So about ray tracing.. is the visual improvement worth the 3-4x less FPS?

[SarmatII]

On my 3080, at 1440p with DLSS ultra, I go from >120 FPS to less than 40 fps with Ray Tracing enabled, not even path tracing overdrive.

Yeah there's a visual difference. Light feels more "bloomy", there's a stronger halo around light sources. In general it just feels like the light sources saturate or reach more of the scene, perhaps even too much so that it overwhelms (subjective ik).

Reflections are more "accurate", but really, the default reflections on high is already very nice so it's not what I could admit as a major improvement.

I'm trying to see why ray tracing is so hyped up, especially in this game, as its regarded as the best RT game currently. To me, it's clearly not worth the huge perf loss. I can't even honestly say the game looks better, as the game feels like the light sources just bleed into the entire scene way too much, like overly done bloom.

Perhaps this is more on CDPR's talented devs, as without RT, the raster effects are done so well that it looks almost perfect already, and RT feels overdone oversaturated. Thoughts?

[Xype]

Every game I ever tried to use raytracing on it was not worth the performance drop. I turn it on for screenshots, thats about it.

[K.I.L.E.R]

Originally posted by Grubbs008:

Raytracing is a garbage technology that makes games look slightly better in some regard, but less in others. As well as a 80-90% performance degrade. It's not worth it in any game. You want the game to look better? Increase the resolution/settings and get a reshade.

I use the ray tracing feature of Reshade in Cyberpunk.

[Onimusha]

Performance is king.
If your system can handle RT without it impacting your gameplay to the point where it feels sluggish, unresponsive and generally not fluid at all...it's good.
40 fps is playable but it's not comfortable and RT makes those 40 fps even worse than they should be on paper.

[Zak]

Originally posted by Grubbs008:

Raytracing is a garbage technology that makes games look slightly better in some regard, but less in others. As well as a 80-90% performance degrade. It's not worth it in any game. You want the game to look better? Increase the resolution/settings and get a reshade.

Raytracing is awesome technology. Just because most consumer grade PCs can't handle it yet doesn't mean it's bad technology. Ray tracing is the future.

[TheDreamXV]

I think among other games, CP is actually one of the rarest who uses RT in full. So, this game worth it.. but make sure to check this yourself. I've played this game on super low with no RT, and later on on high and RT - completely different visually game.

What's add up - cyberpnunk'ish neon signs, lights, this is a perfect thing for RT to see it, unlike other games that very often shows minimum difference

[Barnobestabn]

dlss 3.5 works with ray tracing they say. how much help it will be i dont know. Just gotta wait for the patch today to see how it does.

[MaxKool007]

Originally posted by Barnobestabn:

dlss 3.5 works with ray tracing they say. how much help it will be i dont know. Just gotta wait for the patch today to see how it does.

DLSS works with RT right now... no need to wait for updates... its worked since day one.

And it makes a massive difference

[Freyar]

I used ray tracing on "medium" settings on my 3090, Cyberpunk being one of the few games I kept it on. I hope to be able to push it a bit more.

[kth]

The only difference you can notice without actualy comparing screenshots is RT reflections being on or off. You wont notice RT shadows and lighting without comparing screenshots/videos.
I played 2077 without RT for few months and for few months more I played it full ultra + RT ultra pathtracing, stable 100 fps 1440p, DLSS quality, difference is laughable. Also RT reflections dont even show V's body in mirrors or windows, so you if you carry a body on yourself, you'll see it floating in the air.
Yeah, RT is a gimmick. But DLSS and framegen are great.

[Ezra]

Interesting, What Processor are you using? I play at 4K resolution HDR enabled Ultra/Psycho Settings for graphics DLSS set to quality and Frame Generation on and I have about 75-80 Frames per second looks amazing super fluid. With Ray Tracing Disabled It's about 108-120 FPS. So a 30% performance hit is large but it looks more then 30% better with it active so for me it is worth it. This is the shining example of the Tech atm other games have RTX implementations to varying degrees but none are as good or as layered. Most other games with Ray tracing don't bother to do light shadows reflections and Volumetric Particles, Usually its some combination of 2 of those. DLSS 3.5 release should bump FPS up in most cases for users with RTX 3070's or greater.

