Cyberpunk 2077 PC: What Does Ray Tracing Deliver... And Is It Worth It?

[@smajl2]

I did some 3D studio work 13 - 15 years ago and I remember that adding raytracing and global illumination added easily tens of minutes to rendering time... It's unbelievable that graphic cards can calculate this in realtime now...

[@MarchalisVan]

I remember lighting up a box room with a teapot with simple bare minimum lighting and it taking almost an entire day... that was a bad computer lol. But games cheat a bit compared to 3D studio renderers.

[@DarkReturns1]

When I was in college, 02-04, it took my home PC almost 3 days to render 2 1/2 minutes lmao. It was a pentium 4 @ 1.6 Ghz, don't remember the GPU tho

[@RaskaTheFurry]

it isnt real ray tracing, but heavy approximation of it

[@Abel-Alvarez]

@@RaskaTheFurry Is this a F E M B O Y ? 😏

[@bobsteven2363]

@@RaskaTheFurry it is raytracing. Raytracing is shooting a bunch of rays everywhere to determine the light. It does use low samples and a lot of averaging to light up the scene but it still shoots them rays

[@Rafael-oo8wh]

Ironically, I’ve been playing games so long that the “Before” images don’t look wrong to me until it’s pointed out.

[@nenadvicentic]

It seems that materials in the game do not reflect light like their real-world counterparts. Even though light direction is correct, reflections and diffusion look unnatural. For example at 6:33.

[@ZacDonald]

@@nenadvicentic Screen space reflections have a roughness cut off before they fall back to cube maps/reflection probes.

[@pensachenonmeneaccorga4346]

How long have you played doesn't matter, you make it sound like it's your special thing. You are just not great at observing.

[@noahpettibon]

To lend some credit to you, however, Cyberpunk with RT off is pretty darn good.

[@daideno]

when you need somebody to EXPLAIN IT TO YOU, and tell you " hey, stop look closely and pay attention, here," YOU KNOW IS BULLSHIT. great game btw

[@nickllama5296]

"Ray traced lighting does this automatically." Your GPU, killing itself to calculate all these rays: "WHAT DO YOU MEAN, AUTOMATICALLY???!!!"

[@kajmak64bit76]

It's only killing RT cores tho xd

[@krazyfrog]

@@kajmak64bit76 Radeon cards: "You guys are getting RT cores???"

[@kawinp2530]

Usually without RT you have to “put” in the lighting 💡, but here with RT lighting is a physics simulation which lights the scene automatically.

[@ДмитрийЗинин-м9х]

​@@kajmak64bit76 RT cores only calculate acceleration structure intersection. Shaders cores then utilize that data to do shading according to shaders devs wrote. If these shaders are complicated, your GPU shading domain will get a harder hit than RT cores will.

[@hisfatness522]

@@kajmak64bit76 If it was only the RT cores taking the hit, we would barely see an FPS difference. As that is never the case, RT cores are not the only components being taxed.

[@MrJagermeister]

I love the kid at 6:15 just casually walking around with a handgun and Terminator eyes.

[@deltalegit10]

Lol😂

[@ZenataUSA]

Now I've noticed he isn't even holding the gun. Immersion ruined lol

[@sosigboi3921]

Whoever bullies that kid, they are dead lol

[@bullymaguire4640]

@@ZenataUSA lmao fr

[@penguinval7]

I was looking for this exact comment and was gonna do the same lol

[@eere3343]

This RT stuff makes me think of the Harry Plinket saying “You didn’t notice, but your brain did”

[@neilwilson5785]

That's what next-gen will be. There will be a sense of wonder at what you are doing, but you won't know why. I hope.

[@icedidi]

RLM , love em

[@skootdiggity1301]

Or, you didn't notice, but Digital Foundry did.

[@Mrn0sferatu]

I honestly think in cyberpunk rtx is a big deal like its quite noticable

[@johnc8327]

@@skootdiggity1301 lol ... when you zoom into the image 300%.... you can CLEARLY see the image on the left is better.

[@MrJagermeister]

The city design in this game is amazing - I’m always noticing more too, like the benches at 8:20 with the rivets to prevent homeless people from sleeping on them. The benches at 8:45 are in a nicer part of the city, so they have a more pleasing look to them while still preventing homeless from sleeping on them due to the bar in the middle.

[@rather-reverend]

Making the bit at 8:20 all the more painful to watch! (Or do folks in NC get a rubberized butt-mod for that? Or is this an activity that NPC hapenns to, em ... enjoy?)

[@Sora-o]

@@rather-reverend im sure they enjoy it.

[@crylune]

They simulated late stage capitalism perfectly. Fuck you for not having a place to live. Free housing, food, water, which are y'know human rights? Bhaha, not under this economic system.

[@TheLegoJungle]

Appreciate that you used very non-descript locations and not any scenes from the story.

[@afakkobyab5982]

Honestly, particle effects of Cyberpunk is the most underrated feature in the REDengine. Particles are truly making everything alive and they don't tax at all. 3D models are beyond any game has ever done also, the geometry of everything in the scene is mind blowing. 3D artists done fantastic job on models, even generic items in the world look and feel genuine.

[@teodorcaraba979]

im so dissapointed they dropped the redengine in my oppinion it looks better than unreal5

[@maxcy2890]

@@teodorcaraba979 Technical aspect of it.

[@damonm3]

@@teodorcaraba979 really? We haven’t seen a good comparison with lots of reflections in a city scape. Maybe there’s one with the matrix demo. I’ll have to go check it again. But UE5 has to be better in almost every way for them to adopt it. I’m sure their genius devs will work magic with it. I think it’s just about getting there without spending a million dev hours on a proprietary engine. And just think about the mod community. They’ll be that much better with UE5 being the English of the game world. I’m really excited about it. Just wish it was 10x faster instead of 2x.. would love to have 2077 Orion next year instead of an expansion that’ll add a few hours of gameplay.

[@teodorcaraba979]

@@damonm3 i watched wu kong trailers and harry potter and they looked kinda bad ngl

[@Jet_Set_Go]

@@teodorcaraba979 That's not tied to the engine, The art direction of Cyberpunk is one thing that doesn't exist in many of the games in UE5 that are looking to exploit the "high graphics" market.

[@Hope4NewDay1]

Ray Tracing Off My Brain: "This looks good" Ray Tracing On My Brain: "This looks good"

[@Yerinjibbang]

yeah fr lol

[@officerminiwheats]

More preferences is good

[@amadeusasimov1364]

Same! I'm a simple man.

[@mikeramos91]

Not worth the fps hit in my opinion 🤷🏻‍♂️

[@Docosi]

Careful, nvidia will send you an email banning you from life or something

[@TheLoucM]

''Or maybe the game deletes NPCs when you turn around anyway?'' Yes, this is most probably exactly what happens there.

[@factory_enslavement]

Next-gen

[@hugo-garcia]

Next gen premium experience

[@brokengames9020]

Cyberpunk 2077 is made for auto-aimers with 30 PREMIUM FPS doing macro-transactions for cut content giving out their personal data and that data is being exploited by publishers to inflate their scam and keep people in the loop. Welcome to the brave naive world. Developers of said naive world can't face the facts so they suppress, censor people. Outsource their dirty work to influencers which get high when they receive free merch. Free merch > free speech. Is your mind blown how people fall for same thing every time? It shouldn't be. Because divided, singled out individuals has no chance against organized criminal entity; corporation. Corporation is an approved scam & spy business. Their approval was obtained through manufactured consent. Corporation is not the industry of manufacturing products. Corporation is in the industry of manufacturing consent. As well Corporations [through governments] are harvesting our biometric data on global scale. So they can get to know us far better than we know ourselves, and they not just predict our feelings but also manipulate our feelings and sell us anything they want- Be it a product as a service or politician. CDPR is a corporation. Hardcore corporate defenders please check out "The Corporation", "Surveillance Capitalism", "The century of the self", "Stockholm syndrome", "Milgram Experiment" and "The Secrets of Silicon Valley: What Big Tech Doesn't Want You to Know")

[@_jn0298]

even cars get repainted/respawned

[@86FCS]

So... Is this a problem?

[@drewcipher896]

This video made me really appreciate screen space reflections. They've served us well.

[@Xbob42]

No they really haven't SSR has been complete trash and I'll be glad to see the tail-end of it. Always low resolution, always cutting off at the edges of the screen, only works from certain angles, bleh. It works well in very few titles and even there the limitations are frustrating. I want to say they're better than nothing, but in many cases they're not, like Resident Evil 2, where the image quality of the game is degraded unless you turn them off.

