With one week to go until Cyberpunk 2077 Ray Tracing Overdrive Mode arrives on April 11, Nvidia and CD Projekt Red have released new footage of the upcoming update. Naturally, it’s chock-full of pretty path tracing, complete with image comparisons and performance metrics.
This graphical glow up is as gorgeous as it is demanding, so it should come as no surprise that you’ll need one of the best graphics cards around to run it.
Currently, we’ve only seen footage of the Cyberpunk 2077 update running on the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090, both with and without DLSS 3. Thankfully, we won’t need to wait long to find out how other pixel pushers like the RTX 4080 or AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT fare against the newly path traced streets of Night City.
Looking at the trailer, it’s immediately obvious to me how features like RTX Direct Illumination and fully ray traced global illumination transform the look of CD Projket Red’s RPG game for the better. While it’s obviously exciting to simply gawk at, you can learn more about the technologies in our GDC interview with Cyberpunk 2077’s art director and over on Nvidia’s article.
Just make sure you keep any performance expectations in check before turning on the ray tracing preset come April 11. From the looks of things, Nvidia DLSS 3 will be a must to keep things playable, but you can expect the official word from us shortly after launch.
Don’t forget to check out the latest on the Cyberpunk 2077 Phantom Liberty release date, as the expansion draws ever closer.