Grand Theft Auto San Andreas RTX Remix mod with full path tracing sees FPS drop from 850 to 50

NVIDIA's RTX Remix was released into Open Beta this month, giving PC modders some incredibly easy-to-use and powerful tools to remaster and essentially remake classic games with the help of AI and RTX technologies like DLSS and ray-tracing. With the ability to add path tracing to older games (something NVIDIA showcased with its Portal RTX remaster), the result can be like looking at a brand-new game.

However, this level of ray-tracing is incredibly taxing on GPU hardware - to the point where some of the playing certain RTX Remix mods at high resolutions might be limited to graphics cards like the GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER and GeForce RTX 4090.

Take this example of Rockstar's iconic Grand Theft Auto San Andreas, given the RTX Remix treatment.

The new path-traced lighting transforms the game's look, though not always for the better. It changes some of the 'perpetual sunset' lighting Rockstar brought to the game, which would need to be modded back in. One of the interior shots is a great example of the power of RTX Remix. However, new textures, models, and lighting give the game a more modern look and feel.

But the frame rate takes a massive hit.

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Here, it drops from 842 FPS to 48 FPS at 1440p with DLSS on a PC with a GeForce RTX 4080 GPU and Intel Core i7-10700F CPU (via MxBenchmarkPC on YouTube). Yeah, path tracing is not for the faint of heart (that is, a PC not up for the task), so it will be interesting to see how this mod and others make use of RTX Remix whilst still catering to the gamers out there with GPUs like the GeForce RTX 4060 and RTX 4070.

Outdoor environments fare a little better, with 234 FPS dropping down to 54 FPS with path tracing - but it's still a massive hit to performance.

• Read more: SNVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER Founders Edition Review
• Read more: NVIDIA RTX Remix Open Beta is available now, a new era for PC game modding begins

RTX Remix is still an incredible tool and something that will impact PC game mods for years to come. Just take a look at the activity on the RTX Remix page over at ModDB; in the last week, there have been RTX Remix updates for classic games like Freelancer, Max Payne 2, Battlefield 2, and Doom 3.