Cyberpunk 2077 is breathtaking. The densely packed, stunningly vertical streets and teeming crowds make Evening Metropolis really feel extra alive than some other digital metropolis to this point. Actual-time ray tracing transforms Cyberpunk from feeling like a really fairly videogame to feeling like an precise place.
All that eye sweet doesn’t come free, although. This sport can carry even essentially the most highly effective graphics playing cards to their knees once you max out each visible possibility.
Relatively than bang out a bunch of benchmarks that present how crippling the sport is at Extremely settings, our Cyberpunk 2077 efficiency optimization ideas may also help you discover the perfect PC settings to tone down so every thing else can stay cranked up.
NvidiaCyberpunk 2077’s PC necessities received’t get you to 60 frames per second with graphics choices cranked up.
Effectively, as cranked up as attainable. Cyberpunk 2077 even makes the $1,500 GeForce RTX 3090 we’ve been testing it with wrestle to take care of 60 frames per second at 4K decision with all of the visible bells and whistles enabled—until you make these tweaks.
1. Flip off your body price counter
Let’s begin with a fast thoughts hack. In case you’re an fanatic who retains an overlay along with your gaming body price plastered within the nook of your display screen, flip it off earlier than you begin tinkering with settings.
Brad Chacos/IDGEliminate these body price metrics within the nook of your display screen. (This one is created by GeForce Expertise, Cyberpunk doesn’t embrace a efficiency overlay.)
Sacrilege, I do know. I’m a kind of fans. However in my expertise, Cyberpunk 2077 feels nice to play at something north of 45 frames per second regardless of utilizing the first-person perspective, particularly for those who’ve obtained an adaptive sync (FreeSync or G-Sync) show to easy out hiccups. That is an open-world role-playing sport, bear in mind, not a twitch shooter—even through the shooty bits. The upper-tier visible choices add lots of texture to the sport. It’s a disgrace to show them off as a result of somewhat yellow quantity within the nook of your display screen doesn’t fairly hit 60. Flip off your body counter and tune the sport to what feels good to you.
2. Obtain the lastest GPU drivers
Each Nvidia and AMD launched day-one drivers for Cyberpunk 2077 with efficiency optimizations in place. You need them. You may set up the most recent drivers in AMD’s Radeon Settings or Nvidia’s GeForce Expertise software program, or seize them straight from AMD and Nvidia.
3. Use Nvidia and AMD’s decision scaling options
Earlier than you begin compromising on visible constancy, think about using the PC-centric decision scaling options that CD Projekt Crimson constructed into the sport. They work nice and are situated towards the underside of the graphics menu.
Brad Chacos/IDGYou’ll have to make use of DLSS once you activate the beautiful, but intensive ray-tracing results.
4. DLSS is your good friend
DLSS is your greatest wager for those who’re lucky sufficient to have certainly one of Nvidia’s RTX-class graphics playing cards. DLSS stands for Deep Studying Tremendous Sampling. DLSS renders video games internally at a decrease decision, then leverages devoted AI tensor cores inside RTX playing cards to upscale the picture to your chosen decision, utilizing machine studying to wash up the picture. It really works like black magic, supercharging body charges with little to no loss in visible high quality.
Nvidia’s DLSS is successfully necessary for those who’re enabling Cyberpunk 2077’s luscious ray-tracing results, however you may flip it on even for those who’re skipping ray tracing to get extra efficiency. I extremely advocate doing so for those who can. We noticed frames charges nearly double in lots of eventualities, although it depends upon the cardboard you’re utilizing and the decision you’re taking part in at.
NvidiaNvidia-provided numbers displaying how a lot further efficiency DLSS offers with ray tracing turned on at 4K.
DLSS High quality Mode seems to be equivalent to native however offers the smallest (although nonetheless large) efficiency uplift, whereas Efficiency Mode prioritizes efficiency initially. It nonetheless seems to be nice, however you may often spot some degradation in static scenes or Cyberpunk’s photograph mode. DLSS Efficiency Mode works greatest on 4K shows. DLSS Extremely Efficiency mode can enormously enhance body charges however provides a little bit of blurriness from its aggressive upscaling. Keep away from it for those who can until you’re making an attempt to play at 8K on an RTX 3090. Lastly, DLSS Balanced splits the distinction between the High quality and Efficiency Modes. Play with all three and see what works for you.
Brad Chacos/IDGThe FidelityFX CAS choices present extra choices once you activate them.
You may’t use DLSS on an AMD Radeon or Nvidia GeForce GTX graphics card, although. Fortuitously, CD Projekt Crimson additionally included AMD’s FidelityFX CAS choices for sensible decision scaling, and so they work with any graphics playing cards. The Dynamic FidelityFX CAS possibility helps you to set a goal body price after which adjusts decision as wanted to take care of it, whereas the Static FidelityFX CAS possibility has you decide a set scaling price. Each use AMD’s FidelityFX to wash the upscaled picture. It really works very nicely, offering a giant efficiency uplift with solely minor visible affect, particularly in movement. DLSS seems to be higher for those who can run it, although.
5. Tweak these particular graphics settings
If the decision scaling choices aren’t sufficient to propel body charges to your required ranges, Cyberpunk 2077 affords a smorgasbord of settings for fans to tinker with in its graphics menu. Good! Solely a few them take advantage of important efficiency variations, although.
