Setting Up the RTX Remix Runtime with your Game#

Warning

Make sure the RTX Remix Runtime is installed before you start setting up your game.

You can follow the RTX Remix Runtime Installation section for directions on how to install the RTX Remix Runtime.

If you’re using RTX Remix with a game for the first time, you might need to do some initial setup so the game’s menus and visuals display correctly. Use the RTX Remix developer menu for this.

Note

Per game setup may be different depending on the game you are trying to remaster.

Join the RTX Remix Showcase Discord Community where you can check out the remix-projects channel for help with the game you wish to remaster!

Understanding CONF Files#

Let’s take a moment to get familiar with the settings in the Alt+X menu, specifically in the “game setup” tab. Firstly, here you’ll find a list of materials from the original game displayed in a grid view. RTX Remix will populate this list of materials based on what the original game is currently rendering. You might see this list change depending on what’s being displayed in the game (this is normal). The purpose of this list is to provide an easy way for RTX Remix users to categorize the different materials in the original game (see the Understanding Remix Categories section). This helps Remix understand how to handle objects from the original game with a modern renderer.

For example, materials marked as UI in the original game don’t need to be raytraced. By letting Remix know about them, it can use the original game’s rendering for UI, which is often the desired outcome.

Changes you make in the game setup tab are saved in an RTX.conf config file. This helps keep all your changes for the next time you start the game.

ModDB CONF Files#

ModDB hosts RTX.conf files for many games, which can help them run best with RTX Remix. You can simply download the RTX.conf file and place it along with the RTX Remix runtime next to the game’s executable. The community can help keep these RTX.conf files updated on ModDB, so modders can easily set up a game for RTX Remix.

Understanding Remix Categories#

Remix Categories give special instructions on how to render certain elements. Some important categories include:

  • UI (tells Remix to use the original game’s rendering)

  • Sky (allows Remix to create a realistic environment map)

  • Particles (lets Remix correctly orient particle effects based on lighting and create a “soft particles” effect)

  • Decals (tells Remix to treat these materials as realistic decals when using path tracing).

  • etc.

These categories primarily help the RTX Runtime render correctly, so some might not be perfectly displayed in the Remix Toolkit. There are many more categories. Please check the tooltips in the runtime or the specific setting documentation if you’re unsure what a category means.

Changes you make in the game setup tab are saved in the RTX.conf config file. This helps keep all your changes for the next time you start the game. For a full list of settings (including Remix Categories) and their descriptions, please refer to this document.

Note

You can also set Remix Categories for meshes and materials in the RTX Remix Toolkit. For more information on this, please refer to the Remix Categories section of the Toolkit Interface documentation.

Setting Up UI Textures#

Now that you understand the CONF files, let’s start setting up the game. The first thing to do is set up the UI.

  1. Press Alt+X to open the User Graphics Settings Menu, then select Developer Settings Menu.

    Tip

    You can check the Always Developer Menu option in the Developer Settings menu to always open the developer menu instead of the Graphics Settings Menu. This can be useful when setting up a game and needing frequent menu access.

  2. In Developer Settings, go to the Game Setup tab, then Step 1 – UI Textures.

  3. Click on any textures that are part of the game’s user interface (UI). This tells RTX Remix to treat them as UI elements, not in-game objects.

  4. After tagging the UI textures, the game’s main menu and world should display correctly.

  5. Click Save Settings to save your UI texture settings in a file called rtx.conf. This file is created next to your game’s executable, so you won’t need to do this again.

  6. You can always go back to the UI tagging menu if you find more UI textures later.

Capturing the Scene#

RTX Remix can create exact copies of in-game scenes as USD files through a process called “capturing”. These “captures” can be opened and edited in NVIDIA Omniverse and other popular DCC tools that support USD. Because the scene is captured into a USD file, all assets will be in a single common format. Captured assets include materials, textures, meshes, and skeletal data, as well as scene-specific instances and lighting. Meshes and materials are converted to USD format, and textures are converted to DDS. These copies are saved next to the captures in similarly named folders.

  1. Go to the Enhancements tab in the RTX Remix Developer Menu.

  2. Make sure Enable Enhanced Assets (in the Enhancements sub-menu) is turned off.

  3. Click the Capture Scene button to start capturing.

    Tip

    You can name your capture in the Name field to easily find it later.

    Setting the captured file extension to USDA instead of USD will capture the scene as readable text files, which can be helpful for debugging.

  4. This will create your first game capture. You can use this to improve assets, materials, and lighting. Capture files are saved in the rtx-remix/captures folder, next to your game’s executable. The rtx_remix folder also contains RTX Remix mods (in the mods subfolder).

Note

ModDB also has captures available to help you start your remaster.

Next Steps#

Now that you’ve got everything set up, it’s time to start remastering your game using the RTX Remix Toolkit. The main focus of the modding process will be to replace assets and textures. By using higher-poly models and PBR (Physically-Based Rendering) textures, you can significantly enhance the game’s visual quality, surpassing what you could achieve with in-engine edits alone.

Go to the Setting Up a Project with the RTX Remix Toolkit section to learn how to set up your first RTX Remix Toolkit project.

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