Cyberpunk 2077 Preview Ran at 1080p with DLSS 2.0 Enabled on an RTX 2080Ti Powered PC

A performance report from the Cyberpunk 2077 preview build suggests that developer CD PROJEKT RED has a lot of optimization left to do.

[CaptainHenry916]

It's funny to hear that especially since they use to launch all their past games exclusively on PC

[russo121]

Oups, I see a problem in MS hands right now, advertising 4k+60fps+rt is not possible to be achieved by a game highly anticipated by it's fans. I don't know if optimization will do magic, but we'll see.

[Yodasfavoritesoda]

Imagine the trouble the ps5 will be in that case. 720 p 30 FPS

[gigzamillion]

Yep I've been saying all along there's going to be a lot of people who are going to be very disappointed when they realize series x isn't the native 4k and 60fps system they've been led to believe it is.

@Yodasfavoritesoda

Both systems will end up running it the same like people have been saying all along.

[DerfDerf]

You are jumping to conclusions.

[Marquinho]

Wow... yeah... that last demo looked insanely difficult to render. No wonder why they're pushing next gen console versions after the launch window (or so it looks like)

[Sophisticated_Chap]

It's called 'turning down the graphics settings'. Consoles will be running the game at lower detail than the PC. All this proves, is that this game is going to be taxing to run on Very High or Ultra PC settings, particularly at resolutions over 1080p, kind of like Crysis was back in the day.

[ChiefofLoliPolice]

And this is why I'm with PC for third party and PS5 for exclusives. Granted its even hard for PC currently to do 4k 60fps (max and even in some cases medium settings) with Ray tracing (not including the implementation of DLSS 2)

PC will curb that much faster then consoles will though. Got money set aside for the next highest end RTX 3000 series and ready to go.

[Babadook7]

“Imagine the trouble the ps5 will be in that case. 720 p 30 FPS”

You’re not too good at math are you?

[Shane Kim]

Blade

For the price of ps5 and xbox x combined.

[BrettAwesome]

@Yodasfavoriteasshole

Yeah, let alone the vanilla xbone. Guess we'll be looking at 320×240 running at 20ish fps 😂

[ILostMyMind]

Imagine a X360 graphics running on XSX. 4K/60fps/RT achieved.

[ProjectVulcan]

Meh there will be a lot of driver level optimisations to finish off, and then balancing the settings for the release.

I would say that with the game on PS4 and Xbox One, the performance hit is never the core raster rendering. It'll be lots of crazy ray tracing effects that sap massive performance.

Two things- they will improve that performance and balance out the quality of the ray tracing so it is more realistic.

The second being this game is probably built for the RTX3000 series, which nobody can talk about just yet. Unannounced, but it's an open secret it'll be launched before this game is. This game will be the headline launch showcase title for RTX3000. You can see it.

The RTX3000 series will probably have at least twice the ray tracing performance of these first gen RTX2000 designs. Possibly more from what I have heard.

That means considerably less performance hit for ray tracing. It'll still be demanding as hell, but not nearly as devastating as it is when run on a RTX2000 Turing card.

[Ausbo]

Reasonable people won’t expect 4K 60 on dense open world games like this. Including a 60fps mode should be standard though

[ASSASSYN]

Did you even bother to read the article. This build didn't even have the option to set the graphics. Meaning it wasn't optimized at all and is probably strictly for demoing and testing. You guys are reaching hard.

[DJStotty]

@russo121

Who is advertising 4k+60fps+rt on the xbox series X?

@Yodasfavoritesoda

I would say 4K 30fps for both platforms.

@gigzamillion

no-one is led to believe the series X is a "4k 60fps" system so no-one will be disappointed

[Fishy Fingers]

Seems strange when the 2019 E3 behind closed doors was running higher res on a 1080TI. Guess the full blown RT is tanking perfomance. Hopefully they improve that. But I'll be playing on a next gen GPU so RT shouldnt be such a killer too.

[PrinceAli]

this isn't even using full Ray Tracing as well

[gigzamillion]

People don't really realize how computationally expensive RT is, those who think series x is going to run it without major compromises are in for a rude awakening.

[Tech5]

these are nvidia exclusive features though. who is to say the next gen won't get features specifically designed for next gen consoles.