Brad Chacos/IDGSetting Display screen House Reflections High quality to Low (and even off, for those who dare) immediately granted 10+ p.c extra frames on the couple of playing cards we tried it with. Dropping Volumetric Fog Decision to Low did the identical. Doing so detracts from the look of the sport—particularly turning down reflections within the rain- and neon-soaked Evening Metropolis—however a lot, a lot lower than merely switching over to the Low or Medium presets.
The sport additionally contains quite a few shadow-related graphics choices. Decreasing shadow high quality could make a noticeable efficiency distinction in lots of video games. Not one of the particular person choices transfer the dial a lot in Cyberpunk 2077, nonetheless, whereas the additional shadows make Evening Metropolis really feel way more lifelike. Cranking each shadow possibility right down to Low can enhance body charges by one other 10+ p.c for those who want it. Begin with Ambient Occlusion, as that individual possibility can add about 5 p.c extra efficiency.
Some customers report getting large body price enhancements by turning down Cascaded Shadows Decision, however it had little or no affect on my programs. Responses to the submit present it had no affect for a lot of others as nicely.
6. Assist out your exhausting drive and CPU
Graphics settings might get all of the glory, however large open-world video games like Cyberpunk 2077 hammer much more than your GPU. Your storage and processor carry a heavy load too. A few choices tucked into the Gameplay menu (oddly sufficient) may give them a hand.
Brad Chacos/IDGThe Gameplay menu additionally holds some useful settings to tweak for probably higher efficiency.
Open-world video games carry out greatest on a solid-state drive as a result of they’re continually loading in belongings. You received’t see a loading display screen in Cyberpunk 2077 after you’re within the sport until you fast-travel. CD Projekt Crimson recommends storing the sport on an SSD, however for those who can’t—Cyberpunk’s 70GB set up measurement is nothing to sneeze at—then activate the Gradual HDD Mode possibility. I put in the sport on SSDs so I can’t check it, however hey, it exists for a motive. (Additionally, critically contemplate upgrading to an SSD. They’re low-cost now.)
Open-world video games with numerous characters additionally stress your CPU. Enjoying round with numerous configurations revealed that Cyberpunk prefers extra cores. It additionally performs higher with sooner cores. In our check system with an Intel Core i7-8700K overclocked to 5GHz, altering the Crowd Density possibility from Excessive to Low made no actual distinction. However once I took the identical RTX 3090 and put it in my private rig with a slower first-gen Ryzen 1800X, which has a lot decrease single-threaded efficiency than fashionable processors, tweaking the Crowd Density added 5 to eight frames per second at 4K—a roughly 15-percent efficiency enchancment in that individual part. The densely packed crowds add quite a bit to the vibe of the sport, so flip down this feature provided that you could.
7. Shrink your discipline of view
Brad Chacos/IDGTop-of-the-line elements of PC gaming is extensive field-of-view choices that blow away what’s attainable on consoles. That stated, in case your graphics card is struggling to maintain up in Cyberpunk 2077, contemplate reducing the FOV setting within the graphics choices to realize some frames. Doing so retains your GPU from rendering as a lot, which is beneficial in and of itself if it’s sweating, however it’s particularly helpful for those who’re working a graphics card with restricted reminiscence capability.
CD Projekt carried out “3D vertical/horizontal streaming” in Cyberpunk 2077 to assist fight the reminiscence pressure densely packed Evening Metropolis. Principally, the sport masses out every thing that doesn’t fall inside your character’s imaginative and prescient cone. In case you’re wanting up at skyscrapers, the streets under load out, and vice versa. “With this, we’re capable of put much less pressure on reminiscence with out compromising visible high quality, or undercutting the sense of scale and perspective once you’re in the midst of town,” the sport’s reviewers’ information states. So tightening your FOV may also help on VRAM-constrained graphics playing cards.
8. Let the cloud do the work
Cyberpunk scales right down to work on less-capable {hardware} fairly nicely for those who begin making extra excessive graphics setting compromises. But when your potato PC nonetheless can’t sustain after infinite tweaks, all isn’t misplaced. Nvidia’s incredible GeForce Now cloud gaming service helps Cyberpunk 2077 no matter whether or not you got it on Steam, GOG, or the Epic Video games Retailer. As a result of the service faucets into your PC storefront accounts to play the video games you already personal, for those who play Cyberpunk with GeForce Now, your cloud saves ought to work simply nice in your native PC when you’ve upgraded its firepower.
Brad Chacos/IDGDon’t cross Keanu.
GeForce Now targets easy 60-fps, 1080p gaming. Nvidia affords a free tier of the service, whereas springing for a $5-per-month Founders subscription helps you to activate these beautiful ray tracing results that may make even the beefiest graphics playing cards sweat. We’ve talked in depth about why you must play Cyberpunk 2077 on GeForce Now moderately than overspend on new {hardware} in a scalper’s market. It’s additionally accessible on rival cloud gaming providers like Stadia and Shadow, however these don’t supply a free possibility like Nvidia does.
That’s about it for efficiency optimizations. In case you’re in search of extra Evening Metropolis vibes, try our spoiler-free overview of Cyberpunk 2077, and you should definitely subscribe to PCWorld’s YouTube channel. We’re going to be streaming the sport on a GeForce RTX 3080 with ray tracing enabled over the approaching days, and also you don’t wish to miss out—particularly in case your laptop can’t deal with it.
Editor’s observe: This text initially printed on December 10, however was up to date December 12 with further ideas.
