Rendering modes

Isaac Sim uses the NVIDIA Omniverse RTX Renderer for viewport rendering, camera sensors, and synthetic data generation workflows. Select the render mode based on the balance you need between visual fidelity, physical accuracy, latency, and throughput.

For the complete renderer setting reference, see the Omniverse RTX Renderer documentation.

Rendering mode overview

Mode	Best used for	Notes	Omniverse docs
RTX - Real-Time 2.0	Interactive simulation, robotics workflows, and synthetic data generation where real-time performance is important.	This is the default rendering mode in Isaac Sim. It uses path tracing with NVIDIA DLSS neural rendering technologies to provide a balance of fidelity and real-time performance.	RTX - Real-Time 2.0 mode
RTX - Interactive (Path Tracing)	High-quality still captures, validation images, and workflows that can trade performance for higher physical accuracy.	This mode accumulates samples for higher-fidelity lighting and material results. It is slower than RTX - Real-Time 2.0 and commonly requires more samples per pixel for low-noise output.	RTX - Interactive (Path Tracing) mode
RTX - Minimal	Training-in-the-loop and high-throughput workflows where low latency is more important than full light transport.	This mode provides simplified rendering. It disables indirect light transport and uses only the first distant light in the scene, with hard shadows. Ambient lighting can improve visibility.	RTX - Minimal

Common RTX renderer features, such as multi-GPU rendering, materials, light types, cameras, post-processing, volume rendering, texture streaming, and debug views, are documented in RTX - Common.

Select a rendering mode

For standalone Python workflows, configure the renderer when you create SimulationApp:

from isaacsim import SimulationApp

simulation_app = SimulationApp({"renderer": "RealTimePathTracing"})

Common renderer values include:

• RealTimePathTracing for RTX - Real-Time 2.0.

• PathTracing for RTX - Interactive (Path Tracing).

• RaytracedLighting for RTX Real-Time (Legacy).

• MinimalRendering for RTX - Minimal (Minimal is also accepted).

For RTX - Minimal, set minimal_shading_mode in the SimulationApp launch configuration to select the shading behavior. This option maps to /rtx/minimal/mode. The default is 0. Accepted values are:

• 0 — Real-Time 2.0 (reference).

• 1 — Diffuse/Glossy/Emission.

• 2 — Textured Diffuse.

• 3 — Constant Diffuse.

• 4 — No Rendering (black color output; use when only non-color AOVs such as depth or segmentation are needed).

In the Isaac Sim GUI, you can also select RTX - Minimal from the viewport render mode menu and modify shading behavior and other settings in the Rendering Settings panel.

Call reset_render_settings() after opening a new stage to re-apply the launch configuration, including the renderer and minimal shading mode.

You can also change the active render mode while Isaac Sim is running by setting /rtx/rendermode:

import carb.settings

carb.settings.get_settings().set("/rtx/rendermode", "PathTracing")

For RTX - Minimal at runtime, set /rtx/rendermode to MinimalRendering and adjust /rtx/minimal/mode as needed. Other RTX - Minimal carb settings, such as /rtx/minimal/constantColor and ambient light options under /rtx/sceneDb/, are described in RTX - Minimal limitations and in RTX - Minimal.

Material translucency and cutout opacity

Some vMaterials use fractional cutout opacity to render fine translucent or cutout details, such as layered composites, fabrics, glass, liquids, plastics, and stones. If this feature is disabled, these materials can render with incorrect opacity, missing cutout detail, or other translucency artifacts.

Set /rtx/pathtracing/fractionalCutoutOpacity to true when correct vMaterial appearance matters in RTX - Real-Time 2.0 or RTX - Interactive (Path Tracing):

import carb.settings

settings = carb.settings.get_settings()
settings.set("/rtx/pathtracing/fractionalCutoutOpacity", True)

This setting can increase render cost. If the workflow does not depend on translucent or cutout material detail, disabling it can improve performance. See Scene and Rendering Optimizations for related performance settings.

RTX - Minimal limitations

RTX - Minimal is optimized for throughput and latency, not full lighting fidelity. Use it when simplified visual output is acceptable for the workflow.

RTX - Minimal has the following limitations:

• It disables indirect light transport.

• It uses only the first distant light source found in the scene.

• It supports hard shadows only.

• It does not reproduce all material and lighting effects available in RTX - Real-Time 2.0 or RTX - Interactive (Path Tracing).

• The No Rendering minimal shading mode outputs black color images and is intended for workflows that only need non-color outputs such as depth, normals, or instance segmentation.

The primary RTX - Minimal settings are /rtx/minimal/mode, /rtx/minimal/constantColor, /rtx/sceneDb/ambientLightColor, and /rtx/sceneDb/ambientLightIntensity. In standalone Python workflows, SimulationApp applies /rtx/minimal/mode from minimal_shading_mode when renderer is set to MinimalRendering. Use SimulationApp.set_setting() or carb settings directly for the other values. See RTX - Minimal for the full setting descriptions.

Mode selection guidance

Use RTX - Real-Time 2.0 for most interactive robotics and simulation workflows. It provides the best default balance between quality and performance.

Use RTX - Interactive (Path Tracing) when image quality and physically accurate lighting matter more than frame time. This is commonly useful for final captures, quality comparisons, and validation images.

Use RTX - Minimal when throughput or latency is the primary requirement and the workflow does not depend on full light transport, multiple light sources, or high-fidelity material appearance.