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[DF] Cyberpunk 2077 PC: What Does Ray Tracing Deliver... And Is It Worth It?

regawdless

Banned
And on PC (and on consoles with quality and performance modes) you have the option to disable it for higher framerates. But some people act like it's a personal insult when somebody likes raytracing.



I was really happy when they put in the option for raytracing at 1080p60. I have a 55" TV, but sit 4m away from it. So i don't really see the benefits of 4k.

It's also a question of money and priorities. A 3080 plays Cyberpunk at ~60fps maxed with all RT in 1440p with DLSS quality.

Can easily achieve higher fps when turning down some settings.

It's possible, but at the high-end obviously.
 

VFXVeteran

Banned
The elevator scene having sky light was obviously noticeable instead of yellow light but they could easily fake it. Reflection, shadows is what make the actual difference. I think old games like quake 2 using path RT is great but newer games RT lighting impact is underwhelming IMO.

Also the neon area lights. That difference is way more pronounced as well.
 

Haggard

Banned
I'd rather take 60fps honestly. Ray tracing on consoles adds a little bit, but nothing groundbreaking. People need to chill with all that hyperbole
You missed the point here.
Nobody is talking about RT on consoles.....That is and will stay rather insignificant with the available hardware power.
 
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VFXVeteran

Banned
Z1v9d4o.jpg

Are you going through the town? Alex probably took one of the shots going through the light probes. But in any case, it's still a remarked difference.
 

VFXVeteran

Banned
Like I said before, I'm not against RT, quite the opposite, I love it, but I can't be blind to the fact that DF makes very biased content and ignores the trade-offs (to say nothing of people like Alex going around forums defending NV at every chance he gets even when no one asks him to). It's no accident they get multiple Nvidia sponsorships and an exclusive look at the newest GPU and then Nvidia goes around and threatens publications which don't show the same zeal.

I just want a fair discussion, that's all.

You are bringing politics into this tech discussion. Why?
 
That's easy: "it tanks my performance, so fuck it and fuck the users liking it".
More like: "I can't stand that my games run at a high framerate but look worse than on other people's rigs".

Because it's a non-issue, really. Just disable it and enjoy the framerate, if you want.

Same with DLSS. "It's just TAA!!!It doesn't look as good as native!" and so on.
 

regawdless

Banned
LIghting is extremely hard to see to be honest. The only thing that really makes a noticeable difference is reflection.

I think the scenes in the shed and interiors where the sun shines into them through windows and openings, are very clearly better with RT lighting.

Stuff in the interiors is glowing in a weird way without it.
 
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Buggy Loop

Member
About 10 years ago somebody said this about ambient occlussion: "It's a waste of ressources! For something you can almost not see it's too expensive!"
Now we have the same discussions about raytracing.

Instead of complaining, why don't you tell us why it is bothering you that much?

It was the same for anisotropic filtering, then programmable shaders, then tesselation, then AA, now it’s RT.

There’s a big effort by YouTubers to discredit RT by selecting scenes in shadow/dark it seems. Is it because it generate clicks?
 

scalman

Member
this game does kinda poor job without RT in lighting when some other games have no problems to have amazing lighting from volumetric method i think like last AC valhalla or previous AC games or last Far Cry game , i wouldnt need there any RT as they look amazing not flat at all, some places in Cyberpunk because lack of lighting sources or smt can look rly flat though , and i was never picky for games visuals but i can see that in this game, its like devs just thought that RT will save them so they stopped work on engine lighting stuff. thats not cool rly.
then again game has a lot very dark areas , so if RT makes it even more darker then we need some kind of flashlight or smt , because i hate those areas. i played many dark games before but that was not problem there and it is here rly.

its shame we lost so good video settings from previous years game like HBAO+ , PCSS .
NVIDIA-Maxwell-GM204-Press-Slides-49.jpg

seems like without RT this game doesnt have any AO there, if it at least could use something like HBAO
Ambient-Occlusion-HBAO.jpg


if devs now will just be lazy to use those and will just leave all to RT that wil be bad times for pre RT gpu's owners, until all will have RT cores on pc gpus and rest will have next gen console it will need some time.

like where is any AO here ? at least some fake one. so its just looks kinda flat like in older games it would be AO off option.
Cm8BYO4.png


i still play modded Fallout 4 with ENB and there is some extra AO option , so maybe later someone could make some AO mod for this game
 
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Guilty_AI

Member
LIghting is extremely hard to see to be honest. The only thing that really makes a noticeable difference is reflection.
Depends heavily on the scene, its hard to spot in places where traditional lightining tech manages to fake real lightining convincingly.
But in places where its shortcomings appear? It becomes easier to spot.

