The launch of Cyberpunk 2077’s RT Overdrive improve sees a brand new stage of visible constancy delivered to a contemporary triple-A recreation through path tracing – the purest type of ray tracing. However, the notion is that solely RTX 40-series GPUs or best-of-the-best 30-series playing cards get to run these visuals, however what if I used to be to let you know it is simply attainable to get a 1080p, 30 frames per second expertise on the RTX 3050 – Nvidia’s entry-level RT-capable desktop graphics card? It will be achieved – and this opens the door to all the 20-series and 30-series playing cards I examined handing in a surprisingly good expertise. Not solely that, however higher-end AMD RDNA 2 and RDNA 3 graphics {hardware} is within the combine too.
I first acquired the concept of doing a little type of efficiency piece on RT Overdrive once I added some benchmarks to the RTX 4070 overview. The 4070 with body technology is able to working the sport in extra of 60 frames per second utilizing a mix of DLSS 2 balanced mode and DLSS 3 body technology – and it seems to be fairly good. We’re already in playable frame-rate territory for the RTX 3080, however the 3070 is struggling. We have choices although – decreasing decision, decreasing DLSS high quality stage – however most intriguing of all, a mod has not too long ago appeared that will increase efficiency by something from 20 to 35 p.c in my testing. Right now, Intel is off the desk sadly, probably all the way down to driver points, however Arc has nice RT {hardware} and absolutely it is solely a matter of time earlier than these GPUs be a part of the fray.
The mod is offered here on Nexus Mods, created by Erok and Scorn, and I discovered that the additional efficiency it delivers mixed with cheap high quality settings for the GPU you may have makes the distinction between an expertise that bottoms out within the low 20fps space, to 1 that ought to constantly maintain you above 30fps. From there, run both unlocked or use the sport’s in-built 30fps v-sync cap. A constant frame-rate at all times seems to be good, however I’ve to warning you that the lag this introduces in Cyberpunk 2077 is fairly terrible. Either method, I used to be extremely shocked at how good the expertise was. The mod point out ‘nearly free FPS’, however there isn’t any such factor as a free lunch in relation to rendering, so what does it truly do?
Essentially, ray tracing is about actually tracing the trail of sunshine and its bounces towards geometry. At inventory settings, the sport simulates two bounces of oblique lighting and that is diminished to 1 bounce with the mod. The most evident degradation to constancy comes from reflections. Lighting seen on objects within the reflection is totally lacking bounce lighting because the secondary bounce is not there. Objects within the reflection can look almost black – excluding these areas which might be immediately lit by the solar or by native lights. Obviously this can be a noticeable step again when it comes to visible realism.
For diffuse lighting that is readily seen in every single place within the recreation world, the influence right here is that each space is now technically darker and not directly lit areas are darker nonetheless, whereas the discount gentle implies that the sport’s post-processing adjustments:,much less gentle enters the digital digicam, so eye adaptation turns into extra excessive. It’s a high quality downgrade then, however the lion’s share of the influence of the path-traced presentation stays intact. There’s additionally precedent for this discount in gentle bounces – Nvidia’s personal Portal RTX permits you to configure the quantity of bounces to be able to open up the sport to extra GPUs. I’d think about that after RT Overdrive migrates from a expertise preview to a full product, we’d see high quality settings like this added to the sport.
So, if you wish to pattern RT Overdrive on the RTX 3050, really useful settings are 1080p, DLSS efficiency mode. Switch that as much as DLSS high quality on 2070 Super, 2080 or RTX 3060. If you take a look at the benchmark desk on this web page, you possibly can see a grouping of GPUs on the backside, the place the RTX 3050 sits nearly on the foot, with solely the RX 6800 XT worse off. I’d say that each card beneath the RTX 3070 threshold ought to be capable of produce a good 1080p30 expertise – the additional you up go, the higher the reconstruction approach you should utilize. Even so, with the RX 6800 XT, I may nonetheless hit 30fps and use FSR2 balanced mode. It’s not a totally constant 30fps although, however you possibly can choose the outcomes for your self by trying out the footage within the video.
Cyberpunk 2077 RT Overdrive, 1440p, Balanced Upscaling
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The RTX 3070 threshold is fascinating although as a result of in principle, the RTX 2080 Ti needs to be as potent – however it isn’t. All 20-series playing cards underperform in response to present benchmarks. The 3070 trounces 2080 Ti, whereas even the 3060 beats out the 2080 by round 11 p.c. Returning to RTX 3070 although, 1440p seems to be viable, however the 24fps minimal is onerous. However, Erok and Scorn’s mod bumps the worst case to round 30fps, that means that 1440p with DLSS balanced mode is viable. The enhance in rendering decision and reconstruction high quality works wonders in enhancing picture high quality. The fuzz has been lifted and we’re again to a stage of constancy that befits the {hardware}. This is the purpose the place Cyberpunk 2077 RT Overdrive actually delivers a incredible visible return and the information solely will get higher as soon as you are taking that very same 1440p balanced setting over to an RTX 3080.
You’re not at 60 frames per second locked with the mod, however you might be often inside the VRR window, so that you’re getting a perceptually smoother expertise. The fact is, whenever you begin reaching 3080 stage {hardware}, the unmodded expertise is eminently playable at 1440p – the mod merely pares again RT within the methods I described earlier and will get you a very good chunk of efficiency again.
The RTX 3080 is a good card and permits you to get some very, very putting outcomes from RT Overdrive with out the necessity to use the mod and scale back the standard stage of the trail tracing. I discovered that I may get some spectacular outcomes by utilizing the Nvidia management panel to arrange a customized 3200×1800 decision. At this level, I can run RT Overdrive on DLSS efficiency mode, goal 30fps and the overwhelming majority of play hits the frame-rate goal. The solely exception to the rule got here through a run by means of the cherry blossom market close to Tom’s Diner, the place frame-rate tanked. Overall although, this was a really pleasing presentation – although 1440p with the mod retains you within the excessive 40s to past 60fps, so a very good match for G-Sync, FreeSync or VRR screens.
At this level, it might be remiss of me to not level out that you do not want a discrete GPU in any respect to get a 4K RT Overdrive expertise – you possibly can stream through the cloud through GeForce Now on its 4080 Tier. This is level clean one of the best streaming expertise I’ve ever had. The servers are primarily working a pared-back model of the RTX 4090 silicon with 24 gigs of VRAM, delivering ballpark desktop 4080 efficiency backed by a 16-core Ryzen 5000 CPU. Typically, I’d say you are 50-75fps frame-rates, although there are occasional dips into the 40s – and that is with body technology energetic. I used to be impressed with enter lag too, even with frame-gen within the image. It’s not as exact as an area expertise, however headshots had been doable.
In abstract then, at launch CD Projekt RED was suggesting that RT Overdrive would solely run on 40-series playing cards and best-of-the-best Ampere GPUs however the fact is that it will run on any DirectX12 Ultimate class graphics {hardware} and with strategic settings administration and the deployment of a mod, it is attainable to expertise path-tracing on any RTX card and a wide variety of higher-end AMD choices. It’s true that 40-series efficiency and DLSS 3 body technology mix to offer massively improved returns – 4K actually is one thing on RTX 4080 and RTX 4090 class {hardware} – however the instruments are there to get the sport working higher than anticipated on current-gen GPUs.
What we’ve proven at present might not be the best RT Overdrive expertise you will get, and even the easiest way to play Cyberpunk 2077 on your PC, however a playable path-traced triple A recreation already borders on the implausible – and the concept it could possibly run on even the most cost effective RTX card solely provides additional to the final stage of disbelief surrounding this launch.
