Do not name it a comeback. Cyberpunk 2077, three years on from its preliminary launch, is extra like an entire damned redemption arc. Not that it wasn’t a enjoyable, lovely recreation when it first launched—I had a blast on my first run via Night time Metropolis—nevertheless it wasn’t the sport we had been promised and was a bug-ridden hellscape in case you weren’t working on the newest and best {hardware}.
Three years on and you are still solely going to get the last word expertise in case you’re working Cyberpunk 2077 via an Nvidia RTX 4090, nevertheless it’s a really lovely recreation even on decrease spec {hardware}, and even with out the headline grabbing marvel of ray tracing.
Nvidia itself has been working hand-in-glove with CD Projekt Purple to show Cyberpunk 2077 into the brand new Crysis, utilizing it as a take a look at platform for all issues next-gen with regards to graphical options. Whether or not that is the magic of Body Era or a scrumptious new framework for real-time ray tracing, Nvidia has labored with the devs to make sure that it is one of the graphically spectacular video games round.
However that does additionally imply it may be one of the graphically intensive, too, with the highest path-traced Overdrive preset capable of drop your body charges right down to little greater than a William Gibson-tainted slideshow. So, that is the place we are available in, serving to you determine what options that you must activate, which it’s best to keep away from, and what settings you possibly can compromise on to provide the highest body fee with the perfect constancy.
Finest settings for Cyberpunk 2077
In case you’re seeking to squeeze out the perfect efficiency out of your rig these are our favorite settings for getting the very best body charges out of Cyberpunk 2077 with the perfect visuals.
- Movie Grain: Off
- Chromatic Aberration: Off
- Depth of Subject: On
- Lens Flare: On
- Movement Blur: Low
- Contact Shadows: On
- Improved Facial Lighting Geometry: On
- Anisotropy: 8
- Native Shadows Mesh High quality: Excessive
- Native Shadow High quality: Excessive
- Cascaded Shadows Vary: Medium
- Cascaded Shadows Decision: Medium
- Distant Shadows Decision: Excessive
- Volumetric Fog Decision: Excessive
- Volumetric Cloud High quality: Excessive
- Max Dynamic Decals: Excessive
- Display screen Area Reflections High quality: Excessive
- Subsurface Scattering High quality: Excessive
- Ambient Occulusion: Excessive
- Shade Precision: Medium
- Mirror High quality: Excessive
- Stage of Element (LOD): Excessive
- Crowd Density: Excessive
- Ray Tracing: Off
Our desire right here is for the very best native efficiency as that can give everybody an equal shot at good body charges. We additionally wish to make sure that Night time Metropolis really looks like a metropolis, and so we’ll hold the Crowd Density at Excessive. Cyberpunk 2077 does additionally cowl all the principle upscaling applied sciences, with DLSS 3.5, FSR 2.1, and XeSS 1.1 all supported out of the field, although solely the proprietary Nvidia tech delivers a near native picture. They’re nonetheless an amazing choice for squeezing a generally appreciable quantity of additional efficiency out of your system.
What you have to be disabling it doesn’t matter what efficiency you are getting is the Chromatic Aberration setting, and dropping the Movement Blur setting right down to Low. Chromatic Aberration is totally pointless and makes the sides of the display lose constancy, and with Movement Blur at its default state the sport can change into a very sludgy mess.
You may notice we have disabled ray tracing for these as a result of if you’re gaming a clean body fee shall be way more rewarding than a fairly however janky expertise. And CD Projekt Purple has made a recreation world so richly detailed that even with customary rasterised rendering it will possibly look gorgeous.
These settings can then ship round 100 fps at 1440p for an RX 6800 XT, RTX 3080, and nicely over 60 fps at 1080p for one thing like an RTX 3070. In case you’re not getting the form of body charges you need with these settings by yourself GPU, there are some additional tweaks you may make.
Knocking Display screen Area Reflections down, or turning it off can have a comparatively massive affect on efficiency, but additionally a correspondingly important affect on visible constancy. Night time Metropolis is a slightly shiny place, in spite of everything. One factor that will not have as a lot visible affect, however can ship an identical stage of efficiency increase, is flattening or disabling each Volumetric Fog Decision and Volumetric Cloud High quality.
And you then at all times have the chance to then allow upscaling. Although we now have ideas on the particular hierarchy of these totally different upscalers…
Finest upscaler for Cyberpunk 2077
Ought to I take advantage of DLSS, FSR, or XeSS in Cyberpunk 2077?
Cyberpunk 2077 has the complete suite of PC upscaling options on supply, with Nvidia, AMD, and Intel’s totally different strategies on supply to the discerning PC gamer. Although Nvidia’s DLSS is just obtainable to individuals working GeForce graphics playing cards, whereas AMD and Intel’s FSR and XeSS can be found to all.
We’d counsel the order it’s best to strategy the varied applied sciences is: DLSS first for any GeForce GPUs, then XeSS for everybody else, and FSR provided that you resolutely refuse to make use of something aside from AMD software program in your AMD graphics card even when Intel’s tech is best.
You’re going to get greater body charges from utilizing the equal FSR setting in contrast with the identical XeSS setting, however the visible constancy is decrease for AMD’s upscaler. Jacob has been taking part in along with his RX 7900 XTX and has had a much better visible expertise within the recreation from utilizing Intel’s upscaler than AMD’s.
“It appears counterintuitive to aspect with Intel on this,” he writes, “however at nearly each high quality setting XeSS has FSR beat.”