[@UOHCUNY]

SSR is awful and grainy

[@serialkillerx4746]

@@Xbob42 you sound like a little kid bragging about it. Ofc they depend on how well devs implement them. Some are better & others are worse but that should be obvious 🤣

[@mikejenkins4924]

I've always hated it, tbh. It stuck out like a sore thumb and has broken my immersion so many times.

[@Xbob42]

@@serialkillerx4746 A kid bragging about what? Your reply makes no sense at all. They don't "depend on how well devs implement them," they range from bad to barely passable. They're fucking terrible.

[@Imehiel]

Okay, raytracing is revolutionary, this video shows it super well. I can't wait for the day when raytraced shadows, lightning and reflections is the standard and budget cards can achieve stable high framerates with all these features on. Or the day when high end cards can achieve stable high framerates...

[@Flaconomore28]

Probably in another 100 years.

[@santymonty967]

@@Flaconomore28 maybe more like 10-20

[@AzureOrbofDestiny]

20 years or so an then it may be possible for budget cards...

[@UToobUsername01]

The power of the cloud will make it unecessary. EA will buy up all graphics card companies and force us all to play our games through a streaming service and charge us $100 an hour to play all your games with ray tracing turned on. CDPR will be owned by the chinese and only communist gamers who swear loyalty to the CCP will be permitted to log into the game (no more offline games exist anymore) and if you dont walk into certain directions or choose certain dialogue in game, then you lose points on your social credit score. Communism doesnt permit plsyers to "do anything" in open world sandbox environments. You either stick to the main quest only or you get booted from the server. Bethesda will not make open world titles anymore because modders made all future sequels to Elder Scrolls for them using an AI to program the game engines which never got updated with decent animations because the animator has blackmail footage of zenimax employees on epstein island and that is why animations never got updates. The antichrist will run all the tech companies to ensure innovation is held back and that SJWs get all the jobs instead of normies.

[@MannitMiranda]

Definitely can't wait for that ray-traced lightning!!

[@aplix747]

For an area as gritty and dynamic as night city, the added contrast between lights and added glow from light sources really helps give it that bladerunner feeling.

[@irecordwithaphone1856]

One thing is certain, CDPR made the game look gorgeous with or without ray tracing. It's pretty incredible how close it matches up.

[@ThirsttyRecon]

@hudsonhamman3285 yeah RTX looks WAY ahead, not sure what OP was smoking. Esp with the reflections on water, sheesh. Not even close.

[@bigboi5544]

fucking reddit users using "op" in sentences

[@gavinferguson2938]

Not worth the preformance dip imo, it does make a difference all in all, especially in a game with a world like cyberpunk's. But the difference isnt worth the preformance:fideltiy ratio.

[@e2rqey]

Alex must be an absolute god at those "find the picture that's different" challenges.

[@kristoferstoll587]

Come on. The examples he used were pretty strikingly different. If you have a hard time telling the difference between them then I suggest a trip to the optometrist.

[@michaelblue4619]

@@kristoferstoll587 agreed. But hey good for them, they can use outdated gpus for a long time lol

[@xerxeslv]

@@kristoferstoll587 I wouldn't call that "strikingly different", but yes, looking side by side you can see the difference, sometimes more, sometimes less. But in the game, when you are busy driving\shooting unning and stuff, honestly I am not sure it is much noticeable. After about 20 hours of gameplay I turned rtx off and immediately realised that those extra frames (from 60 to 80-100) are doing much better job at making gameplay enjoyable for me. And the lighting quality - well, after switching rtx off it kinda felt different for some 10 seconds or so lol, and then I just got used to it.

[@SianaGearz]

@@kristoferstoll587 But you have to find examples first. You have to know what to look for before you see it. It's not like you're playing with two views side by side.

[@seanporcelli3965]

I've played with both on and when I turn ray tracing off I forget it exists. The standard light is just that good.

[@DNH17]

If one plays slow like walking speed still one doesn't see the difference? It's clear anyway that at night there are more outcomes that can be grabbed while during day usually it's hard to find places that do give something more.. at least it seems. in DL2 also day RT on gives goosebumps but it's a different game design.

[@jynxycats]

It isn't, just some accept a lower bar for their standards.

[@skyz6708]

I definitely notice it's off when I'm around mirrors and windows

[@bakerXderek]

Finally got a EVGA Rtx 3080 from a base 1080 and that RTX made me re experience the game all over again, this game is such eye candy to just sit and take in the views especially on an IPS panel.

[@maxsteeep]

65''+ OLED panel in glorious HDR gsynced 60fps psycho RT is what this game needs and deserves looks wise, namely LG CX

[@maxsteeep]

@Mohammedno need to dial down with 10900k+3090=4k psycho RT everything maxed out, performance DLSS 60+ frames. does need insane ram and OC everywhere, but perfectly doable.

[@SubjectE57]

@@maxsteeep Jesus man, how much did your setup cost?

[@mBUSHattack]

I seriously just get distracted mid mission and drive around the city on a motor cycle. It's so surreal.

[@retrogamer4334]

I shit my pants playing on a 3090 oled my ips is a glowstick now.

[@DarkReturns1]

I could watch a 2 hour movie from DF about Cyberpunk's graphics lol

[@racky2]

Yeah me too! They're super watchable!

[@tetchedskate3366]

Those comparisons that they show are so cool to see

[@hugevibez]

By this point, they've made a 2 hour video on Cyberpunks graphics lol

[@Yerinjibbang]

same lol

[@justinprizant1980]

😄

[@HeierMr]

I’m using a 3090 and I’m 100% sure this is the most beautiful game I’ve ever seen. It’s a damn shame it wasn’t advertised as a next-gen only game, because that’s exactly what it is, nothing less

[@b55passat]

updates will be next gen only soon so well see how far they can push this engine before they switch to UE5

[@markmuller7962]

Thing is, for my standards CP 1.7 on ps4 with well tuned HDR settings it feels like playing a next gen game on current gen, especially at night with heavy rain

[@garytaboada6103]

@@b55passat They said so 1 year ago lol

[@crylune]

Graphics may be next gen. Everything else isn't. For example, shopping experience. Classic boring menus in Cyberpunk, literal intractive shops with animations for any product you scour in Red Dead Redemption 2. I'd argue RDR2 is an actual next gen game.

[@markmuller7962]

@@crylune The alternative of that is Star Citizen, flashy everything zero gameplay

[@fndrn8]

i love how when you are in a dark ally and its even darker behind things like dumpsters. rt makes things so much more immersive.

[@DNH17]

Yeah.. basically one playing at night should put RT on, when playing during the day off... So at night play slow and netrunning aduring day do stuff like shooting etc.

[@SuperCakeFTW]

I was fortunate enough to get a 3080 and the raytracing really is mesmerizing. It's hard to pinpoint exactly where all the differences are when you turn it on but it's like your brain knows this is what it's supposed to look like in real life subconsciously.

[@jousis_]

The same. I cannot pinpoint where RT is in effect (except reflections + glass material) when I play. But when I try to switch it off for fps comparison...omg...different game.

[@jousis_]

@Leia Saku I f you choose not to or cannot afford to play with RT, I respect that. That's why options on PC games are a godsend. But there are some that say "It's the same, I cannot see a difference". The game will be on sale (hopefully :D ) for many years. In 3-4years the RT cards will be capable and cheap. So, there is nothing stopping you from revisiting the game (if you like it of course) and replay with rt ;)

[@Zanbatoss]

As an art student studying light and how it affects and behaves on different materials it really makes a huge difference, RTX is such a treat

[@weaverquest]

@@Zanbatoss RTX is just Nvidia's branding. Saying RT is enough if you are referring to the lighting technique rather than the Nvidia GPUs.

[@olive3228]

@Leia Saku A 3080 is not just for cyberpunk you know.

[@randybradley4151]

21:32 It's good to see Mark Henry getting some work.

[@andrewcheng2113]

@@MM80666 lmao

[@1meen1]

😂

[@BigBoss7777777]

@@MM80666 bravo

[@eijishinjo650]

Welcome to the hall of pain.

[@danielcallahan976]

but just like real life he fails to reach to the top and dies early :(

[@dienelt5661]

"NVIDIA approuves this editorial direction "

[@redguard128]

AMD should join the movement to pathtracing as well. I mean lightning should be 100% done from the light sources and the materials of the objects rendered.

[@dienelt5661]

@@redguard128 yeah I totally agree with you I was just taking an easy jab at Nvidia for being assholes, still love their tech tho

[@magoid]

Kiss the ring babe.