And thats without going into how RT is a great help for games with highly dynamic enviroments, such as minecraft.
 

Haggard

Banned
LIghting is extremely hard to see to be honest. The only thing that really makes a noticeable difference is reflection.
To you maybe...
The one thing that always put me off in video game graphics is indirect lighting.
I always loathed that "perma-glow" look of everything non-static that`s not in the direct line of a lightsource. Makes everything look artificial and flat.
 

Buggy Loop

Member
I think the scenes in the shed and interiors where the sun shines into them through windows and openings, are very clearly better with RT lighting.

Stuff in the interiors is glowing in a weird way without it.

Any scene where our eyes would comprehend that there’s supposed to be bouncing lights, especially interiors, RT will drastically pop up. You’re right, interiors without RT look like they’re not even in the same world, the exterior lights barely affects it.

Also what peoples fail to understand, is that there’s an HEAVY performance hit also on their non RT global illumination to look that good, so yes, the game looks good without RT, although not as accurate, nobody will say it looks bad. But I find that peoples expect RT to turn everything into an exaggerated scene like a shit CGI wallpaper from 2000? Hint : it’s only supposed to be accurate, not turn the fucking game into TRON where everywhere you look you need your jaw dropped. If your brain stops discerning the scene as “oh this feels wrong/floating”, then it did the job as intended.
 

Guilty_AI

Member
this game does kinda poor job without RT in lighting when some other games have no problems to have amazing lighting from volumetric method i think like last AC valhalla or previous AC games or last Far Cry game , i wouldnt need there any RT as they look amazing not flat at all, some places in Cyberpunk because lack of lighting sources or smt can look rly flat though , and i was never picky for games visuals but i can see that in this game, its like devs just thought that RT will save them so they stopped work on engine lighting stuff. thats not cool rly.
then again game has a lot very dark areas , so if RT makes it even more darker then we need some kind of flashlight or smt , because i hate those areas. i played many dark games before but that was not problem there and it is here rly.
I think its unfair to compare it to games like AC:V and Far Cry. Those games have large open enviroments, which are much easier to make convincing lightining for.
This is a dense closed city, with extremely tall buildings very close to each other, filled to the brim with clutter and neon lights. Its much harder to make convincing lighting for this kind of enviroment.
 

scalman

Member
I think its unfair to compare it to games like AC:V and Far Cry. Those games have large open enviroments, which are much easier to make convincing lightining for.
This is a dense closed city, with extremely tall buildings very close to each other, filled to the brim with clutter and neon lights. Its much harder to make convincing lighting for this kind of enviroment.
well AC unity has dense city as well, lots NPC's and it looks just amazing with HBAO+ . ist strange how later games just looses those options then ... why ?
and i think DF said themselfs that ambient oclusiion setting in cyberpunk kinda does nothing , maybe devs forgot to turn it on in engine ?
 
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Guilty_AI

Member
well AC unity has dense city as well, lots NPC's and it looks just amazing with HBAO+ . ist strange how later games just looses those options then ... why ?
Buildings aren't nearly as tall (this makes a huuuuuge difference), the amount of detail is also on another level, and thats without goind on all the light sources randomly scattered around.
And just looking at some gameplays of AC:U its possible to see shortcomings already that aren't as present on CP2077 with RT.




Loads of objects that should be casting shadows aren't (or are extremely thin and unrealistic) when inside interiors, especially noticeable with NPCs.