[Kickfister]

The areas you'll see the biggest difference with RT are the less significant portions of the game. In the main areas, tons of artists time was spent making it look "right" and RT is just gonna fill in the little cut corners. Go into some random shanty town or whatever and compare RT on vs off, and you'll see how transformative it is. It's a systemically correct solution that doesn't require a lot of dev effort to make look good.

Whether that's worth the performance to you is subjective, for me personally I'll play single player games at lower framerates for visuals though. I personally have been using the path traced mode on my 3080 with a 40 fps cap, it just looks that good to me that it's worth it. For fast paced competitive games? Yeah I want 100+.

[N7oname]

15 years ago they said we need PhysX because how can we live with no PhysX? And today its RTX... its all about marketing imho. turn off this sh*t and enjoy 120 fps mate

p.s.
honestly rtx4 series is awesome you know, when you can enable frame generator and combine it with DLSS Quality or Ray Tracing... but owners of older series just get FPS hit with no compensation

[Ez Duzit]

This is real simple at least for me. The main reason to spend $$$ for a high end graphics card is so you can turn on all the next gen effects. Otherwise why get it? Yeah of course they're going to slam fps really hard but that's the price you pay.
It has pretty much always been this way ever since the first voodoo graphics card. Every time the next gen gpu's come out they crush the last generation games. But as new games come out with the AAA titles utilizing the next generation of effects, the fps spirals downward until the next generation gpu comes out and then the cycle repeats. Sometimes it goes for almost 2 generations of gpu before the software becomes that demanding. I remember I think it was msaa anti-aliasing would choke even even a 2080 card but the 3000 series chews thru msaa with acceptable frame drops ( unless you really crank it up).
The main difference this time is the next gen effects are brutally taxing for the hardware, So probably not until the 4000 gpu's are more prevalent will people really be able to use it for real next gen games. UNLESS they paid for it so they want to see it. NOW! And for me, that is the only reason to spend so much money on a gpu.

I also want to add that I have enjoyed games much more once I stopped paying attention to the fps and tweaking my settings Now.... as long as it's playable and I didn't notice any slowdowns it is fine.
No more constant tweaking my bios or game settings. Just playing games and enjoying it. I will also say I mostly play single player games. I would set things up differently for multi player combat games since high fps matter a lot (yeah I know). But yeah, I paid for it and I want to see the effect especially in single player games.

[Kota]

I've got a 6800XT in my rig and I run high to ultra settings with a couple specific settings at medium and FSR quality enabled for 1440p. I also have all RT effects on with RT lighting on high. I pull 60-70fps. There must be more juice to squeeze out of that 3080. Maybe you're getting throttled by thermals? I'd watch an optimization guide on YT with comparisons to see exactly what settings give you more performance without sacrificing visual clarity. That's what I've done. I'm also undervolting my CPU and overclocking my GPU. That actually gave me a solid 5-10 frames on average as apposed to stock GPU config.

[SarmatII]

Originally posted by N7oname:

15 years ago they said we need PhysX because how can we live with no PhysX? And today its RTX... its all about marketing imho. turn off this sh*t and enjoy 120 fps mate

p.s.
honestly rtx4 series is awesome you know, when you can enable frame generator and combine it with DLSS Quality or Ray Tracing... but owners of older series just get FPS hit with no compensation

The problem with frame gen DLSS 3 is that those extra frames have no user input, and you can feel it, since this game is hybrid FPS with its gunplay.

In pretty much all games, I prefer to have minimum 60 FPS + low-latency reflex on, and even at 60 vs 90 vs 120, I can feel the difference.

My mate has a 4080 and I tried gaming with it in CP2077 with Frame Gen, and while FPS says its locked 120, it just feels sluggish. Like a disconnect from visual vs your actions.

So basically I prefer to turn down some settings, use DLSS2 no FG to get ~120 real FPS. Best smoothness visually, and best input latency (game feel).