[@patrickmahon3476]

Came here for this

[@jibinkannamplackal]

Noice

[@owaisunar5227]

I just want to say that they really did a good job on rasterized graphics and it don't make too much difference with ray tracing sometimes

[@aaronpettit3813]

came to say the same - credit where it's due, the developers clearly spent a lot of time making SSR, SSAO, cubes, volumetrics bring the city to life without true RT. It's impressive, and I'd argue that the infamous Limo Ride is not representative of that work generally - a little less global/diffuse lighting in that car and the difference would not be so extreme, many other scenes involving that character look much better. Glad to see ray tracing making such a noticeable difference, but I'm not unhappy in my rasterized night city either.

[@mrnelsonius5631]

I agree 100%. The non ray-traced versions look great until they are side by side with the RTX scenes, then suddenly it looks flat. But the devs did a remarkable job here, you only miss Raytracing when you’re looking at it held against the traditional renderer

[@Randomized_tv]

Same with MW

[@MaTtRoSiTy]

Agreed. Of course RT looks amazing and while I can run it with RT on the performance hit is massive and I found the increase in FPS with it off makes for a nicer experience. I can't really notice the difference in general game play either

[@qwato]

Until you have played the game with RT and go back there's a noticeable difference but this topic is very subjective.

[@midnightanimal4598]

7:03 Gotta love the NPC sitting on that defensive architecture lol

[@PadaV4]

Dude has ass enhancements.

[@pogchamp8454]

free buttplug

[@david.godlewski]

Isn't that called hostile architecture?

[@RicochetForce]

@@david.godlewski Yes, it's designed as a fuck you to homeless people. Indicative of fucked up societies that penalize the poor instead of helping them.

[@DuPz0r]

anti-skater, pro-anus consumable

[@e.f.6422]

I've started playing it yesterday (on PC) and - to my big surprise after all the negative news - it's actually a fantastic game. The bugs are there, and gameplay wise the police system is the major annoyance, but at its core it's an absolutely brilliant game which most people will love once (if) the obvious shortcomings are fixed.

[@Startrance85]

Most of the bad news is only for consoles and doesent affect PC. The game is actually very stable on PC if you have the hardware for it.

[@chudchadanstud]

I'm in the same stance as you. I have a 3090 so I'm sure my opinion doesn't really matter but in all honesty. I'm happy I was a beta tester. Can't wait to replay once it's fixed.

[@ajfrost3382]

Yup. A large majority of people are happy enough with the game, but the negative voices always seem louder than the positive. It's only a certain group of people who bought into the hype and believed CD Projekt's ambitious claims that were severely disappointed. The rest of us who weren't expecting the game to actually change our lives, drive us to work, make us breakfast and kiss us goodnight found it to be pretty enjoyable.

[@JaviProMaster]

Comparing with what was promised games is a 3/10, taking the game just as it is its a 7/10.

[@moonknightish]

There's an annoying hate train that surrounds this game launch. Mostly from people who expected a sandbox with GTA level of details. Which doesn't mean that the police and the AI, is acceptable, but it can be overlooked while waiting for patches

[@resonatingraptorid6519]

I can't think of many other channels that put out such consistently great content as you guys. It's much appreciated. Hope everyone at DF has a good Christmas. 🎄

[@SEMARPE]

Maybe NX Gamer but he's a one person team so can't put out as much as he wants. Still pretty consistent though.

[@Dark-qx8rk]

@Congisto Marxista They are pushing Nvidia's narrative hence why they didn't focus on the politics.

[@3dkiller]

They are Nvidias lapdog.

[@brokengames9020]

Cyberpunk 2077 is made for auto-aimers with 30 PREMIUM FPS doing macro-transactions for cut content giving out their personal data and that data is being exploited by publishers to inflate their scam and keep people in the loop. Welcome to the brave naive world. Developers of said naive world can't face the facts so they suppress, censor people. Outsource their dirty work to influencers which get high when they receive free merch. Free merch > free speech. Is your mind blown how people fall for same thing every time? It shouldn't be. Because divided, singled out individuals has no chance against organized criminal entity; corporation. Corporation is an approved scam & spy business. Their approval was obtained through manufactured consent. Corporation is not the industry of manufacturing products. Corporation is in the industry of manufacturing consent. As well Corporations [through governments] are harvesting our biometric data on global scale. So they can get to know us far better than we know ourselves, and they not just predict our feelings but also manipulate our feelings and sell us anything they want- Be it a product as a service or politician. CDPR is a corporation. Hardcore corporate defenders please check out "The Corporation", "Surveillance Capitalism", "The century of the self", "Stockholm syndrome", "Milgram Experiment" and "The Secrets of Silicon Valley: What Big Tech Doesn't Want You to Know")

[@KagariTeru]

@Congisto Marxista Or they are the only ones not jumping on the hate train to produce 2 Clickbait videos a day but instead give us professional videos about the tec used in a game.

[@Nukle0n]

5:40 meanwhile that pink light is also clipping into the structure overhead.

[@gchamon]

19:43 they stop rendering them, if you look at a puddle reflecting an NPC in front of you, by the time the NPC is not in your field of view, they vanish from the ray traced reflection, and as soon as it reenters your FOV, it is re-rendered

[@WTFWHATara]

Yes, spiderman rt reflection looks much better

[@nicobenji0248]

@@WTFWHATara Spiderman only has RT reflections. Everything is optimized around that. This game is optimized around RT lighting, RT shadows, and RT reflections. If you do too much with RT it'll be pointless cause even modern graphics cards can't handle that. Edit: Not saying anything bad about SM:MM but can't really compare the two until PS5 has a game that is using as many RT effects at once like this.

[@manuelmunguia616]

just like cars getting replacd by other models when you look away , same happens with npcs and it is very noticeble

[@Yerinjibbang]

@@manuelmunguia616 i think it is kinda game breaking in a way

[@zaneharris1562]

This game is so fucking beautiful to look at. Even with rtx off. Can't wait for the patches tho, then it'll really shine

[@igorbeuk6298]

Jes without raytacing in real-time, it will be future but in future as Blender free for everyone is using RTX for almost 10 years and you still need a web of computers rendering scene. This is a compromise with fake colors still in 2020, they could do that for sure and A.I. could be actually smart but it's not even on level with funny game Gravity Rush 2 with almost live NPC's RTX is still a future and good way fo improvement in games and it is ad to something else, question is what is new and ground breaking new technology

[@igorbeuk6298]

Still it's looks fake, colors are fake I sow better on PS4 this colors are cartoon level

[@ricklandavazo3049]

@@igorbeuk6298 Alt+z to open nvidia control panel. You can add color filters on the fly and make it look exactly how you want.

[@Victorius]

It's really a good game. Just released early.

[@leonfrancis3418]

@Tronam You should see the video where they compare the AI to GTA 5. A game from two generations ago has a better designed and developed open world.

[@markj9860]

Dex RT on vs Off is basically the you vs the guy she tells you not to worry about.

[@tomar5e115]

DF sure won't be getting emails from nvidia asking to "change their editorial direction"

[@TinoushGTR]

My thoughts exactly.

[@dampflokfreund]

So? DF was always about cutting edge tech. And RT is exactly that.

[@Tezorus]

That's one of the very bad consequences of this Nvidia mail stuff : from now any tech reviewer that says good thing about any of Nvidia's tech will seem suspicious for some.

[@stephanhart9941]

@@Tezorus These guys were primary shilling offenders with their first look at the 3080 with no fps claiming double 2080 perf, BS. It was a Paid fucking infomercial... Paragons of integrity.

[@Roland1405]

@@stephanhart9941 BS. They said very clear what is was and that you should look at other independent benchmarks. The also never claimed double performance across the board.

[@MoonrockFall2]

Whenever I drive a car in first person, im blinded by godrays

[@mdalishawon]

Go to a church you heathen god is calling lol

[@Yerinjibbang]

ifkr lmao

[@Santiaguilar98]

Bulldozzzr lmaooo

[@independancedayisawesome4689]

same here... cinematic, but annoying and accident friendly

[@AAlienGaming]

Lens flare !

[@KingOgLy]

Damn that Dex difference. Literally two different games.

[@kishaloyb.7937]

@@DrexlTheRomantic Dexter DeShawn

[@KingOgLy]

@@DrexlTheRomantic The guy at 22:05. Dexter DeShawn. He is a fixer in the game.

