A couple of days ago, CD Projekt RED released a Ray Tracing Overdrive update for Cyberpunk 2077. As such, we decided to benchmark and compare it to No RT and Ray Tracing Psycho.
For these benchmarks, we used an AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D, 32GB of DDR5 at 6000MHz, and an RTX 4090 from NVIDIA. We also used Windows 10 64-bit and GeForce 531.41.
The reason for postponing this article was very simple. At first, we were measuring non-RT Psycho settings and not non-RT Ultra settings. When the screen area quality is set to Psycho, performance drops. At native 4K we averaged between 35-40fps. And that was without any ray tracing effects. Psycho’s screen space quality simply kills the frame rate. For comparison purposes, at native 4K/Non-RT Ultra we had 67-77fps. This is almost twice the performance. The funny thing is, it took me all day to figure that out. So yeah, stay away from Screen-Space Quality Psycho unless you’re using DLSS or FSR.
So, let’s start with some comparison shots. No RT Psycho screenshots are on the left, RT Psycho screenshots are in the middle, and RT Overdrive screenshots are on the right. These screenshots show the improvements that RT Overdrive brings to the table. Pay attention to the additional shadows, as well as the improved lighting and ambient occlusion effects (especially in the last comparison).
At native resolution, our NVIDIA RTX 4090 is capable of running the non-RT version at a stable 60 FPS at all resolutions. With RT Psycho, we can get smooth 1080p and 1440p gaming experience. As for Path Tracing, we can only get acceptable performance at 1080p.
With DLSS 3 (Ultra High Definition with Frame Generation) quality enabled, we can play RT Psycho at very high frame rates, even at 4K. RT Overdrive runs amazing at 1080p and 1440p, however, there are some drops below 60fps in 4K. Moreover, the mouse camera feels sluggish (due to frame generation). If you want to play at 4K, we suggest dropping DLSS Super Resolution to Performance. By doing this, you’ll get about 90fps on the RTX4090 with acceptable latency.
Path Tracing in Cyberpunk 2077 gives us a glimpse into the future of video game graphics. It’s really incredible what CDPR and NVIDIA have been able to achieve. CP2077 pushes the graphical boundaries of PC games, and is currently the new “Crysis” game!
John Papadopoulos
John is the founder and chief editor at DSOGaming. He is a fan of PC games and is very supportive of the mod and indie communities. Prior to creating DSOGaming, John worked on several gaming websites. Although he is a hardcore computer gamer, his roots can be found in gaming on consoles. John loved – and still does – 16-bit consoles, and he considers the SNES to be one of the best. However, the PC platform has won it over the consoles. This is mainly due to 3DFX technology and its 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on “The Evolution of Computer Graphics Cards”.
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