[rainslacker]

People don't realize what exactly ray tracing does to achieve the results it does. Each bounce of a ray increases the amount of computational power exponentially over the last, and while ray tracing is a big talking point about next gen, what the consoles are getting is not really a super awesome implementation of the feature. It's acceptable, and will wow people, because it is better than regular lighting, but it is indeed costly.

[Rimeskeem]

There is a good reason why Sony partnered with Epic for UE5. Make it easy for developers to get the most out of the system.

[Unspoken]

Has anyone seen AMD's Ray Tracing on the Series X or weaker PS5?

[gigzamillion]

@Unspoken

We have seen it on the PS5, if you need more clarification of that and on the computational expense of RT I recommend watching the Digital Foundry videos on the subject. In terms of native RT at 4k and 60 resolutions the series x is just as weak.

[RazzerRedux]

I'm still not convinced RT is worth it at this point. It just kills frame rate.

[Cernunnos]

We're in the baby phase of this new tech. Rumour has it that the Nvidia 3000 series will run RT 4x faster than the 2000 series.

[CaptainHenry916]

That's what I'm waiting on. Hopefully they release this year

[I_am_Batman]

It's definitely early days. I think the ray tracing capabilities of the RTX 20 cards and the next gen consoles will age really poorly. If ray tracing hardware evolves fast enough we might even see mid-gen refreshes of the consoles for that reason.

[rainslacker]

@Batman

I dunno if it will age poorly. Maybe if you stack it against the high end PC cards around the middle or end of the gen. It takes time for that to really filter into the mainstream gaming rig.

[Unspoken]

RT Should be optional when produced in a game for consoles.

[JEECE]

Yep, I have yet to see an instance where it's worth the performance hit.

[xenz]

Im sure as time goes by during next-gen, new techniques will be developed to optimize the performance hit RT takes. Its new tech and still has much room to grow.

As of right now, I only expect early next-gen games to either not use it or have RT in a limited fashion on certain objects and surfaces with varying levels of resolution (RT resolution).

[phoenixwing]

I think global illumination is better for performance

[ABizzel1]

From the consumer standpoint it's not, and won't be unless NVIDIA's RTX 3000 series claim to have up to 4x better Ray Tracing support pans out. It tanks your framerate for what is IMO a slight boost to image quality.

However, from the developer side, it benefits development time because you don't have to spend months building a realistic lighting system, reflection maps, and indoor lighting, and having to change those settings every time you change the scene.

That's the battle they're in right now, however, we're another generation away from this being standard and GPUs being able to easily produce raytracing without a significant hit to performance.

[rainslacker]

On the back end, RT artists are starting to develop things more like shaders to make the ray more like we have object lit now. It's not perfect, but it's less costly, and provides a pretty good effect.

There is an art to implementing ray tracing though, and it's not an art that is routinely practiced in the game industry, because there was never much hardware that could use it. At best, you had a few specialists at some studios that could make really pretty trailers, usually not running in real time.

Over time, as more demand comes about, you'll see better tools across the board, both from game engines, and 3rd party tool makers. Plus, you'll see more graphic artists or lighting specialists become more adept at doing these things themselves, which will help the process a lot.

[Felix_Argyle_Catbro]

Console ray tracing is so half-assed that it definitely isn't worth it, yet both Ratchet & Clank and Spider-Man have it. And both are 30fps because of that unfortunately.

[Father__Merrin]

It's the RT that's chugging performance. Will be a few generations of gpu yet until it can be turned on and off easily like anisotropic filters eg.

I've not got an RT card but can you adjust the RT effects or is it toggle on/off?

[RazzerRedux]

Depends on the game, but yeah it is pretty much an on/off setting.

[rainslacker]

Usually it's on/off. Sometimes with 1-3 levels. In theory, as it is in life, you could have infinite rays continuously bouncing their light off objects, but, each bounce(just a term used, but could be various beam altering effects) becomes exponentially more processor intensive.

Raytracing isn't new by any means. While tricks will come about for gaming applications, I don't know if we'll see major advancements to raytracing processing on the implementation side any time soon. Visual effect companies have already done a lot of that kind of heavy lifting. What we're more likely to see is tricks which simulate ray tracing without it actually being ray tracing.

[ShadowWolf712]

Doesn't Unreal 5 sort of do that with Lumin?

