Cyberpunk 2077 will feature DLSS 2.0 and four types of Ray Tracing
Cyberpunk 2077 will feature DLSS 2.0 and four types of Ray Tracing
Now, Nvidia has confirmed that Cyberpunk 2077’s latest trailer showcases footage from the game’s PC version and features ray-tracing, thanks to the company’s partnership with CD Projekt Red.
Furthermore, Nvidia has confirmed that Cyberpunk 2077 will feature four types of ray tracing, as well as DLSS 2.0, Nvidia’s AI image upscaling technique. These additions will help Cyberpunk 2077 perform well on Nvidia’s latest graphics cards and look fabulous while doing so.
Cyberpunk 2077 will utilise the feature set of Microsoft’s DirectX 12 Ultimate API to deliver ray tracing on PC. These visual enhancements will not be available at launch on the game’s console versions, thought hey could arrive thanks to the game’#s promised Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 Updates.Â
Ray-Traced Diffuse IlluminationÂ
For starters, Cyberpunk 2077 will include ray-traced global illumination and emissive lighting, the same form of ray tracing that’s present within Metro Exodus’ PC version. This technique correctly captures sunlight and lighting from glowing surfaces, allowing billboards, sunlight and other illuminated surfaces to correctly brighten their surroundings. Â
  Ray-Traced Diffuse Illumination – This captures sky radiance as well as emissive lighting from various surfaces, which is difficult to achieve with traditional rendering techniques. When enabled, billboards and other illuminated surfaces and objects will brighten their surroundings with naturally colored lighting, and the sun and moon will realistically illuminate Night City.
Ray-Traced Reflections
With ray-traced reflections, Cyberpunk 2077 will be able to showcase realistic reflections using off-screen objects with high levels of detail, realistically simulating reflections on both opaque and transparent objects. These reflections will also be able to impact objects with varying levels of glossiness.Â
The benefits of ray-tracing come through increased accuracy and a lack of graphical artefacts, which are commonplace with traditional reflection generation techniques.Â
  Ray-Traced Reflections – In Cyberpunk 2077, ray-traced reflections are used on all surfaces and can trace ranges for up to several kilometers, enabling realistic reflections across vast view distances. They are present on both opaque and transparent objects and surfaces to simulate the way light reflects from glossy and metal surfaces by tracing a single bounce of reflection rays against the scene.
Unlike screen space techniques that only reflect what’s on screen, ray-traced reflections incorporate the entire scene around the character and can accurately represent objects outside the camera view or facing away from the camera. In addition, ray-traced reflections have vastly improved fidelity, and don’t suffer from other immersion-harming image quality artifacts and issues seen when using screen space techniques.
Ray-Traced Ambient Occlusion
Ambient Occlusion is a technique that’s designed to shade object realistically, providing ambient shading to help ground objects within a game. This technique helps make games appear realistic, removing the “gamey” appearance of rendered graphics by providing shadows around objects and other surfaces.Â
With ray-tracing, Ambient Shadows can be provided with a high degree of accuracy and without artefacts, offering shade on areas which are too small to be covered by traditional techniques. This effect can already be seen in games like Control, which already utilise a form of ray-traced ambient occlusion.Â
  Ray-Traced Ambient Occlusion – Ambient occlusion is a shading and rendering technique used to calculate how exposed each point in a scene is to ambient lighting, which results in the rendering of new AO shadows that ground objects and naturally darken surfaces, objects, and other game elements. In Cyberpunk 2077, ray-traced ambient occlusion can be used with local lights to approximate local shadowing effects where shadows are missing, greatly improving the quality of the ambient occlusion effect.
Ray-Traced ShadowsÂ
With ray-tracing, developers can add pixel-perfect shadows to their games, removing the limitations of shadow maps while also allowing light to scatter realistically depending on lighting conditions. Soft shadows will be present when required and sharp contact shadows will be present when conditions allow it. Like other ray-tracing conditions, this technique can increase the accuracy and realism of rendered graphics.Â
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  Ray-Traced Shadows – Ray tracing enables developers to bring pixel-perfect shadows to games, free from the compromises and limitations of shadow maps. In Cyberpunk 2077, directional shadows from sun and moon light are added to the game, based on the strength of light, scattering of light through clouds, and other factors.
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