nVidia Reflex causes acute irregular frame pacing

[AussiePatriot]

So for the longest time I have noticed that Cyberpunk when using all the nVidia technologies (Frame Gen, DLSS, Reflex) has some small amount of irregular frame time pacing. This should not be happening. Because I have a Gsync monitor, frame delivery to the monitor should be smooth. But it is not as smooth as it should be.

After a lot of testing I have actually narrowed it to the true cause of it - and it's Reflex that's causing the slightly irregular frame pacing. We can test this for ourselves by doing the following:

- Set your monitor to it's highest refresh rate and switch on Gsync AND Vsync
- Keep off Frame Gen for now
- Switch on Reflex (on or on with boost)
- Select DLSS to either quality or balanced mode

And then exit out of the menu. Now simply with a controller pan the camera slowly left/right and observe the environment closely and pay attention to the frame pacing. If your eyes are sensitive to this sort of stuff you will notice immediately that frame the pacing is not as smooth as it could be/should be.

Now, switch off Reflex and do the same camera pan left/right with a controller. You will notice immediately how much smoother the frame delivery is. Its flawless practically.

This is a shame however. Because if I want the game to run at its smoothest frame delivery, I have to sacrifice Frame Gem because as soon as you switch off Reflex - Frame Gen switches off by default as well. Because of this I am/we are missing out on a lot of frames/performance.

My hopes are that CDPR catches wind of this and investigate for themselves and then possibly put a fix in a later patch. As to my knowledge, this is the only game that I've noticed this behavior.

Specs in my profile.

Edit:
I've tested this on several hardware builds over the years since the game released, on several different monitors, all of which produce the same results.

[mikeairmax23]

Thanks, this seems to have helped me. No matter what combo of video settings and graphics settings I tried, I always had frame stutter. Especially when driving.

[rogermorse]

I definitely have not smooth pacing despite my framerate being lock and steady at 60fps. With or without nvidia reflex. I also lowered the resolution and checked without frame generation...the game is not as smooth as it should be (for the displayed framerate) and I have tried everything.

Game is smooth of course, easily reaches 80fps but I wanted to record a video so I locked it at 60, and the pacing issue is even more noticeable.

[[RAID]Missionary]

I just got a 4090 and was excited to get max settings on this game. I too am experiencing frame studder with frame gen on. So I only get about 43 FPS on max settings because I cant use frame gen.
and you reported this 6 months ago and still no fix.

[rogermorse]

With or without frame generation for me is the same...60fps feels like 45. I think I tried also with RTX and path tracing disabled, still feels choppy. Without motion blur even worse...normally 60fps without motion blur are totally fine (for 60fps which is still less ideal than 80-120fps obviously) but in this game feels much worse

[AussiePatriot]

I thought I'd better post an update here since you guys are getting the issue still.

Personally as the game is in its current state, on a fresh boot, I can with frame gen on and reflex on, achieve a relatively smooth experience. I don't experience the 'judder', the 'inconsistent frame pacing' that I was describing before. With the games latest updates and Nvidia's latest driver updates may have finally fixed the issue I was describing.

I do however get some other stutter when moving fast through the world i.e driving. When on foot I rarely get stutters. This is probably a RAM issue and so not really related to this post.

For anyone still getting inconsistent frame pacing like I described in the original post I would suggest a clean install of the game without any mods loaded first, then also a clean boot disabling all except Microsoft services. Also make sure to have the latest nVidia drivers installed having used DDU to remove the drivers previously installed on your PC.

Lastly I mention before I can get a relatively smooth experience on a 'clean boot' because I do get another problem where if my PC has been on for several hours then boot up this game, I with get bad stutter in the game. And the only fix I've found for this issue is rebooting the PC.