Yesterday NVIDIA released a new video showcasing Cyberpunk 2077’s Ray Tracing: Overdrive Mode which also showed demanding it can be. Cyberpunk 2077’s new RT: Overdrive mode introduces full path tracing to the game providing stunning new visuals but anyone hoping to play the game using it without NVIDIA’s DLSS technology is pretty much out of luck. In a don’t blink or you’ll miss it moment NVIDIA showed how even its flagship graphics card struggles with the new mode.
The GeForce RTX 4090 is brought to its knees when DLSS is turned off with the game in 4K to a staggering 16 FPS. However, when DLSS 3, aka Frame Generation, is turned on, the RTX 4090 recovers gracefully to some impressive averages ranging from over 110 FPS to 131 FPS in 4K.
DLSS 3 or nothing for 4K
Clearly, anyone wanting to use Cyberpunk 2077’s Ray Tracing: Overdrive Mode will have to use DLSS 3 in order to achieve more desirable framerates in 4K. Some are already joking on the Youtube page for the video that we may have to wait until sometime between 2030-2077 until we’ll have hardware that can render the game at similar framerates without DLSS technology. At the rate, current flagship GPUs are getting power-hungry one could only wonder how much power will be needed to play the game by then.
The new mode will become available via an update on April 11 and we’re sure to hear more from reviews about how the game scales with a variety of graphics cards at different resolutions. Another issue that is sure to be mentioned somewhere is what amount of lag or delay has been added from the use of DLSS 3. Add in that players have previously critiqued Cyberpunk 2077’s vehicle handling, and any added lag or delay is something many will be curious about. As Tom’s Hardware has pointed out, ray tracing overdrive mode is the new Crysis.
Discussion (19 replies)
Join Discussion →Not surprised here. This is looking like a next gen feature.
It's path tracing on a brand new already demanding game. I'm surprised it isn't in the single digits.
It is likely pretty close to playable with just DLSS performance mode at 4k.
So it's likely playable at a lower resolution with fake frames injected. Got it. Just a matter of what upscaler you prefer.
Shame they can't use all that processing power they use on DLSS for real frames even if it came out lower then DLSS.
I kind of had a feeling this was going to be the case back when they announced this a month or so ago. I hoped I was wrong but oh well. I'm going to be keeping an eye for the reviews though.
pretty cool tech demo
Given how much impact it had on Quake 2 one should not be surprised to see modern games struggle a bit more.
I don't understand what you mean by this.
Frame Generation generates frames between frames (fake frames)
DLSS reconstructs images from lower resolutions using multiple points of information (reconstructed real frames)
They can be combined but are separate solutions.
NVIDIA really shouldn't have used DLSS 3 branding for Frame Generation. It should have been called DLFG and it's own specific tech.
It's probably just me but I HATE the marketing that DLSS is this great feature that unlocks games... it's playing at a lower resolution and upscaling the image. Just doing in a way that tries to maintain or increase fidelity in the game. It in no way is actually gaming at the higher resolution with increased frame rates.
ALSO frame generation is simply generating additional frames to make something FEEL smoother that isn't actually being rendered more smoothly.
Well, like Tom's said, it truly is the next Crysis.
Expected this. We don't have desktop hardware capable of real time path tracing.
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(Haven't watched either yet)
Something seems off if you can go from struggling to get 16FPS to 120+FPS with DLSS...
I think that's DLSS running at 720p and upscaling to 4k. I'm sure it looks FIIIIIINE....
It's 1080p internally and all video footage was captured using 4k DLSS Performance so what you see is what you get.