Cyberpunk 2077 2.0 - PC Tech Review - DLSS 3.5 Ray Reconstruction Deep Dive

The new 2.0 edition of Cyberpunk 2077 features the latest and most advanced DLSS ray reconstruction technology - but what is it and how does it work? Alex explains what denoising is, why we need it, and the tremendous image quality benefits it delivers. At the same time this is what you might call a '1.0' version, and there are clearly improvements it requires. Beyond that, we take a look at the 2.0 game itself, including how heavy it is on the CPU compared to the prior version. 26 minutes of Cyberpunk 2077 2.0 content? Let's do this.
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00:00:00 Introduction
00:01:04 What is DLSS 3.5 Ray Reconstruction?
00:05:37 Reflections and Textures Detail
00:09:50 Diffuse Lighting Detail, Shadows, and Flicker
00:13:06 Reflections, Shadows and Diffuse Lighting while moving
00:19:06 Issues and Artefacts
00:22:58 The DF Verdict on DLSS 3.5 Ray Reconstruction
00:24:08 GPU and CPU performance differences in Version 2.0
00:25:24 Conclusion

[@mikes8020]

For me the biggest difference is how it is creating shadows on all objects, even small ones in the distance. It really deepens and enriches the image.

[@TheSparkynuts]

That and the fact the pixels don't flicker is huge

[@z0nx]

This is a biggy one

[@RockyRacoon5]

It now looks like an offline render, incredible.

[@OutlawedPoet]

And you get vaseline smeared all over the screen as a bonus. We've come so far in terms of graphics rendering!

[@J0rdan912]

Deepens the image of static promotional screenshots and enriches the wealth of graphics cards sellers

[@TwinOpinion]

It's great to see how quickly these techniques are improving. Graphics haven't been this exciting to me since the Voodoo 2 and the Dreamcast dropped in 1998. 🤯

[@zacharyspencer2285]

Omg voodoo 2 brings me back. I remember when I first saw that in quake 2 and decent 3. My mind was blown. Lol I thought graphics couldn't get better then that. 😅

[@geoffdb8118]

Bro what about hardware tessellation :( thought that would be much bigger than it was

[@shivmom7903]

Wow that old voodoo2

[@sheltongolden4394]

@@geoffdb8118 Yeah, I remember seeing that Unigine benchmark with the dragon statue and flying ship for the first time. It really blew me away with the different tessellation could make. Granted, I could only run it at like 20 fps with tessellation turned on, but it was still amazing to see!

[@03chrisv]

Dreamcast dropped in 1999. I remember because of the 9/9/99 promotional material and commercials. But yeah, very exciting times in regards to graphics. For me the N64, Dreamcast, the GeForce 6800 (to run Doom 3/HL2), and the GeForce 8800 Ultra (to run Crysis) was the last time I've been super excited about graphics.

[@kuruptzZz]

It's absolutely amazing. Running around, everything looks so crisp now. I thought it would just be sharper reflections...but for some reason even distant objects like fences look clearer. I toggled it on and off repeatedly to confirm. I think cyberpunk 2077 is the best looking game out right now..and it's 3 years old!

[@IceBreakBottle]

100%

[@IceBreakBottle]

Honestly it's the best looking game even without RT

[@DriveCancelDC]

It came out at the very end of 2020, so it's not 3 years old yet. Also it's disingenuous to even say that because it has had significant graphical updates over the last few years. This isn't the base December 2020 game.

[@kuruptzZz]

@@DriveCancelDC What "significant graphical updates" are you referring to? If you don't turn on path tracing (which is still considered a demo because it has some bugs), I think the game looks and runs exactly the same as it did at launch. In fact, I'm pretty sure they reduced the LOD setting in one of the early patches in their effort to improve console performance...which means it's technically worse than at launch

[@ColdFear6666]

It's a good techdemo and playground for Nvidia, and it's really the best looking PC game, but Horizon Forbidden West imo stills looks a lot better and detailed, even without any kind of RT. :D

[@adamdabrowski931]

As always amazing tech video! Thank you for all effort that went into making that video and sharing your incredible knowledge. Plus, fair play for pronunciation of Polish names. Legend!

[@filipborch-solem1354]

The opacity micro map thing deserves more praise. When I tested out rt overdrive before the fps would tank so much whenever vegetation was there, and it was a big issue.

[@guitaristkuro8898]

Been waiting for them to add OMM. They didn't even say they did I just checked in vegetated area and immediately knew.

[@Puxi]

​@@guitaristkuro8898you must be in need computer freak paradise

[@dan_loeb]

even on 30 series the new denoiser gives a decent 5% fps gain and is way more stable in framerates.

[@guitaristkuro8898]

@@Puxi What does that even mean? Even on a 4090 lack of OMM tanked performance compared to little to no vegetation rendered.

[@loldoctor]

@@guitaristkuro8898I think they meant you must be in nerd computer freak paradise. Which you probably are. And I'm jealous.

[@lawyerlawyer1215]

We were all waiting for this video and you know it!

[@sirgareth5283]

And here it is

[@shreyass5756]

I had been checking the whole day!!

[@ash_1419]

@@shreyass5756 shut pubgmobile

[@romulino]

Indeed

[@shreyass5756]

@@ash_1419 what??

