What you need to know
- RTX Voice was originally intended as a plugin for RTX cards.
- It was discovered that you didn't need an RTX card to make the plugin work.
- The plugin now officially supports a wide variety of GTX cards.
NVIDIA isn't letting up with surprise feature updates that breathe new life into existing graphics cards. Not too long ago, the company granted resizable BAR support to all RTX 30 series GPUs. And, lest we forget, RTX Voice has been made available to non-RTX cards. In case you're not familiar with RTX Voice, it's a plugin that uses AI to eliminate background noise so that the audio in your Zoom calls and Discord shouting matches is crisp and clear.
As spotted by Tom's Hardware, NVIDIA patched the RTX Voice plugin to support not only RTX graphics cards but also GeForce GTX GPUs. So long as you're on Windows 10 and NVIDIA driver update 410.18 or newer, you'll be good to go. This feature update was quietly mentioned in a blog post on NVIDIA's site in September.
It's not surprising NVIDIA took the RTX "requirement" out of RTX Voice, given that workarounds to get the plugin running on GTX cards have been circulating for ages. Still, it's nice that NVIDIA made things a little more convenient for everybody.
There's a helpful list of which apps are compatible with RTX Voice if you want to take your GTX GPU out for a spin with the communications-enhancing plugin. And if you want the full details on the plugin, here's NVIDIA's official page.
Remember that no plugin will singlehandedly solve your mic woes, so be sure you have one of the best PC gaming headsets to supplement your RTX Voice experience, such as the SteelSeries Arctis Pro.
Update April 6, 2021 at 4:45pm ET: A small amendment was made to this article to include reference to NVIDIA's September announcement of RTX Voice's GTX patch.
