NXT is Jagex's internal code name[1] for a downloadable client written in C++ that was released on 18 April 2016. It supersedes the deprecated Java-based Game Client.

NXT was first teased at RuneFest 2014[2] as the evolution of the scrapped HTML5 client, though work on NXT had been underway for around two and a half years.[3] NXT aimed to deliver better performance over the existing Java-based client, better graphics than the previously planned HTML5 client, and more platform and operating system support.[4] One of the core design goals of the new client was the ability to load a larger map area and preload maps in the background.[5]

There were weekly Developer Blogs published in early 2016 to show the progress of NXT's development.[6]

Beta weekends to test out NXT were held ahead of the new client's release. These were only available to Gold Premier Club members, players who had continuous membership since 31 January 2012, and players who had [Name] the Gamebreaker title from contributing to previous RuneScape betas. The first beta weekend took place from 19 February to 22 February 2016.

There were no limitations or non-disclosure agreements associated with the beta.[7]

To display NXT's capabilities, a showcase of in-game areas called Benedict's World Tour was added into the game on release. It was started by talking to Benedict Encumberyak in Burthorpe or Prifddinas. To complete the tour, players had to follow a scrapbook of clues, which led them to stand in specific locations and collect objects. Players had to use the NXT client to take part in the tour.

After the release of NXT, Jagex plans to phase out the use of the Game Client to free up resources to make further improvements to NXT, rather than continuing to maintain two clients. The timescale for phasing out the Java client will be based on beta data.[3] Players using NXT will be playing with users of the old Java client, and will keep their progress.[7]

Jagex recommends at least the following system specifications for NXT on Windows:[11]

Release date Changes[12] [13]

30 April 2018 Fixed audio crashes that could occur when using USB headphones.

Windows XP support has been removed from the NXT installer.

Fixed an issue whereby large NPC’s lower bodies would sometimes reset back to their default idle states.

Fixed an issue whereby the game would show black textures under certain circumstances.

Fixed an issue that caused textures to not load in properly for some players. (A cache re-download may be required.)

22 January 2018 The correct information is now displayed when trying to log in with a temporary ban.

The hint marker now displays correctly.

Displaying null models on interfaces no longer causes client crashes.

Compiler flags have been improved for Windows builds

A potential cause for threading-related crashes was identified and fixed.

Hitmarks are now able to display different colours in the NXT client.

An issue that was causing certain character models to become invisible during animations has been fixed.

RAM usage has been optimised for Grand Exchange searches.

Some core interface logic was sped up.

The memory footprint of the Location system was reduced by ~10MB.

Interface system memory was cut down by ~15MB.

Items no longer appear invisible in player inventories and banks.

9 January 2018 Improved texture loading performance. Namely incorrect textures loading after teleporting and inventory items disappearing.

Fixed picking area for transformed players where they end up on the same square as an NPC.

24 November 2017 Fixed duplicated hotspot locations within your player owned house.

Fixed dead clicks at low framerates, especially on dropdown menus

Fixed various texture and lag issues with older Intel HD GPUs

20 November 2017 Fixed an issue which prevented quickchat from working on quickchat worlds.

Fixed lag when minimising/maximising in normal mode on some Windows systems.

Fixed possible cause of 3D world freezing but interface remaining responsive on Windows.

Fixed possible cause of crashes when multitasking with other applications on Windows.

Fixed some billboards from not appearing in the environment.

Fixed device resets causing a logout from lobby or authenticator code screen.

Fix an issue where NXT could launch multiple error pages.

Reduced memory usage of animation system.

Reduced driver overhead of animation system (especially on AMD graphics cards).

Improved robustness of device loss recovery (less likely for things to render broken or crash after PC sleep, driver crash, minimising compatibility mode, switching GPU, etc).

Reduced CPU usage of animation, picking and entity logic systems, especially at framerates well below 50.

Reduced work being done by logic loop during frame drops/stutters, which was previously multiplying their length.

Reduced stutter/frameskip when loading or moving around, especially on AMD graphics cards.

Reduced instances of white/noisy pixels on terrain at extreme glancing angles with anisotropic filtering enabled.

Implemented immutable texture storage extension, which many improve performance on some GPUs.

16 October 2017 Players can now define their maximum foreground and background FPS in the NXT client via the graphics settings interface.

The cache churn has been reduced.

Pointlights now affects terrain lighting in instances.

The high frequency noise visible on newer (normal-mapped) models when viewed close up has been reduced.

The RAM usage in the shader system has been reduced by around 20MB.

Some animation states have been optimised.

18 September 2017 The refactored chat system is now more efficient.

Memory usage has been reduced by approximately 70MB.

RAM usage of the script system has been slightly reduced.

The disk cache/loading performance has been optimised, especially in the case of non-SSDs.

Various minor CPU optimisations have been put in place.

11 September 2017 Saved approximately 70MB with some interface optimisations.

Increased the amount of hit markers that can appear on the player or npc at any one time.

Fixed potential crash in Windows custom cursors.

Added support for FPS capping.

By default your maximum FPS will now be set to 10 above your monitors refresh rate.

By default your maximum FPS will now be set to 30 if RuneScape is not your focused window conserving power and GPU usage.

21 August 2017 Fixed a number of cases where the game view may partially freeze or display artefacts.

Fixed a situation where inventory icons may display incorrect textures or incorrectly display everything as the same item.

Fixed a crash when minimising on compatibility mode.

Fixed incorrect water rendering on older GPUs or compatibility mode.

