VideoCardz just posted an exceedingly interesting leak. According to them, a new NVIDIA GameWorks Ray Tracing feature will be announced on Monday enabling real-time effects such as Glossy Reflections, Area Shadows and Ambient Occlusion; this technology is already available in “Early Access”, apparently.
What’s more, this RTX technology is going to be “highly optimized” on the upcoming NVIDIA Volta GPUs, presumably at a hardware level. NVIDIA has partnered with Microsoft to create a DirectX Ray Tracing API; this is already being used by major publishers and developers like Electronic Arts, 4A Games (who are making Metro Exodus, due for release this year) and Remedy Games (now at work on Project 7, due in 2019). The API is said to be supported by the most popular game engines, from Epic’s Unreal Engine 4 to Unity 5 and DICE’s Frostbite engine, now used in almost all the games made by Electronic Arts.

 
https://wccftech.com/nvidia-gameworks-ray-tracing-api-microsoft/
 
https://videocardz.com/ne...nnounce-rtx-technology

Isn’t next week when the rumored launch of the next gen gaming gpu would be.... guess that rumor fell flat? Or maybe Nvidia is going to have a big week?

If it is highly optimized for Volta, will it be available for all previous generations without charge mpletely tanking performance to force users onto newer gen hardware?

Not sure they will do a release for a GPU, because there was a massive build up to the GTX 1080 release, with clues being sent out to reviewers, and little hints directly from NVidia all over the internet.  There has been jack squat this time.  Why would they hide the release if they want consumers hyped for the release?
 
Now, they did quietly launch the Titan Volta, because it wasn't directed at consumers for gaming.  If they are developing the programming on Volta, showing it on volta will be simple, just pop in a Titan V and done.