[@LastDreamy]

Props to the studio for this marvel of graphical prowess and thanks to the team for this amazing review it's always so insightful!

[@TheMightyPirateTm]

Amazing technology, looking forward to even more future improvements! And great review guys, very easy to understand and see the differences!

[@Compusemble]

This tech is very impressive for the first iteration. It's not without issues, but in many cases it has an appreciable and positive effect on image quality, while also improving performance. Great work from NVIDIA here.

[@Dangerman-zg3ui]

Nvidia took the risk with RTX 20/Turing back in 2018 and it's heavily paid off.

[@Chicky_Lumps]

​@@Dangerman-zg3uiLooking back, I remember how it became a stupid fad to hate on the technology merely because the first iterations weren't worth the performance cost. People were right to criticize Nvidia for the poor value of those cards, but wrong to dismiss AI upscaling and raytracing as a gimmick just for that reason. It took a long time for the reputation of those technologies to recover from their 20 series association and for people to stop bandwagon dismissing them.

[@xentiment6581]

NVIDIAs tech is rarely not on point, its the pricing and general company behavior that suck

[@soragranda]

​@@Chicky_LumpsIs funny see how now everyone are including some type of ray tracing now, from arm mali gpu, to apple arm gpu, to even qualcomm adreno gpus, even AMD and Intel gpus. A gimmick to some that has become something that is here to change how some games are develop and how we play. And path tracing complementary accelerators are next to help RT cores, which are also called gimmick by some already...

[@2drealms196]

I recommend everyone watch Gamer Nexus video, not just this one, to get a more balanced view on DLSS 3.5

[@astreakaito5625]

This actually looks incredible now. There was something wrong with smaller details and assets before with Pathtracing.

[@ewjiml]

I am amazed by how Cyberpunk looks compared to more modern games like Spider-Man or Requiem. They might look more crisp but Cyberpunk neon lights and look are unmatched.

[@markedone494]

@@ewjiml Well maybe because neither spiderman nor requiem are going for a cyberpunk design?

[@ewjiml]

@@markedone494 Cyberpunks Raytracing, texture detail and volumetric lighting are unmatched. Is that better?

[@walker2006au]

Excluding things like NPC's in distance looking like a blurry mess

[@godnamedtay]

🙄🙄🙄

[@backfischritter]

From all the dlss 3.5 reviews i have see so far this was the most in depth and insightful one.

[@dewinter1411]

Alex does amazing work!

[@calvin3941]

You must be new here 😅

[@backfischritter]

@@calvin3941 kinda, yes! ^^

[@calvin3941]

@@backfischritter very warm welcome! If you found this video enjoyable, I would suggest considering to subscribe. In my humble opinion, DF are in a league of their own, particularly Alex with his PC game tech reviews. The are very highly regarded within the industry. I find myself watching almost all of their content, but interestingly, I find the most enjoyment from DF Direct, their weekly podcast. If you're into staying up-to-date with the latest gaming and tech-related news and trends, I would definitely recommend giving it a look.

[@thomgizziz]

they keep forgetting to tell people that when you are playing the game you cant even tell the difference with it on or off.

[@weskandel]

One area where the edge fringing is particular noticeable is in the first scene with Dex smoking in the car. That's where I was like... oh... all is not perfect in 3.5 land. Otherwise, a really nice update to the game's visuals.

[@hankrearden5460]

That's odd i replayed that scene since the update and i was impressed with how much better it looked since last time i played the game

[@luigicorciulo8190]

​@@hankrearden5460did you play in overdrive mode with ray reconstruction? Because that's what op was referring to

[@nightblau]

finally the review we all've been waiting for

[@JFLTX]

The color pop in accordance with DLSS is very impressive.

[@andrewsimper]

The thin grass grass was wobbling a small amount and it looks like the denoiser "stabilised" it by making it wider, instead of keeping it thin and allowing it to move. I suppose there is ambiguity in the jitter of light rays vs the jitter of movement and the denoiser is preferring stability - still excellent results for the first release and on the whole a big win for image quality that will hopefully only get better as the tech matures.

[@robkedward5448]

Excellent video Alex, the amount of work going into this is truly appreciated. I can’t help but think those captions with speech bubbles feel like a nod to the demo scene, Orange | non-stop Ibiza experience?

[@03chrisv]

I booted the game up last night with the update and I was very impressed with what I saw with ray reconstruction. I was literally just wandering around the city admiring everything. Playing this game at 4k DLSS is absolutely stunning. There's still some jank with some NPC character model animations but this game has improved so much since launch, it's crazy.

[@formulaic78]

You must have a 4080/4090 to be doing that? I have 3080 and at 1440p mostly high settings Dlss performance get average 64 FPS with lows of 48. With VRR pretty good but hoping FSR3 can save me from Nvidia's frame gen gate keeping.

[@03chrisv]

@formulaic78 No, I have a 4070. I use DLSS performance mode at 4k and frame generation. I also use the RT Overdrive mod that reduces the ray bounces from 2 to 1. It looks almost as good as stock RT Overdrive but gives you like a 20% to 30% boost to performance and so far seems like its compatible with ray reconstruction. My 4070 is definitely punching above its weight as I average above 60fps at 4k. I'm pretty sure it's outperforming even a 3090 Ti in this game by a decent margin. We'll have to see how well FSR3 is. It's probably not going to be as good as nVidia's frame generation with more noise and "bad frames" but hopefully it's not too bad.

