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[Spyxos]

Path tracing on a triple-A videogame? On THE triple-A videogame? Cyberpunk 2077 already pushed visual boundaries with its psycho ray tracing mode, but the RT Overdrive upgrade takes lighting to the next level. So how does the Technology Preview compare to the standard rasterised version of the game? And how are the visuals improved over the already impressive psycho RT mode? This explainer should fill you in - and suffice it to say we've got much more content on the way as we spend more time with the game.

Ray Tracing: Overdrive looks incredible, but is currently only usable with an RTX 4090 at 4k and even then the frames drop below 20 fps. It only becomes playable with DLSS2 and DLSS3 frame generation.

Edit: Runs relatively well even on older 3xxx cards.



Optimization for older cards.

 

[Gaiff]

Pretty incredible and a vision of the future. That said, it's only really playable on RTX 40 cards and frame generation is practically mandatory. You can still play it at 1440p with DLSS and get good fps if you hate frame generation though.

 

[HeisenbergFX4]

Under 20 fps with a 4090 without frame generation

 

[SeraphJan]

That's the level of ray tracing that I'm will to sacrifice fps for

 

[Fake]

Wait, Alex is doing Cyberpunk video?

Wasn't him with the mob hate over this game? Is he change his mind after this game get popularity or something?

So, there is hope for HL RT.

 

[Gaiff]

Wait, Alex is doing Cyberpunk video?

Wasn't him with the mob hate over this game? Is he change his mind after this game get popularity or something?

So, there is hope for HL RT.

Don't think so? As far as I'm aware, Alex always loved this game for being the poster child for ray tracing.

 

[intbal]

I understand how impressive the tech is.
But I don't want every game to look like that.
Sometimes I want the "video game" look.

 

[Umbasaborne]

So if he’s getting 90 fps with dlss set to performance, I wonder if I could get at least 60 with it set to quality on a 4090

 

[Denton]

That looks insane, even watching it on the phone, holy shit.

 

[The Cockatrice]

So if he’s getting 90 fps with dlss set to performance, I wonder if I could get at least 60 with it set to quality on a 4099

You can use DLSS3 and DLSS2 to gain even more performance. I dont think the performance is that heavy because for starters, there are also a ton of non RT settings that you can lower that offer 0 visual benefits but consume at around 20-30FPS.

 

[Flabagast]

So this is what the future looks like

 

[Senua]

So this is what the future looks like

 

[sankt-Antonio]

This is what I thought next gen games on PS5/XBX should look like... hate to see it beeing this hardware intense

 

[Killer8]

Under 20 fps with a 4090 without frame generation

DLSS2 doesn't use frame generation and it's still giving about 59fps according to the video. And that's at 4K. I can see lower spec cards being able to do this at 1080p. Perhaps even 1440p at 30fps if we're lucky. Honestly this is surprisingly good performance for fully ray-traced lighting.

I understand how impressive the tech is.
But I don't want every game to look like that.
Sometimes I want the "video game" look.

Japanese games are what you want. Some of them haven't even heard of anti-aliasing yet.

 

[Umbasaborne]

DLSS2 doesn't use frame generation and it's still giving about 59fps according to the video. And that's at 4K. I can see lower spec cards being able to do this at 1080p. Perhaps even 1440p at 30fps if we're lucky. Honestly this is surprisingly good performance for fully ray-traced lighting.



Japanese games are what you want. Some of them haven't even heard of anti-aliasing yet.

Game freak is still struggling to reach 2006 ps3 levels of quality

 

[UnNamed]

This game screams "Buy a RTX card NOW!".
But I want to see the performances on 20 and 30 series.

 

[hlm666]

I understand how impressive the tech is.
But I don't want every game to look like that.
Sometimes I want the "video game" look.

It still works for other stylized looks, fortnite with lumen for example. Think of how it's used in movies to make realistic cgi but also used to make the none realistic things like pixar stuff. Love Death Robots series has examples of both extremes aswell.

 

[Tripolygon]

DLSS2 doesn't use frame generation and it's still giving about 59fps according to the video. And that's at 4K. I can see lower spec cards being able to do this at 1080p. Perhaps even 1440p at 30fps if we're lucky. Honestly this is surprisingly good performance for fully ray-traced lighting.

DLSS Performance mode at 4K is 1080p internally on a 4090. Any lower and you'll be rendering less than 720p on a lower end card and still not hitting 30fps.

 

[Musilla]

Chill bro

 

[DonkeyPunchJr]

It still works for other stylized looks, fortnite with lumen for example. Think of how it's used in movies to make realistic cgi but also used to make the none realistic things like pixar stuff. Love Death Robots series has examples of both extremes aswell.

Yup. IIRC Cars was the first CGI movie to use raytracing and Monsters University was the first to use full path traced global illumination.

 

[kikkis]

Godot creator on ratraced gi. I mean kind of agree, gi is important but I dont think its the holy grail of rendering like some claim.

 

[TexMex]

Beautiful game continues to look even better.

 

[Mister Wolf]

Overdrive is asking a bit too much for my taste. I'm only willing to use frame generation if my base framerate exceeds 60fps. The standard raytraced lighting(Psycho) is already better 99% of other videogames lighting tech.

 

[Abriael_GN]

Godot creator on ratraced gi. I mean kind of agree, gi is important but I dont think its the holy grail of rendering like some claim.

"most people have no clue what it changes."

You don't need to actively perceive what has changed for things to look considerably better, and what DF has shown looks considerably better.

But hey, if the developer of a small engine almost no one uses tells you it's not relevant, it must not be relevant. It's *totally* not a fox and grapes situation.

