Cyberpunk 2077 DLSS + Ray Tracing Benchmark

[Scorpus]

Cyberpunk 2077 is visually stunning and possibly the most graphically impressive game we've ever seen. Ray tracing elevates the game's visuals and provides a noticeable improvement, so it's time to test how your GPU performs with DLSS and ray tracing enabled.

Read the full article here.

https://www.techspot.com/article/2165-cyberpunk-dlss-ray-tracing-performance/

 

[Nobina]

That RTX 3070 getting absolutely rekt due to lack of VRAM, it basically matches the RTX 3060 Ti. It is terrible to see a new card already being outdated unless you're going for 1080p which I'm sure that card isn't meant for.

 

[Shadowboxer]

This article feels a bit negative considering how impressive this game appears. I’m running using an RTX 2080 with all the ray tracing effects on with DLSS “Auto” which feels like somewhere between quality and balanced DLSS and I’m getting 40-60fps at 1440p and it’s very playable. I have dialled down a few other settings, like clouds from ultra to high and fog from ultra to high, and a couple of other minor settings this did give a performance improvement.

It’s by far the worst game to run on my 2080 in terms of fps but at the same time it’s also by far the best looking, turning on RT makes an enormous difference to the visuals and feel of the game, it’s almost like they should call it “next gen mode”. I’d pick 50fps with RT on over 144fps with it off.

Also, unlike a proper shooter like COD or something this game plays fine at less than 60fps, it’s annoying at first but I think the DLSS seems to be smoothing the motion and you get used to it and start loving the visuals. This is a sit back with a controller and relax experience.

The game is also really good as a game. Impressive visuals and next gen features like ray tracing is all moot if the game is dour but it’s not, I’m actually going to get my money’s worth!

 

[meric]

TBH I don't see why people hype so much about the RT stuff. According to this review it's not as breath taking as some people lead us to believe. I mean the game offers realistic shadows and reflections without RT already. RT makes these more crisp and noticable. Don't get me wrong, I don't completely disregard the tech, any visual improvent is good for a better gaming experience. I just don't like the performance hit compared to what little visual improvement it offers. DLSS tech is impressive though. RT when paired with DLSS can offer a good experience as the performance hit is not that big. I hope CDPR improves the game with better performance optimisations in the future.

 

[Shadowboxer]

TBH I don't see why people hype so much about the RT stuff. According to this review it's not as breath taking as some people lead us to believe. I mean the game offers realistic shadows and reflections without RT already. RT makes these more crisp and noticable. Don't get me wrong, I don't completely disregard the tech, any visual improvent is good for a better gaming experience. I just don't like the performance hit compared to what little visual improvement it offers. DLSS tech is impressive though. RT when paired with DLSS can offer a good experience as the performance hit is not that big. I hope CDPR improves the game with better performance optimisations in the future.

After over 10 hours of playtime I disagree, turning off RT is not worth the extra frames in this game, it might be in other titles but this is a slower paced story game where the atmosphere and visuals are more important than super high speed frame rates. I usually don’t tolerate low fps in games but if you can get 50-60 with RT on then that’s better than say 144 with RT off.

And the videos don’t really do it justice, you need to run it on your system to see it, the reflections, the shadows cutting through the reflections, the far more natural lighting. I remember seeing one of the NPCs - Evelyn for the first time in a neon lit strip club wearing a shiny jacket and the reflections on it are incredible, if you turn RT off it looks so basic by comparison, like you’re playing a cartoon of the ray traced version of the game.

I’d still play it without RT because the game is great but if you have those RT options turned on it takes it to a whole new level.

 

[RedGuard]

I'm so happy CD Projekt decoupled themselves from consoles and delivered a game that puts even the newly released GPUs on their knees.

I believe we need to push technology forward and pull people ahead rather than develop for the masses leaving them stagnant.

 

[bugmenott]

Are the full resolution screenshots missing? There is so much image compression artifacts in the DLSS Quality comparison shots that they are unusable for comparison.

 

[Nobina]

TBH I don't see why people hype so much about the RT stuff. According to this review it's not as breath taking as some people lead us to believe. I mean the game offers realistic shadows and reflections without RT already. RT makes these more crisp and noticable. Don't get me wrong, I don't completely disregard the tech, any visual improvent is good for a better gaming experience. I just don't like the performance hit compared to what little visual improvement it offers. DLSS tech is impressive though. RT when paired with DLSS can offer a good experience as the performance hit is not that big. I hope CDPR improves the game with better performance optimisations in the future.