[@Lordruins]

Seems a little low for a 3080. Cyberpunk uses direct storage so a gen4 nvme drive might help. Also, I can't understate how much the CPU and ram help with frames in this title. @@formulaic78

[@jose131991]

@@03chrisvwhat is your game graphical settings ?

[@03chrisv]

@jose131991 I just put the game in the Overdrive preset, so I'm guessing every setting is maxed. The only thing I do is make sure DLSS is on performance mode, frame generation and ray reconstruction is on, and that the Overdrive performance mod is installed. 4k is very playable on a 4070 at this point, especially if you have a VRR/Gsync display or TV.

[@jarail]

This is the video I've been waiting for!

[@ludoweez]

Excellent job Alex! Thanks for all the work you put into this vid!

[@Rubacava_]

I like how NVIDIA approached the new era of visual computation. They put a dedicated hardware and can implement lots of additional features just using that. They can implement anything that can be trained and inferred in a reasonable time.

[@iikatinggangsengii2471]

i think every major manufacturer including game devs want us to upgrade pc as soon as we can, games sort of stagnant since like gta 5 (aside ray tracing, but its sort of highend as well atm)

[@FSAPOJake]

Honestly, I say this as an all-AMD user - CP2077 with ray tracing overdrive is probably the first example since Crysis of PC as a platform jumping several generations ahead of the consoles in one fell swoop, and it makes me excited for the future of graphics. Like Crysis, the console versions of CP2077 look good and are impressive but are not even close to being on the same level as the PC version fully maxed out, even if you completely equalize the resolution and cap the framerate on PC to 60fps.

[@ThomasVvV]

Cyberpunk 2077 will be the last aaa game with pc as it’s primary platform for a long time, maybe forever. And funnily the garbage launch was the best argument for NOT opting for pc during game development.

[@Chicky_Lumps]

I'd argue that Metro Exodus and Control were two of the earliest RT applications for PC that used the technology well, and those looked revolutionary as well.

[@alexandergorbachev4088]

​@@Chicky_Lumpsthose two, however, managed to replicate the visuals on consoles with losses in performance and/or resolution.

[@J0rdan912]

Except raytracing is not something that deserve to be called a "next generation", especially a several generations. RT was in industry for years before it was a common thing in video games and its still not ready to be a regular thing on consoles and even above average PC. Especially with the fact that Cyberpunk is not exactly something that can blow your mind 15 (!) years after Crysis release and multiple times performance increase of hardware.

[@noodles9345]

@@J0rdan912 But RT was not used in the gaming industry. Its been around for awhile, developers knew about it. But it wasn't feasible to be used in any meaningful way. So a technology making its way to another sector of tech in a major way is a next generation effect. We had 3D animated PIxar movies before we had mainstream 3D video games. So when 3D tech made its way to video games en masse a few years later it was a huge deal. Also the scope of the game matters. CP2077 being such a massive game plays a part in how hard it is for RT to run. A smaller game in scope and graphical fidelity wouldn't be as taxing of course.

[@b34k97]

Oh man, ever since 2.0 launched I've been anxiously anticipating for this video! Thank goodness it's finally dropped!!!

[@pixel1145]

This is by far the best video on the topic, other channels, even good ones, don't even come close. Great job!

[@jean-philippegrenier120]

great analysis! 3.5 is an insane step up

[@Helifax19]

Alex.. Kudos for the Interview with CDPR & Nvidia AND for this in-depth video! You ROCK (as is the whole DF team!)

[@spicymemeboi2646]

Incredible, almost feels like getting a set of new Kiroshis

[@scottspiegel9078]

Another brialliant video as always, Alex!

[@UrQuietGamer]

This is a well explained video of Ray Reconstruction! Keep up the good work.

[@con7rl670]

are we gonna get an updated best settings video? :D

[@jimjamsam3482]

great video alex. so happy cuberpunk has become the poster child of next generation graphics rendering. its such a great proving ground for these technologies. its also a great game too

[@Kryptonic83]

Amazing tech, thanks for showing off all the comparisons and pros and cons.

[@quartermaster-post.3875]

This was an amazing overview. Gratitude!

[@davemeredith6964]

Great, in-depth video. I must be honest. I tried Cyber again when the original path tracing beta/demo of the tech launched and although good the clarity of the image was lacking overall. 2.0 has blown me away. Not only is the RT image clarity pristine in motion the clarity is there too. It's a solid showcase of the tech and also somehow makes the game look better than ever. Game runs great on my 4080 at 1440p maxed out in quality mode but also at native 4K in performance DLSS...there are still some odd bugs and strange clipping problems but this update and the excellent world you play in are the best they have ever been. So much so that I will start a new save as I never beat the game in its original form. Just need to get through game of year BG3 first. On a good PC this game is still a technical showcase of visuals... beautiful on PC and it would be nice to see other Devs push the PC to these levels in the future. The hardware is there..

[@adamsearle7217]

Great overview, as always. DF is a true service to modern gaming

[@TheFather_]

Thanks, awesome and very professional video as usual, keep it up :)

[@Serpream]

Cannot unsee that NPC rising into the bus stop >.< @10:59

[@anthonynuttall7788]

Great vid Alex. How you find these details and report on them is truly amazing. (Ps, I don't understand most of it though 😅)

[@Lovely_Toast]

With every video, we understand a little more. :)

[@sokol5805]

It's provided by Nvidia's pr team. He doesn't find shit.

