Cyberpunk 2077 Phantom Liberty PC Performance Review and Optimisation Guide

Conclusion – A hugely scalable game with tonnes of modern graphics features

Conclusion – A technological tour de force on PC

Cyberpunk 2077 is one of the best looking games on PC. When compared to more modern RPGs like Starfield, Cyberpunk 2077 delivers better visuals and can run much better on PC. That said, if you crank up this game’s settings to their max, expect even today’s strongest GPUs to be bright to their knees.

During our time playing the game’s Phantom Liberty expansion, it was refreshing to so see no bugs or major graphical issues. Cyberpunk 2077 has changed a lot since the game launched in 2020. This is great news for newcomers to Night City, and those who are looking to return to the world of Cyberpunk.

On PC, Cyberpunk 2077 runs great on modern hardware. Most of our tested GPUs ran the game well at Ultra settings at suitable resolutions. Support for upscalers like DLSS, FSR, and XeSS also helps the game to scale well on older GPUs. On top of that, our optimised settings can give players a near-ultra visual experience with 36% performance boost. Combine that with DLSS or FSR and you can achieve crazy high performance boosts on PC.

CPU-wise, Cyberpunk 2077 remains as demanding as ever. The game runs best on CPUs with high core counts, though performance gains are minimal once you move past six strong CPU cores. Moving down to four cores sees huge performance decreases, so we recommend playing this game on a hex-core or better CPU. DRAM-wise, this game does run better when used with faster DRAM. We found that faster memory delivering higher 1st percentile framerates in CPU/memory limited scenarios.

Cyberpunk 2077’s Nvidia-friendly leaning

While Cyberpunk 2077 has been updated with support for both AMD’s FidelityFX Super Resolution and Intel’s XeSS technologies, this game leans heavily on the side of Nvidia. Cyberpunk 2077 has been updated with every new DLSS innovation, with the most recent addition being DLSS 3.5. You can read our thoughts on Cyberpunk 2077’s DLSS Ray Reconstruction support here.

Both FSR and XeSS in Cyberpunk 2077 have not been updated to their latest versions. Currently, Cyberpunk 2077 supports FSR 2.1 and XeSS 1.1. Since these features have been implemented, FSR 2.2 and XeSS 1.2 have been released, both of which provide higher quality upscaling. While CD Projekt Red appears to have plans to support AMD’s FSR 3 technology, it is a shame that Cyberpunk 2077 lacks support for better AMD and Intel upscaling.

Cyberpunk 2077 is a huge game for Nvidia. If you look at any Nvidia marketing you are likely to see Cyberpunk 2077 somewhere. The game makes heavy use of ray tracing and supports all of Nvidia’s DLSS technologies. Beyond that, the game’s ray tracing modes run poorly on non-Nvidia gaming hardware. That said, this is due to Nvidia’s stronger ray tracing hardware, not necessarily poor optimisation.

(DLSS Ray Reconstruction On VS Off)

Cyberpunk 2077 transformed

Cyberpunk 2077 is no longer the game it was. This game has finished its redemption arc and now it is the RPG that gamers wanted. The game runs well on PC, offering huge levels of hardware scalability. And even on low settings that game looks pretty good. That said, this game is also crazy demanding at its highest settings. Cyberpunk 2077 will be a major PC benchmarking game for many years to come.

With its advanced technological feature set, Cyberpunk 2077 is a glimpse into the future of gaming visuals. That said, the game’s strong visuals and performance without ray tracing is also a showcase of what is possible now. Expect a lot of games to be continue to be compared to Cyberpunk 2077 when visuals are sub-par, or when a game’s hardware demands are overly high for their graphical output.

Now that Cyberpunk 2077 is in its 2.0 state, I am sad to hear that the game is now “content complete”. Moving forward, CD Projekt Red are moving to Unreal Engine. Cyberpunk 2077 will be the last Red Engine game, and I’m personally sad that this technology will not be pushed further. Perhaps we will see FSR 3, XeSS 2, of DLSS 4 patches in the future. Just don’t expect another expansion, or a new Red Engine game.

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