Left 4 Dead 2 RTX NDT Stunning Yet Heavy on RTX 5080

The Left 4 Dead 2 RTX NDT mod reinvents the graphics of Valve’s co-op shooter, though even high-end GPUs like the RTX 5080 struggle with its intense performance demands.

Initially released as an early preview this month, the modification leverages RTX Remix to upgrade the No Mercy campaign with path-traced lighting, ultra-detailed textures, and ray tracing support.

A new side-by-side analysis by MxBenchmarkPC demonstrates the stark contrast between the refreshed visuals and their framerate impact. During testing, the modded version hovered at ~30 FPS in 4K with DLSS Performance mode enabled, while the unmodified game exceeded 500 FPS on identical hardware.

Heavy performance dips occur consistently. One scene (1:10 timestamp) shows the RTX 5080 delivering playable rates, whereas another segment (1:29) sees framerates plummet from well over 500 FPS to under 60 FPS. This underscores the challenge of path tracing workloads, which still require upscaling or frame generation for smooth gameplay on modern systems.