You can judge your self from looking at pictures in the article or anywhere else on YouTube. The difference exists, it is in my opinion slightly better looking but while actually playing the game I won't notice which reflection is slightly off or this shadow over here is not sharp enough, things like that. I just think it's better off playing the game without ray tracing, that way you get good performance and you don't have to bother with adjusting other graphical details and DLSS. Just don't piss off those ray tracing fanboys, they used to care about 60 FPS now it's acceptable to run FPS games at 30 FPS as long as you have ray tracing on.

 

[neeyik]

Some really interesting results here, especially if one compares the 3060 Ti, 3070, and 2080 Super against each other.



The above figures ignores various changes between Ampere and Turing (such as the increase in L1 cache, L1 cache bandwidth, RT cores operating independently, and so on), and the table is using the reference boost clocks for the rates. On paper, the 3060 Ti and 3070 are only better than the 2080 Super in three areas: outright FP32 throughput, pixel output rate, and RT core triangle-intersection test rate.

The 'No RT' results show that, for this particular game with those settings, the performance is dominated by either FP32, pixel, or a combination of both. There's no other factors (bar the ignored aspects) that would let a 3070 be roughly 9% down on the 2080 Super but performance 5 to 7% better. Interestingly, though, the 3070 isn't as far ahead of the 3060 Ti as it should be - I doubt the game is raster-limited, so either the 3060 Ti is maintaining its clocks better than the 3070 or the game is heavily VRAM bandwidth limited.

Once RT is enabled, one can see that Ampere's improvements in this area come to light, but again, not by a margin that the raw figures would suggest. My main take from this is just how much better value for money the 3060 Ti is compared to the 3070 - the latter has an MSRP of $499, compared to the former's $399, a difference of 25%. That's quite a bit more cost for just 10% better performance (not that one should ever choose a GPU on the basis of one game).

 

[amghwk]

The performance hit is just not worth it. This will hold true for at least another 2 more upcoming generation of graphic cards.

The difference is minimal but the performance hit is maximal.

RT is only worth the trouble when the cards can run at Ultra or equivalent highest settings with all bells and whistle turned on at 4K @ 60fps minimum. No compromise.

Otherwise, for current gen, native without RT at 4K with minimum 60fps should be the priority if one wants the most striking graphics without compromising the performance.

To live with RT, people are degrading their 4K capable cards to 1440p ones.

 

[QuantumPhysics]

Gotta go big or go home

 

[amghwk]

4K Ultra RT with even 3090 is laughable.

 

[Porkous]

I'd play with "ray tracing" because is the supposed next gen tech, and it could add to the element of atmosphere and tech delight. One issue with ray tracing is that it can also take details away from a scene, since the darkness and the supposed shadows take away those fine details, getting in return some shades of gray and some tint's of gray.

We "can" basically make ray tracing ourselves by increasing the contrast in the settings. The issue with ray tracing is that there are too few rays, and even the game cannot tell where the light source is. I'd play with ray tracing, but I would not pay the price this generation imho. The reflections are indeed the most substantial, but for that single (one of many) puddle/s, you get too much of a hit on the feel of game based on FPS and clarity with dlss
Also, is cheaper on Geforce Now, too.

 

[Shadowboxer]

Laughable that people here actually think RT isn’t worth turning on. They clearly haven’t played it with RT on. The difference is night and day!

 

[Shadowboxer]

 

[brruno]

Waiting for results for:
- Med preset , 1080p RT On to see the real usable 2060 performance
- High preset , 1440p RT On to see 3070/3060 Ti performance

On 1080p ultra the 2060 is beeing VRAM limited; but even if it wasnt it would be running below 30fps anyways, but it doesnt matter because its not a real world scenario ( unless you are a console fan)

And at 1440p ultra the 3070/3060Ti are also beeing VRAM limited a bit, and not hitting the 60fps. Interest to see if droping a git to high migh be enouth for the 3070 to go over the 2080 Ti ( and might not make any significant visual performance difference)

 

[grumblguts]

Hardly notice any difference with RT If planar reflections are done right.
Honestly it just looks different not better

 

[Puiu]

Laughable that people here actually think RT isn’t worth turning on. They clearly haven’t played it with RT on. The difference is night and day!

If the normal reflections are done right, in a game like this turning on RTX just makes them look different, not an obvious improvement that you absolutely have to turn on. The drop in FPS is just too much even with DLSS enabled (and we are talking about being able to hit 60fps or not at 1440p, not even 4K).

 

[Vulcanproject]

I would say 3060Ti does admirably at 1440p. Ultra + RT Medium + DLSS quality is 52FPS average. Probably enough to live with assuming you have Gsync.