[@swosho]

@@DrexlTheRomantic Dextromethorphan of course. It's instrumental to experiencing a generational leap in visuals. /s

[@OtavioFesoares]

@@swosho robotripping in Night City is a common thing to be doing in the year 2077

[@ChrisP872]

That's because they freeze the frame when RT off is at its brightest and looking the worst it does in that sequence. Earlier on with RT off it looks darker and better most of the time. Maybe RT on never looks that bad but it overall isn't a good representation of just RT off and RT on.

[@mysteriousm1]

9:57 and 10:45 it says Raytracing off when it was actually on

[@YusuffYT]

Editing mistake

[@GuyOnAChair]

Yup

[@mkreku]

Quite telling that even the guys who are making the video can't tell with certainty if it was on or off..

[@juliet4093]

@@mkreku no it’s not telling of anything other someone accidentally swapped on for off... you can see a massive difference throughout this entire video, what exactly do you have against RT Editing mistakes happen, I’ve made graphical mods for games and accidentally messed up the editing, it doesn’t mean I didn’t think my work had any impact it means I made a mistake editing, like shut up dude

[@mkreku]

@@juliet4093 I have nothing against the technology per se, but I do think Digital Foundry spends way too much time on it seeing as how it affects 26 games so far. And when I say affects, it's nuances at most, yet Digital Foundry calls it "game changing". That irks me. I have personally never played a game that even had ray tracing available, that's how common it is (so far). In a few years, I'm sure it'll be more interesting, but as of right now I think they could concentrate on more interesting things. Also, it's not like games haven't had reflections, shadows and light sources before ray tracing. The argument seems to be that it's more realistic with ray tracing, but is that really better? I wouldn't bet on realistic being better than a light artists take on a scene in a game. Therefore most of raytracing just makes things different, not inherently better. Is that really worth 50% of your fps? In my case, no.

[@caio5987]

It’s like that scene from top gear where they are talking about push rod suspension; “It makes it better” “It makes what better?” “Everything”

[@handle_unknown]

Cyberpunk has the best rasterized lighting ive ever seen

[@leonardoalves4647]

Man I play It inna GTX 1080 and its hands down the best lighting Ive seen inna game.

[@koko_5662]

Waop. That’s you banned by nVidia.

[@HexxuSz]

Metro

[@gabrielst527]

It's actually one of the worst. What are you smoking ?

[@leonardoalves4647]

@@gabrielst527 If you playing in base PS4 maybe, If not go search for help, something is wrong, either with your game or with you.

[@crane8819]

The RT lighting and shadows are really impressive but the reflections I've found are kind of situational (at least to me). In some places I think they look amazing while in others I think they actually look worse or even _too_ reflective lol. In the end though it's something I look forward to seeing improve over the coming years.

[@KragV]

Right now the main appeal of RT reflections in Cyberpunk is that they're not grainy like SSR.

[@nicobenji0248]

I feel like RT Lighting and Reflections are better for open world games like these. Cause you don't spend much time looking at characters so it doesn't really matter if they have proper shadows or not. But in games where you spend a lot of time up close and personal with characters benefit from RT shadows. Meanwhile I think RT reflections are great for open world games like these. The reflections look nice off of your car, river/ocean, puddles, and building windows imo. If you could turn RT shadows only on for cutscene moments and RT shadows off for the open world automatically that'll be cool. It'll be cool if they can modify RT effects that freely.

[@geetarliving]

Yessir, I agree. Sometimes things can look over reflective , like looking at mercury

[@evilbred974]

I think that's more a function of the developer. I think they went a little overboard on the reflective surfaces in CP2077, but then again, that's sort of the aesthetic they went for I guess.

[@BattleCheese2]

@@nicobenji0248 How can you not spend a lot of time up close with characters in CP2077, when there are literally tens of hours of plot/quest dialogue?

[@icedidi]

This has been my argument to all the folks slating RT, they have been expecting a monumental leap in... Something and so can't see it. RT adds in another subtle layer of believability to the game world. This ain't the 90's no more with mind blowing advances in graphics, we are approaching the 'light barrier' every miniscule extra level of fidelity is requiring more and more power.

[@mahdiyussuf9804]

I miss the 90s

[@GamingMyWholeLife]

We might never experience those amazing leaps again but man it's all exciting :D

[@guidorussoheck2100]

@@leonxjaws182 is an action adventure game, not an rpg.

[@playtothebone]

The issue with Ray tracing is how much processing power is required to enable it. The hit on fps is major in comparison to the subtle increase in visuals. At this moment Ray tracing requires too much processing power to be worth it. I'd rather a steady 60fps (would most prefer 90 or above) without Ray tracing than 30 fps with it

[@ag7367]

@@guidorussoheck2100 no man it's a rpg you role play as a created character

[@crithon]

18:55 ray tracing looks nice, as the NPC clips through the wall.

[@aaz1992]

Bonk

[@ingamgoduka57]

This is where I see the real need of raytracing now.

[@MacGuyver85]

I guess, one could say, you’re finally seeing the light.

[@ubern00bkye]

Minecraft

[@ambro2786]

Regardless of all the bugs/issues, this is easily the best looking game I've ever played. Obviously if you walk up to certain objects, it may not be impressive individually. But as a whole, with everything added up, this is simply one of the most graphically impressive games I've ever seen with my own 2 eyes. Fantastic coverage as always Alex!

[@SnakeHelah]

Yeah just going around the city is sometimes breathtaking. I boot up the game after not playing for a day and I am quickly reminded how grand the city looks with RT on... truly next gen... Even RDR2 doesn't do graphics so well!

[@dipeshrai3448]

@@SnakeHelah rdr 2 is open field. Lod is nowhere near of cyberpunk

[@dipeshrai3448]

@@SnakeHelah also the grass sucks.. Its looks like oubg mobile grass blacked out below screen to hide those grass lll

[@SquidOfLegend]

Character models (for main characters anyway) and the city are amazing to look at. But I feel like the visuals in the story missions don't fully cohere - a mix of cutting edge and stuff that looks decidedly older. Feels like playing two different games sometimes.

[@soraceant]

Maybe with Raytracing its gorgeous but without it looks pretty disappointing.

[@alenkiu9886]

At 9:57, the closed caption is wrong. It should be "RAY TRACING ON", not OFF

[@ayushsinghchauhan9558]

nice

[@ElMachoNacho193]

Give this guy all the awards. Damn.

[@Case_]

(Hi, annoying nitpicker here. That is not a closed caption. It's simply a title. Captions are transcriptions of dialogue and audio effects, intended for deaf people. Captions can be either open or closed - closed captions can be turned on or off by the viewer, open captions are part of the video and always visible, but in either case, the previous definition of what captions are applies. They're different from subtitles, which are meant for people with no hearing impairment to make it easier for them to understand what's being said, and from titles, which provide some additional information to all viewers. Sorry for being an annoying nitpicker, I just thought it might be of some interest.)

[@ElMachoNacho193]

@@Case_ damn give this guy the rewards instead.

[@Aiumy91]

i was looking for someone who've noticed too :)

[@Michael-wn3rh]

Does anyone else press "N" at least once every 30min while playing to take screenshots? This is the first game that's ever compelled me to become a damn amateur photographer.

[@JoeBob79569]

I press n at least once every 30 minutes, but it's usually when I'm trying to look at the map. I've only taken one photo with it so far, and that was when my bike followed me up an elevator shaft and arrived into the room in flames..

[@xsmplaystation3996]

I literally want to become a streamer because of this game

[@_AriseChicken]

nah i could give 2 shits less about a screenshot

[@elimalinsky7069]

I think it has more to do with the art direction. The design of the city is simply breathtaking.

[@Aishu092]

‘N’ is for screenshots ?

[@zowbaid89]

There is a major RT lighting issue you forgot to cover. Inside vehicles, in 1st person, the lighting on other passengers or drivers looks incredibly bad when RT lighting is set to medium or ultra, and only looks good sometimes on psycho. And even during a bright morning, the inside of the car looks really dark and has bad lighting on the other character in the car. Their faces are too dark and their eyeballs are shining white. And on medium or ultra, it literally looks like they’re blackfaced.

[@jackbootshamangaming4541]

1:57 lil kid packing that heat by some kind of telekinesis

[@broncosbroncos5489]

if i saw him i would boot him into next week

[@MrJagermeister]

The kid at 6:15 with the Terminator eyes walking around with a handgun too - at least he’s got a grip on it like he’s trying to preserve finger prints from a crime scene rather than finger on the trigger, but it’s still pretty funny to see.

