Cyberpunk 2077 Graphics Optimization Guide, Performance Benchmarks, & Comparisons

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Read more about Cyberpunk 2077➜ https://cyberpunk2077.mgn.tv

This is the Complete Cyberpunk 2077 Graphics & Optimization Guide, ft. side-by-side graphics quality comparisons, benchmarks, and research on the game’s settings, along with tuning advice.
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This was a nearly insurmountable amount of work that required the entire team’s involvement. Patrick and Andrew worked side-by-side for a week on just running tests and collecting visual comparisons, Keegan spent hours combing through footage and editing it, and Steve worked on the editorial and testing components of the piece. If you’d like to help support this type of content, please consider supporting us on Patreon or grabbing one of our items on the GN store.

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Watch our #Cyberpunk 2077 DLSS comparison and benchmarks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUVhfD3jpFE
Watch our #Cyberpunk2077 CPU benchmark (updated on 1.05) – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5jTaa4Wj7Y
And our Cyberpunk 2077 GPU benchmarks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4rgB2zb7dg

This content will break-down the most intensive graphics settings in Cyberpunk 2077, the biggest FPS gains you can get from tuning settings, and the biggest visual quality changes from those settings. Graphics options we’ll be defining are as below. There were a few options that didn’t make the final cut for this guide due to length, but we tested every single setting in the game. Items not present were ruled to have little impact to performance or, in some cases, were actually not working yet. LOD settings, for instance, had very little impact on the whole, and the distance at which LOD levels changed was constant across all settings. Sub-surface scatter quality also had almost no difference. We looked at hands, ears, veins, and faces to try and find sub-surface scattering differences, and they were so small that it wasn’t worth spending time to include. Facial lighting geometry was one we couldn’t find any differences for. CDPR says it’s in there and working, but we couldn’t find any evidence of that after testing for a few hours. These were omitted for those reasons. The graphics options and settings covered include:

– Screen-space reflections (off, low, medium, high, ultra, psycho, RT)
– Ray-traced reflections
– Local shadow mesh quality
– Local shadow quality
– RT shadows
– Cascaded shadow range & resolution
– Distant shadow resolution
– Contact shadows
– Volumetric Cloud Quality
– Volumetric Fog Resolution
– RTX off vs. on – global illumination, ambient occlusion, lighting, shadows, etc.
– Anisotropy and Anisotropic Filtering
– Max Dynamic Decals
– Crowd Density
– etc.

TIMESTAMPS

00:00 – WAKE THE GPU UP, SAMURAI. WE HAVE A GAME TO BENCHMARK.
01:49 – Not Possible to Fit Everything (DLSS, GPU, CPU Benchmarks)
04:12 – Screen-Space & Ray-Traced Reflections Comparison
07:25 – Screen-Space Reflections Benchmarks (Cyberpunk 2077 Graphics Optimization)
08:29 – Ray-Traced Graphics Options in Cyberpunk 2077
09:36 – Ray-Traced Shadow Benchmarks in Cyberpunk
10:14 – Ray-Traced Lighting Explained & Differences
11:00 – Ray-Traced Lighting (Medium, High, Ultra, Psycho)
11:41 – Ray-Traced Lighting Benchmarks (Medium, High, Ultra, Psycho, Off)
12:20 – RT Options Toggles & Benchmark Tests
14:19 – Crowd Density Low vs. High vs. Medium Comparison
16:16 – Crowd Density GPU Benchmarks
16:47 – Crowd Density CPU Benchmarks (Ft. AMD R3 3300X)
17:28 – Volumetric Cloud Quality Comparison
19:27 – Volumetric Cloud Quality Benchmark & Tuning
20:41 – Volumetric Fog Resolution Comparison
22:57 – Volumetric Fog Resolution Benchmarks & Optimization
23:54 – Ambient Occlusion Comparison (Off, Low, Medium, High, RT Psycho)
23:35 – Ambient Occlusion Benchmarks & Optimization in Cyberpunk 2077
26:34 – Texture Quality Comparison in Cyberpunk 2077
27:30 – Not Actual VRAM Utilization, but Allocation
28:01 – VRAM Allocation Logging with Texture Quality
29:01 – Shadow Options, Cascaded Shadow Range, Distant Shadows
29:21 – Local Shadow Mesh Quality Comparison
29:55 – Local Shadow Quality Comparison (Off, Low, Medium, High)
30:15 – Cascaded Shadow Range Comparison
30:52 – Cascaded Shadow Resolution & Distant Shadows Resolution
31:14 – Contact Shadows Comparison
31:45 – Shadow Benchmarks
32:17 – Anisotropy Comparison
33:34 – Anisotropy Benchmark
34:09 – Max Dynamic Decals
36:20 – Static Decals & Skid Marks Vanishing Too Fast
36:44 – Conclusion