The best scenario, nonetheless, is to attempt to run that recreation at your native decision as that can give the very best visible constancy as most upscalers will add a stage of fuzz to the on-screen picture. That stated, of all of them DLSS is the sharpest, and most secure, too. With XeSS and extra so with FSR, you’ll discover a sure fizzing round small objects and contours in a scene, that are both much less noticeable or simply not there with DLSS.
However both approach, upscalers could make an enormous constructive distinction to your gaming body charges, and shift issues from being a little bit jerky-but-sharp to a clean, however doubtlessly much less clear expertise. And I do know which I would desire (trace: it is a smoother body fee).
RAY TRACING IN CYBERPUNK 2077
Ought to I activate ray tracing in Cyberpunk 2077?
You must deal with ray tracing in Cyberpunk 2077 as a wee deal with for spending a fortune on a brand new graphics card, as a result of the unhappy fact for an amazing many PC players is that it’s best to completely not be turning on ray tracing in Cyberpunk 2077. Sure, even when your graphics card is technically succesful. And sure, I am taking a look at you AMD playing cards over there within the nook. I do know your ray tracing chops have been improved in current instances, however an RX 6800 XT is now the minimal advisable GPU for the bottom RT setting within the recreation.
That is possibly a little bit unfair on the RX 6800 XT, as you possibly can bat at round 60 fps at 1440p on the RT Medium preset and an RX 6700 XT will supply the identical on RT Low at 1440p, each with XeSS Balanced enabled.
However, whereas the totally different RT settings might offer you a modicum of ray traced lighting within the recreation, it comes on the expense of different settings, that are then knocked down.
For just about all AMD customers then, I’d suggest utilizing absolutely the high non-RT settings to your recreation as you’ll profit extra from a clean body fee than the additional constancy of ray-traced lighting results. Our Jacob has been working his rig with a Radeon RX 7900 XTX—probably the most highly effective graphics card AMD has ever made—and even he is not enabling ray tracing in Cyberpunk 2077.
In all honesty, last-gen Nvidia playing cards do not fare amazingly nicely under the highest rank, both, I wanted DLSS set to Efficiency to get something like an honest body fee from an RTX 3070 at RT Low, and even then we’re speaking about 54 fps at 1080p.
There’s a tangible distinction for Nvidia’s RTX 40-series playing cards, nonetheless, and that distinction is Body Era. By interpolating frames into the sport you are getting added smoothness, and that may actually have a big impact on the expertise of working Cyberpunk 2077 with all of the pretties on center order GPUs.
An RTX 4070, ostensibly providing rasterised efficiency on par with an RTX 3080, is ready to go far past that as a result of it will possibly allow Body Era. With that you will notice over 110 fps on RT Extremely at 1440p.
FRAME GENERATION IN CYBERPUNK 2077
Ought to I take advantage of Body Era in Cyberpunk 2077?
The straightforward reply, for anybody working Cyberpunk 2077 on an Nvidia RTX 40-series GPU is that you just completely ought to be enabling Body Era within the recreation. And that is true each on the high and the underside finish of the GPU stack. Sadly, as a result of it’s primarily based on the superior optical move accelerator within the newest Nvidia structure, it isn’t open to every other graphics card era.
Even in case you’re getting nice native efficiency out of your GPU, and are not enthusiastic about utilizing upscaling for a body fee increase, then I’d nonetheless be turning on Body Era. It is separate from DLSS, and as long as you are getting respectable efficiency already could have a big impact on the smoothness of your gaming expertise with none discernible affect on visible constancy.
On the decrease finish it is possibly a little bit extra sophisticated. Body Era is not capable of offer you 4K gaming efficiency on the highest settings on one thing like an RTX 4060 as a result of, in an identical approach to DLSS, it nonetheless wants one thing to work with. In case you’re getting a slideshow efficiency Body Era is not going to magic that away, in reality it’d even sluggish issues down as I found when testing the RTX 4060 Ti.
However at decrease resolutions, the place you are getting an honest stage of efficiency and are not horrendously GPU certain, then Body Era will work nicely on even a lower-end RTX 40-series card.
RAY RECONSTRUCTION IN CYBERPUNK 2077
What affect does Ray Reconstruction have on Cyberpunk 2077?
Ray Reconstruction is the newest graphics function from Nvidia and it is come baked into DLSS 3.5. Like Body Era it’s a separate toggle from DLSS, however in contrast to Body Era it is open to each RTX graphics card from the 20-series onwards.
And it is slightly gorgeous. I’ve already spoken about the distinction Ray Reconstruction could make to the extent of realism in Cyberpunk 2077, and about the truth that it will possibly really ship greater body charges, too—however provided that you are already sporting a high-end Nvidia GPU. At its most elementary Ray Reconstruction removes the usual denoisers from the graphics pipeline—therefore the additional efficiency from eradicating a step—and as an alternative utilises AI to denoise a scene across the identical time the Tremendous Sampling stage is engaged.
It is extra lifelike, removes a bunch of temporal glitches with ray tracing, and appears wonderful.
Although there are nonetheless some caveats in that you just do nonetheless should be working DLSS to truly allow it and, for Cyberpunk 2077 not less than, you additionally should be working the trail tracing RT Overdrive mode for the choice to be obtainable to pick.
That alone will put most non-RTX 40-series playing cards out of the efficiency image anyway, even when they’re nominally eligible to allow the function. I can not think about an RTX 2060 coping notably nicely with the rigours of a path-traced Night time Metropolis.
If in case you have a card able to taking part in the sport at a suitable body fee with the RT Overdrive mode, then enabling Ray Reconstruction is a should. You both simply get a better-looking recreation or a sooner one, too.