[@CaptainObviousfockin1v1megapil]

@@broncosbroncos5489 Bro wtf 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

[@danielmoraes743]

I really think ray tracying reflections add to the cyberpunk feel but you dont need it for to enjoy the game

[@user-ye7lp9lg1c]

Without graphics it has nothing to offer

[@danielmoraes743]

@@user-ye7lp9lg1c stfu i finished the game with an 1050 ti on the launch week. Even with bugs and stuff it was beautiful

[@user-ye7lp9lg1c]

@@danielmoraes743 my sincere condolences for your suffering

[@fideys]

@@user-ye7lp9lg1chow are you still salty

[@alext1467]

@@danielmoraes743 720p? i tried to play on 1050ti - but decided to buy at least rx580 for 1080.

[@CY3ER]

I just upgraded to a 3080ti and have been running RT lighting. After playing with it on for quite awhile then turning it off you can absolutely tell that there's a difference in how the world feels. RT just makes the world feel so much more alive and I'm constantly blown away by how good it looks. You wouldn't think that being able to see an accurate reflection on a glass surface would make a big difference but it absolutely does. Every moment feels more cinematic with RT.

[@campbell412]

It absolutely doesn't for the moment to moment gameplay. You arent scrutinizing the shadows on a bench when exploring an environment. The gameplay keeps your focus if it's a good game. As opposed to an art piece where detail really matters.

[@cybertpax]

@@campbell412 It does. The feel of the game also covers the feel of the world/environment so playing with RT does boost ur impressiveness in the game a lot.

[@vladimirrodionov5391]

@@campbell412 Grafix dont matter if the gameplay is gud!!!

[@samgee500]

The de-noising looks weird, even with ray reconstruction. Even though I can run RT I prefer the look of raster for this reason alone.

[@ayush3017]

07:23 Even probe lighting has directional info if stored in SH. It depends on density of the probes to cast proper occlusion of the concrete slab on the ground.

[@51Daedalus]

yeah, but the density and SH level needed to properly reflect this is beyond any systems capabilities for quite a while ;)

[@Beast-mf7br]

@@51Daedalus is it wrong that I'm picturing both of you with neckbeards and sounding like comic book guy from Simpsons?

[@sinnohen]

@@Beast-mf7br Yeah. Nothing wrong with two people discussing a topic they're familiar with. The people that like to put people on blast like this are usually insecure and don't have real friends, just saying.

[@Beast-mf7br]

@@sinnohen are you actually trying to white night a perfectly harmless joke? man you must be the life of the party eh? should I apologize to the neckbearded community now Mr. snowflake? smh

[@sinnohen]

@@Beast-mf7br Nah. It was just weird seeing a comment like that on a DF video. It would be like going to Comic-Con and calling everyone there "nerds" to be a dick.

[@Alcatraz760]

I feel like I'm the only one who really likes the ray traced reflections, probably Miles Morales helped me notice them more often, but its a shame that it breaks down the FPS on my RTX 2070S.

[@saifulmulk5492]

How far does your gpu go on this game with rtx? Like how much fps you get?

[@Alcatraz760]

@@saifulmulk5492 Desert area hangs around 80, general city is around 50-60, and some parts of city drop to 40. Sometimes after a long play session or after a mission, the frame rate just tanks and sticks around 20-30, and i need to restart the game. At 1080p with DLSS quality.

[@saifulmulk5492]

@@Alcatraz760 I've heard about this issue that sucks

[@saifulmulk5492]

@Spectrea do you think RT is good trade off

[@syunafrost351]

@@Alcatraz760 game isn't very optimized on PC either

[@Venom_Byte]

Closest to photo-realism we will see for quite some time with a game of this magnitude.

[@gudtimes6363]

@Mohammed dunno this game is allready massive on the best GPUs available, sure theres room for optimization, but I doubt it get much better in the next 2 years

[@shashanksuman4755]

GTA 6

[@pwd1134]

Red Dead blows this away lol. R u kidding? The faces in this game don't even compare.

[@Venom_Byte]

@@pwd1134 The lighting, reflections, character models are leagues better than RDR2 shut up kid haha

[@Venom_Byte]

@Mohammed I say quite some time because the only ones to actually take the crown back is Rockstar in GTA VI. But don't expect GTA VI anytime soon: 2023-2024.

[@nirmalpatel1917]

I wish you could have shown the parade sequence. Probably the most visually stunning setpiece ever in a game. It would have been nice to see how much of an effect ray tracing had.

[@SilencedMi5]

Agreed, even on medium settings with no RT I was blown away. Incredibly immersive visuals, and light plays a big part in that.

[@MyLostToys]

16:12 The glass effects to RT on looks Amazing and in the next seen 16:19 of the Shop window i am very impressed of the wrap around glass reflection and contrasts.

[@johnsmith-ck4qt]

Every new video from Alex with a new tech analysis, especially about ray tracing is like a small Christmas for me. I love this stuff. Keep it up, guys, great job!👍

[@PedroHenrique-nj3fk]

Imagine when ray tracing becomes so standard that games start coming with only it, the developers won't need to bake in lights and with that time they could add more detail, make the maps bigger, etc, that's one the benefits of ray tracing that I don't often hear people talking about, even if it's probably about a console generation away

[@LandHooman]

when rtx becomes standard games will be easier to make, games will get better with the time

[@2drealms196]

Or, because games are getting more expensive to make and increasingly riddled with MTC, publishers will just lay off half of a studio's lighting team.

[@PedroHenrique-nj3fk]

@@2drealms196 if that happened, most of those funds would go to developers or 3D artists, the studios would not lose the opportunity to make their games better at no extra cost, at most they would use some of it to increase profit margins a bit, but I would at least expect good studios like arkane, from software, I'd software, cdpr, santa monica and others to just reinvest that money on making better games

[@PedroHenrique-nj3fk]

also, EA studios are probably fucked

[@C4CH3S]

last generation I remember when people said PBR, volumetrics, tessellation and ambient occlusion would never be mainstream because they use too much power. they also said the same thing about how volumetrics "don't look that good and use too much performance!" yet nowadays every single game has some kind of implementation of each. raytracing will go through the same process and nobody will remember the stupid fights pc gamers go into because of it in a couple of years. I remember when people said strand based hair like hairworks was stupid and expensive yet nowadays we are seeing it implemented in games and so optimized it's actually pretty cheap to use. people who reject raytracing is blind

[@Vileex]

You guys are doing a phenomenal job. As an artist, this is some real light study like I had in an art school. Great job

[@saadesigner07]

Your editorial direction has been approved.

[@mkreku]

26 games support raytracing, yet Digital Foundry spends 50%+ of time and videos on it.. and calls it gamechanging. It's becoming annoying

[@Chopper153]

@@mkreku So you don’t think that ray tracing adds a layer of realism to the game?

[@Mosamania]

@@Chopper153 not until AMD does it, then it is the greatest thing in the world, until then it is a gimmick and not needed and only rasterization matters with native graphics only, that is only until AMD does it.

[@Chopper153]

@@Mosamania What has AMD to do with this? 6000 series already support ray tracing, infact AMD is working hard to catch up with Nvidia in rt and dlss. Ray tracing is superior to ssr, doesn't matter what AMD or Nvida wants.

[@Mosamania]

@@Chopper153 I was just taking a jab at AMD fanboys. A malignant bunch.

[@DocRealTalk]

Hopefully my brand new Voodoo card can run this with RT on xD

[@sneaky5141]

with dlss? anything is possible ;)

[@neilwilson5785]

My new Sound Blaster card will allow me to hear people actually talking. If I can allocate enough RAM to make it work.

[@skootdiggity1301]

It can, and will.

[@ffrrannk]

@@blitzwing1 12Mb vram? Calm down, let's just enjoy our 4Mb 3dfx ok?

[@ZinhoMegaman]

You know that the SNES can do RT (assisted) right? And I'm not jocking, it's real and there is a demo here on YT.

[@drchtct]

The RT elevates the visuals onto a completely new level. I prefer RT lighting + reflections over a higher resolution.

[@sev2300]

Here is the catch 22 with RT: the higher the resolution the better RT components look

[@drchtct]

@@sev2300 Isn't really a catch. I run it on 1440p with DLSS and obviously no mortal computer can run it on native 4K with Raytracing. Fact is I don't even see the difference between the resolutions as I'm sitting 2 meters from my LG OLED TV, so yeah, the game looks breathtaking and Raytracing is decisive for that.

