CD Projekt RED and NVIDIA Talk About Upcoming Cyberpunk 2077 Path Tracing

[GFreeman]

In an interview done by PCWorld's Gordon Ung at GDC 2023, CD Projekt Red's VP and Global Art Director, Jakub "Kuba" Knapik, and NVIDIA's Senior Developer Technology Engineer, Pawel Kozlowski, shed a bit more light about the upcoming Cyberpunk 2077 Path Tracing update and what it brings to the game as well as what kind of hardware will you need to run it.

In case you missed it earlier, both CD Projekt RED and NVIDIA did talk about the RTX Path Tracing Overdrive Mode for Cyberpunk 2077, which will launch on April 11th. This will be a part of the Cyberpunk 2077 Update 1.62, which should bring additional gameplay improvements as well. It is worth to note that Path Tracing will be introduced to the game as a "technology preview," Jakub notes, as the developer is implementing this technology with NVIDIA and it is still a work in progress.



According to Jakub, the upcoming Path Tracing has a very different approach compared to Ray Tracing. While Ray Tracing did wonders and actually helped to solve certain quality and visual problems in games, like shadows, reflections and/or ambient occlusion, it did all those effects individually, while Path Tracing does them all at one in a single unified rendering, making the image more balanced, accurate, and way more beautiful. He notes that the technology is actually very close to the one used in the films and animation in previous couple of years.

Jakub describes the upcoming Path Tracing technology preview as a "technology of the future," making easier to develop games, nicer looking games, and actually shortens the time span needed to develop the game by speeding up production. While he was keen to note that you will need "a very high-end hardware to run it, he also calls it "hardware agnostic," suggesting it is not hardware limited, meaning you will be able to test it out on any "brand of the card you have," so it will work on NVIDIA, AMD, and Intel as well. Of course, since CD Projekt RED worked so closely with NVIDIA on this one, we suspect the GeForce RTX 40 series, specifically the RTX 4090, is the way to go.

NVIDIA's Senior Developer Technology Engineer, Pawel Kozlowski, gave more technical details about the Cyberpunk 2077 Path Tracing preview. Pawel notes that it is still using the NVIDIA RTXDI (RTX Direct Illumination) for computing all the direct illumination and using Path Tracing to compute the indirect part of the render, in a manner of speaking.

Pawel also adds that you will definitely need the GeForce RTX 40 series GPUs in order to use it, mainly, as he says, because they are the most powerful, and they support DLSS 3 with Frame Generation, as well as the support for Shader Execution Ordering (SER), which helps to execute incoherent workloads like Path Tracing.

While Jakub suggested that you will need very high-end hardware for the upcoming Cyberpunk 2077 Path Tracing technical preview, Pawel also adds that NVIDIA is aiming for a good experience on 40 series GPUs, so it is left to be seen what kind of frame rates will we see from the GeForce RTX 4070 Ti.

Here is the full interview from PCWorld, and all we have to do is wait for the update to come out on April 11th.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site | Source

 

[Dirt Chip]

TL;DR
As we just begun to reach somewhat good playability with RT-on at 4K 60FPS+ we now interduce a new 'hyper-ultra-eye-candy' level that is a must for any gamer*.

Spoiler: *

*It will tank any GPU to dust, so you must upgrade. Pay us now, thank us later.

 

[BorisDG]

Can't wait to test it!

 

[Legacy-ZA]

TL;DR
As we just begun to reach somewhat good playability with RT-on at 4K 60FPS+ we now interduce a new 'hyper-ultra-eye-candy' level that is a must for any gamer*.

Spoiler: *

*It will tank any GPU to dust, so you must upgrade. Pay us now, thank us later.

And only for a mere $2000, you can purchase an RTX4090 to try it at 30FPS, buy now!

 

[Hyderz]

And only for a mere $2000, you can purchase an RTX4090 to try it at 30FPS, buy now!

yes! 30fps at 1080p

 

[CyberCT]

Runs great on the 4090 with all current settings maxed out WITH DLSS3! Path tracing is going to bring even a 4090 to its knees. It'll be the "cinematic experience" that consoles would typically provide

 

[Vayra86]

Cyberpunk, the game with more graphics options than actual content.

Get a life, CDPR, the game is still a shadow of what it should be.

 

[bug]

TL;DR
As we just begun to reach somewhat good playability with RT-on at 4K 60FPS+ we now interduce a new 'hyper-ultra-eye-candy' level that is a must for any gamer*.

Spoiler: *

*It will tank any GPU to dust, so you must upgrade. Pay us now, thank us later.

It's really just another way of doing ray tracing. Albeit one that seems to need (or at least benefit a lot from) the reordering hardware.
But really, what did you expect, RT is in its infancy as far as consumer video cards are concerned. Think of shaders and how many iterations they went through for comparison.

 

[Dirt Chip]

It's really just another way of doing ray tracing. Albeit one that seems to need (or at least benefit a lot from) the reordering hardware.
But really, what did you expect, RT is in its infancy as far as consumer video cards are concerned. Think of shaders and how many iterations they went through for comparison.

