Earlier today, CD Projekt RED released Cyberpunk 2077 RT: Overdrive mode as part of update 1.62, which also introduced official Deep Learning Antialiasing (DLAA) support and Intel XeSS support to the game.
By far the most interesting addition is the path tracing mode’s tech preview, though. Dubbed Cyberpunk 2077 RT: Overdrive mode by the Polish developers, it was originally announced to the public alongside the new GeForce RTX 40 Series GPUs in September 2022. Now that the mode is out, we can easily understand why. According to the official patch notes, CD Projekt RED reckons that the top-of-the-line graphics card from the previous generation, the RTX 3090, a monster designed to eat 4K rendering and equipped with 24GB of VRAM, can only handle Cyberpunk 2077 RT: Overdrive mode at 1080@30. For its part, NVIDIA quietly wrote in their blog post that for this technology preview, they only recommend using RTX 40 Series GPUs and DLSS 3 with the game’s version of path tracing.
I’ve quickly checked it out on my PC and can easily see where they’re coming from. The RTX 4090, by far the most powerful graphics card currently on the market, absolutely needs DLSS to make this run smoothly.
Trying to run the benchmark at native resolution and without AI assistance provided an average FPS of 20.78.
However, the real surprise is that the most important DLSS plugin isn’t Frame Generation – it’s Super Resolution. Cyberpunk 2077 RT: Overdrive mode ran at just 38.01 average frames per second with DLSS 3 enabled but DLSS 2 turned off.
On the other hand, DLSS 2(Super Resolution) can do just fine on its own. When set to Performance mode (1080p upscaled), it runs the path tracing mode at over 65 FPS.
Of course, the GeForce RTX 4090 performs best when they are combined. After activating DLSS 3 (Frame Generation), I tried to dial up the Super Resolution to Quality mode (1440p upscaled). This provided nearly the same result as the previous test (66.02 FPS).
When Frame Generation is coupled with Super Resolution on Balanced mode (1252p upscaled), the benchmark of Cyberpunk 2077 RT: Overdrive mode jumps to 84.34 FPS.
This is likely to be the sweet spot for those playing at 4K resolution, though those who play further away from the screen could probably be fine with DLSS SR Performance, which bumps the frame rate over 100 FPS when working alongside Frame Generation.
Of course, this is still a significant hit compared to how the game ran on Psycho Ray Tracing with DLSS 2 and 3 activated. Is it worth it, though? After a short roam through Night City, it’s hard to say no.
Cyberpunk 2077 RT: Overdrive mode immediately looks miles better than the previous hybrid solution, especially during nighttime. There are now near-countless lights thanks to RTX Direct Illumination, and they all cast proper shadows, delivering a far more impactful rendition of the cyberpunk vision of the future that Night City was always meant to be. More importantly, the lights add a ton of contrast and vibrance to the game as they realistically spread on nearby surfaces. Even just the car’s backlights or some traffic light will leave you amazed when you wade into traffic. As I always imagined, the path traced visuals also synergizes extremely well with High Dynamic Range support. If you’ve got a QD-OLED display with high HDR brightness potential, there’s no better game to show it off.
Going back to performance, there’s no stutter to speak of, either, which is baffling when compared to stutter shows released lately that couldn’t hold a candle to this visual spectacle and technical prowess. Cyberpunk 2077 RT: Overdrive mode is easily the best optimized PC game available at the moment for the most powerful GPU, and it’s about time that someone created a new PC technical showcase.
On this note, it’s hard not to feel a tang of disappointment considering this will be the last hurrah of the RED Engine. CD Projekt RED abandoned its creation in favor of the Unreal Engine 5’s ease of use and production speed (though they recently admitted it’d only materialize as a development benefit for the second game of the new The Witcher trilogy). We can only hope Epic will be able to fix the UE’s stuttering for good before the launch of the next The Witcher game.