[@sev2300]

@Bullock im talking bout internal resolution for RT lighting and reflections

[@lanand9397]

L

[@danielcallahan976]

@@drchtct u really cannot see the difference? U kidding..this game looks pretty blurry at low res and by low i mean 1440p and 1080p

[@jynxycats]

The folks who think 'that old thing is good enough' are probably the same people that thought blu-ray or 1080p content was just fine too, when DVDs were popular, and HDTVs hadn't really taken off yet.

[@Dionyzos]

A comparison video with Cloud Gaming services like Stadia and GeForce now would be very interesting

[@neilwilson5785]

Stadis is running the PC version, so if your Internet is top-notch, it will be very good.

[@Jerry4050]

@@neilwilson5785 I am running it on Stadia doesn't have Ray tracing features. That's why I'm waiting for the PS5 upgrade since I got the PS4 version for $25

[@Fanmade1b]

@@neilwilson5785 Actually, on Stadia you won't have the RTX effects, but on GeForce NOW you'll have them. So in this case I would recommend GeForce NOW over Stadia.

[@serhatgenc0]

damn from the look of the thumbnail , it does.

i would switch the budget for RT to AI every day.

[@spapolaris6479]

@ nah i prefer RT. If want to play GTA i'd open GTA

[@Xirpzy]

@ rt is less work than hundreds of area and point lights. An artist placing lighting in a scene is a different thing to programming ai. Doubt artist budget for rt had any impact on the programmers ai.

[@spapolaris6479]

@yugi yugi except that watch dogs (all 3 of them) are garbage games.

[@ShadowRomeo1784]

@ Or why not both? Because it's AI and other criticized issues are more likely gonna be fixed with future patches anyway or if not then Mods should be able to do the job.

[@christianflex4all]

Best looking game I’ve played, especially environmental wise

[@deathwish374]

Yup ...but is it worth it tho, coz the only thing good is looks

[@jr6905]

@@deathwish374 it’s immersive ass hell like I walked into a bar and two robbers came out of no where .Idk why people hate on it lol It’s not all just shooting people in missions but without Rtx it dosent look as good

[@nou8704]

@@jr6905 probably because cd projekt lied about so much about the game and took out features everyone wanted like wall running and owning other safe houses the game needed at least 2 more years

[@toeknee3302]

@@jr6905 doesn’t change the fact that the game is still in a prealpha build. That’s why people are mad. It’s just not complete that’s all and could use up to 2 years of development before it’s ready.

[@toeknee3302]

@Rohit Biswas mate what are you saying you are 16? This game is not for anybody because it’s not complete. It’s beyond simple visual glitches. I play on 2070 super PC it doesn’t magically add missing content. AI is so bad, areas of the city not finished and can’t visit, can’t play 10 mins without seeing a bug. These bugs are not because of in game settings, it’s just because of incomplete game. Stop embarrassing yourself please.

[@AvaGamerStuff]

Would have been better if CDPR actually included your own character reflection.

[@nothingOr01010101]

game wouldn't be released then or would have even more bugs

[@ericsiemienczuk7217]

So the nvidia raytracing extension has a very detailed build system for world geometry, called an acceleration structure. It looks like they trace against the previous frame's acceleration structure, so it can be built completely asynchronously to the rest of the rasterized rendering, otherwise some of the rendering may stall, slowing fps. I noticed this from a few graphics artifacts: reflection tearing noticeable in elevators, and refractive, uhh, smearing, of the car antennae when driving fast. There's probably another effect they're using that contributes to these, but I'm not certain. Anyways, if they always included your spazzy characters in reflections, it would be a bit weird(er).

[@sev2300]

The cost of making AAA games can substantially drop, if RT lighting becomes more performant and a mainstream approach for lighting in video games.

[@officerminiwheats]

I dont think we need to worry too much about the cost. More like treating employees better when game company CEOs are buying their 7th, 8th, and 9th private yachts...

[@Jambobist]

The trouble is that they have to do both just now to cater to a range of hardware, even if they only release on PC. Maybe in the next next gen...

[@liscarscott]

development costs will drop, but retail price will certainly not.

[@Tezorus]

That's a good question actually. On one side you could think that it will remove the need of creating specific point or area lighting, placing and tweaking reflection probs, removing the need for lightmap calculation and tweaking, ect... But on another side the fact that colors bleeds accurately for example means that you need to be more careful with the overall color placing in you environment. Same goes with emissive and reflective materials to avoid a laser/reflection circus. At the end i think it will balanced but some actual technics will disappears for sure beeing replaced by new one. I would have more question about the implementation of AI in the correction/fixing steps of the dev tbh.

[@armpap1]

IMO there will always be that 'extra premium super' thing you can achieve by throwing an uncomprehensive amount of raw manpower and talent. There will always be a gap and always be an AAA title. It might be bigger world, more detailed storytelling, more content or better graphics, or everything at once. But it will always be there.

[@xevious21]

How is this game such a technical marvel and disaster at the same damn time?

[@MrRogordo]

Because some bad executives and managers decided to kill their company by rushing the game. I mean, almost no one would be mad in consoles with the really downgraded experience from PC, if the game was playable in some form.

[@Schizo-Devil]

Because this is a video on the PC version

[@Vulkanodox]

different teams and prioritizations. The media team had plenty of time to create nice ads you see in the game world, create good looking models for cars and items, and make a banger soundtrack. On the other hand, you have the more technical aspects of realizing the story, programming behaviors of characters, physique, gameplay, and such. From the rumors it seems like game features, gameplay, and story have been changing a lot up even until shortly before the release, meaning that the features which are a mess now are such because they have been remade multiple times probably because of decisions by higher-ups changed. If somebody made a really detailed model of a car 3 years ago then that is done. It looks perfect and won't be changed.

[@OxKing]

Because it`s a very detailed ambitious game but not finished.

[@kc-me6wl]

@@OxKing this. It really is. I got the official strategy from piggyback. Doing my first playthrough for fun and making my own decisions but holy smoke- looking back in the guide, i haven't realised how many ways you can tackle missions! It's a lot more open ended than i realised actually...

[@Brunn0121]

19:39 this is just how the game currently behaves, it spawns npcs behind your ass constantly.

[@moeloehoe]

Same with cars.

[@Ztygs]

And police if you get a wanted level.

[@crateer]

@@Ztygs most annoying thing about this game imo haha

[@Ztygs]

@@crateer yea it's kinda bullshit tbh. I think GTA 5 does it much better.

[@MeltWithU]

Watching through this video, I can’t help but notice that even with raytracing on there are some major issues. Almost as if the ray tracing is not treating some of the objects as 3-D objects. Therefore not shadowing them correctly. A good example is inside V‘s apartment looking at the table. When you turn the ray tracing on, the bottle next to the bowl that was being properly shadowed had no shadow itself. And I noticed this throughout the game world in pretty much every shot you had shown. Not just with shadows but also with bounce lighting. I don’t know if this is the side effect of lesser raytracing settings or the fact that they are using parallax maps for some of these objects instead of true 3-D renderings. Regardless, something still looks off. Maybe it is that the objects in the game world aren’t using physics-based materials. Or maybe that is selected items use it, but not all. Again, I noticed issues in pretty much every scene you used as an example. I think truly, the issues lie in the fact that still currently in most games we are seeing selective raytracing. Therefore, we aren’t seeing the true effects of what could be due to hardware restrictions. Even the most powerful video cards on the planet aren’t able to properly replicate real world properties. I always say, anytime a game uses ray tracing, that instead of reflections… Which seem to be the go to for developers for whatever reason… They should instead choose to do ray traced lighting. Because I think raytraced lighting means more to any scene then reflections ever will. And… Render to texture seems to do a decent job for reflections as is. I’ve said since the original Xbox days that lighting means more to any scene than anything else. Look at games like Wreckless as a perfect example. The lighting in that game was phenomenal and far beyond what most other games even got close to. Because of that, the game had many photo realistic moments in its incredible world. Which, by the way, what is more open than anybody ever gives it credit for. If you can, and I wish the game was backwards compatible, go back and play it on an original Xbox and build up your time by knocking enemy cars off the road, all except one as fast as you can. Then use The remaining time you build up to go explore the environment. There is detail in that game that 99.9% of people would never see because of the limited nature of the timer. But, if you do what I explained, you can see those areas and just how detailed that map was and how open world it was, unbeknownst to most who played the game. I found a bunch of secret areas and a ton of places that I was amazed at, that I’m sure nobody else ever saw other than the developers. Still to this day, I think about that game. I think it was much better than people gave it credit for and it was only peoples imaginations and lack of understanding of what the game was supposed to be that drug it down. It was essentially made to be Chase HQ in a modern setting. Whereas, people thought it was going to be a new GTA. Which it was never stated to be. I’m irritated that the game never got backwards compatibility. Quite frankly, because I don’t think there’s any licensed anything in the game. Because I would be playing it every day, exploring areas that I had never seen prior. Probably posting videos up here on KZbin to show people just how amazing the game was. There were so many great games back in the original Xbox days. Many franchises that didn’t survive past it for whatever reason. Very disappointing and I wish the developers that are still around, would go back to these franchises and flush out what they could’ve been. Activision, if you are listening… why not go back to Wreckless and reimagine its world. Maybe take what was there and add to it to give it more of a GTA feel that people were looking for at the time. But for Gods sake, you have to replicate the lighting and the feel. As it is what made it look and feel so amazing.