[@alpharorschach8708]

​@@sokol5805I hope you find peace my dude. Hope you get out of that dark corner ✌️

[@sokol5805]

@@alpharorschach8708 You serious? Cuz I laughed hard at this comment.

[@KEVBOYMUSIC]

@@sokol5805 It's alright bro, things will get better for you, don't worry.

[@Macho_Fantastico]

I've been blown away by the visual improvements with Cyberpunk 2077 2.0 and DLSS 3.5. But I'd argue the most impressed I've been is in small compact environments, Ray Reconstruction gives locations and characters so much more detail it's crazy at times. Excited to see where the tech goes next.

[@mitchellp7739]

I just want them to add ray reconstruction to the regular ray tracing mode. I only have a 4080 so this game is unplayable with path tracing

[@erandelGG]

Huh? Even a 4070 can handle path tracing and give you 60+ fps. Are you not turning on frame generation and using DLSS at balanced (quality might be too big of a hit)? With a 4080 you can do the same in 4k. But either way, cdpr said they're indeed working on reconstruction for "regular" ray tracing for a future update, they just wanted to rush this out for the cyberpunk expansion.@@mitchellp7739

[@-Burb]

@@mitchellp7739 Really? What resolution are you at? On my 4070 Ti @ 3440x1440 I’m able to get ~70-90 fps in the city with DLSS balanced + frame gen on in RT overdrive with the new update. It seems to have improved performance for me actually so it’s now much more playable.

[@mitchellp7739]

@@-Burb 4K. The 4080 isn’t a 1440p card and games look like shit if you run them at 1440p on a 4K monitor unfortunately

[@-Burb]

@@mitchellp7739 Ah, I should’ve guessed. Yeah that makes sense, 4k is a ton of pixels to push. Hopefully they do add DLSS 3 to RT Ultra since I generally can’t tell much of a difference between RT Ultra and Overdrive besides FPS unless I’m in a few specific spots with exceptional global illumination.

[@murderface7744]

Thank you Alex, what a great video. This ray recontruction tech is amazing to be honest.

[@Zzzooooppp]

The woman walking at 16:45 is letting off a lot of smoke!

[@jda8176]

I would still like to see more improvements to the LOD's, especially for vegetation. Some of the pop in is still ridiculous.

[@omarcomming722]

The worst part of the game's graphics that hasn't been improved since launch.

[@thecooljohn100]

@@mikeycracksonIt's almost like it was trained specifically with Path Tracing in mind🤔 Lol. This is the first iteration, therefore it needed to be essentially tailor made to handle specific problems or else it would have taken a lot longer to release. They might expand in the future, hopefully. However I don't understand why people with older graphics cards expect their old hardware to keep getting insane improvements like this, cause that has never been a thing before. We are lucky enough to have gotten the updates that we've gotten so far. I kept my 2080ti for 3 years and I accepted that I basically had to give up on raytracing in newer titles until I could save up for the 4090 I have now. I didn't expect my 2080ti to keep getting yearly performance improvements through Nvidia magic, I was glad to have gotten any improvements at all.

[@jorge69696]

@@mikeycrackson ray tracing needs denoising. Regular rasterized graphics don't so RR wouldn't be able to improve anything because there is nothing to improve.

[@JudeTheYoutubePoopersubscribe]

They just need to add in a spider that allows you to improve the level of detail further into the distance. Dying light 2 added this and it puts a lot more strain on your CPU if you increase it but for people with the hardware you can really improve things.

[@ryo-kai8587]

@@thecooljohn100 That's interesting, 'cause I also had a 2080ti for 3-4 years and generally just didn't use RT; the card was a beast without it. Then I recently upgraded to a 4090, same as you. Now I can genuinely use the feature or not depending on headroom and what I want out of the experience. Awesome the older tech is still getting features, and it's also amazing to have the hardware to really experience the latest innovations, even before they're optimized well enough for most hardware.

[@EliteKiller07]

The shot at 25:40 looks legit real. The lighting is perfect.

[@RicochetForce]

Yup, and the effect this has on NPCs is profound as well.

[@xzraiderzx308]

10:05 and 10:11 also looked photorealistic. Genuinely incredible

[@RicochetForce]

@@xzraiderzx308 Yeah, it made blink and stop the video to get a good look. Goddamn we're getting this look in realtime now.

[@Stukas_OD]

Excellent presentation of this content, thanks!

[@mcrazza]

Lovin' the B-roll, Alex!

[@Ivan-pr7ku]

Looks like RR has difficulty with very narrow ranges of brightness contrast. The reconstruction model need more targeted re-training and tuning to address this. Very promising, if Nvidia sticks with refining DLSS even more.

[@RicochetForce]

Oh, if Nvidia commits to improving FG and RR as they have with DLSS these technologies are going to be fucking awesome.

[@p3ak927]

Loving the high bitrate. Wish this was uploaded in HDR though.

[@Always-Hustle]

DF the only channel that gets hard over frame rate and RT. Love it.

[@user-po4tc3gn8s]

Top notch video as usual. Much appreciated.

