Even the Nvidia RTX 4090 struggles with Cyberpunk 2077's RT Overdrive mode

[midian182]

In context: The RTX 4090 sits at the top of the pile when it comes to consumer graphics cards. With its $1,600 MSRP, Nvidia's flagship can take on most 4K challenges and spit out playable framerates. One exception is Cyberpunk 2077 in its new RT Overdrive mode, which the RTX 4090 can only push to a measly 16 fps in some sections.

On April 11, CD Projekt Red will roll out another major update to Cyberpunk 2077, one that adds RT Overdrive mode. This introduces a fully unified path-tracing solution. Instead of using a hybrid method of rasterization combined with ray-traced effects, as is the case with the game's current RT modes, Overdrive mode only consists of ray traced pixels.

The end result is that an already stunning game looks even better, thanks to path tracing accurately simulating light throughout an entire scene. The mode models the properties of light from a virtually unlimited number of emissive sources, as opposed to a limited number in the standard RT modes, delivering physically correct shadows, reflections and global illumination on all objects.

Nvidia has released a demo video showing the gorgeous, lifelike visual improvements RT Overdrive mode brings to the game. Team green previously said this mode requires 635 ray calculations per pixel, meaning it needs some high-end hardware.

Nvidia uses an RTX 4090 with Cyberpunk 2077 at a 4K resolution in the video. DLSS 3 is also enabled, which is a requirement as the game drops as low as 16 fps in some sections when Nvidia's upscaling tech is disabled. The other two sections show it struggling at around 30 fps in this native resolution. Enabling DLSS 3 pushes the framerates to over or around 100 fps – check out our own tests on DLSS 3 in 9 different games here.

CD Projekt Red hasn't given the official system requires for using RT Overdrive mode, but expect something hefty, possibly an RTX 4000-series card so DLSS 3 can be used. The mode could give Cyberpunk 2077's popularity another boost – the Edgerunners anime helped increase player figures last year – and it might attract more people to Nvidia's GeForce Now RTX 4080 tier.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/98194-even-rtx-4090-struggles-cyberpunk-2077-rt-overdrive.html

 

[Burty117]

Huh, I assume the performance would be much better if your native res is 1440p instead of 2160p. Use DLSS3 Quality mode, Potentially 60fps?

 

[b3rdm4n]

This is actually a ridiculously impressive achievement, fully path traced, native 2160p, busy section of a current gen AAA title. But they make it sound like this is a complete flop. Well done!

 

[Flobberknock]

I mean, we all know the 4090 is an absolute beast of a card, but would we ever truly expect it to hit a decent FPS with real-time path tracing at 4K? It will be interesting to see the benchmark results when this finally hits, what's it like with just DLSS 2? What's it like at different resolutions with and without DLSS at all? I for one almost always enable DLSS 2 if it's available, and whilst I've not had first hand experience with DLSS 3 yet, I think it's one I'd avoid given the input latency increase. I'd rather stick to the lower refresh of 'real' frames and VRR

 

[yRaz]

Okay, this is pretty sweet. RT was mostly a gimmick but path tracing could be really sweet. Fortunately for we are a few generations away from cards running it in any meaningful manner so don't let this impact your next GPU purchase

 

[McMurdeR]

This is actually a ridiculously impressive achievement, fully path traced, native 2160p, busy section of a current gen AAA title. But they make it sound like this is a complete flop. Well done!

It's very impressive alright. However I fear it isnt just being done for brevity, rather to push ever more expensive GPUs on the gaming community. Nvidia is clearly paying developers to implement these features. As for Cyberpunk, it still needs plenty of work, and path tracing wouldn't have been a priority to my mind.

It's a symptomatic of the entire PC industry as a whole. Poor engineering choices are being made for the sake of selling stuff.

 

[ScottSoapbox]

Path tracing will be awesome with an RTX 5090.

 

[RedGuard]

Nineteen frames per second for a 4K image full pathtracing was something unbelievable 10 years ago. Well done!

 

[zamroni111]

Ok, let's start saving $1600 for 5090 launch on october 2024

 

[DukeJukem]

Perhaps you should just play at 1080p with max settings and stop drawing over half a kilowatt or more for your pointless eye candy.

 

[kira setsu]

It's very impressive alright. However I fear it isnt just being done for brevity, rather to push ever more expensive GPUs on the gaming community. Nvidia is clearly paying developers to implement these features. As for Cyberpunk, it still needs plenty of work, and path tracing wouldn't have been a priority to my mind.

It's a symptomatic of the entire PC industry as a whole. Poor engineering choices are being made for the sake of selling stuff.

pretty much this, they've made gpu's so powerful that you wont need an upgrade for a long *** time, so they're pushing raytracing as hard as possible.

the old traditional rendering techniques work and look great now, I've played so many new games where honestly rt feels like a hindrance once its flipped on. imo dlss3 for nvidia is a bad thing, once its decently optimized why upgrade if your current gear can just make up frames if it struggles a bit with real ones?

 

[CrisisDog]

So, when is this getting multi-GPU support under DirectX 12 to support these features?

Game requirements are outpacing the hardware currently available again...

 

[daffy duck]

Path tracing will be awesome with an RTX 5090.

Blackwell is going to be a super impressive upgrade over Lovelace. AMD's RDNA4 will need massive boosts to RT hardware to be a consideration at all.