[@smoothlyrough512]

My first game using ray tracing, can't go without now. It really is THAT good

[@sandorclegane3658]

What settings do you use and what fps are you getting? Cheers.

[@stephonhines6554]

You must be new to gaming

[@MicInc87]

@@stephonhines6554 Or he just bought graphic card that supports RT? Not everyone changes hardware every year you know...

[@Twiztz]

Facts

[@stankbuddha]

Does everyone have red cyborg eyes or is that a bug?

[@8Paul7]

Basically, raytracing brings prebaked level quality lighting into a dynamic open world with changing time of day. It is a must for games that don't have static time.

[@willis936]

The prebaked interpolation in BOTW is pretty great. It does it on a toaster, no less. I would say artistic direction is more important than raytracing unless you’re going for photorealism.

[@lightbox8019]

@@willis936 what is prebaked in botw?

[@artemaung5274]

I'm making a VR game and due to vast landscape and dynamic day/night cycle I can't use baked lightning. I can cram landscape, cascaded shadowmap dynamic lightning and atmosphere in 5-7ms on RTX 2060. But if I enable ray-tracing it eats my entire budget of 11ms. I can add it to my game no problem, but I think only people with future RTX 4080 Ti would be able to play in VR with it. Or I'll have to dramatically simplify all visual aspects of my game to make space for ray-tracing. Basically this stuff is great and definitely the future, but VR is also the future (and far more important!) and ray-tracing is still too expensive for VR.

[@456MrPeople]

Raytracing will really shine once the artifacts of standard rasterization are done away with. But achieving that kind of a level of performance at playable framrates will require future generations of hardware. I'm excited to be living in this age of PC gaming.

[@nicobenji0248]

Wouldn't say it's a must cause most people don't have devices that can handle this yet.

[@MrALenCar321]

In the future ray tracing performance will improve once they start putting in RT cores equal to cuda cores.

[@fcfdroid]

10:43 "As we turn on Ray tracing here" *video still says "Ray Tracing Off"* Me: ahh yes i see!

[@hki4464]

After ray tracing came around, digital foundry totally forgot about hdr.

[@dmk_weaver]

Because you cannot showcase that without HDR screens

[@donproduction6248]

HDR is pretty much the norms now almost every AAA game use it

[@krazyfrog]

There is no easy way for them to show HDR to people who have no HDR display. Even those who have an HDR display would experience the video differently because it would be captured using settings that are different to the display that the video is being watched on. And they've already said in the past that recording and producing an HDR video is a time consuming and finicky process that is almost never worth the effort that goes into it.

[@vgnvideogameninja2930]

HDR is still the more impressive feature out of the two, and is the REAL game changer. Ray tracing does make the environment look better, but not by much. Slightly so. HDR on vs HDR off though is massive.

[@PotentChr0nic]

@@donproduction6248 Yea except cyberpunk uses fake HDR. Watch Vincent's video over at HDTV test.

[@GPUtest]

2:51 welcome to the future, teleportation

[@darak2]

It looks different, but not necessarily more realistic. The Dex scene has completely different lightning, but having that car interior being so dark in the middle of the day makes no sense. Similarly, the water reflection scene shows way too crisp reflections with RT on. Does it look better with raytracing? Perhaps. At the end of the day, I'd say in no way those changes justify a 50% performance hit. If I have to compare RT with half resolution or half framerate or DLSS over non-RT without any of those, I'd choose non-RT any day of the week, even if I'll be missing one area shadow under a bench.

[@itsd0nk]

It’s not perfect, but if you come from a photography background and movie lighting background, this is finally a step in the right direction. I agree on the water reflections point. It’s their settings there. There should be subsurface diffusion and scattering on those water effects that interacts with the reflections. But that scene in the car with Dex is lit properly on RT. If they developed the entire game around RT, they would’ve added some extra fill lighting inside the car for that scene, using some more interior practical car lights or some more bouncy bright materials to bounce extra window light back onto dex for fill lighting.

[@jesusurrabieta9700]

Man, your best video ever on the subject of RT. Simply Sublime explanations over perfectly selected footage. Congratulations.

[@reginaldpoofta5]

5:01 ray tracing is ON but the chairs still dont cast shadows.

[@magnarex]

I don't know why they would be but they might be set not to cast a shadow, that's a setting in ue4 so probably in their engine too.

[@TDHurley]

Nice catch. Not impressed with Raytracing at all.

[@ulrikfriberg8995]

Actually I don´t think their shadows would be very noticable in real life either. The emissive pink bar desk surface is surrounding them from almost 180 degrees. If the pink surface was much further away it would take up a lot smaller area of the bar chairs "field of view" and the bar chairs could therefore cast a lot more defined shadows on the opposite side.

[@magnarex]

@@ulrikfriberg8995 you would have one shadow from the pink and a couple from the white light sources

[@evengreven5515]

Dont think there would be, if there would have been then RT would have picked it up

[@lazer9870]

the nvidia overlords will be pleased with your editorial direction

[@johnc8327]

This is the kind of ass kissing you do when you want to MAKE SURE you get a founders edition GPU.

[@sqlevolicious]

Sounds more like you love sucking on the hivemind hatetrain koolaid

[@stephanhart9941]

@Keelan Paid Infomercials. Screams Integrity!

[@gabrielst527]

@@sqlevolicious who wouldn't when you made a scam generation of cards with a tech that's not ready at all for current hardware (we are still far off from real raytracing) and tax users a lot more (2000 series cards) honestly the only good part of all of this is that AMD made them make DLSS 2.0 (since their CAS completely destroyed the 1.X versions and made them copy paste it on their drivers since it's open source)

[@Caliboyjosh10]

finally a showcase of what ray tracing does and the differences. I was a never sold on the feature and thought it was just another unnecessary gimmick, cause games look good enough, but the dex car scene proved it for me. It really gives a next gen vibe and now I just need to wait for it to be playable in about half a decade :)

[@timons777]

4:14 - dope transition! Good timing!

[@Baleur]

10:30 i wish you'd do a video on how Star Citizen does bounced colored indirect light with its flashlight, even without that engine having any raytracing.

[@joos3D]

Lumberyard is based on Cryengine, could it be SVOGI?

[@guiiimkt]

I don't think Digital Foundry cover con schemes

[@mr_ako662]

@@guiiimkt they are Nvidia shills so why not?

[@NukeMyHouse]

@@guiiimkt They've covered Star Citizen before.

[@GrantGriffithMN]

As always, excellent coverage and explanations. Thanks!

[@michaelmonstar4276]

1:54 That kid "holding" a gun is clearly unintentional.

[@EpicNinjaSkillzz]

not unintentional, loads of kids play with guns in the game, but looks dodge haha

[@Glassandcandy]

Damn, I always thought the Dexter DeShawn scene was like THE example of the game being visually downgraded, but I played this game with a non RTX card, so I had no idea just how drastically enabling RTX would have on it when enabled. With it enabled it looks almost exactly like how I remember it looking like in the demos that came out before, which is wild. I guess it makes sense that it was short sided and stupid to judge the game as a "downgrade" when I was running it on hardware incapable of maxing out every potential area for comparison, let alone one which makes as substantial a visual difference as RTX.

[@portatil8676]

0:34 is that a floating bottle on the right?

[@jasonnikolic]

Thanks for putting this together, I've got a friend getting a 3070 and not sold on RT though, and he loves Cyberpunk on his current 1060.

[@trevorduncan9580]

I wasn't either ... till i upgraded from my 1080ti to a 3070 and re-fired up cyberpunk . The second i turned on RT I was in love... It is hard to describe but it just FEELS so much better. Its little things but they make a huge difference. I was running around looking at stuff for like an hour lol

[@jasonnikolic]

​@@trevorduncan9580 Nice upgrade. If not already you'll soon understand that DLSS is also amazing to have. Metro Exodus and Shadow of the Tomb Raider are other excellent RT implementations worth having a look at (also both great games) Not all games pull off DLSS though, Tomb Raider doesn't look too great with it.