Meanwhile, take a look at this video:




Because of the amount of clutter and the extremely tall buildings close to each other, there are large segments on the open world where theres nothing but indirect lightining for the scene, even then there are shadows being cast. This normally should be a huge pain to reproduce convincingly, especially with dynamic daylight.
 
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scalman

Member
wonder does RT gives every object its own shadows because without RT all shadows options high and you see this view
so those places hopefuly fixed with RT at least then because it looks very off
NdYx1MM.jpg


and those shadow options works so wierd rly . or and ambient oclussion option looks here same off , low to high doesnt matter what you pick it doesnt change , where it should thats why its called AO option , no ?
another thing in graphics settings local shadow mesh quality setting if you set in on low you will get some kind of fake AO just close to you , but thats on low, if you put it on high thats gone picture looks flat
gm9TepQ.jpg


so without RT on pc version not only AO option doesnt do nothing but shadow options works very weird as well, doesnt add that much , maybe in areas under bridges but those looks weird as well you see as shadow walks with you and then dissapears.
and what AO should do ?
Ambient Occlusion
(AO) adds contact shadows where two surfaces or objects meet, and where an object blocks light from reaching another nearby game element.

someone with RT could they make some screenshots and show how places like those look with RT would be nice of them
 
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Guilty_AI

Member
wonder does RT gives every object its own shadows because without RT all shadows options high and you see this view
so those places hopefuly fixed with RT at least then because it looks very off
It does:




W/o RT some objects don't cast shadows, or cast very thin ones.

someone with RT could they make some screenshots and show how places like those look with RT would be nice of them
Thats a job for VFXVeteran VFXVeteran
 

Lethal01

Member
At least pick the same moment. It's not that hard since this scene is on-rails.
I take back what I said about that being a good comparison


It's still a great.
The car scene is a dynamic scene where you can see how the global illumination holds up while moving throughout the world and not being able to receive direct light.
The lighting in his "real RT off" shot is from a different area and so it looks different. and he didn't even show footage of the same area with RT1
 

Lethal01

Member
It does:




W/o RT some objects don't cast shadows, or cast very thin ones.


Thats a job for VFXVeteran VFXVeteran


It doesn't actually, That's one of the two things that really makes me sad about this game visually (the other being pop in).
Characters are constantly totally missing shadows and it looks jarring.
Ofcourse I understand why but understanding doesn't make it look good.
 
It doesn't actually, That's one of the two things that really makes me sad about this game visually (the other being pop in).
Characters are constantly totally missing shadows and it looks jarring.
Ofcourse I understand why but understanding doesn't make it look good.
I agree. It's very noticeable. Is this because we don't have enough power or it's a technology (software) problem? Tomb Raider did this?
 

Guilty_AI

Member
It doesn't actually, That's one of the two things that really makes me sad about this game visually (the other being pop in).
Characters are constantly totally missing shadows and it looks jarring.
Ofcourse I understand why but understanding doesn't make it look good.
The only place i noticed shadows looked weird were cars below lamp posts, where it seems only some parts of the cars are casting shadows, it looks more like a glitch though. On all the videos i've seen, i didn't notice anything wrong with the characters.
Or its like a bug where characters shadows just disappear/don't appear sometimes?
 

scalman

Member
all looks fine without RT when sun is in sky , then shadows drops where they kinda should be all picture looks ok really , problem is when its kinda cloudy means its day but no sun, then all just flat there, in those moments some kinda of AO would help there a lot i think.
 

Lethal01

Member
The only place i noticed shadows looked weird were cars below lamp posts, where it seems only some parts of the cars are casting shadows, it looks more like a glitch though. On all the videos i've seen, i didn't notice anything wrong with the characters.
Or its like a bug where characters shadows just disappear/don't appear sometimes?

unknown.png
]
 
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carsar

Member
if devs now will just be lazy to use those and will just leave all to RT that wil be bad times for pre RT gpu's owners, until all will have RT cores on pc gpus and rest will have next gen console it will need some time.

like where is any AO here ? at least some fake one. so its just looks kinda flat like in older games it would be AO off option.
It looks like a new meta in graphics tech sphere. remember those lens flare, blurry taa and chromatic in every game. Low intensity AO(or even better - no ao) is the successor of these weirdnesses.

