giveaway, of course, and Nvidia has 20 Green Man Gaming gift cards up for grabs, as well as some ‘RTX On’ keycaps. To stand a chance of getting some goodies, you’ll need to follow one of Nvidia’s main social channels (X, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok,YouTube) for instructions on how to participate.

Get the best Black Friday deals direct to your inbox, plus news, reviews, and more.

Sign up to be the first to know about unmissable Black Friday deals on top tech, plus get all your favorite TechRadar content.

Analysis: DLSS FTW

Nvidia doesn’t break down the relative percentages of those using ray tracing or DLSS (or both), but we reckon it’s a safe bet that the most-used RTX technology is DLSS. With DLSS 3, the frame generation tech took a leap forward – leavingAMD’s rival FSR way behind, frankly – and Nvidia is constantly improving and innovating with DLSS (with v3.5 of late).

Yes, ray tracing is doubtless growing in popularity too, partly because DLSS can make frame rates more palatable for the demands of turning on those GPU-taxing rays. Butwhat gamers really wantis the ability to play thebest PC gamessmoothly – perhaps at 60 frames per second, or 120 more ambitiously – when theyotherwise would fall well shortof that kind of level.

DLSS is undoubtedly a big selling point for Nvidia’s GeForce graphics cards, especially as support expands further. It’s often mentioned as a pro in discussions of the various respective merits of Team Green’s products when pitted against AMD’s offerings (or indeedIntel’s Arc GPUs, which have carved a small niche in the desktop world – and Team Blue also offers XeSS, a solid enough rival to DLSS).

ViaWccftech

You might also like

Darren is a freelancer writing news and features for TechRadar (and occasionally T3) across a broad range of computing topics including CPUs, GPUs, various other hardware, VPNs, antivirus and more. He has written about tech for the best part of three decades, and writes books in his spare time (his debut novel - ‘I Know What You Did Last Supper’ - was published by Hachette UK in 2013).

Intel Battlemage rumored for December – could new budget GPUs win over gamers neglected by Nvidia and save the Arc brand?

Nvidia RTX 5090 Ti suddenly pops up – and RTX 6000 GPUs are mentioned in trademark filings too – but don’t get excited

LG Electronics sets ambitious B2B revenue goal to offset declining consumer demand