[@DoubleRaw]

NVIDIA likes this editorial direction!

[@SG710]

Given what kind of Nvidia fanboys DF are, they're doing this willingly, just give them free cards and they're happy to throw their integrity out the window.

[@snakeace0]

Or you guys refuse to believe that Nvidia truly deserve some appreciation for their push in RT technology and their performance solution with DLSS. They have terrible PR , but the tech is undeniable.

[@DoubleRaw]

@@snakeace0 I like the current NVIDIA products and their drive in new solutions but that does not hinder me, to make a funny joke about the current situation.

[@dbsasuke]

Ray tracing is a tech that is not just fancier buzz words and actually is a game changer.

[@Sirandar99]

Not really .... a nice to have at most

[@ArchThaBoss]

Didn’t even notice the roaches until raytracing was turned on at 2:58

[@neilwilson5785]

I only saw it on my PC when i killed my internet by upping to 1440.

[@gunargundarson1626]

*cries in 480p*

[@thomasgiles2876]

This is the best explanation of Ray Tracing's effects vs Rasterization I've seen anywhere.

[@thomasgiles2876]

Just a little follow up on this: my dad has been way into the math behind Ray Tracing for years, and when I finally got a PC together to demonstrate it, there were like two games I owned and a 3D mark demo. This video did more for demoing ray tracing than anything else I've found to show him.

[@venator9536]

ray traced reflection is lagging too much for me. in some interior, when i look at very specific places, fps lags from 60 to 25. :(

[@gchamon]

it"s also not consistent. I get 45 FPS in Afterlife with ray traced reflections + medium lighting. If I go for a walk around the surrounding area, when I go back my FPS drops to 25, same scene, same config.

[@qqking33]

same issue here but it's a bit rare to recreate for me

[@ALaz502]

Yeah, there are a few areas where there's something weird going in. Scene doesn't look any more complex than another, but for some reason fps will drop from consistent 60s to 20s only with RTX.

[@qqking33]

@@ALaz502 I was dropping frames when looking downwards in some outdoor areas. And during last racing mission was very noticeable

[@kanmuridavid]

I have this issue too. Most of the time I'm hovering around 40-60 FPS with a 2080 Super. Then it is like a switch is flicked and I drop to 20-30 in places I was getting 60 before. After reloading the game, it's back to a normal frame rate. Must be a game optimization issue?

[@Mr.Pokeylope9082]

At 10:46 you show a Raytracing comparison but don't update the text at the bottom to indicate that you're transitioning from Raytracing off. Good video. Thanks for the detailed comparison.

[@II-cl8tw]

So, can I turn off SSAO and SSR when turning on RT for trading more performance gain?

[@RELAXcowboy]

I got a 3080 ftw3 for this game. Seeing this makes me realize RT is almost a must. Now I need to know what settings to turn down when RT is all on and on ultra/psycho so my gfx doesn’t try to ignite the air around my PC when I play this game

[@ActionPhilip]

@@RELAXcowboy I'm running a 3080 at 1440p. In general, I didn't notice a while lot of difference fiddling with non-RT settings as long as the ray tracing itself is the bottleneck. I've pulled down a bunch of rasterized lighting/shadows so the RT pops a little more, but it isn't really a performance thing. DLSS is your biggest friend for keeping frames with RT, although that does produce some noise in the reflections.

[@RELAXcowboy]

@@ActionPhilip Yeah, I’ve been futzing with it for a little bit. Playing on the lg 48cx and I’ve tried dropping it to 1440 and pushing 4k dlss to performance and higher and it’s hard getting over the blurriness. I might have to get over that though if I want to play at acceptable fps.

[@SuperTheLycan]

@@ActionPhilip So even DLSS quality is bad?

[@danielcallahan976]

@@RELAXcowboy DF made an optimized settings vdo man.

[@althaz]

This articulates my feelings on ray tracing in this game perfectly. I know a couple of people with RTX3080s and one of them is playing with RT *disabled*. I couldn't even understand how he could do it. RT on is one of those things that, when you turn it on, just looks pretty good. Then you turn it off or just play a game without it and suddenly realise everything without RT is ass. It's like the first time you try 144Hz and are like "yeah, it's nice, but not that cool". Then you go back to 60Hz and are like "wtf, why is everything stuttery and laggy?".

[@TheZelda555]

My gf says I'm ridiculous for saying that 60hz feels laggy after beeing used to 144hz

[@TEKDAD]

But you are contradicting yourself as it’s impossible to get 144fps with RT ;) what I mean: some players must have RT off just to have more FPS because they have a high refresh rate monitor or they just want to brag about it...

[@benbourke3655]

It looks great sure but it has yet to blow my mind when playing the game. I'm preferring to get 4k/60 using DLSS I think image quality is much more important than visual effects in my perception of how good a game looks, everyone is different though.

[@kasuraga]

Because high fps with a crisp, smooth image is a better experience than ray tracing. I can get the game to run a solid 60fps with or without ray tracing, but the ray tracing has wayyyyy too many immersion breaking issues to me. especially with reflections. I'd rather have higher fps with less glitchy graphics

[@StrengthScholar0]

The difference from ray tracing to non-tracing isn't even remotely comparable to 60 fps to 144fps. It's hysterical you would even compare the two when there are videos of people trying to find the difference between ray tracing on and off and failing.

[@N7aziz]

New patch just came out addressing the bright issue when ray tracing is enabled

[@johnnybeeone]

So far only for consoles. We must wait few days

[@krazyfrog]

​@JCL Feniks I don't see it either so not sure what this person is talking about. What other platform has ray tracing? Update: CDPR has posted the patch notes for 1.05. The actual patch for PC will be out later.

[@musashimiyamoto8998]

Patch isn't out yet , so this dude should really stfu lol

[@spiritwolf5792]

you can see the npcs actually spawning in the reflection at 19:44 it's not raytracing being limited it's the game limiting how much it has to render and compute behind the camera because, in normal rasterised games, that's never rendered.

[@m4rvelero]

Ray Tracing Psycho + DLSS Quality Mode = 😍

[@ericbraley838]

@Bryce Czirr in 1080p with a plain RTX 2080 I'm getting 60fps with ray tracing on high and graphics maxed otherwise. It's not too unrealistic for a 3080 to pull off. Albeit I'm running a 7700k @ 5.0ghz.

[@imadecoy.]

Imagine settling for console fps at 1080p with an $800 GPU...

[@tristanzine6693]

@Bryce Czirr you have been in multiple comments flaming for no reason, why would you even watch this video...I feel bad for you, sad life.

[@RyneLanders]

My takeaway here is that the ray tracing lights look more realistic, but damn if they aren't super subtle differences that I would be almost unable to appreciate in motion if someone didn't point it out to me as in this video.

[@nothingOr01010101]

but you would 'feel' it when you play

[@digitalbarrito3555]

@@nothingOr01010101 yeah you'll feel that hot 24FPS Cinematic action on your silly expensive rig just cause you turned on RTX Reflections lol. It's not worth the performance hit.

[@RyneLanders]

​@@nothingOr01010101so, I finally got Cyberpunk because I got a computer that can run it completely maxed out. I can definitely "feel" the path tracing. I know this video came out before path tracing, but man, that is such a massive difference even beyond the basic RT it had before. The feeling of the atmosphere in any scene is much more palpable and tangible. It's hard to explain without someone toggling the settings and seeing it. I think Misty's shop and the ripperdoc shop are the easiest ones to see the difference when it's toggled.

[@marekhajduk3905]

I was deciding between higher image quality with more FPS vs RTX and I prefer first. I can play on 1440p/60fps (DLSS quality) with ultra settings (SSR Ultra) and the game just looks incredibly gorgeous, especially at night with wet ground. Turning RTX on automatically makes game 40fps experience with no obvious change. These details mentioned on video are fine, but they are harder to notice vs noticing decreased game performance to 65%. I can lower resolution to native 1080p without dlss and with rtx on medium and I hit 60fps.. but 1440p dlss quality just looks much better vs rtx on imo. Playing on RTX 3060Ti

[@disadadi8958]

Yes, it's not worth sacrificing the fps especially when you dip way below 60 fps.

[@EarnestWilliamsGeofferic]

I gotta say ... most of it looks fancy if you're standing still, but I don't think I'd ever notice these whilst moving.