[@Torso6131]

Looking forward to future iterations of it for sure. It's a bit strange that it seems like at times it blurs over textures, but also with some floor materials it achieves a perfect mirror to the point of while nice looking, also looks unrealistic. That I would say is more on the material itself than the technology though if I had to guess. So, not there yet, but still a neat feature to turn on and try out at least, since it's basically free performance wise. Super curious how it looks in non path tracing modes.

[@guitaristkuro8898]

Yeah it has texture blending issues. It's not actually blurring the textures just smushing them together causing some overlap and fading.

[@TheTechDweller]

I was thinking the same, they just really wanted to show off reflections in cyberpunk, you're definitely right so many puddles on dirty concrete in the game appear to be like clear mirrors or sheets of glass. You just don't see that kind of detail in a dark, dirty rain puddle.

[@fafski1199]

@@TheTechDweller You beat me to it. The reflections are often too uniform and too shiny. Everything looks like it's pristine, brand new and has just come out of a box. In reality, reflections in puddles wont all look exactly the same. Some puddles will be almost clear, while others will be muddy and less reflective. Likewise most polished floors, windows, cars ect. will have some amount of grime, smears, staining and dirt on them, which will diffuse the light more, in those places. We basically need some irregularity in the reflections, by using simulated grime, to cut out some of the shine.

[@benschram]

I started a new game with this update. Holey mother of god, does it feel like an entirely new game. It's utterly gorgeous that it's making me want to upgrade my 6800XT to something faster. It has been a long time since a game has made me feel that way.

[@Crazy09starkillor]

Path tracing + RR is where it really excels, if it already look amazing to you without it, it will blow you away with it on

[@Zastrutzki]

Fantastic breakdown, Alex, as usual!

[@DrZylvon]

I'm impressed by the results and perhaps even more impressed by the depth of your analysis ! Nvidia surely appreciates

[@TheGuykilla]

Sometimes I think they’re starting to push the reflections a bit far- at 15:50 it’s like you’re driving on a mirror. I’ve never seen a tarmac road look like that- there’s usually far more diffusion of the reflections irl

[@cts006]

I think it is partly the stylistic choice of the streets in Night City always being wet at night for... reasons.

[@Dracobyte]

This game looks really amazing!!

[@corundum1745]

Looking forward to the new recomended optimized settings for Ver. 2.0 from DF☺

[@dhruvang5369]

I love that Command & Conquer's soundtrack peeked out at 9:50. I used to listen to the Covert Ops sound track all the time by starting at track 2 on the CDROM of the game.

[@SDavies2010]

Great video. Love seeing tech advance like this. However, as a 3070 owner I was hoping to see how this improved on previous gen RTX cards.

[@michaelcarson8375]

@SDavies2010 by previous gen do you mean the 20 series or the 30 series? I like how 3.5 supports the 20 series while 3.0 is not fully supported.

[@SDavies2010]

@@michaelcarson8375 both really. They said the older cards would get 3.5 so how much did it improve FPS on those.

[@nusoul]

Overall, I'm friggin blown away. Only issue I've noticed that was actually quite unsettling is in certain darker lighting scenarios, people who are far away get destroyed kinda like at 20:27. Their faces start to look uncanny and horror-like as the AI tries to reconstruct or whatever the proper term would be. Also have noticed skin on certain people look like a bad acid trip, where at certain distances their skin pores look larger and alive, then it goes away as you get closer. Very unsettling when these things happen. The first time you meet Judy and she's sitting at her computer while you're in the chair for the BD I was weirded tf out cause my brain knew something was off. Not sure if this is the DLSS sharpening feature overdoing things, since I've turned it down I seem to notice it less. And that was the only instance where I was tempted to turn off the feature because it screwed up some pretty important visuals, but beyond that 98% of my second playthrough has been enriched by having 3.5 and Overdrive turned on. Surprised my 3080 can even run these features tbh. That first time I came out of V's apartment into the city was mindblowing all over again. Oh, there is also weird warping on the bottom of the screen in certain scenes too. I think the scene with Evelyn in the club also was giving me those vibes, felt like a Grindhouse film effect on the bottom of my screen, actually made me think the feature was killing my graphics card cause it's so intensive lmao.

[@LilMissMurder3409]

Excellent video. Thank you.

[@clumsy_en]

thank you Digital Foundry for very in depth revision of the latest update

[@grod4L]

I went into debt to get the setup needed for these graphics and I regret nothing

[@GrumpyGrndad]

How to enable DLSS Ray Reconstruction with Ray Tracing instead of Path Tracing: 1. Launch Cyberpunk 2077, enable Ray Tracing and DLSS Super Resolution (in other words apply your preferable settings). 2. Exit the game and go to your Users/Appdata/Local/CD Projekt Red/Cyberpunk 2077 and open the UserSettings.json file. 3. Search for "DLSS_D", set the "value" and "default_value" from "false" to "true". 4. Save the config file and set it as "read only". 5. Launch the game and play with Ray Tracing and DLSS Ray Reconstruction.

[@dano6306]

Incredibly detailed and insightful as always, Alex. Thank you for always bringing your best.

[@Mutrumbo]

Great job; thanks!

