Cyberpunk 2077 Next-Gen Patch: The Digital Foundry Verdict 

I still don’t get why developers keep focusing on RT shadows when the major differences come from GI and Reflections. Yes, shadows make a difference, but as for visuals Global illumination is one of the most significant.

I’ve been waiting all week for this

Night City as an open-world is simply incredible. I'm over 70hrs in and still walk around in awe at the scale, the detail, the architecture, everything. I'm also still finding new places I've not seen before.

Thanks for the analysis! Seems quite obvious that more resolution and 60 FPS is a superior choice to 30 FPS, lower res, and some shadow effects that are hard to notice unless you're really looking for them.

Been refreshing the page all weekend waiting for this :D

It’s mad how much I’ve been looking forward to this video.

The haptics for driving are awesome

Great video! Jumped back in on PC after the patch and it's significantly better. would love to see you guys revisit this on PC and provide your new optimal settings.

I think we can all agree this game should have never come to last-gen consoles.

Still prefer the performance mode. The ray traced shadows just don't make enough of a difference overall even in dark areas to justify dropping to 30fps.

Hey there, Tom! Thanks as always for the incredible work you're doing on these follow-up vids. This is the stuff that is probably less interesting to you guys when it comes time to produce creative video content, but we all really appreciate them!

Fantastic work by Your Thomas Morgan on the 1.5 patch review! Thanks a lot!

I have to admit the turn out of the ray-tracing mode is disappointing. Lower resolution and half the performance for a barely noticeable lighting improvement in most scenes.

I couldn't care less about RT shadows, I wouldn't be able to tell the difference unless its a side by side comparison pointing it out. Makes it an easy choice to just go with performance mode on series x

I came to RU-vid today, looking for this video. Thank you guys, great video.

I cannot imagine caring enough about shadows to forego 60fps.

Ray tracing is cool, but in this case it's not a drastic enough improvement to sacrifice 60 fps for. I find that to be the case in a lot of games, quite frankly.

Thanks for this, I wasnt sure if RT Mode was worth it. I had no idea RT reflections werent included in Next Gen versions. I think I will be playing in Performance Mode definitley.

The adaptive triggers on ps5 are phenomenal!!! The accelerator feeling heavy them light between gears, incredible. One of my fave uses of haptics yet after astro and Returnal.

I downloaded the free trial to check out how it ran on my ps5. I was honestly happy with my experience. Enough so to pick up the full game. A bit disappointed they opted for Ray traced shadows over reflections though.

From what I've seen so far, RT GI has the most visible visual difference out of all the RT techniques when applied individually but I guess it's the most expensive. RT reflections is somewhere in the middle while I honestly have a hard time noticing RT shadows.

Great video, very helpful. I'm a fan of the cyberpunk genre so have been wanting to play this at some point, but am happy to wait as long as it takes for the game to reach its potential. Performance Mode on PS5 seems like the way to go: I'll be honest, I can't really tell what's going on with Ray-Tracing even when I'm shown a side-by-side comparison. I mostly play indie games and visual novels, so advanced stuff like that doesn't mean much to me. I'll be getting to this in a month or so when I've finished my current projects. Perhaps by then there'll be a 1.6 patch that further irons things out.

I’m very happy with this patch. Why don’t we ever get an option for 1080p 60fps ray tracing though? I couldn’t give a shit about 4K if it means taking a sub 60 experience

The haptics for driving are awesome.. having R2 go soft between gear changing is so gratifying.. it makes you feel like you're jamming that pedal in to the engine bay with the resistance it has... Solid 9/10 on my new gen replay..

Having played it on the ps5 now, I feel that it’s vastly improved. I’m happy overall

Great analysis as always. Looking forward to revisiting cyberpunk 2077 to check out the new features. Can't help but feel a bit disappointed in the ray tracing implementation. Personally don't find RT shadows to be worth the performance cost. Same with Dying Light 2. Would love to be behind the scenes to get a sense of the optimization process for console implementations and trade offs of implementing various RT features. For me, the priority number 1 should be RT GI. Metro Exodus managed to do it on console and it is absolutely stunning. Can't also help but feel Series X has some untapped potential in RT mode given the RT performance difference between it and PS5 we've seen in other games so far this gen.

I played through the Rescue mission on series X (street kid start). In the club area where you start out, and the alley where you meet the guy - comparing performance versus RT mode - I can't imagine why anyone would pick 30 vs 60 fps (which is very smooth so far) for these shadow effects that I barley noticed. Maybe it's more noticeable in other areas.

From an architectural stand point it’s one of the best cities in a game. I love walking around the city looking at the buildings

Getting a taste of All high settings well above 60fps on the PC right now and from playing it on all low last year it's amazing.

