At this year’s GDC event, Nvidia showcased an updated version of its Zorah demo, initially revealed during the GeForce RTX 50-series launch. New controls were introduced, allowing viewers to witness features like RTX Mega Geometry in action. In a panel concerning the demo and neural rendering, Nvidia confirmed two key points: Zorah is fully rendered with ray tracing, and impressively, it outpaces rasterization in speed.
For nearly 30 years, I’ve enjoyed observing GPU manufacturers present standalone demos to highlight innovative rendering techniques or advanced hardware capabilities. Over time, these demonstrations have faded, as games have taken precedence for showcasing new graphics cards.
While the Zorah demo is visually mesmerizing—especially when viewed on a large OLED monitor—the era of demos setting new standards in rendering seems to have passed. It’s not that Zorah is underwhelming; rather, it faces competition from games utilizing path tracing, which are similarly remarkable.
Nvidia discussed the Zorah demo at the GDC 2025, with John Spitzer, Nvidia’s VP of Developer and Performance Technology, emphasizing its ray-traced nature:
“There’s no rasterization happening at all. This is entirely ray traced, including the primary rays. Surprisingly, it’s actually faster than rasterizing them, making it the sensible approach for this demo.”
As Zorah exemplifies Nvidia’s robust RTX neural rendering technologies and RTX Mega Geometry, its fully ray-traced implementation was anticipated. The fact that it’s quicker than traditional framing suggests we may be at a tipping point where conventional rasterization might soon become obsolete.
While Zorah isn’t the fastest demo, even on the RTX 5090, it utilizes all available performance enhancements from RTX neural rendering, RTX Mega Geometry, and DLSS 4. This demonstrates the potential benefits of AI in rendering. Historically, AI has been associated primarily with upscaling and frame generation, but its role in enhancing graphics will likely expand further in the coming years.
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