Cyberpunk 2077’s Overdrive Mode with full-blown path tracing (fairly than choose ray-traced results) dropped this morning as a expertise preview within the sport. As anticipated, it’s stunningly lovely, and it’ll completely soften your graphics card—until you’re operating a contemporary GeForce RTX 40-series GPU, that’s. Even then, it may be tough sledding, as our benchmarks present, although the newly launched $599 GeForce RTX 4070 can sustain an honest tempo with DLSS 3 enabled.
Nvidia labored with CD Projekt Pink to create Overdrive Mode, which showcases the fantastic expertise that shifting to completely path traced visuals can present. Cyberpunk 2077 already seemed beautiful. With Overdrive Mode, it’s drop-dead beautiful.
Full-blown path tracing is terribly strenuous on graphics playing cards. There’s a purpose that it was reserved for the likes of Minecraft, Quake II, and Portal 2 up till now. However ray tracing and AI developments that Nvidia baked into the bones of the RTX 40-series—specifically Shader Execution Reordering and the AI-supercharged DLSS 3 Body Technology—permits GeForce’s newest and biggest playing cards to run Cyberpunk 2077 in path-traced glory.
Additional studying: How DLSS 3 makes use of AI to supercharge gaming body charges
You want that 40-series grunt, too. In its launch notes for the patch that added Overdrive Mode (together with Nvidia DLAA, Intel XeSS, and a revamped benchmark display screen), CD Projekt Pink says “it requires the highest-performing hardware available to run it properly.” Solely the RTX 40-series lineup is technically supported, together with last-generation’s RTX 3090 flagship—and that former titan is barely rated to hit 30 frames-per-second at 1080p decision, per CDPR. Gross. Splendidly gross!
Different customers have found that Overdrive Mode really runs on different graphics playing cards—even built-in Radeon graphics in Ryzen chips!—however the brand new function brings even AMD’s flagship Radeon RX 7900 XTX to its knees.
And that’s with FSR 2, AMD’s DLSS rival, lively. Oof.
I’ve spent the morning taking part in round with Cyberpunk 2077’s Overdrive mode on all of Nvidia’s present RTX 40-series playing cards, to provide you an thought of what to anticipate when it comes to efficiency if you flip path tracing on. Right here’s a video displaying what it appears like, courtesy of an early Digital Foundry preview:
You’ll discover Cyberpunk 2077 Overdrive Mode efficiency outcomes for the $1,600 GeForce RTX 4090, $1,200 RTX 4080, and $900 RTX 4070 Ti beneath. They have been all examined on our typical GPU benchmarking system, which runs on a Ryzen 9 5900X processor paired with 32GB of reminiscence.
Replace: The $599 GeForce RTX 4070 got here out a day after this technical preview dropped, so it isn’t included within the charts, however on the 1440p decision the GPU is constructed for, it hits eight frames per second with path tracing on, however no DLSS lively, whereas turning on DLSS Balanced and DLSS 3 Body Gen propels it simply previous the hallowed 60fps mark. Don’t attempt utilizing it at 4K—even with DLSS 3 on, it could’t hit a constant 30fps, as Nvidia neutered the 4070’s 4K chops.
We solely examined with Overdrive Mode lively, at each 1440p and 4K resolutions, utilizing the brand new Overdrive preset. Taking part in the sport with out path tracing enabled leads to a lot greater body charges, as our earlier GPU opinions present. We then examined the sport with DLSS on and manually set to Efficiency mode. (You will get barely greater body charges utilizing Extremely Efficiency mode, however it made the upscaled picture look terribly aliased and glitchy in our testing. Efficiency appears wonderful). Lastly, we flipped on DLSS 3 Body Technology as properly to see simply how briskly this pet can go.
Listed here are the outcomes:
Brad Chacos/IDG
Brad Chacos/IDG
Nvidia and CDPR aren’t joking after they say Cyberpunk 2077’s Overdrive Mode can carry even these monstrous GPUs to their knees. With out DLSS lively, even the RTX 4090 struggles to spit out 20 frames-per-second at 4K, with the 4070 Ti hitting single digits. Ouch. Flipping on DLSS Efficiency mode alone will get you to the 60fps gold customary at 1440p decision, however these outcomes drive house a harsh fact: You want DLSS Body Gen to hit easily playable body charges in Overdrive Mode, particularly at 4K decision.
That mentioned, when you’re a fiend for drool-worthy gaming pics, CDPR tossed you a bone. From the patch notes:
“For other ray-tracing-capable PC graphics cards with at least 8GB VRAM, we included an option to render path-traced screenshots in Photo Mode. This is possible because it means rendering just one frame, as opposed to rendering several frames every second (i.e. FPS), which would happen when playing the game…
If your graphics card has more than 8GB VRAM and this option is still greyed out, it means you need to lower your in-game resolution. Note that the higher the resolution and the less powerful the GPU is, the longer it will take to take a screenshot (between a few seconds to several minutes). You can enable Path Tracing for Photo Mode in Settings > Graphics in the Ray Tracing section.”
So, there you could have it. Cyberpunk 2077’s redemption story continues with Overdrive Mode, some of the really spectacular technical feats ever pulled off in gaming graphics. Driving round Evening Metropolis for a bit made my jaw drop—and my graphics card sweat. If in case you have an Nvidia GeForce RTX 40-series GPU, you completely must see it in motion.
Simply bear in mind to flip on DLSS 3 Body Technology!