Great vid as ever but don’t forgot the code that runs on ps4 and Xbox one is also significantly lower settings across the bored (lower res textures, low poly counts, lot closer pop in, lower LODs, lots of reduced or cut out lighting, massively reduced NPCs and cars, randomly spawning NPCs etc) all that has been greatly increased as well as frame rate, resolution and rt shadows so it’s a big jump on from last gen

Id love to see a video about the pc changes too, as water physics had been added as long with the improvements on raytraced shadows.

Thanks for getting this up so soon Tom. I’m sure it was a grind.

Thank you for this video. Just to clarify, PS5 in BC mode had fast loading times on release (less than 10 seconds). It was only after a patch (perhaps 1.2) that the loading times increased.

When the shadows are good they are great and I'm snapping away like crazy in photo mode, but the framerate performance mode is especially appealing in gunfights. I keep switching back and forth and don't know what to stick with.

I've got to say, when I started playing, I thought the ray tracing mode was just broken. I was looking at as many reflections as I could, and all I could see was a crunchy 240P lookin' set of reflections. Which is annoying, because the toggle for RT mode specifically says "provides photorealistic rendering of shadows and reflections"

Really curious to see the dive into the PC updates, especially after that hefty hotfix dropped that seemed to give performance a boost

I've been waiting for this Video, awesome stuff DF. The 1.50 Next-Gen Upgrade isn't perfect but is very much needed and the PS5 & Series X is Looking n Running much better, Performance Mode is looking like the way too go on those Machines. I am impressed with the Series S version, 1440p at 30fps is really good stuff but ashame there is no 1080p 60fps Mode tho.

Played at release with a 2060 and heavy optimization. Did things I usually don't mess with like in Nvidia settings and even had ISLC run before every session. Having played the game that way ; this is the first update that makes the game feel anywhere near that experience on console.

The faster loading time on PS5 is a game changer. If you die, it’s quick to reload from the last save point and continue the game. This makes the whole experience much smoother.

Really appreciate Thomas Morgan's next gen review! He always sounds genuine and professional at the same time!

Been checking for this daily guys, it's been a dark time watching other people do performance tests and performing my own.

9:00 A diffused shadow has nothing to do how far it is from the light source. Or not diectly. If it's a point source (as most are), you get the same sharp edges at any distance, but if the source has an area (Sun or bulb), it gets covered by a different amount and creates a gradient.

Really enjoy this game now after 1.5. Looks great at 4K screen.

Top tier quality content DF as always.

I'm not really up on all the latest graphics stuff, but am playing new patch on PS5 and love the overall change they have made to the look of this game, much more cinematic and contrasty. So my question is do you think the could add ray tracing reflections at some point, or is it just too taxing even for these latest consoles?

The Series S version is very compatible in presentation and pixel count to its counterparts in Ray-Tracing mode. Being a machine that costs the same as a base PS4 and less than a Nintendo Switch Oled, it is perfect.

Damn, playing on the Series X, I was really hoping that the Raytracing would make a huge difference, but I would pick 60fps over Raytracing any day

I feel just having ray-traced shadows doesn’t add much to a majority of the games’ major vistas which are brightly lit neon streets. Maybe having RTAO or something of the sort to incorporate ray tracing into the scene lighting may have made more of a visual impact

Really great review and excellent points made! Thanks for this

Interesting; jumping back into this to explore what’s possible

Love it when Thomas Morgan does the review . Straight to the point!

47FPS, Wtf. I'd rather play at 1080p for a 100% smooth 60fps at ultra settings. why resolution over frame rate all the time with devs.

I'm very happy that I have waited before playing on Series X. Honestly the game is pretty damn awesome! I don't think it is super next gen but it is very much a quality product now and I'm happy!

How do these guys only have 1.2 Million subs? They do the work, and do it so extensively, that no one else really does. Their attention to detail is pinpoint and intensive, informative and collective. The industry needs to hire these guys are their true QA testers...you can't release your game to go gold until it gets the DF seal of approval.

Playing on PS5, the upgrade slightly exceeded my expectations. Judging on a rather demanding performance on PC, a ~1440p experience with 60 fps should be satisfactory. I wonder what are the Detail settings compared to PC (i presume a combination of medium/high?) but it looks great. The game may not have the punch of Ratchet & Clank, but it does look very good. I hope from this point people can start to just appreciate the game for what it is rather then keep talking about the bugs. It's a very fun & unique experience and i am looking forward to an expansion now.

One of the most useful analysis. I was going to play through the game on Ray tracing because I've seen videos of how game changing it can be for the visuals on PC, despite 30fps feeling like shit for a FPS. Now that I know the Ray Tracing is massively nerfed, there is zero reason to not just go with 60fps.