[@GemayelDaniel]

i am playing cyberpunk with path tracing at 1440p with dlss performance on a 2080Ti thanks to this ray reconstruction. fps varies between 30-45 fps averaging 40. i never used lower than quality preset for DLSS in any game before because of how unstable and blurry the image becomes but somehow in cyberpunk with ray reconstruction the image is so stable with dlss performance. i just wish they added it to the normal ray tracing too so i could play at 60 fps. but still really impressive for a 1st iteration of the product. if it keeps evolving like the upscaling and AA features of DLSS, this will be a game changer for Nvidia. Not sure how AMD could even respond since they are still not using the AI cores in their 7000 series for image reconstruction. but i really hope they find a way to respond.

[@michaelcarson8375]

@GemayelDaniel I hope you can upgrade that 2080 TI soon, when prices are better. The 30 series was a big boost and the 4090 was it a big deal, but I bet the 50 series is going to be another large RT and DLSS leap.

[@93836]

Alex, dude. One of my favorite videos of the year. I freakin love hearing you talk about the newest Cyberpunk, AI, Nvidia, ray tracing tech. So much awesomeness in one video!!

[@iikatinggangsengii2471]

well this screen sort of insufficient for that purpose

[@iikatinggangsengii2471]

it cant even play fhd 60 smoothly on fullscreen

[@c.h.6669]

Crazy glimpse into the future of lighting tech...

[@superkaboose1066]

Very well done video

[@celeroon89]

*Hey, it's a bit disconcerted to say that everyone from Turing to Lovelace can just "turn on" Ray Reconstruction because that is NOT correct! As of RIGHT NOW you NEED to turn on Path tracing for RR to work, and to get some good fps you might need to lower some settings*

[@padibuz]

Thanks for the video! Maybe it would be worth touching on the reason why Ray Reconstruction is NOT available when "normal" ray tracing is enabled, instead of RT Overdrive, where suddenly the option can be checked.

[@matsui90]

I believe Nvidia have said they are working on RR for normal RT in the next iteration. They wanted to release it for PT first in time for Phantom Liberty.

[@user-zl8sm6ok2r]

@@matsui90 Yeah. Supposedly ray reconstruction requires more tuning than normal DLSS on the developer side. And considering how differently RT Overrdive works, they probably have to retune every RT modes.

[@SlimScheibe]

That face comparison with Jackie was what sold it for me, that's a huge improvement.

[@jamescole3143]

Thank you DF!

[@liquidsunshine697]

I find playing with Full PT is a game changer. Its absolutely immersive.

[@jgdajoker5282]

110-120 fps more like@@RJMStraya

[@Neb_Raska]

How much did that cost you

[@meknowu1]

40 series or bust, great like 10 people can experience it.

[@jgdajoker5282]

@@Neb_Raska what does that have to do anything? Thats like saying fast cars aren’t impressive because they cost a lot of money. The technology is revolutionary idc how bitter yall are about prices. His bs statement of 30 fps is factually wrong.

[@piewars12345]

I like the overall look of ray reconstruction, but I've found myself wanting to turn it off because of what it does to faces. Up close, they look waaaaay better. But at a distance, it has this almost deepfaked over sharpened look. NPC's laugh lines and other wrinkles are SUPER prominent at a distance. That inner surface smearing and ghosting is also super noticeable. Like Alex says, DLSS used to do this kind of stuff a lot early on, so I'm sure ray reconstruction will get the same sort of improvements with time. For now though I'm kind of torn on using it.

[@blablubblubify]

This.

[@piewars12345]

It's not even a deepfake look, I just remembered about google deep dream generator. That's the kinda look it reminds me of. You can see it really well if you run the game at 720p with ultra performance DLSS and then toggle ray reconstruction on and off. It gives everything this weird wavy artificial look that kind of comes through on smaller objects at normal resolutions.

[@Sunbrosolaire]

it looks almost like a reshade sharpening effect

[@huhwhatjason]

Scrolled through comments to see if anyone else thought the same as I did. Yeah, I agree that Ray Reconstruction has a smudged/smeared/painterly look you get from generative AI models like Stable Diffusion and Midjourney.

[@rdalcroft3934]

turn off the film grain, and it looks way better, maybe even motion blur aswell @@piewars12345

[@lgolem09l]

16:47 wow, that is some heavy temporal ghosting on the right that I had hoped the new denoise wouldn't have anymore

[@JamesPiquette]

Very nice explanation of the new tech. The amount of graphical options that have been introduced to this game since launch is nuts... It's an ever evolving tech demo. I feel like we need a new optimization guide for this game.. For all generation of RTX card + AMD stuff too..

[@plagiarize]

Every time I see what CDPR are doing with the further development of Red Engine and Cyberpunk 2077... I go... why are they dropping this engine again? Amazing work by them (and by Alex on this video) all the same.

[@smtnbad]

Yeah, Witcher 2, Witcher 3, Cyberpunk - all are graphically impressive for their time. They were all buggy messes on release, however.

[@omarcomming722]

​@@smtnbadlike basically all non-Sony first party games, especially nowadays

[@Shadowninja1200]

@@omarcomming722 Are we forgetting the last of us?

[@omarcomming722]

@@Shadowninja1200 I meant first parties how they are on PS5, most games now are coming out in shitty states everywhere. On PC they're broken stuttering messes with insane CPU bottlenecks, on consoles they are dropping to 400p and still not hitting 60 lol. But yeah, Sony have been failing with their PC ports a lot recently, not a single one since GoW was well polished on release with some being dogshit like TLOU.