u0x7NHE.png

yPJkyaw.png

jQJNPJX.jpg


And even more curious. I've been playing Snowrunners since release. And this is what I've noticed after one of updates:
vanilla render with diffuse lighting. Vehicle has no direct shadow, but it has ambient shadow.
NGjy50K.jpg


updated game with duffuse lighting.
G6tcrnN.jpg

I dont see shadows or ao(pretty subtle), the game really need in RTX GI to fix that)))
 
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Hawk269

Member
Are you going through the town? Alex probably took one of the shots going through the light probes. But in any case, it's still a remarked difference.
When I played that scene on Series X is looked blown out like the top pic, but a few seconds later it looked more darker like the last shot you showed. I even had that "over brightness" thing happen in the first scene of the first mission of the game where you are in a car with Jackie. It was bright for a second, then corrected it self. Another bug of course...but yeah, in my play through that scene above did not look like the lights were all in the car.
 
So its more like some neon lights don't cast shadows? Either that or they only cast shadows if the object is close to them, since i did see some neon lights casting shadows in certain scenes.
It's not like some lights don't cast shadow, most of them don't. Sun, moon, street lights, your car headlights and some in-door lights are casting shadows. No neon or most of indoor lights don't cast shadows.
 

Soodanim

Member
It's still a great.
The car scene is a dynamic scene where you can see how the global illumination holds up while moving throughout the world and not being able to receive direct light.
The lighting in his "real RT off" shot is from a different area and so it looks different. and he didn't even show footage of the same area with RT1
I do get the feeling that RT is best seen in motion and not screenshots, because the idea is that it's real-time and therefore dynamic.

I'm waiting for Elder Scrolls and other dark games before I'm truly impressed by the advantages of it. Give me Skyrim with better lighting and I'll buy a 3060ti tomorrow
 

JORMBO

Darkness no more
I played for awhile with it on and flipped it off periodically to see if I noticed. I really couldn’t tell much unless it was a reflection. Some places like inside Afterlife look really cool with it on. Most places look pretty similiar I found though.

I only have a 2070 so for now it makes more sense to me to prioritize other things like resolution that I will notice all the time. As better hardware becomes more available I can see ray tracing being common. It’s too taxing for me now for what benefit it offers.
 
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Guilty_AI

Member
It's not like some lights don't cast shadow, most of them don't. Sun, moon, street lights, your car headlights and some in-door lights are casting shadows. No neon or most of indoor lights don't cast shadows.
I did notice some neon lights casting shadows on NPCs though. I'm assuming its just a selected few that do

GXbeBnU.png


But then, you can notice characters in the background don't have visible shadoes from the other lights
 
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Lethal01

Member
I did notice some neon lights casting shadows on NPCs though. I'm assuming its just a selected few that do

GXbeBnU.png


But then, you can notice characters in the background don't have visible shadoes from the other lights

Yeah the shadow draw distance is abysmal and there isn't even some clear AO to fall back on.
 

rofif

Banned
this game does kinda poor job without RT in lighting when some other games have no problems to have amazing lighting from volumetric method i think like last AC valhalla or previous AC games or last Far Cry game , i wouldnt need there any RT as they look amazing not flat at all, some places in Cyberpunk because lack of lighting sources or smt can look rly flat though , and i was never picky for games visuals but i can see that in this game, its like devs just thought that RT will save them so they stopped work on engine lighting stuff. thats not cool rly.
then again game has a lot very dark areas , so if RT makes it even more darker then we need some kind of flashlight or smt , because i hate those areas. i played many dark games before but that was not problem there and it is here rly.

its shame we lost so good video settings from previous years game like HBAO+ , PCSS .
NVIDIA-Maxwell-GM204-Press-Slides-49.jpg

seems like without RT this game doesnt have any AO there, if it at least could use something like HBAO
Ambient-Occlusion-HBAO.jpg


if devs now will just be lazy to use those and will just leave all to RT that wil be bad times for pre RT gpu's owners, until all will have RT cores on pc gpus and rest will have next gen console it will need some time.

