Path Tracing is a buggy headache

[Iron Chief]

Running on a 4090 at 1440p.

RT psycho with DLSS Quality and frame gen is pretty stable. But the path tracing update, much less so.

With path tracing I often find textures on objects like character skins/clothing/furs/faces/body parts, etc, often goes fuzzy or blurry and then clear again. It's not very dramatic but the issue is there and is clearly noticeable, enough to bother me that the expensive 4090 is messing with my vision.

There are a lot of artifacts in some reflections like the mirrors at Lizzie's VR strip club. (I haven't played much, I am still at the mission that takes me to Lizzies for the first time).

As you move around there are loads of glitches, like some minor screen flickering/stutter that can give you a real headache. The FPS is quite respectable thou, getting over 100fps with DLSS (quality) and frame gen on.

However the game seems to lack fine sharp details. And the details get worse when moving and there are trailing edges and blurring even with motion blur off. The game textures get almost cartooney for split seconds where the details feel rubbed off or pixelated to a small degree. Then details return very quickly but it breaks realism. The image can really degrade at times.

I think once they get path tracing to perform as good as regular RT (or better as that one needs more work too), then I think things will be beautiful. The realism when it works right, is pretty good. Character skin shades and reflections can look much better than with RT off and is a noticeable improvement when it works right.

But at the moment, it gives me a headache and is too cringe to keep using it. I reverted back to normal RT with psycho mode on. Much fewer graphical glitches there.

BTW I got the game on the Dev's game store, wish I had purchased on steam instead so I could also try this on my steam deck or to run steam mods that may improve the state of the game. Anyways, I think there is lots of room for improvement here. And path tracing is a great little tease, I can see the potential when it works right. Not worth the headache thou in the current state. Do better CD Projekt Red, I know you can...or at least try some more.

[JinxTheWorld]

Regarding mods. Vortex and nexus mods. Game looking, performing, and playing better is now achievable.


Regarding blurry textures. Your running DLSS at 1440p lol. Just use frame gen and you should have over 60fps no problem.

Regarding path tracing. IT IS A TECH PREVIEW! Of course it will have issues. Also one critical point you should understand, and that is that the higher the pixel count (resolution) the better it will look. It bounces rays per pixel and you dropping the internal rendering resolution with DLSS is obviously gonna give a terrible result.

Path tracing is very bad at 1080p. It shines best at 4k, and that is why frame gen is so important for path tracing as it doesn't reduce the rendering resolution.

[umeng2002]

With path tracing, it's not about the pixels. It's about the amount of rays. For the next few years, RT will trade clarity for accuracy. RT Overdrive looks very accurate, but as you pointed out and many have observed, the low ray count tends to blur and artifact texture and model detail. In some situations, it looks bad. In other situations, it looks more real than real.

[egg fu]

Originally posted by JinxTheWorld:

Regarding mods. Vortex and nexus mods. Game looking, performing, and playing better is now achievable.


Regarding blurry textures. Your running DLSS at 1440p lol. Just use frame gen and you should have over 60fps no problem.

Regarding path tracing. IT IS A TECH PREVIEW! Of course it will have issues. Also one critical point you should understand, and that is that the higher the pixel count (resolution) the better it will look. It bounces rays per pixel and you dropping the internal rendering resolution with DLSS is obviously gonna give a terrible result.

Path tracing is very bad at 1080p. It shines best at 4k, and that is why frame gen is so important for path tracing as it doesn't reduce the rendering resolution.

good summary, i didn't know that.

[King]

Originally posted by JinxTheWorld:

Regarding mods. Vortex and nexus mods. Game looking, performing, and playing better is now achievable.


Regarding blurry textures. Your running DLSS at 1440p lol. Just use frame gen and you should have over 60fps no problem.

Regarding path tracing. IT IS A TECH PREVIEW! Of course it will have issues. Also one critical point you should understand, and that is that the higher the pixel count (resolution) the better it will look. It bounces rays per pixel and you dropping the internal rendering resolution with DLSS is obviously gonna give a terrible result.

Path tracing is very bad at 1080p. It shines best at 4k, and that is why frame gen is so important for path tracing as it doesn't reduce the rendering resolution.

Should you not be using DLSS at 1440p? I

[Iron Chief]

Thanks for the insight everyone. I will adjust my settings and also try it out in 4k.

[s1rkus]

Originally posted by Iron Chief:

Thanks for the insight everyone. I will adjust my settings and also try it out in 4k.

I know I’m late but any noticeable difference from this? I have a 3080Ti and the game looks horrific with path tracing on (1080p). All other settings max. Path tracing off I get 90fps average, PT on I still get 65

[Pistol Packin' Mama]

Path tracing really just exists for screenshots; the hardware we have isn't even ready for standard RT as-is, let alone something that bounces even MORE rays.

[Iron Chief]

If anyone here get's their mittens on a desktop 5090 please let us all know how beautiful things are in modern times.

[umeng2002]

To be fair though, the newest RR and DLSS SR make the lighting way more stable with path tracing. You should have played it since the first path tracing patch came out back in 2023. Path tracing and the denoising has come a long way.

[catch22atplay]

I do find it odd that nvidia has a profile for Denoising for this game. Not that it's a bad idea i just never noticed before with older drivers.

Sharpening - Denoising Factor = 0.17
Sharpening Value = 0.60

As for Pathing. Man i go back and forth with it. Atm i'm not using Pathing+RR. Just Ray Tracing Phycho+RR. Artifacts and i just mean black shadows, flickers, not even sure what to call the black weirdness. Some days i can live with it. Others like now i can't.

[umeng2002]

RR is the denoising.

[Explorer42]

Originally posted by I'm just a girl 🎀:

Path tracing really just exists for screenshots; the hardware we have isn't even ready for standard RT as-is, let alone something that bounces even MORE rays.

Thats not true. My new RX 9070 XT can run the game native without frame gen or upscaling with all settings maxed out and RT psycho at about 70 fps.
For path tracing I need to enable FSR tho because I want more that 30 fps with it.
But I dont use PT anyway because the ghosting and flickering is horrible.

[umeng2002]

Path Tracing still really needs frame generation. The software optimizations since release are great, but still not quite good enough unless you have a very powerful GPU. An RX 9070 XT is only as powerful as a 4070 Ti when Path Tracing.

For 1440p, and with Frame Generation; I'd say Path Tracing power equal or better than an RTX 4070 Ti is the minimum.

[Iron Chief]

Originally posted by Explorer42:

Originally posted by I'm just a girl 🎀:

Path tracing really just exists for screenshots; the hardware we have isn't even ready for standard RT as-is, let alone something that bounces even MORE rays.

Thats not true. My new RX 9070 XT can run the game native without frame gen or upscaling with all settings maxed out and RT psycho at about 70 fps.
For path tracing I need to enable FSR tho because I want more that 30 fps with it.
But I dont use PT anyway because the ghosting and flickering is horrible.

Honestly so nice to see AMD get on the RT and frame gen train. I just sold my 4090 and waiting on AMDs big muscle chip a few more years, hopefully affordable. ( I have endless patience for a good deal ) And I still got 3 other gaming PCs so I can happily wait for something amazing from AMD cuz Nvidia's 5090 pricing and the missing ROPs debacle is just disrespectful to gamers at this point. As someone who can afford to buy these overpriced Nvidia GPUs I still won't anymore out of principle.