 

[SolidQ]

looks too unrealistic, with daytime, never so dark. in this case raster > overdrive

 

[Killer8]

DLSS Performance mode at 4K is 1080p internally on a 4090. Any lower and you'll be rendering less than 720p on a lower end card and still not hitting 30fps.

That's fine though. DLSS still works very well at lower target resolutions like 1080p and 1440p. 720p internal can be used as a Quality base for 1080p and as the Performance base for 1440p. If a person has a mid-range card like a 3060 Ti, they will have to accept these resolution sacrifices, but the results should still look good and be playable.

 

[rodrigolfp]

So this is what the present looks like

Ftfy.

 

[Rocco Schiavone]

Ray Tracing: Overdrive looks incredible, but is currently only usable with an RTX 4090 at 4k and even then the frames drop below 20 fps. It only becomes playable with DLSS2 and DLSS3 frame generation.

Nvidia has a solution for this issue.

Just buy our 5090 card starting at $2000.

 

[Zuzu]

That looks really fantastic

 

[Zathalus]

Nvidia has a solution for this issue.

Just buy our 5090 card starting at $2000.

Not a problem, I'll likely pick one up on launch day.

 

[Hugare]

Godot creator on ratraced gi. I mean kind of agree, gi is important but I dont think its the holy grail of rendering like some claim.

Had to google "Godot"

"For one, it makes small to no difference in exteriors"

Yeah, I'm not listening to this guy

Saying it makes small to no difference to exteriors is just wrong

I mean, just watch the video. In open world games without a RT GI sollution you will always have those spaces with "glowing" stuff. Always.

Show me one open world game (that doesnt have baked lighting) that doesnt have this problem

RT GI is the holy grail. You dont have to individualy lit places, or bake lighting to make it look correct. "It just works".

 

[Flabagast]

 

[Rocco Schiavone]

Not a problem, I'll likely pick one up on launch day.

Good for you. I don't care what you buy.

 

[Zathalus]

Good for you. I don't care what you buy.

Good for you then.

 

[Bo_Hazem]

Under 20 fps with a 4090 without frame generation

It's a great look at the future. I think we need to reach 1nm to be able to run RT properly with large amount of computation or make smarter solutions like Lumin on UE5. And of course, I'm a futurist, so next gen gonna be the best, like always until the next one comes.

But I think at this point ARM is a must. Having all the memory (RAM/VRAM), CPU, GPU, caches, RT cores in one large chip would 100% make less latency between those parts and better results overall. Excited to see what nVidia will do with their ARM progress, same with AMD and Intel. Apple is a lost cause.

 

[Bloobs]

Cant wait to enjoy it on PS6 and XX

 

[balls of snow]

Sounds like im buidling a pc in like 2028 that can take full advantage of ray tracing.

 

[winjer]

 

[Gambit2483]

Any chance this technology is implemented (on some level) in the next gen only versions of Phantom Liberty?

 

[The Cockatrice]

Godot creator on ratraced gi. I mean kind of agree, gi is important but I dont think its the holy grail of rendering like some claim.

It's not unless the game is made from scratch with RTGI or full PT in mind. All those Non-rt vs rt vs pt changes could've easily been fixed manually by adding fake shadows and fake lights to all sources. It would take a lot of effort compared to RT/PT but its very much possible to make your games look exactly as if it was Raytraced., at least easier for smaller games or non-open world games. Take Atomic Heart for example. That games baked lighting looks insane.

 

[Buggy Loop]

Nvidia solved path tracing at large scale

I'm not sure peoples understand here

It might be tough to run (duh) as of now, but it's SOLVED.

We're talking that most likely 5000 series from there on will have path tracing rendering pipeline as default. It's like the first wave of tesselation in games and now, nobody thinks "oh god, bye bye fps" anymore.

"bu but mah old card can't run it!"

No fucking shit.

"bu but most peoples can't tell the difference"

And we would still be stuck in caves trying to make fire if we listened to every fucking brainlet. Probably same peoples who plug component cables in their 4k OLED.

Nvidia's ReSTIR is like a decade ahead of what i thought we would see for path tracing in full fledge games. Fucking witchcraft.

 

[Von Hugh]

 

[ToTTenTranz]

Imagine losing >80% of your performance to achieve this:

 

[Zathalus]

Imagine losing >80% of your performance to achieve this:

We all watched the video. Some scenes have little differences while others are far more drastic. No need for selective screenshots.

 

[acm2000]

next gen has finally arrived, and it only costs $3000.

two gens from now this shit might be affordable tho and i cant wait

 

[thuGG_pl]

Imagine losing >80% of your performance to achieve this:

Imagine having no clue what you're talking about.

 

[analog_future]

Looks absolutely amazing. Something I can look forward to in 6-7 years when the next Xbox/Playstation consoles arrive.

 

[Buggy Loop]

woW, cAN'T tElL the diFFEREnce

 

[DenchDeckard]

So can I download this now and try it at 1440p on my monitor?

Hopefully it looks that mind blowing.

 

[ToTTenTranz]

We all watched the video. Some scenes have little differences while others are far more drastic. No need for selective screenshots.

Point is - and always was - that Cyberpunk's problems lie in the poorly detailed models (and other assets like the water), and that doesn't get solved by path tracing.
This is just an over-polished turd.

Using full path tracing is an interesting concept that had already been shown with Minecraft and Quake II.
There's just not enough performance at the consumer level (where the 4090 doesn't belong) to justify the investment instead of polishing the assets in 2023. Nor will there be as long as the RT implementations are as stiff as they are with DXR 1.1.


Cyberpunk could could have been a spectacular-looking game at this point, had CDPR been focused on making it look good instead of making Nvidia advertisements for prosumer cards.

I hope they're at least getting paid by Nvidia to do this. Both them and the triggered dudes in this thread making endless screenshot dumps that further prove my point.