like where is any AO here ? at least some fake one. so its just looks kinda flat like in older games it would be AO off option.
Cm8BYO4.png


i still play modded Fallout 4 with ENB and there is some extra AO option , so maybe later someone could make some AO mod for this game
Look at walls in Your room or on stairs outside... The darkened edge on every 90 degree wall connection is bulslhit. It's not a thing in real life. Traditional AO was never realistic looking.
But I do admit, with RT, some objects do not seem very grounded. For me it's the lack of shadows or something.
The shadows are either extremely diffused or not there at all in many cases. That bike should have normal long shadow unless the sun is directly above it or it's in shadow
 
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Electret

Member
This perfectly captures perhaps my biggest problem that RT solves - strange glow that doesn't match the lights actually present in the scene, and particularly strangely glowing human characters. For some reason I find human characters to suffer the worst from this issue.

However, the RT image also demonstrates some remaining glow. I'm wondering what would solve this. Additional secondary bounces? And/or is some aspect of the RT pipeline resolution-limited in a manner that produces this remaining glow, such that increasing resolution along some part of the pipeline would solve this?
 

regawdless

Banned
RT Lighting on vs off. RT shadows and reflections are on in both shots.

On:
on3-jp.jpg

Off:
off3-jp.jpg

I don't think you understand what the setting does. RT lighting traces the light rays and bounces, creating natural and even lighting in all places it reaches. First you post shots at night for a lighting setting, then a shot of a directly lit area.

Here is a shot I've just taken to show you what it does on some examples. Same settings as you. Straight ahead you see the blue crate pretty much glowing unnaturally. There is no shadow between and behind the crates in the middle on the wall. Towards the left of the middle is a blue trash bin that again is way too bright all around. The stuff on the lower left side is also too bright. The whole scene is lit very unevenly and not natural at all. The shadow from the "roof" in the middle of the picture is way to pronounced and dark.

tZ1mBTI.jpg


With RT lighting on Psycho, the weirdly glowing objects are all lit way more realistically, the whole scene looks more coherent and grounded.

axrddRe.jpg


Save the pictures and swap back and forth. It's very clear what it does.

In general it makes the whole world more coherent and less video-gamey. If that's worth the performance hit is an individual decision.
 

CrustyBritches

Gold Member
I don't think you understand what the setting does. RT lighting traces the light rays and bounces, creating natural and even lighting in all places it reaches. First you post shots at night for a lighting setting, then a shot of a directly lit area.
2/3 I posted were in the middle of a bright day. Why do you think the shot under the overpass with sunlight pouring in is at night? It's 1pm.

I posted comparison shots to show what RT lighting does on it's own. Nothing more, nothing less.

However, I'm starting to wonder if what some people think is the RT lighting affecting the scene is really RT reflections and shadows doing their thing.
 

regawdless

Banned
2/3 I posted were in the middle of a bright day. Why do you think the shot under the overpass with sunlight pouring in is at night? It's 1pm.

I posted comparison shots to show what RT lighting does on it's own. Nothing more, nothing less.

However, I'm starting to wonder if what some people think is the RT lighting affecting the scene is really RT reflections and shadows doing their thing.

Thanks for the correction.

My shots are taken while only toggling the RT lighting setting from off to psycho, all other RT settings are enabled and everything maxed out.
 

CrustyBritches

Gold Member
Thanks for the correction.

My shots are taken while only toggling the RT lighting setting from off to psycho, all other RT settings are enabled and everything maxed out.
I thought that shot behind Dicky's was good because the light was gushing in over the top. The natural diffuse lighting is what's good about RT. The outdoor shot on the mall has plenty of recessed areas for the light to play with, and it seems make the tree look much better. All my shots looked different and better with RT Lighting 'On'.

I just wanted to show some RT Lighting 'On' vs 'Off' shots that retained the other RT effects. It's moot point anyway because DLSS, ReShade, and some fine tuning let's you have a much better image quality in the end with RT than otherwise for pretty much the same cost as pure raster at native res.
 
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