Battlefield 2042 to Deliver PC Exclusive Ray Tracing Features

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Consoles won't be getting Ray Tracing, at least during the launch phase

In a recent GeForce blog post, Nvidia gets gamers ready for Battlefield 2042's early access and details all the new Nvidia-focused features coming to EA's latest AAA title. Those features include Nvidia's Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) technology and Reflex support. Nvidia also highlights the benefits of the game's new ray-tracing ambient occlusion, which will enhance the shadows and lighting of the game.

Nvidia notes the ray-tracing portion of the game will be exclusive to PC (at least for now), with the requirement being an AMD Radeon or Nvidia GeForce GPU that supports Microsoft's DirectX Raytracing feature set. Unfortunately, this means consoles like the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X will not be getting RT support for the game for the time being. However, we suspect a future update will take place that will add RT support to the latest generation consoles.

However, the only ray tracing feature announced was ray-traced ambient occlusion. So it appears Battlefield 2042 won't be focusing as much on graphical fidelity as Battlefield V once did. Instead, DICE is probably pulling back other ray-tracing features like shadows and reflections in favor of higher frame rates in the game, which is arguably more critical in a fast-paced FPS shooter.

To be ready for early access, you'll need to buy the Gold or Ultimate editions of Battlefield 2042, or rent the game with EA's Play Pro membership. For GeForce owners, you'll want to update to the latest Nvidia driver 496.49 for an optimal experience. 

However, Nvidia also announced a new Battlefield 2042-optimized driver would be out for the game's official release on November 19th. You can expect this update to appear during the game's early access phase and right before the game's official launch.

Aaron Klotz
Aaron Klotz
Contributing Writer

Aaron Klotz is a contributing writer for Tom’s Hardware, covering news related to computer hardware such as CPUs, and graphics cards.

7 Comments Comment from the forums
  • saunupe1911
    I played the beta extensively. The game needs a ton of work. Too many bugs to mention. T

    he class layout was also so frustrating as it failed to remember your last settings.

    I definitely didn't preorder. I may grab it during the Christmas sales after it's patched throughout November
    Reply
  • hotaru251
    we've learned Raytracing on console is bad idea.
    they lack the power to keep game running properly w/o degrading frame rate (and on console you are alreayd limited there)
    Reply
  • JamesSneed
    saunupe1911 said:
    I played the beta extensively. The game needs a ton of work. Too many bugs to mention. T

    he class layout was also so frustrating as it failed to remember your last settings.

    I definitely didn't preorder. I may grab it during the Christmas sales after it's patched throughout November

    I will need a free trial after its live if I am to buy this. I am done with Battlefield unless they prove they can make a fun game again.
    Reply
  • Eximo
    I skipped the last few battlefields, probably get this one. Large player count was the best part of the older ones, so hopefully they designed around that.
    Reply
  • Historical Fidelity
    Yeah I am really hoping they changed. Last battlefield I bought was bf1 and I stopped playing when they nerfed the only WW1 guns in the game IE the bolt action long guns. Once they took that immersion building aspect away from me it became a call of doody game with everyone running around with prototypes of auto-loading weapons that were never fielded except in super low numbers, or never fielded at all, with retro red dot sights, etc. that is completely unrealistic. Like god forbid DICE has to change gameplay dynamics based on the conflict, nope, same exact gameplay but new skin to appease the mindless Doritos eating consoler. Sorry for venting lol but battlefield used to be my favorite game, played it since 1942, stopped at 1, hoping 2142 is different.
    Reply
  • GenericUser
    Historical Fidelity said:
    Yeah I am really hoping they changed. Last battlefield I bought was bf1 and I stopped playing when they nerfed the only WW1 guns in the game IE the bolt action long guns. Once they took that immersion building aspect away from me it became a call of doody game with everyone running around with prototypes of auto-loading weapons that were never fielded except in super low numbers, or never fielded at all, with retro red dot sights, etc. that is completely unrealistic. Like god forbid DICE has to change gameplay dynamics based on the conflict, nope, same exact gameplay but new skin to appease the mindless Doritos eating consoler. Sorry for venting lol but battlefield used to be my favorite game, played it since 1942, stopped at 1, hoping 2142 is different.

    I'm generally the same way when it comes to this type of stuff, but unfortunately you and I are in a small niche and ultimately developers will always cater to the larger market since it's the most profitable decision. I've seen some stuff that started out good but then got ruined because of this because the developer needed to attract more players, so things had to be changed to water it down to make it more mainstream accessible.
    Reply
  • Woobnut
    Plan to get this game someday when graphics card prices come back down to earth. My old card doesn't quite cut it.
    Reply