Even then you can drop a couple base settings down a notch to 'high' and get closer to 60FPS. I notice screen space reflections are fairly heavy, still look good at only 'high' and give up quite a lot of performance.

At least there are a lot of options here to balance and play with to get the kind of performance na dlook you want with whatever machine you have.

Console gamers won't like that kind of flexibility but I love it. I have the choice to go balls out ultra and live with a locked 30 or 40FPS, or I can strip it back in the areas I prefer and take a buttery 60FPS. At least it is all my choice.

 

[CrisisDog]

I’m really not seeing a huge improvement in visual quality with raytracing enabled. It’s there, but you wouldn’t notice it without the comparison images.

 

[Endymio]

TBH I don't see why people hype so much about the RT stuff.

I feel the same way about this whole 3-D graphics thing. It's just a passing fad. Real men play 2-D platformer games in 16-colors.

 

[scavengerspc]

I’m really not seeing a huge improvement in visual quality with raytracing enabled. It’s there, but you wouldn’t notice it without the comparison images.

I honestly trust what I read here, so I'm thinking that while still images are showing little improvement maybe it is in the actual game play where the difference is noticeable.

 

[maroon1]

That RTX 3070 getting absolutely rekt due to lack of VRAM, it basically matches the RTX 3060 Ti. It is terrible to see a new card already being outdated unless you're going for 1080p which I'm sure that card isn't meant for.

It won't if you turn off RT (something that AMD users won't use anyway)

Also, claiming that RTX 3070 is outdated because of something that won't run on AMD GPU is laughable. By the same logic, ALL AMD radeon is already outdated because it can't use RT at all in this game. Even if it get RT support in the future, it won't perform as good as nvidia and lack of DLSS will make it unplayable anyway.

Waiting for results for:
- Med preset , 1080p RT On to see the real usable 2060 performance
- High preset , 1440p RT On to see 3070/3060 Ti performance

On 1080p ultra the 2060 is beeing VRAM limited; but even if it wasnt it would be running below 30fps anyways, but it doesnt matter because its not a real world scenario ( unless you are a console fan)

And at 1440p ultra the 3070/3060Ti are also beeing VRAM limited a bit, and not hitting the 60fps. Interest to see if droping a git to high migh be enouth for the 3070 to go over the 2080 Ti ( and might not make any significant visual performance difference)

All you need is to slightly lower texure setting to fix the Vram issue if you use RT. Otherwise, turn RT off.

 

[maroon1]

I would say 3060Ti does admirably at 1440p. Ultra + RT Medium + DLSS quality is 52FPS average. Probably enough to live with assuming you have Gsync.

Even then you can drop a couple base settings down a notch to 'high' and get closer to 60FPS. I notice screen space reflections are fairly heavy, still look good at only 'high' and give up quite a lot of performance.

At least there are a lot of options here to balance and play with to get the kind of performance na dlook you want with whatever machine you have.

Console gamers won't like that kind of flexibility but I love it. I have the choice to go balls out ultra and live with a locked 30 or 40FPS, or I can strip it back in the areas I prefer and take a buttery 60FPS. At least it is all my choice.

Hardware unboxed said that turning just RT reflection ON is better than using RT preset at medium

I’m really not seeing a huge improvement in visual quality with raytracing enabled. It’s there, but you wouldn’t notice it without the comparison images.

RT reflections make the biggest difference. The other RT options won't make big difference in visuals

Unfortunately, the RT medium preset does not use reflections. I recommend manually turning reflections ON and turn other RT options off

 

[Shadowboxer]

I honestly trust what I read here, so I'm thinking that while still images are showing little improvement maybe it is in the actual game play where the difference is noticeable.

To me, the images techspot have chosen don’t highlight the difference very well at all. The difference is in how the game feels, the whole world is darker and the bright lights dazzle out more, it gives a sort of HDR effect (which is good because I turned the in game HDR off as it seemed to wash out all the colours - maybe my monitor or the game, not sure).

Sometimes you see a reflection of a sign which causes you to look up and you realise that this world is very detailed vertically - unlike pretty much any other open world game I’ve played. The cars look very different with RT on as they reflect all the neon signs around them - this is highlighted when in motion, turning RT off makes the cars look unnaturally matte by comparison.

To me it feels like a generational improvement, is it worth the money that the hardware you need to run it costs? Well, that’s subjective. Personally I’m enjoying it a lot but if I already owned a card that could play this game and others just fine but didn’t have RT (say a 1080ti or a 5700XT) I wouldn’t buy a new one just for this game.