[@floodsye]

Did you forget about the performance of the engine? It's old, real old at this point, and there's a reason why even a 4090 struggles with the game. These RT techs aren't engine-specific remember, that look comes from their team + Nvidia's team, not the engine.

[@ancientflames]

I'm confused, I went to the exact spot with the wrap around light where he showed how much faster the reflections on the ground change, and for me with all these settings on, its even slower than the first example without dlss 3.5. The ground color doesn't even change until over 2 seconds later and its super jarring. Do I have some setting wrong? Everything is maxed out, frame gen is on, ray reconstruction is on and dlss is set to auto. Anyone else experience this? Also everything from people to the trails of cars tail lights are super ghosty and blurry way more than this video showed.

[@ramyabouhassan]

i love how shadows inherit charather from the light source shape now, before i didnt have enough info to make it aparent but now it looks way better

[@klaudialustig3259]

This video took me at least an hour to watch as I was pausing again and again to look at those stunning images

[@hideff4982]

20:41 the posterization is the biggest issue in my eyes from an overall image quality standpoint. Anything below 4K + DSS quality should be ingored atm IMO. The lower the res and DLSS level the worse it looks. You call it posterization, for me it also reminds me of kind a cartoon filter from a photo app. Check out DLSS (ultra) performance and switch back and forth between standard denoiser vs RR. The image quality with RR looks so weirdly filtered and the ghosting is way more severe. At 4K + DLSS quality I can still see it and depending on the scene it can look pretty bad. Nevertheless at 4K + DLSS quality the benefits of RR outweigh the negative effects and I will play Phantom Liberty with it enabled. Surely the AI will improve in the future. Not a bad start for RR for sure.

[@DarkChazz]

Exactly, at 1440p it is very noticeable even when DLSS is set to Quality mode. The whole image looks like a smudged oil painting. It's unbelievably bad it's unusable. It's unfortunate Alex only tested 4K here.

[@hideff4982]

@@DarkChazz Smudged oil painting is a good term.

[@jon-umber]

Really helpful analysis. It's an exciting time to be a PC player, but Nvidia does have some more work to do.

[@ThomasJB80]

Denoiser! Very intersting. Thank you for this video. I'm playing on Series X and the nois is hard at times.

[@MrJemabaris]

15:09 Crazy how the old denoiser completely vanishes the "SAMURAI" writing on the back of the 911. You can only see the faintest trace of it on the very top of the letters. Had to double check first if this is actually the same car ^^

[@gardhul]

OMG I didn't noticed that! Nice catch

[@paddington2063]

Fantastic. For me, the next big hurdle in graphics rendering is LOD. Even in Cyberpunk, it’s very noticeable pop-in(with mods too)

[@cts006]

It's the damn piles of garbage bags (at the side of the roads) popping in while I am driving that pain me the most.

[@floodsye]

That's where UE5 and Nanite step in and of course, the competing tech solutions other companies will create to essentially remove LoDs as a concept (it also will reduce development time and automatically future proof games). I know, many people are hating UE5 because the features are in their infancy and require major computing power to run, but there's already UE5 project from more teams that have far better performance than Immortals for example. The First Descendent is a chinese game for example that is using Nanite, it's a looter shooter and it's still in beta, so it has some visual issues (weird film grain effect that I can't figure out lol), but there's essentially zero transition pop-in cause it's auto adjusting triangle density based on player distance. For me, games should be targeting these high-end graphics and while I want good performance, 60FPS is more than enough in a single player game, 120 for MP. First Descendent actually runs really well at 1440p.

[@RicochetForce]

@@floodsye Exactly. The rendering paradigm shift with Nanite is what's needed to kill LoD as a concept (and thus pop-in).

[@HankBaxter]

6:43 While the corrigated iron is "easier to see," it clearly has less nuance and detail than originally intended, as is shown on the left. This is a case of the reconstruction removing some of the artistry. As far as performance for me in 2.0, I gained a 7% improvement in fps when loading back into Japantown from my last save prior to the patch on my 7900xtx.

[@joos3D]

True, it's a tradeoff in some areas. The rest of the image has a lot more detail though, and you see shadows even below the small objects in the background and on the locker. There's also no longer any "fireflies" caused by a lack of rays. I really hope they can fix the issues with future iterations just like they've improved DLSS. However, if I had worked on the game I'd prefer the right image despite the metal sheet losing some detail, as it looks a lot more grounded and believable. It's a shame it has to be vendor-locked, but hopefully AMD eventually releases something equivalent.

[@atonal440]

This is almost like a cellphone camera review in some parts, I didn't realize how important noise removal was to modern graphics!

[@DarthQueefious]

RR seems to make LOD changes on the vegetation weird, turning them black for a moment between transition. See the tree trunk here 25:09

[@olotocolo]

Yeah Gamer Nexus pointed that out, I wonder why Digital Foundry did not

[@masterofnone-mm8df]

Hey, DF maybe an optimization guide for this after the release of phantom liberty

[@J0rdan912]

Give them some time, nobody cares about optimization for us humble peasants with $500 GPUs right now. It's all DLSS 3.5 hype now.

