NVIDIA Real-Time Denoiser
NVIDIA Real-Time Denoiser
The NVIDIA Real-Time Denoiser (NRD) is a spatio-temporal API agnostic denoising library that’s designed to work with low ray per pixel signals. It uses input signals and environmental conditions to deliver results comparable to ground truth images.


Fast Ray Tracing Denoising Solution
Fast integration, fast real-time performance. NVIDIA Real-Time Denoiser will increase the efficiency of your art pipeline.
Designed to Work with 0.5 or 1 Ray Per Pixel
This highly performant ray tracing solution is built to provide real-time results for developers using a limited budget of rays per pixel. You can achieve exceptional denoising results using only .5 to 1 ray per pixel.
Works with DX11, DX12, and Vulkan
No matter which APIs you are using, NVIDIA Real-Time Denoiser is built to fit seamlessly into your workflow. Get started knowing that DX11, DX12 and Vulkan are all fully supported from day 1.
Full Source Code
Developers get the flexibility that comes with full access to source code. Build out and optimize NVIDIA Real-Time Denoiser to fit your unique use case.
NRD in Ubisoft's Watch Dogs: Legion
Supported Denoising Signal Types
Diffuse
Scattered lighting reflected in all directions (with some exceptions can be called "view independent", prevails on dielectric materials). The algorithm uses hit distance to guide the denoising process, it allows to denoise ambient occlusion together with diffuse radiance for free.
Specular or Reflections
Lighting reflected in a particular direction or cone (view dependent, prevails on metals). The algorithm uses hit distance to guide the denoising process, it allows to denoise specular occlusion together with specular radiance for free.
Infinite Light Source Shadows
Sun or any other infinite light source visibility information (shadow).
50% Performance Over SVGF
NVIDIA’S prior denoising solution for real-time ray tracing - SVGF (Spatiotemporal Variance-Guided Filtering) - was introduced in 2017, and is the foundation for several proprietary denoisers being used today. NRD offers better image quality than SVGF, both when stationary and when the camera is moving. Lighting and shadows in NRD are softer and more realistic, and overall performance is increased by roughly 50% (+48.2% for 1080p, +49% for 1440p, and +51.3% for 4K).


Customer Testimonials
"Every developer adding ray tracing to their game needs a denoiser that runs fast and generates an excellent image. We’ve been really pleased with NVIDIA’s solution; it allows us to make the very best of our ray budget, delivering exceptional quality without compromising performance.”
Zurab Abelashvili, 3D Programmer
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“We use NRD for RT bounced diffuse lighting and shadows denoising with success. Thanks to NRD, we significantly reduced the amount of rays used by our RT implementation without quality loss. It's easy to integrate and brings both, great quality and performance at the same time."
Tomasz Szalkowski, Rendering Director
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