Benchmarking Nvidia's RTX Neural Texture Compression tech that can reduce VRAM usage by over 80%

Nvidia's RTX Neural Texture Compression (NTC) technology, utilizing AI-driven Tensor Cores, can significantly reduce VRAM usage by up to 80%. This neural shading approach allows for efficient real-time graphics performance by training AI models to estimate shader code results. NTC operates in different modes in DirectX 12 and Vulkan, offering substantial VRAM reduction but may have performance costs on certain GPUs. The technology leverages hardware acceleration for improved inference throughput and achieves higher compression ratios than traditional formats like BCn. Benchmarking on various GPUs demonstrates the impact of NTC on texture memory and image quality, with insights from an Nvidia developer highlighting its potential in games and the future of real-time graphics rendering.