How to Play Minecraft RTX on Xbox Game Pass

As an avid Minecraft player and fan of real-time ray tracing in games, I‘ve done extensive research into when Xbox fans can expect to experience Minecraft RTX through Game Pass and Xbox Series X/S. Unfortunately, the clear answer remains that true Minecraft RTX is not currently supported on Xbox consoles or Game Pass subscriptions.

Why Minecraft RTX is Exclusive to PC

Minecraft RTX leverages advanced real-time ray tracing techniques made possible by Nvidia RTX GPUs and the DirectX Raytracing API in Windows. This provides real-time dynamic global illumination, reflections, shadows and other enhanced lighting that brings Minecraft worlds to life.

But Minecraft RTX has some specific hardware and platform requirements:

• **Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 or higher GPU**
• **Windows 10 operating system** (specifically the Bedrock edition Minecraft codebase)
• DirectX 12 and latest GPU drivers

So in summary, a gaming PC equipped with Windows 10 and an Nvidia RTX GPU is mandatory. This rules out Xbox consoles and mobile devices for now.

Xbox Series X/S Uses AMD Graphics Instead of Nvidia RTX

The Xbox Series X and Series S consoles are powered by advanced semi-custom AMD GPUs optimized for console workloads. But these do not contain the dedicated RT (ray tracing) cores found in Nvidia‘s RTX 2000 and RTX 3000 series graphics cards.

Without specialized hardware support for efficient ray tracing workloads, Minecraft cannot leverage the same PC-based RTX implementation on Xbox. While AMD GPUs do have basic ray tracing capabilities via the DirectX Raytracing API in Windows, their performance does not match Nvidia RTX GPUs.

For example, the Nvidia RTX 3060 alone has 28 dedicated 2nd-gen RT cores, while AMD GPUs handle ray tracing on standard shader cores. So despite the Xbox Series X GPU having 12 TFLOPS vs 10 TFLOPS in a RTX 3060, it lacks optimized ray tracing hardware found in PC GPUs.

This is why the Minecraft RTX bedrock edition designed for Windows PCs with RTX cards cannot simply enable the same ray-traced effects on Xbox Series X/S today. The console hardware lacks specific capabilities that were custom-built into Nvidia‘s RTX initiative.

However, Microsoft indicates features like hardware-accelerated ray tracing could still come to Xbox Series X/S in future, potentially through DirectX integration rather than an Nvidia partnership. But performance and visual quality may differ from RTX-powered PCs, especially at higher resolutions.

RTX Adoption Among Gamers Rising Steadily

Adoption of Nvidia RTX graphics cards has been steadily rising, indicating strong demand from gamers looking to maximize visual quality in supported titles.

According to Steam‘s monthly hardware survey results, the percentage of users with RTX 2060 or better GPUs has risen from 8.27% in April 2022 to over 13% by February 2023. RTX adoption is still slightly behind AMD overall, but has seen faster growth recently.

The latest RTX 4070 Ti and RTX 4080 12GB models also just launched, so RTX penetration is likely to increase further soon. This shows a decent portion of PC gamers are investing in hardware needed to experience ray tracing where supported.

DLSS and Ray Tracing Can Boost Frame Rates

Enabling RTX features doesn‘t always come with a performance penalty. Nvidia‘s Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) LEVERAGES AI TO BOOST FRAME RATES WHILE RENDERING AT HIGHER RESOLUTIONS.

For example, in Cyberpunk 2077 at 4K Ultra settings on a RTX 3080, enabling both DLSS and ray tracing led to 86 FPS average during benchmarking. That even surpasses the 79 FPS achieved with ray tracing disabled completely.

DLSS achieves this by rendering the game at 1440p resolution then upscaling to 4K in a highly optimized way. So with the right balance of settings, you can often improve visual quality AND performance beyond traditional rendering.

Ray Tracing Brings Dramatically Better Lighting, Reflections and Shadows

But what visual enhancements do ray tracing techniques actually enable? The core benefit is much more realistic lighting, reflections and shadows in virtual game worlds.

Instead of pre-baked lighting effects, ray tracing simulates the physical behavior of light rays interacting with objects and materials dynamically. This brings true-to-life global illumination, accurate reflections, and spatial audio.

In Control with RTX enabled, shiny terrazzo floors and marble walls showcase ultra life-like reflections of surrounding environments. Puddles on the ground gain accurate mirror-like properties missing with traditional screen space effects.

And in asset-heavy scenes, ray-traced ambient occlusion creates properly occluded areas where light is blocked just like the real world. These nuances create a heightened level of immersion that takes gaming visuals to the next level.

Timeline for Ray Tracing on Xbox Consoles

Minecraft RTX first launched in beta form on Windows 10 in April 2020, leveraging the DirectX 12 Ultimate SDK. The official release came in June 2021, but remains Windows and RTX exclusive over 2 years later.

In March 2022, Microsoft announced plans to bring ray tracing support to Xbox Series X/S consoles after the proposed Activision Blizzard acquisition. But concrete details remain scarce. Enabling software-based DXR ray tracing could impact performance much more compared to dedicated RT cores.

Some industry analysts (via Wccftech) speculated AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution 2.0 enhancements coming to Xbox developer tools could help boost ray tracing performance when implemented. But again, no specific Minecraft RTX plans were mentioned.

So despite AMD and Microsoft technically supporting basic ray tracing APIs like DXR, the same stunning visual enhancements from PC-based RTX integration seem further out on Xbox. I remain eager to see Microsoft commit to bringing key graphics features like ray tracing to their flagship console franchise. But clear challenges remain to matching the RTX visual standard.

As a passionate Minecraft and Xbox gamer, I will be following any developments in this area closely. Please let me know if you have any other questions!