[@Kira-qc4qi]

I would love a revisit. I'm going to be playing this on my 4080 @3440x1440 and was curious on which rasterized effects I could steal a few frames from

[@masterofnone-mm8df]

@@Kira-qc4qi makes sense

[@rapzid3536]

An amazing technical achievement. Everyone focusing on the reflections but the AO, general shadow detail, and bounce light enhancements are excellent. I don't understand why GN downplayed it so much. Certainly it has room to improve, but most following the graphics industry and the problems this is tackling seem to be blown away by the first iteration.

[@Trebiane]

While I love Steve, GN lacks the IQ comparison capabilities DF has and has always belittled stuff like ray tracing and DLSS.

[@matsui90]

Because its popular to be negative and critical. The GN review doesnt even make sense when at the end Steve reveals his colleague who was testing it says RR is a net positive and he would always use it playing CP, which goes against the whole theme of the review which pretty much only stated "its buggy and at best an inoffensive update".

[@BeersYourFriend]

Wow! Just incredible

[@cooperm211]

This is some pretty thorough assessment.

[@Lolingtoner]

Every single part of this game in real time looks like a cinematic trailer, its actually insane how good it looks

[@cleric670]

Running on a 4070ti with everything maxed, including path tracing, and the new ray tracing option, at 1440p, and the lowest fps I get is 77 fps with frame generation on. Usually it hovers around the 95-112fps range. Definitely loving this new patch! Good job CDPR.

[@matsui90]

Same here. I love this GPU and this tech. I'll be dropping Starfield to replay the whole of Cyberpunk once the dlc launches.

[@CeezGeez]

22:46 the reflection behind the NPC's head is also better in the 'NRD' denoiser

[@classerman]

10:59 dat choomba behind the car xD

[@kuntalchoudhury5613]

While the tech is impressive, ray reconstruction causes noticeable ghosting on all moving objects , cars, NPCs etc. and seems to impart a blurry look overall, especially in low lighting environments at night. This is too distracting at least to me, so I will be playing with it off despite the 10 to 12 FPS gain it gives on RT overdrive mode. Great in depth analysis as always 👏

[@thepunisherxxx6804]

Its impressive tech, I just hope they address input latency when using DLSS3. Even with boosted reflex you can feel the input delay when DLSS3 is enabled. Very noticeable on the mouse if you play at high FPS on other games. I also hope devs don't use this as a crutch and put no prioritization on actual game optimization.

[@kuruptzZz]

And I think that's a false narrative I read a lot on social media. As games get more ray tracing heavy, some form of reconstruction will indeed be required as a "crutch"...because rendering that kind of thing at native res is just too demanding for current hardware, and takes way too much vram. But games will always need optimization regardless to run on different setups

[@Aragashia]

It'd be great if they did, Frame Generation is sadly not just something you can set and forget right now. Input latency and screen tearing issues killed Frame Generation for me until I came across a reddit post mentioning setting Max Frame Rate to 3 below your monitor refresh rate (57 for me) and Low Latency Mode set to Ultra in the Nvidia Control Panel, I don't know if this is equivalent to Boosted Reflex, but it feels correct to me (not noticeable) despite me also having enabled VSync in combination with the above (which usually makes the issue worse). I'm on an RTX 4070 Ti which isn't ideal for Path Tracing/Ray Reconstruction at 4K, but I'm able to achieve a rock-solid 57 (capped for me) FPS everywhere in the new patch, and it looks amazing. I initially ran this using the DLSS Performance preset, but later changed to Balanced for overall stability (with some tweaks based on the PT Optimization mod in order to get some headroom). I'm pretty sure I'd be rocking about 5-10 FPS trying to run Path Tracing natively, which is quite crazy to think about. I can't link to it directly, but here's a screenshot of how it looks with the above, using the DLSS Performance preset (via Imgur): /a/YyT3zmJ

[@kuruptzZz]

@@Aragashia Exactly. This should be a PSA. DLSS3 in some games bugs out otherwise. Setting your max FPS to 2-3 lower than your refresh rate allows you to use frame gen + vsync with minimal input delay. Still "noticeable", but my guess is 50ms or something, which doesn't take long to get used to

[@thepunisherxxx6804]

@@Aragashia You got to get off 60 FPS bro, 120 is the new minimum PC standard.

[@thepunisherxxx6804]

@@kuruptzZz I mean general game optimization. Of course ray tracing is going to need reconstruction its incredibly expensive.

[@WeeeAffandi]

Great review! Would've liked it even better if you had analyzed performance improvement (if any) on the prev gen cards with overdrive mode

[@goodfodder]

7600x + 4070 @ 1440p Ultra, pt, fg, rr - I get a 17% increase in the benchmark (64 to 75 fps). Very impressive

[@WeeeAffandi]

@@goodfodder Great but I wonder if there are any improvements for older generation

[@mattallred]

​@@WeeeAffandiwell on a 3080 its basically 60fps with ray tracing or 100fps without. Path tracing takes me down to 30fps. Keep in mind this card is only 3 months older than the game, which was originally supposed to launch during the 20 series era. Keep in mind the game was announced in 2013, 3 years before the 10 series of nvidia cards were released. Now, if you want good performance you need cards which didn't exist when the game came out. Makes you wonder whay the point of any of these RTX cards is...

[@ItsAkile]

We're definately getting there, large steps at a time