Friday, June 26th 2020
Cyberpunk 2077 Graphics Comparison Video Between 2018 and 2020 Builds Shows Many Differences
Cyberpunk 2077 is the year's most awaited game release, and has been met with not one, but two delays already. Originally expected to ship in April of this year, it has since been postponed to September, and now to November 19th on account of extra optimization and bug quashing from developer CD Projekt Red. However, the recent gameplay videos released for the game by the developer showcase the amount of work that has gone into the engine since 2018, when we were first treated to a gameplay video.
The video after the break comes courtesy of YouTube user 'Cycu1', who set up the 2018 and 2020 trailers side by side. In it, you can see extreme improvements to overall level and character detail (some of this can certainly be attributed to a lower-quality 2018 video compression). However, the video also showcases some lighting differences (I guess it's subjective whether this has worked out for better or worse, but the new videos supposedly make use of ray tracing). Another point that I'd like to call your attention to is that there seem to be some environment differences between the two versions - it seems that some environments were simplified compared to their 2018 version, such as the "Going Pro" mission - the chair and panels were removed from the environment and replaced by what looks like a garage door. Whether this was done as a way to improve performance is on CD Projekt Red's purview.
The video after the break comes courtesy of YouTube user 'Cycu1', who set up the 2018 and 2020 trailers side by side. In it, you can see extreme improvements to overall level and character detail (some of this can certainly be attributed to a lower-quality 2018 video compression). However, the video also showcases some lighting differences (I guess it's subjective whether this has worked out for better or worse, but the new videos supposedly make use of ray tracing). Another point that I'd like to call your attention to is that there seem to be some environment differences between the two versions - it seems that some environments were simplified compared to their 2018 version, such as the "Going Pro" mission - the chair and panels were removed from the environment and replaced by what looks like a garage door. Whether this was done as a way to improve performance is on CD Projekt Red's purview.
22 Comments on Cyberpunk 2077 Graphics Comparison Video Between 2018 and 2020 Builds Shows Many Differences
or should I say uncovered?
In many (most?) of the scenes, the baked+faked lighting looks significantly better in the non-raytraced 2018 version. Sure, the texture details have been improved in those scenes after two extra years of work on the art assets but the lighting on the raytraced 2020 version is terrible. This one scene below might be the worst example of many where the raytracing falls flat, the ambient and diffuse lighting just looks so wrong and fake, and the woman has turned into an orange oompah-loompah in what should be a scene with massive shadow contrast.
Every. Single. Aspect. of lighting looks categorically better in the non-raytraced version, and it'll run way faster too.
This screenshot, in particular, tells us nothing, because between 2018 and 2020 the global lighting has obviously changed (look at the overpass). There are actually two lighting inaccuracies in the 2018 version, but I won't hold them against rasterization, but rather to the unfinished state of the game back then.
1.this scene is not from the RT demo,we don't know what the settings are
2.rtx version includes rt diffuse lighting like in control and metro two colonels,not rat traced GI like original metro
3.no wonder 2018 scene looks better,there's sun in it.2020 has no sun at all.
Maybe they also sticked with game developing techniques of 2018, so old, a game should nowadays be developed in the same one year, that's my opinion, no matter what.
There are some writings on the wall. Assets were removed from scenes too. Is this in service of RT performance? I sure as hell hope not... I'm really not up for less complex scenes just for lighting changes, seems like an odd trade off; I don't see the upside for those who will use RT there either.
But we're going off horribly incomplete info that is for sure.
that's news