Super Mario 64 With Ray Tracing Looks Incredible

Typically, if you’re in the market for a high-powered video card for a PC, you’re not looking to play video games from over 20 years ago. That being said, what the latest GPU from Nvidia can accomplish on some of the most memorable games from yesteryear might just convince you that you need to start saving for one.

Spotlighted over on YouTube, one creator has shown off what Nintendo‘s classic Super Mario 64 can look like thanks to the power of an RTX 3090. The highest-end graphics card on the market right now is able to make the ever-popular platforming look as good as we have ever seen it. With ray tracing in tow, the environments and Mario himself are all reflective and look sharper than ever before.

You can check out a look at the game in action in the video right here:

There are a few caveats with this gameplay footage, however. For starters, simply owning an RTX 3090 and downloading a fan-made port of Super Mario 64 isn’t going to automatically make the game look stunning. Instead, this is a very specific version of the game that modders have been toiling away on for quite some time. According to the description in the video, this iteration of the game is still a work in progress.

It’s also worth noting that any RTX card that is capable of utilizing ray tracing should be able to make Super Mario 64 look like this. While the RTX 3090, which comes in at a whopping $1500 price tag, is definitely the best card available at the moment, there are a number of other models that should be able to replicate this. But if you decide to break the bank, then this video is one good example of what you’ll be able to get with your money.

So what do you think about how Super Mario 64 looks with this new shine on it? Let me know either down in the comments or over on Twitter at @MooreMan12.

[H/T Kotaku]