An independent developer has published a fork of the Godot engine, created by NVIDIA, which adds real-time ray tracing using the Vulkan API. The code, revealed after GDC 2026 and under MIT license, promises a visual improvement over the engine's current systems. It is compatible with GPUs from any manufacturer, although it is an experimental project. For now, only the source code is available for compilation.🚀
A promising technical development but in early stage🔬
The implementation is based on Vulkan's ray tracing extensions, which theoretically allows its use on non-NVIDIA hardware. However, the current state is rudimentary. Users who have compiled it report low frame rates and the absence of common features like volumetric effects or the decal system. It is not confirmed whether NVIDIA plans to present this work to the official Godot team for possible future integration.
For those who think compiling Godot was too fast😅
If you've always wanted to spend an afternoon setting up a build environment, fighting with dependencies, and generating an executable that runs at 15 FPS in an empty scene, your dream has come true. This fork offers the authentic bleeding edge experience: all the lights and shadows that ray tracing promises, with the added bonus of an optional slideshow. It's the direct path to feeling like a graphics engine developer... or to remind you why you use official binaries.