[rainslacker]

There are multiple ways to implement raytracing. I'm not as familiar with Lumin so I can't speak too much on it. It's not really my purview for the time being.

[AKS]

I have an RTX 2080 Super, and I've never seen or heard of a game in which ray tracing cannot be disabled.

[RazzerRedux]

Yep, I have the same GPU. Most games it is off by default that I have seen.

[silenthillstrangler]

will be interesting to see if they try and implement rt on PS5/X,

[RazzerRedux]

There was a good bit of RT on display in R&C and other games Sony showed already. Probably why they were running 30fps. Just hope we can turn this off on consoles like we can on PC.

[silenthillstrangler]

the most noticeable to me was the gran tourismo rt which digital foundry did a peice on as well as r&c, i hope if there is an option to turn it off it improves frame rate to 60 fps.

[anonymousfan]

Maybe 3rd party otherwise 1st party I am skeptical they would allow RT to be turned off... Games nowadays are developped with more traditionnal reflections in mind so turning RT on/off is a no brainer however if I game was developped for a closed platform it would seem like extra work. I am hoping for a simpler approach to FPS like say resolution like allowing a 4K game to be played at 1440p or 1080p with higher framerates.

[Poopmist]

Series X might be able to handle it with all the extra focus RT

[Zarock]

1200$ GPU running at 1080p what a joke.

[Pandamobile]

Pixel quality matters more than number of pixels rendered.

1080p game engine output with DLSS on a 4k monitor would still look absolutely banging even without native 4k engine rendering.

[ssj27]

But its a current gen game not even good looking and let's not even talk about gameplay looks and feels plain and simple the physics non existence in the character. Sony showed rt running smoothly 30fps on next gen texture games fun advanced gameplays and is a 400 to max 600 machine don't excuse Nvidia. I am sure their 3000 series will be on par to next gen but if a pc gamer thinks the 2000 series will hold to ps5 lol you are delusional. Look at the best last 2 years looking games are on ps4 2 times in a row running on 7 years old tech. Little enhanced on the pro to be fair but still better than anything on pc i dnt even need to mention thm one is coming to pc and surely probably will even look better or at least have extra nxt gen features like rt. But so will on the ps5

[oakshin]

I fail at life how do these people afford this stuff live with other people and they have no bills???

I finally checked what this twitch is also and it's just people setting in front of cameras why other people GIVE THEM MONEY I watched a guy make 300$ cash in 10 mins last night playing street fighter WTF my mind is blown

[ssj27]

Lol
Now you are questioning who are those who are donating money to gamers streaming online .. that's even more interesting to know lol

[oakshin]

Ssj27

I don't mean to be judgemental but can't help it lol and you are right it's interesting I hope it's not a large portion of metal illness and impulse driving these donations I've been exposed to

[rainslacker]

In some ways, it could be said that not spending all that money on new hardware, will help you succeed at life. Not spending your money copiously helps you build security, which can improve your personal well being.

There are people who spend all their money on things that aren't necessary, and when bad things happen, they aren't prepared, and it can be quite disruptive to their lives and cause all sorts of mental stress.

[XxINFERNUSxX]

"The RTX 2080Ti should be able to play the game at 4K resolution with DLSS 2.0 active and all ray tracing effects enabled, while it seems to be struggling a bit even at 1080p for the time being. Let's hope these final five months can be fully devoted to optimization"

Exactly, this is just a build so we can see how it plays. It should be improved so it can play at 4K with 60FPS or more, once it launches. By then we should see new nvidia cards, the 3000 series which will be so much more powerful that 4k and 60fps will be a piece of cake.

[UncertainCategory]

Couple of things to note here.

Most folks accessed the demo via Nvidia Now, which only outputs at 1080p currently. They likely normalized the demo across the board so everyone had the same experience, either in person or remote

Secondly, full ray tracing is a heavily GPU intensive task, I doubt even the 2080ti could handle it at 4k with all the options cranked to high gear. DLSS 2.0 or otherwise. There's loads of lights in this game.

[rainslacker]

While I agree with you on the specs. it should be noted that not every light source will be raytraced. More likely only 1-2 primary sources, with standard scanline reflections used to fill in the rest. This is usually enough to mimic real life light, as not all light typically reflects, or refracts, off the object in ways that require raytracing to make realistic. Lighting can be layered on objects, and that's how it's typically done now.