A much more resource-demanding way of ray tracing. A good way to easily build better looking games. But in the end it`s just another eye-candy. The visuals is just 10-15% (and many times less) of what make the game "good" but that 10-15% take unproportionally amount of resource to execute in a good way and if not it just stuck everything. It contribute nothing to the game story, atmosphere or mechanics that determine the worthiness of the game. Putting too much emphasis on the visuals lead to 'empty-shell' games as we see more and more.

I have no problem with the technical advancement, but I denounce the PR that come along with it to make you want it.
I`m sure that soon we will hear talks about "the real ray tracing" that you "must have" in your game, that is path tracing. That is, the RT we have now is a castrated demo and a lacking version of the 'real thing'.
Do you want to compromise with your gaming on the lesser visuals of simple RT?
No, you want the full-fat all-in max-setting path-tracing, and the +1$K GPU that must come along with it.

Here is a pic from NV blog about path tracing.
Someone please meme this better than me.
You just can`t have enough reflation in a game I guess...

 

[Vayra86]

A much more resource-demanding way of ray tracing. A good way to easily build better looking games. But in the end it`s just another eye-candy. The visuals is just 10-15% (and many times less) of what make the game "good" but that 10-15% take unproportionally amount of resource to execute in a good way and if not it just stuck everything. It contribute nothing to the game story, atmosphere or mechanics that determine the worthiness of the game. Putting too much emphasis on the visuals lead to 'empty-shell' games as we see more and more.

I have no problem with the technical advancement, but I denounce the PR that come along with it to make you want it.
I`m sure that soon we will hear talks about "the real ray tracing" that you "must have" in your game, that is path tracing. That is, the RT we have now is a castrated demo and a lacking version of the 'real thing'.
Do you want to compromise with your gaming on the lesser visuals of simple RT?
No, you want the full-fat all-in max-setting path-tracing, and the +1$K GPU that must come along with it.

Here is a pic from NV blog about path tracing.
Someone please meme this better than me.
You just can`t have enough reflation in a game I guess...

View attachment 289705

Holy crap even that pic took 1 whole minute to load!

Go figure!

 

[bug]

A much more resource-demanding way of ray tracing. A good way to easily build better looking games. But in the end it`s just another eye-candy. The visuals is just 10-15% (and many times less) of what make the game "good" but that 10-15% take unproportionally amount of resource to execute in a good way and if not it just stuck everything. It contribute nothing to the game story, atmosphere or mechanics that determine the worthiness of the game. Putting too much emphasis on the visuals lead to 'empty-shell' games as we see more and more.

I have no problem with the technical advancement, but I denounce the PR that come along with it to make you want it.
I`m sure that soon we will hear talks about "the real ray tracing" that you "must have" in your game, that is path tracing. That is, the RT we have now is a castrated demo and a lacking version of the 'real thing'.
Do you want to compromise with your gaming on the lesser visuals of simple RT?
No, you want the full-fat all-in max-setting path-tracing, and the +1$K GPU that must come along with it.

Here is a pic from NV blog about path tracing.
Someone please meme this better than me.
You just can`t have enough reflation in a game I guess...

View attachment 289705

Well, as a bit of photography afficionado, I will tell you lighting is what makes or breaks a shot. Having the tools to reproduce lighting faithfully is a valuable tool (even if you're going for a cartoony look). And you are right that games should not be primarily about graphics (the good one almost never are), but graphics are also important. Otherwise games today would still look like Wolfenstein.

At the same time, as I have said numerous times, RT for consumers is still in its infancy. And in a pretty bad place even. We haven't seen a single title built specifically for RT, everything is hybrid raster+RT. We simply cannot judge the merit of RT anymore than we can judge the merit of EVs simply looking at hybrids.
That said, since RT is in its infancy, of course you have to pay the early adopter tax if you want to check it out. It may be worth it to you or it may not.

(As a side note, RT isn't all about reflections. Global illumination is where it makes an even bigger difference. But global illumination doesn't screenshot too well. Though imagine how cool it would be to hide at the top of a stairway, see the enemy incoming in a reflection on a piece of glass and casually throw a grenade or two their way.)

 

[spnidel]

While Ray Tracing did wonders and actually helped to solve certain quality and visual problems in games, like shadows, reflections and/or ambient occlusion, it did all those effects individually, while Path Tracing does them all at one in a single unified rendering

wow, that is the most ass-backwards implementation i've heard of yet and sounds incredibly inefficient
it sounds like they treated/are treating it like regular old rasterization - where certain effects can take any amount of passes to render out the final thing, instead of doing all the necessary operations for each individual pixel in a single pass
this is seriously disappointing, if that's the case then the current HW RT implementation is dogshit and will probably see a complete overhaul in the next several years to be less poop

 

[mrnagant]

I'd like to see a GPU series that prioritizes path/ray tracing over rasterization. For example, take a top end Path-Traced card of similar size to the 4090, so roughly 76B transistors. The rasterization performance of the card would be inline with the GeForce 4070Ti. Then the rest of the die space would be filled by RT cores. Basically all your games without RT and DLSS can still be played at 4k60/120 and if you enable RT/PT you can still play at 4k60/120 for the top end. Then something similar size to the 4070Ti could pull that off with DLSS 2/3 enabled.

