Buzz
After numerous teasers and promotional materials, Cyberpunk 2077 update 1.62 has finally been released. This update perhaps holds the most significant importance for gamers, especially those owning RTX 4080 and 4090...
Eliminating all legacy lighting features, including traditional rasterization combined with ray tracing, makes path tracing offer gamers a glimpse into the future of gaming graphics. However, it comes with significant hardware demands, especially for the current RTX 40 series graphics card generation.
While exploring the virtual world, immerse yourself in Viktor Vektor's clinic. Notice his desk closely—even in the highest ray tracing mode, shadows are absent from the desk despite the overhead neon red light. However, with path tracing, realism prevails.
The space under the doctor's desk appears darker now, deprived of direct light. Despite minimal variation in overall lighting intensity, realism and contrast are significantly enhanced. When ray tracing is disabled, observe the far-left frame, where even the neon sign casts no shadow anymore.
In the early stages of the game, Viktor Vektor's clinic showcases the prowess of path tracing. Pay attention to his workspace; even at the highest ray tracing setting, the desk remains shadowless despite the red neon light above. Conversely, with path tracing, everything looks remarkably different.
Take, for instance, the scene at Afterlife bar, albeit slightly to the right. Directly above the main trash bin lies the most striking depiction of path tracing's power. The illuminated electric wire now casts intricately detailed shadows, and notice how even the iron rod hanging the wire throws shadows on the wall, accurately positioned relative to the purple neon light. Even at Psycho level ray tracing, differences are barely discernible.Perhaps the most notable disparity between enabling and disabling ray tracing is the heightened contrast and more realistic lighting effects. However, only now do we truly notice the intricacies in gameplay details, simply because technological limitations at the game's release led us to believe that the Psycho option was already exquisite enough.
The lighting processing capabilities to compute contrast within the gameplay are exemplified just a few steps away from where the photo was taken, near a parked car. Reflections from the building opposite on the car's windshield are detailed and impressive in both ray tracing and path tracing. However, upon closer inspection, the car interior appears darker due to intense external lighting, and the reflections make it difficult for onlookers to discern what's inside.
Game developers persist in utilizing SSR, screen space reflections, for portraying reflective imagery. Firstly, due to its ease of implementation, obviating the necessity for intricate light path algorithms to render reflections on glossy surfaces. Secondly, the intricacy achievable with SSR at its peak surpasses that of ray tracing from previous years.This explains why, at times, SSR outshines even the most resource-intensive mode, Psycho, when ray tracing is disabled. Nonetheless, SSR still lags behind path tracing concerning detail and realism, particularly in scenarios involving deep water bodies, where depth directly impacts the fidelity of reflected images:
Consider this scenario: Take note of the street lamp on the opposite side emitting a brilliant glow, rather than solely focusing on the reflections on the sleek chrome-coated car:
Comparing Ray tracing Psycho and Path tracing, there's a stark contrast in brightness, contrast, and how light sources illuminate the surrounding space. Notice the column, the light from the lamp in path tracing mode is both softer and more precisely intense compared to the two images on the left:
You might think, so far we've only seen very small examples, insignificant in the grand, intricately designed world by the Polish game studio. So let's take a drive out. The more streets adorned with dazzling billboards in the night, the more the power of path tracing is showcased. Take a basic example, the brightness intensity of the reflections on the road from the billboard screens under the night sky is much brighter compared to using Ray Tracing in Psycho mode.
Notice how the reflections blend together, like the vending machine (even the lights are brighter), the figure on the wet rainy road, combined with images from the giant screen looking much smoother compared to RT Psycho mode. When turning off ray tracing, leaving only SSR, anything not displayed on the screen might as well disappear.
In the image above, once again, the light performance is showcased with path tracing at its maximum. During the night, the screens on the building walls are clearly the brightest source of light, and it has enough intensity to cast light onto the surrounding walls. It's thanks to path tracing that this becomes a reality because if we handle ray tracing for full detail, perhaps no graphics card currently available can handle it.And though the reflections on the road don't look much different, we must agree, path tracing makes the game scene noticeably more vibrant.Speaking of which, we must also mention the burden that hardware, or more precisely, GPUs, have to bear when enjoying Cyberpunk 2077 in path tracing mode, or as Nvidia and CD Projekt RED call it, RT Overdrive. Here's a summary table of frame rates when testing the game below.
In short, compared to Ray Tracing Psycho, the average frame rate when playing games with path tracing decreases by about 40 to 45%, depending on the case. This figure proves that even when using RTX 4080 and 4090, path tracing remains a significant burden on gamers' PC configurations. Therefore, Nvidia mentions playing this game without enabling DLSS 3 and Frame Generator features, even with RTX 4090 at native 4K resolution, only achieves around 19 FPS, which is understandable.As for me, when I turned off all DLSS, enabled path tracing, even at 4K resolution, the frame rate only reached around 20 FPS, and the average frame rate couldn't even reach 30. And when enabling DLSS but disregarding Frame Generation technology, the average frame rate at 2K resolution couldn't even surpass 60.Clearly, Nvidia has calculated carefully not to release a ray tracing-enabled game (with a scale and level of detail as immense as Cyberpunk's) before the RTX 40 series hardware generation is launched. Without DLSS 3 and Frame Generation, no game can properly utilize path tracing, and Nvidia would turn their product into a laughingstock for not achieving 60 FPS, no matter how powerful it may be.
It's quite certain that update 1.62 of Cyberpunk 2077 will be enough to excite the community about what future hardware generations can achieve with the game's virtual world. This update proves that games demanding RTX 4080 or 4090 to work at full capacity are here now, not waiting for several years to fully utilize the performance of these multi-million Dong toys.At the same time, we can't overlook the fact that this update's release is also a perfect market move for Nvidia, making consumers eager to spend money on upgrades to experience both path tracing and DLSS 3. However, Nvidia's success depends on the number of games supporting path tracing, which is still quite scarce.