Whenever a new game or update drops, I am always hyped for the Digital Foundry analysis. Regardless of the game and if I’ll play it, I always watch your stuff. Hats off to the amazing content quality you guys keep delivering. Thank you!

Having played through all versions on both consoles, at least for me, the difference is night and day after this patch. There is a lot more going on here it feels like than just a performance and resolution bump. Or maybe it’s just me. But it looks a lot crisper and most notably there is little noticable popin in performance mode which plagued that mode in previous versions for me. Distance detail also seems to hold more than the previous version. I’m just glad we’re at a place where we’re actually talking about specs and performance rather than what’s wrong with the game. So a total win all around and definitely a step in the right direction. And I agree PS5 definitely gets the lions share of improvements here over what it was previously running. I initially picked it up for PS5 but could not deal with it so played it on Series X in Quality Mode which was probably the best place to play this game on console prior to this. Running a third playthrough on PS5 this time for the haptics and to pop some new trophies and I’m fairly happy with how it turned out. Def a great time to jump in for anyone who has been itching to play this one. There is a great game in here with some truly great moments that will forever be drowned out by it’s release. And I hope we see a lot more of this IP because they really nailed the vibe and the look of the world. It’s a joy to be in.

The really nice Shadows help for sure but I'd welcome them to go down to 1080p for that depth you get from RT reflections but I understand the thought process of people complaining about 1080p, plus likely not enough performance at 1080p because these shadows dont draw a BVH that reflections can access making the cost larger. I didnt expect much more than this from these version so its fine I guess

imagine how marvelous the game will be if it is launched in this state? I am only hoping for more story content now.

I bought it on day 1. Was disappointed so didn't play it much. Came back to it for patch 1.5 and really enjoying it. I'm playing it on a pretty low spec pc medium/low settings at 1080p. 45fps. Looks and plays amazing though I think. Can't quite imagine how it must look on a high end machine or next gen console as these videos never really do it justice.

I feel like playing this over horizon. I think I'll give this a shot

Started playing on Series X a couple months ago, but stopped when there was talk of the next gen version releasing soon. In my time playing the new version I've noticed frame hitches, but nothing terrible. Well, until I started the side quest for the prospective new mayor and his wife. There were two areas in the city that dropped to probably 20fps consistently until I walked away from the area. I hope they give it another stability pass to clean that up.

Great video, as usual! Just one point, you failed to mention that Xbox Series X was running at a higher resolution when you compared the performance to PS5 and said that the PS5 ran better. I’d personally prefer the better performance, but it wasn’t a fair comparison.

It looks like in patch 1.5 they also tweaked the dynamic camera exposure to stay more aggressively exposed for highlights than before. It used to be way more heavy on the blown out, overexposed camera effect when moving from darker to brighter scenes.

One of the most highly anticipated Digital Foundry videos ever!

I definitely enjoy the dual sense features. Really like how the controller can be used by devs willing to invest on it.

question! how come the channel never mentioned the VRR on xbox series s/x. i have a msi monitor and i have VRR on it, i have it enabled on both. i ran thru the market area, i don't see any skips etc in this area. is that due to the VRR if yes how come it was not mentioned in video?

Loving the game on PS5 atm. The free trial is great too, I recommend it for anyone who hasn't played the game yet.

The loss of resolution and halved frame rate make ray tracing mode completely redundant in this game. It's extremely hard to tell the difference in shadows even when compared side to side in this video.

I have both consoles but could you not argue that the Xbox will deliver a smoother experience thanks to VRR?

Been waiting on this video since the next gen patch released!

This is probably one of the most awaited videos in DF history. I'm on PS5 and there's just no benefit in playing with RTS. Thank you!

I had an interesting fps drop in the Maelstrom HQ shootout you showed in the video (that same big room) on PS5. Fresh download of the PS5 version. Started playing again. During the shootout scene, it was perfectly fine, no drops. But then suddenly it started dropping fps to like 20, I thought, it was because I was looking into the fire in that room so I looked away and it was still going lower and lower in fps and in just a few seconds, it wasn't even 1 fps, it was lagging like crazy. It was about 1 frame per 3 or 4 seconds. So I saved the game, reloaded the save and that fixed it. I hope that this was very rare :-). Otherwise enjoying this game again. Played it before on PC without any problems.

How do you know the internal resolution of games running at dynamic res and apparent res of 4k? Would you consider doing a DF weekly and talk a bit about your analysis methods? Those you can talk about, of course.

The RT shadows is not something that can be seen making a big difference in a side by side comparison of some scenes. However, it does make the visual experience altogether, more immersive as a whole while playing the game. Of course this doesn't mean that playing in 60fps is not a big improvement gameplay wise but it's a good thing they gave us the option.