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Host, Editorial, Testing: Steve Burke
Editorial, Testing: Patrick Lathan
Testing, Video, Graphics Analysis: Andrew Coleman
Video: Keegan Gallick

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32 thoughts on “Cyberpunk 2077 Graphics Optimization Guide, Performance Benchmarks, & Comparisons”

  1. This was an insane amount of work, and huge props to Andrew also for throwing together that intro animation & 3D art in about 6 hours! It took the entire team about a week to complete this content. You can support it via Patreon, where we've just published a new behind-the-scenes video for Patreon backers: http://www.patreon.com/gamersnexus or via our store: https://store.gamersnexus.net/
    There are some details in the description box above about LOD, face geometry, and other settings that we left out.
    Watch our #Cyberpunk 2077 DLSS comparison and benchmarks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUVhfD3jpFE
    Watch our #Cyberpunk2077 CPU benchmark (updated on 1.05) – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5jTaa4Wj7Y
    And our Cyberpunk 2077 GPU benchmarks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4rgB2zb7dg

    Reply

  2. hahah the moment you said "not sure if we'll make a detailed video on this" in another video I KNEW you'd make a near-autistic, super detailed video on this 😀 great work again and thank you. Love this channel.

    Reply

  7. Personally haven't had to do much tweaking with the settings. My 3090 runs it at 4k 60fps pretty easily (though my 4k monitor is editing specific so it's capped at 60hz).
    I just used the ultra settings preset, with dlss set to quality mode- minus ambient occlusion, and with a couple of mods installed as well.

    Reply

  10. What is your take on the way the ray tracing was implemented in this game? From my own thoughts and what you present in the video, it seemed to me like it wasn't being done properly. When you turn the RT on, you would think that would override the other game engine settings relating to lighting and shadows and even grey them out. As it stands, it almost seems like the RT is like an extra render pass on top of what the Red engine is already doing. This could explain the frame rate drops when RT is on. You would think it would be one or the other, but, it seems like both. You'd also think a top end 30 series would be caning it, but it's not, and that is concerning!

    When you look at Control or Metro Exodus the frame rate differences with or without RT are within a few frames and definitely not as drastic as we see here. Both games were benchmarked on an RTX 2060 like mine and both games will run well with RT on. Cyberpunk certainly wouldn't! RT is new to them, and it looks like Nvidia said "Make it use this!" but didn't properly tell them how. What do you think!?

    Reply

  14. I am thankful for your work in benchmarks and other things but do you think these benchmark are premature because of all the bugs that are currently being fixed especially with graphics? Do you thing that when those are fixed we should see better or worse fps performance in higher settings? or in all settings?

    Do you think AMD's AIB prices are inflated, or I should say allowing to be inflated, in anticipation of the 3080Ti, just so they can pull the rug out from nVidia at the last minute?
    I understand the AMD Radeon 6000 price to performance isn't worth it compared to Nvidia at the moment and I do know AMD knows this.

    I am waiting on the large mod mat to come back in stock so I can snag one.

    Reply

  18. Toms hardware featured a YouTubers Cyberpunk 2077 FPS booster yesterday – tested the application and it works well. . . its called – CyberPunk EZ Optimizer by CodeZ1LLa V1.0 – I went from around 35FPS to around 50FPS using this tool and the Digital Foundry recommended settings – defo worth testing also – Merry Christmas. 🙂

    Reply

  23. Im using a GTX 1080 and it works surprisingly well on ultra after adjusting my settings in global 3d on the pannel. Getting 60 frames consistent. However, Idk but the far building redering is wonky. I dont see them fully rendedered. Idk why buildings are not redering correctly from far. Maybe draw distance in the hidden settings of the game was changed? Been trying to spot whats going on with that.

    Reply

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