Global technology brand NVIDIA has partnered with Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity to launch the world’s largest winter wonderland experience – all built within Minecraft.
Visitors can access the 38-acre virtual NVIDIA RTX Winter World for free from today and experience interactive rides, attractions, and quests – including helping Santa himself. We’ve even added hidden nods to famous Christmas films for eagle-eyed visitors to try to spot as they explore the massive complex.
A full recreation of Great Ormond Street hospital can also be found in the world where donations can be made to support the charity’s “Home for Christmas” campaign which seeks to bring seriously ill children one step closer to home.
Utilizing NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX GPUs, real-time ray-tracing stunningly transforms this interactive Santa’s grotto and Winter Wonderland experience. Spanning a virtual space of 38 acres, the NVIDIA RTX Winter World took a specialist artist 300 hours to build and is 4 times the size of the biggest real-world Christmas Market in Austria. The world features interactive rides, food stands, attractions, and Santa’s grotto, including Santa himself for visitors to engage and interact with
Partnering with Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity (GOSH Charity) on its Home to Christmas campaign, visitors can see a recreation of Great Ormond Street Hospital in the virtual world and donate to the campaign digitally in-game via a QR code
The NVIDIA RTX Winter World, commissioned by NVIDIA and built by Minecraft world builder, Ushio Tokura (Dr_Bond), will give all families across the globe a festive immersive experience to explore. It will also offer an opportunity to raise funds for NVIDIA’s charity partner, Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity (GOSH Charity).
Utilizing NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX GPU (Graphics Processing Unit), real-time ray tracing stunningly simulates the physical behavior of light, enabling reflections, shadows, and other realistic lighting effects, as visitors are transported to a world offering a full winter wonderland and Santa’s grotto experience with Santa himself for visitors to engage and interact with.
The world also includes roller coasters, a Christmas village, a frozen ice-skating lake, a penguin postal service, and a petting zoo tent, with playable storylines and quests. Christmas film aficionados should also keep a lookout for Easter Egg homages to famous festive flicks such as Elf, It’s A Wonderful Life, and The Polar Express.
NVIDIA spokesperson said: “With the power utilized from our RTX GPU, our artist Ushio Tokura has created an incredibly vast and visually pleasing world that we are thrilled to bring to families across the globe for a truly unique, virtual Christmas experience. It has also been a pleasure to support the vital work our friends at Great Ormond Street do. We hope to raise as much as possible to help their efforts this Christmas.”
Liz Tait, Director of Fundraising at GOSH Charity said: “We’re thrilled to be partnering with NVIDIA who have created this amazing experience for families across the world. We are so grateful for any donation’s visitors to this incredibly festive winter wonderland, and those joining the charity stream, are able to make. Every child should have the chance to be at home with their families for Christmas Day, by donating to Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity this Christmas, you’ll be helping fund vital resources that can help get seriously ill children one step closer to home as well as helping to bring that special Christmas magic to children at GOSH whose treatment needs to continue over the festive season. Thank you.”
How to instsall NVIDIA RTX Winter World:
- Download GeForce Experience and install the latest GeForce Drivers
- Ensure you have a GeForce RTX GPU installed in your PC
- Download and install the latest version of Minecraft for Windows
- Download the NVIDIA RTX Winter World, here: https://www.planetminecraft.com/project/nvidia-rtx-winter-world/
- Locate the downloaded file and double click
- Minecraft for Windows will open and a dialogue box at the top of the screen will let you know when the world is installed
- Click Play > Create > Scroll to the bottom to the ‘imported templates’ section & click Christmas Adventure RTX
- Click Create & the Christmas adventure will start
- To check if Ray Tracing and DLSS are enabled: Go to Settings > Video > scroll down and make sure Upscaling and Ray Tracing are enabled.
- Depending on the RTX GPU you have, you can increase the Ray Tracing Render Distance from 8 chunks in the video settings