 

[bug]

wow, that is the most ass-backwards implementation i've heard of yet and sounds incredibly inefficient
it sounds like they treated/are treating it like regular old rasterization - where certain effects can take any amount of passes to render out the final thing, instead of doing all the necessary operations for each individual pixel in a single pass
this is seriously disappointing, if that's the case then the current HW RT implementation is dogshit and will probably see a complete overhaul in the next several years to be less poop

See my comment above. Since all game engines are raster+RT hybrid, it's very likely things will spill over.

Also, here's a short summary: https://history-computer.com/ray-tracing-vs-path-tracing-whats-the-difference/

 

[pocky]

We haven't seen a single title built specifically for RT, everything is hybrid raster+RT.

what about that metro exodus pc enhanced edition? I know the base game is built hybrid, but the new edition they released was remade from the ground up for Ray tracing, and I'm pretty sure you can't even run it without a rtx capable gpu aways since it doesn't have any raster

 

[bug]

what about that metro exodus pc enhanced edition? I know the base game is built hybrid, but the new edition they released was remade from the ground up for Ray tracing, and I'm pretty sure you can't even run it without a rtx capable gpu aways since it doesn't have any raster

I have never seen a claim it's made from the ground up for ray tracing. It requires a ray tracing capable video card, but that just means you can't disable ray tracing, it doesn't mean it doesn't also employ rasterization.

 

[pocky]

I have never seen a claim it's made from the ground up for ray tracing. It requires a ray tracing capable video card, but that just means you can't disable ray tracing, it doesn't mean it doesn't also employ rasterization.

huh you're right I didn't think of that. I don't know how credible eurogamer is but I found this article where they said

"For the new Metro, the standard rasterised versions of each map - including all individually, artist-placed lights - are gone. The tricks, fake light sources and other legacy elements are replaced with a proper, real-time RT solution that 'just works'."

does that mean no raster at all?

 

[bug]

huh you're right I didn't think of that. I don't know how credible eurogamer is but I found this article where they said

"For the new Metro, the standard rasterised versions of each map - including all individually, artist-placed lights - are gone. The tricks, fake light sources and other legacy elements are replaced with a proper, real-time RT solution that 'just works'."

does that mean no raster at all?

I can't find anything like that on the official page, so I'd guess no, it doesn't. Also, the enhanced edition is also available on consoles and that makes even less likely to be fully ray traced.

 

[pocky]

I can't find anything like that on the official page, so I'd guess no, it doesn't. Also, the enhanced edition is also available on consoles and that makes even less likely to be fully ray traced.

oh I just found this on the developers website. they said

"By removing these, we were finally able to eliminate one other encumbrance present in more traditional forms of rendering: no longer does any part of our lighting system consist of “baked”, pre-generated data. It can now all be generated in real time."

 

[DrCR]

With the way hyped monitors and GPUs are going, we could end up gaming requiring sunglasses.

 

[Sandbo]

A much more resource-demanding way of ray tracing. A good way to easily build better looking games. But in the end it`s just another eye-candy. The visuals is just 10-15% (and many times less) of what make the game "good" but that 10-15% take unproportionally amount of resource to execute in a good way and if not it just stuck everything. It contribute nothing to the game story, atmosphere or mechanics that determine the worthiness of the game. Putting too much emphasis on the visuals lead to 'empty-shell' games as we see more and more.

I have no problem with the technical advancement, but I denounce the PR that come along with it to make you want it.
I`m sure that soon we will hear talks about "the real ray tracing" that you "must have" in your game, that is path tracing. That is, the RT we have now is a castrated demo and a lacking version of the 'real thing'.
Do you want to compromise with your gaming on the lesser visuals of simple RT?
No, you want the full-fat all-in max-setting path-tracing, and the +1$K GPU that must come along with it.

Here is a pic from NV blog about path tracing.
Someone please meme this better than me.
You just can`t have enough reflation in a game I guess...

View attachment 289705

Is it me or are these "examples" are always so overdone?
The only (I might not have seen enough to judge) great path-traced titles I found well-done is really Minecraft. No shiny reflecting craziness but a natural touch of how light bounces off surfaces.

 

[Prima.Vera]

Cyberpunk, the game with more graphics options than actual content.

Get a life, CDPR, the game is still a shadow of what it should be.

Why?
I've played the game twice already and it has a really good story, characters, atmosphere, etc.
I really don't understand all the complains and bickering.

 

[pocky]

Is it me or are these "examples" are always so overdone?
The only (I might not have seen enough to judge) great path-traced titles I found well-done is really Minecraft. No shiny reflecting craziness but a natural touch of how light bounces off surfaces.

tbh that suit does look like it'd be really shiny irl

 

[Easo]

Is it me or are these "examples" are always so overdone?
The only (I might not have seen enough to judge) great path-traced titles I found well-done is really Minecraft. No shiny reflecting craziness but a natural touch of how light bounces off surfaces.

Short answer - it's a marketing choice. I would say really egregious in this case.