Raytracing is indeed very processor intensive though. Unfortunately, most of the ways to make it more effective, and more efficient have probably already been developed, so it will be up to hardware to make it so it can improve. Visual effects for movie type media is still not done in real time. Luckily, for games, it's not really necessary to do that and still achieve a realistic result.

[borneFROMblood]

Another proof, when no matter how good the game is and how excited people. They will find things to hate it for, 0/10 in first 2 hours cause of pubic hair and not 60fps.

[iQuasar]

Jesus, some people need to RTFM. Context of the article is 100% performance of the game.

1. The article is retelling the observations of another party. Said party played the game in person. Not over any streaming platform. The base article is from www.pcgameshardware.de
1a. followup post by original author: I also asked and saw the start parameters before the game call (nope, no Geforce-Now-streaming): 1080p, DLSS on (quality), Vsync off, Raytracing Reflections on, Raytracing-AO on (i think it was by and large) Greeting, Phil
1b. OG article WCCF based theirs on https://www.pcgameshardware...

2. The game played at 1080p max with DLSS 2.0 enabled. That is 540p - 720p native rendering as DLSS 2.0 can upscale as low as 540p. As it is a native Nvidia feature this means the consoles using Radeon hardware (XS1 and PS5) are going to have a much harder time rendering any environment at this point with Raytracing.

3. The game rarely hit 1080p/60. It was more in the 40-55 range with dips to sub 30fps dips. This means it has a lllloooooonng way to go to reach any 4k/60f level of performance if you want to use raytracing.

4. This was NOT full raytracing. Let that sink in. It was only shadows, AO, and diffused lighting. No reflections or direct lighting.

5. The author did state that Metro Exodus played the exact same way in its preview state and that it came a long way before release.

Based on that, once can assume a lot of graphical cuts are going to take place to get it to work on a XS1/PS5 versus a PC. I am going to guess that PC will push 4k/60 on the top end hardware WITH upscaling from DLSS 2.0. Raytracing will be a different beast at release with only the 2080Ti to go on. If the PS5 game demos were any inclination of raytracing you can expect sub 720p raytracing at best with a 4k/30 performance setup after reducing graphical settings if they do not resort to upscaling on console as well.

[BrettAwesome]

So what? Use checkerboard rendering on next gen consoles too. Problem solved. Native res is a dumb way to waste computational power anyway. I'd much rather have checkerboarding, and reserve processing power for visual effects instead.

[RazzerRedux]

Agree. Native resolution will eventually be tossed aside for more efficient techniques that will improve visual fidelity without sacrificing performance. Digital Foundry is calling this the "post-resolution era".

[BrettAwesome]

The only reason Sony and Microsoft show off all these native 4k titles right now is for marketing reasons, to avoid assholes on either side of the console battlefield to shout about how the competition "can't even do 4k".

[shauzy]

if you turn of dlss and rtx you get literally double the fps

[Bladesfist]

Turning off DLSS gets you lower framerates, it's an AI up-scaling algorithm that takes a lower res image and up scales it while also trying to keep the image temporally stable.

[shauzy]

not while the game just released without anyone to study from

[Flewid638]

Graphics still looked great though.

[greywolf39]

Well it is not looking that good if it is pc.

[Max_Eckhardt]

Nvidia knew that GPU’s have peaked in terms of graphics and frame rate processing and we don’t really need anything better for the games being made so they reset the Playing field By tanking great GPU’s with Ray tracing. Now it will take generations of cards before we can play AAA open world games again in 4K/120fps with ultra settings and Ray tracing enabled.

[nismo370]

CD PROJEKT RED are well kown for baaaaaaad optimization. Remember Witcher?

[BLUEKNIFE]

I don't understand all this obsession for RT, it is not worth it and TOO "expensive". A good job using "Magic"+Global Illumination can do the job just fine( i.e. TLOU2 on PS4).
I would take frame rate/physics/character animation over RT all day and I am pretty sure I am not the only one.

[nismo370]

I understand why they didn't wanna show this game running on consoles.

[3-4-5]

The True next gen version of this game isn't launching until 2021 anyways.

[Games1st]

Most gameplay videos are rushed are done in the last few days. Witcher 3 also had many delays.