Concerning ray tracing, I must say that I'm not really surprised PS5 & XB can't really hold up to most peoples "expectations". Given the fact that even a RTX 3090 combined with an ultra-high-end PC struggle here heavily, at roughly 5 to 10 times the price! Ray tracing is basically still at the beginning. Until we see really powerful RT hardware, game engines and techniques that make full use of full scene ray tracing, we will most likely have to wait another one or two decades perhaps even more... Especially since RT isn't the only hardware hungry feature of the last years. UHD, HDR, High-FPS ect. are all features that put additional enormous pressure on the Hardware, on top of the contentiously evolving complexity of modern games. Given the fact that we usually only see an increase of roughly 30% performance increase every GPU generation, it's not really a surprise NVIDIA, AMD & Co. can't keep up...

It would seem we are likely seeing a mixture of med and high settings of a PC on the next gen consoles. Pretty decent for this game as it's pretty heavy. Would like to see CDPR implement FSR ultra Quality to possibly improve things slightly more.

Pretty big bummer that in a big cyberpunk city with lots or neon lighting they chose to raytrace the shadows and not the lighting or reflections. Odd choice imo. Seeing the difference between RT mode and performance, there is not one single reason for me to not pick performance. 60fps with a higher resolution over 30fps with RT shadows is a no brainer for me. All that said, this patch is awesome and I'm glad to finally be able to dig into this world!

Would really love for Alex to update his "optimised settings" video for PC, since CDPR removed AMD's CAS from the options menu, as well as other settings being tweaked.

Interesting; jumping back into this to explore what’s possible 👀

I'd really love to know what the PC settings corresponding to what the consoles are running now could be ! Just out of curiosity.

DualSense with default settings are amazing with this next gen version! I just saying this because I normally use it with weak adaptive triggers config due to some multiplayer fps games, but for this single player experience I truly recommend using the adaptive triggers with the default config (strong)... It make a huge difference how weapons and gameplay feels with this feature

The 30fps ray tracing mode is unplayable

Playing the game for the first time on PS5, glad I waited

I will never play 30fps with ray tracing if i have 60fps mode.

I've had it sat in my shelf since launch. Started playing when this patch dropped. I'm loving it. Noticed few minor glitches.....dodgy shadows and the odd NPC walking through a wall. But knowing the history of the game, it kind of makes it more endearing. Its like a wounded animal I want to nurse back to full health. BTW I love the layout of the landscape. Brilliant.

Here to report the update on PC is phenomenal as well. I'm one of the rare people that didn't have a ton of bugs on my first playthrough, mostly visual stuff like repeated people in crowds. However now not only is there allot of content and AI upgrades added, but I am getting MUCH better framerates that are more stable. I am running it on a very modest outdated rig RX580 and a old I5 cpu. Was able to bump most settings up to high, including screen space reflections at a stable 50-70fps. With AMD freesync I have been more than happy with the experience.

Thank you for service DF.

Switch between performance and ray tracing depending on where you are in the game. Outside, open areas choose performance and when you're inside change to ray tracing. This is how i have been playing it on my Series X.

It's nice you can play from an external SSD on series x. My internal and expansion card get full so quick. I keep all gen 9 aware titles on the external to save space.

Picked this up on PS5, honestly an amazing game

let's be hones here ,we've all waited for this to drop, love the new patch ,I'm one of those people who never played the game before ,wanted to wait and see the improvements to happen, took a long time ,but I gotta say the game is a solid 9/10 for me , after having played almost 30h this week.

Finally playing this game after the nExt gen upgrade…. Really enjoying it… good balance of FPS and RPG

God the music in this game is so good, just hearing it in this video gives me goosebumps

Wake me up when they patch in an RPG. Friendly reminder that this game was sold as (and will forever remain) *fundamentally broken* on last gen consoles, the majority install base that bought it.

Seriously, do not waste your time trying to play this game on a last Gen. system. Wait and play it on a PS5 or Series X. Playing in Performance mode is the only way to play it right. 60 FPS is sweet and the Visual difference is marginal. I just purchased this PS5 version yesterday for $ 24.99 and it is awesome.

The ONLY VERDICT AND REVIEW I’ve been waiting for to figure out if it’s really fixed and worth it now🤷🏽‍♂️😁💪🏾

Me casually came from minimum setting in a 2013 gaming laptop with barely 30fps in the release day of CP 2077 to Xbox series X 2022 patch 1.6 on my 1080p TV. I'm very happy with the quality mode ! But very needed video to see if the 30fps trade off worth it on a 1080p tv because resolution isn't an issue ( compared to rise of Tomb raider and improved graphic locked at 30fps witch dramatically improve graphics ) thank you !!

Starting to think that i'll likely go through this console generation entirely without raytracing. Switching to 30 fps is just never worth it.