Cyberpunk 2077 Ray Tracing: Overdrive Technology Preview on RTX 4090

Path tracing on a triple-A videogame? On THE triple-A videogame? Cyberpunk 2077 already pushed visual boundaries with its psycho ray tracing mode, but the RT Overdrive upgrade takes lighting to the next level. So how does the Technology Preview compare to the standard rasterised version of the game? And how are the visuals improved over the already impressive psycho RT mode? This explainer should fill you in - and suffice it to say we've got much more content on the way as we spend more time with the game.

[jesuschrystler]

This is what people envision when RT first started entering video games. This is the true potential of RT. The video gamey-ness of glowing character models and weirdly shiny surfaces is gone.

[franzusgutlus]

The Overdrive mode makes the psycho mode look like the raster mode.

[Cptraktorn]

I actually didn't think it would be such an incredible step up from the previous ray tracing... Man it looks so much better.

[superkaboose]

tbh this is a way bigger step than a lot of people think, it's just a door being opened to the next stage of something actually looking "real", I've always hated the bad shadows and non-contact from objects and people, and it's finally fixed!!

[thule]

The performance is really not as bad as I expected. I remember studying physics-based rendering some 20 years ago, and it was just accepted that it will never be real-time in our lifetimes. The progress is so much faster than anyone expected.

[ArchieBunker]

I wasn’t expecting it to look that much better. Thats amazing.

[Andrew-wbzq]

Absolutely stunning. Especially the character models - that weird floaty glow is gone and it somehow makes the models look so much more convincing, even if the actual models didn’t change.

[bennyweimer]

the craziest part is it looks this good even when all the assets and world was created for the rasterized lighting meaning when things are tailor made for the path traced lighting it will likely look even better, and wont have some of the weird areas like a room being completely dark.

[crawkaw]

Holy... Can't wait for this to be the norm.

Some scenes changed from "yeah looks great" to " that's real", no one would think missing such odd artifacts would change that much, but holy it does.

P.s. am I the only one who hoped for them to show that store clerk scene which blew internet minds with how beautiful it looked?

[puddingtopf]

Wow, I hadn't realized how flawed Psycho RT was. I already knew there would be some nice improvements in Overdrive RT, but this is even better than expected.
Ray tracing is such a cool technology. Thanks for the video, Alex.

[Reiath]

1:41 One of my pet peeves is how the lower eyelids usually get those weird lighting in most video games, but Overdrive RT seems to solve them!

[guitaristkuro]

I’m astounded at the lack of noise and fireflies in perf mode. The lack of ghosting is quite insane too.

Edit: I’ve gotten to play more and noise is definitely covered by YT compression but there is still very little compared to last gen titles. I’ve seen the difference Restir makes in raw renders with no denoising and it’s simply many magnitudes superior. A raw ReStir image is very close to a final product.

Edit: I see replies are arguing about the DLSS reconstruction but I should mention that the denoiser is what is eliminating noise and fireflies for the most part. In this case it’s the new ReStir NRD. Noise gets progressively worse as you decrease render resolution due to number of rays decreasing. You can have DLSS off and just change the internal res on other RT games and you will see the noise pattern doesn’t change between them (Fortnite, Portal RTX, and Minecraft RTX come to mind). It’s very easy to test denoising and improvements as all you have to do is go to any area only lit by indirect lighting.

I have not played much of the update outside of hours of running the benchmark trying to fix frame gen screen tearing, but I have seen noise only on fine metal grates like the fans in the back of the outdoor area in the test scene, that’s only appears on DLSS Balanced and Perf 4K.

[TheFirstExelion]

The short shootout clip at 10:00 is absolutely incredible oh my god, it looks like an actual movie.

[elliotborst]

Damn this looks soo much better. The side by side in the car with dex looks sick. Looks like the trailer. And then NPCs aren’t badly lit anymore with hero lighting. Makes them look far more real.

[OsaculnenolajO]

This is definitely the future of lightning. I really hope games continue in this direction. The visual upgrade is absolutely insane.

[jamesc]

Love the accurate lighting. What I really feel like needs tweaking to compensate is the exposure settings or possibly HDR settings. A lot of example shots felt too over / under exposed imo. But maybe that's just me being visually trained over the years to be used to seeing things in shadow. High contrast areas between sunlit and shadow zones would be the main offenders that may negatively affect gameplay - not seeing something important because it's too bright or dark for example.

[existentialselkath]

More games need modes like this. Add unrestricted LOD (render distance) settings as well and you'd never go back to an old game and find the visuals dated again.

People complaining about settings like these because it doesn't run on most hardware are missing the point. Give it a few years and some gpu generations later and this will be a clear positive.

[Alexwolf]

The first time I've ever looked at RT comparisons and literally said out loud, "holy shit!". And not even for a no-RT vs Overdrive-RT comparison, it was between current-RT and Overdrive. So excited for this!

[mdavidcarroll]

I feel like the addition of an in-game flashlight should have been bundled with this update

[Camdavis]

I've been patiently waiting for something like this. I had a feeling Cyberpunk would visually evolve at some point in the future and yeah, wow. This is amazing.