Minecraft’s latest beta adds granular audio sliders, expands the RTX ray tracing beta
Casually expanding ray tracing to more players.
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What you need to know
Minecrafthas a very activebeta program, which allows Mojang Studios to test updates, bug fixes, and changes before they’re released to the public. The latest beta update comes in the form up1.16.200.53, which on the surface seems like a normal bug fixing beta with the addition of some important new granular audio controls, but sneakily includes a major change that should excite players looking towards the future of Minecraft, especially on Windows 10.
First things first: the only real addition in this beta is the existence of new audio sliders, which provide much more granular control over the various sounds in Minecraft, and include previews when you alter sound levels through settings. This is a feature players have been asking for over the years, and should be a big boon not only for players who were wishing for more control, but also for accessibility. Unfortunately, there aren’t any more features sneaking over from the upcomingCaves and Cliffs Update, like with anotherrecent Minecraft beta, but it shouldn’t be long before see more from Minecraft’s future major release.
The big news with this beta, however, is one snuck into this beta’s changelog, which is the expansion ofMinecraft with RTX, which utilizes ray tracing technology to add realistic lighting, shadows, reflections, and more to Minecraft, and represents the first major visual overhaul Minecraft has ever really seen. With the newest beta, anyone playing on Windows 10 with the necessary hardware (an RTX-compatible GPU from NVIDIA) will have access to ray tracing, rather than needing to enroll in a separate beta that was always behind in new features and changes.
This does not apply toMinecraft on the Xbox Series X and S, however. While this beta is for every platform that Minecraft: Bedrock Edition has a beta on (Xbox, Windows 10, and Android), the ray tracing expansion only applies to Windows 10. Unfortunately, we still don’t know for sure if Minecraft will see ray tracing on Microsoft’s powerful new consoles, theXbox Series XandXbox Series S, which do support hardware accelerated ray tracing.
The full changelog for 1.16.200.53 includes:
New features
New sound options
Ray tracing
Bug fixes
Performance & stability
General
Accessibility
Gameplay
Mobs
Graphics, textures, & user interface
Marketplace
Available everywhere you play.
Minecraft is an inarguable and complete success. It has sold copies in the hundreds of millions, has a huge following of dedicated players, and lets you unlock your every creative desire. It’s also available on every platform imaginable, including Xbox One, Windows 10, Playstation 4, and Nintendo Switch. Play with anyone, and play anywhere.
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Zachary Boddy (They / Them) is a Staff Writer for Windows Central, primarily focused on covering the latest news in tech and gaming, the best Xbox and PC games, and the most interesting Windows and Xbox hardware. They have been gaming and writing for most of their life starting with the original Xbox, and started out as a freelancer for Windows Central and its sister sites in 2019. Now a full-fledged Staff Writer, Zachary has expanded from only writing about all things Minecraft to covering practically everything on which Windows Central is an expert, especially when it comes to Microsoft. You can find Zachary on Twitter@BoddyZachary.
