Owners of NVIDIA’s GTX 600-series or newer GPUs can now experience Ansel within Mirror’s Edge Catalyst, an in-engine capture tech capable of extreme resolutions and stereoscopic 360-degree scenes for VR.
Owners of NVIDIA’s GTX 600-series or newer GPUs can now experience Ansel within Mirror’s Edge Catalyst, an in-engine capture tech capable of extreme resolutions and stereoscopic 360-degree scenes for VR.
NVIDIA’s Ansel is finally here. The absurdly high resolution capture software was first announced with the reveal of the GeForce GTX 1080, boasting screen capture capabilities way beyond the a mere Print-Screen, and has been an eagerly awaited feature for the last six week. Today the first module – for Mirror’s Edge Catalyst – can be downloaded and run by owners of the game so they can start capturing photo-quality in-game screenshots way beyond what their GPU would normally be capable of rendering.
Currently Ansel operates on a per-game basis, launching with Mirror’s Edge Catalyst and coming in the very near future to Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt. The interface is in-game and so requires that you both own and have the game installed to use, but its then that the fun begins.
To get started:
1. Own a GeForce GTX 600-series* or newer GPU
2. Download and install the latest GeForce Experience update
3. Through Origin.com download and install Mirror’s Edge Catalyst and install the latest update to the game
4. Run ME: Catalyst and press Alt+F2 whilst in-game to open the Ansel interface
*Yes, you read that right: both Kepler and Maxwell-era GPUs are capable of running Ansel
2. Download and install the latest GeForce Experience update
3. Through Origin.com download and install Mirror’s Edge Catalyst and install the latest update to the game
4. Run ME: Catalyst and press Alt+F2 whilst in-game to open the Ansel interface
*Yes, you read that right: both Kepler and Maxwell-era GPUs are capable of running Ansel
When you open the Ansel interface the game freezes and places you in a free camera mode, allowing you to reposition your view however you desire within the static scene. Then you can tailor the view to a perfect in-game photo by adjusting FoV, colour filters, brightness and contrast all in absurd resolution way beyond 4K (demonstrations captured images in resolutions as high as 46080×25920). The software is also capable of 2D 360-degree image capture which can be used to generate a 360-degree photosphere. But that’s not all.
Owners of Google Cardboard and more advanced VR HMDs can also take advantage of Ansel’s Stereoscopic 360-degree image capture capabilities, offering static three-dimensional scenes which can be displayed on devices without the need for high-end graphics processing technology. NVIDIA’s VR Viewer Beta app can be used to Google Cardboard to display these images, and also includes sample scenes if you’re not currently a GeForce GPU or ME: Catalyst owner. More information on 360-degree VR experiences with Ansel can be found at http://www.geforce.com/hardware/technology/ansel/view-ansel-360.
As a technology Ansel looks extremely promising, and it’s excellent that NVIDIA haven’t locked the technology down to Pascal. Rendering these images will no doubt be faster on the newer technology, but even owners of venerable GPUs such as the GTX 660 (including your humble author) can take advantage of it as new games supporting the technology are released. NVIDIA also claim that this is ‘just the beginning’ for Ansel, so we have to wonder what else they have up their voluminous sleeves.
The latest GeForce Experience Update can be downloaded here, and Mirror’s Edge Catalyst is available from Origin.com and retail stores. As previously mentioned, Ansel for The Witcher III is expected for release later this month.