Fixed a case where the world could end up fully in shadow.

Fixed a case where the world could end up at an incorrect brightness level.

Fixed a case where objects could end up extremely dark at certain angles.

Improved performance of minimising and restoring compatibility mode.

Player picking area tweaked to not be so wide.

Reduced RAM usage by approximately 90 MB.

Fixed terrain not appearing on some lower spec Intel devices.

Fixed an issue with black screens and red mini maps on certain low-end devices.

Reduced memory and CPU usage of UI system slightly.

Fixed a few issues with occlusion culling.

Fixed a heap memory related crash.

Fixed a freeze that may occur while loading in map squares.

Fixed potential crash on exit or connection loss.

10 July 2017 Fixed sprite edge artefacts.

Made audio system more robust and reduced chance of crackling/dropouts.

Fixed an issue that causes celestial dragon dungeon to never finish loading.

Fixed broken shadow rendering on Intel HD 2000.

Fixed a NaN (not a number) bug with particular models.

Removed dependency on Visual C++ 2015 redist and KB2999226 windows update.

Fixed medium+ water and SSAO on compatibility mode.

Certain particle physics should now work correctly.

27 June 2017 Fixed a common freeze related to clock adjustment that mostly affects MacOS devices but may also affect Windows.

With the exception of the Dominion Tower, lighting over map squares should now be consistent.

6 June 2017 Fix a rare issue where locations would fail to load in Shifting Tombs/Dungeoneering.

Fixed the issue with strange artifacts when logging from the lobby or hopping worlds.

5 June 2017 A new graphical feature: Volumetric lighting have been added to the game. Make your way to Menaphos to check them out!

A new graphical feature: Caustic water effects have been added to the game. Turn water details to “Ultra” to enable.

Added water light extinction effect.

Fixed terrain sometimes appearing solid black on old AMD GPUs and/or old AMD drivers.

Fixed flickering artefacts with textures disabled on certain GPUs (mainly Intel).

Animations with random start points have been fixed so the animation does not end prematurely.

Refactored a subsystem to save some memory.

Added invalidation to OpenGL resources which may improve multi-GPU performance.

15 May 2017 A crash/freeze during/after playing certain cutscenes has been fixed.

A crash due to array overflows has been fixed.

OSX input fixes: The Cmd+Q hotkey has been fixed. Various Cmd hotkeys (especially Shift+Cmd+4 and Cmd+Tab) leaving Shift/Cmd buttons held down on OS X and blocking mouse input until they are pressed again have been fixed. Slow scrolling with mouse wheel is no longer ignored, and scrolls by a small amount as it should.

A black bar at top in fullscreen mode on OSX has been fixed.

A rare script-related crash has been fixed.

A crash caused by NPC hint arrows has been fixed.

Several potential crashes in the audio system have been fixed.

Distance fog no longer turns objects white in the background.

The mini-menu now has the correct priority for certain camera angles.

The client icon no longer appears as a terminal on OSX.

A crash caused by dragging certain interfaces has been fixed.

An animation subsystem has been optimised.

Model loading has been optimised.

An issue where some wall pieces were not correctly lit has been fixed.

Compact install on the NXT launcher has been fixed.

Drawable elements have been optimised.

Particle rotation has been fixed.

10 April 2017 Removed launcher frame

Changes to the client to deal with its own window, including save, restore of position, scrolling, access to launcher options

Change to OSX and Linux client to binary executable

Fixes to OSX and Linux crash reporting

Added the ability to turn off terrain blending

Added the ability to turn off ground decor

RAM and video memory usage has been reduced

Optimised script functions

Fixed audio related crash

Added compression to disk cache; size reduced from 12GB to 3–4GB

to Optimised performance of disk cache validation

Optimised performance of loading for non-SSD users

Fixed a crash that would primarily occur during disk cache download at high speed or on a bad connection to the server during gameplay

Added a minimum width and height to the NXT client

Fixed a freeze some players experience after re-logging from the lobby

Fixed particles from looking washed out

Fixed an issue that resulted in hint markers to sometimes cause freezing and crashing

Fixed an issue with low spec machines crashing before start up

Fixed inconsistent normals

Fixed a race condition with audio

1 March 2017 Improved the robustness of particle systems which lacked textures

Fixed a possible issue when changing texture quality while inside an instance

Fixed a bug that caused a crash on certain obscure interfaces

Fixed an issue that caused extended load up times on Mac

Ensured the locations of far away animations load and appear at the same time as their associated models

Fixed a memory leak and possible crash in OS X custom cursors

Fixed an issue with a-sync animations

Reduced RAM usage by approximately 30% (depending on settings)

Various fixes for shadows and graphics options

Prevented some teleport aims from going out of sync (Shadow and Fire Drake, Gossamer, and Shadow Gorilla)

Fixed the animation looping on some skill overrides from incorrectly looping parts of the animation (Easter Cooking/Arcane Cooking/Agile Divining)

Fixed a rare NPC head icon related crash

Fixed some potential cases of graphics artefacts

30 January 2017 Fixed some rendering issues/crashes that might appear on older drivers or graphics cards.

Improved apperance of water at extreme camera angles.

Added support for SSAO in compatability graphics mode.

Added support for soft particles in compatability graphics mode.

Fixed water refraction on compatability graphics mode.

Fixed particles not interacting with bloom.

Fixed 'protesting' Edgeville guards (This also fixes the odd issues seen with stretching bones).