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Why Is Cyberpunk 2077 Still Such a Beast to Run?

Cyberpunk 2077, despite numerous patches and updates, remains one of the most demanding games on PC. The primary reason for this lies in its ambition: the game strives for unprecedented graphical fidelity, featuring a vast open world brimming with intricate details, advanced lighting effects, and a dense population of NPCs. Pushing these graphical boundaries requires immense processing power from both the CPU and GPU, often exceeding the capabilities of even high-end hardware.

Unpacking the Performance Bottlenecks

Cyberpunk 2077’s performance challenges stem from a combination of factors, starting with its groundbreaking visuals. Let’s delve into the specifics:

1. High-Fidelity Graphics & Ray Tracing

Night City is a visual marvel, filled with neon-drenched streets, detailed architecture, and realistic character models. The sheer density of objects and textures places a massive burden on the GPU. Furthermore, Cyberpunk 2077 was one of the first games to heavily feature ray tracing, a rendering technique that simulates realistic light behavior. While ray tracing can dramatically enhance visual quality, it’s incredibly computationally expensive. Enabling ray tracing significantly increases the workload on your GPU, often leading to a substantial drop in frame rates, even on the most powerful cards. Without DLSS or FSR (explained further below), getting a consistent 60 frames per second or higher with RT enabled is almost impossible.

2. CPU-Intensive Open World

The game’s open-world design means that the CPU is constantly managing a large number of tasks, including AI for NPCs, physics calculations, and loading new areas as you explore Night City. The more NPCs and complex events happening on screen, the greater the strain on the CPU. Even with a powerful CPU, the game can become CPU-bound, meaning that the CPU is the bottleneck limiting performance. Reducing crowd density is an effective way to reduce the load on your CPU.

3. Draw Calls & Optimization Issues

“Draw calls” are instructions sent from the CPU to the GPU to render objects on screen. Cyberpunk 2077, particularly in its initial release, suffered from high draw call counts, which can overwhelm the CPU and lead to performance issues. While CD Projekt Red has addressed some of these issues through patches, the game still isn’t perfectly optimized. This means the game uses CPU and GPU power less efficiently than it could, resulting in lower frame rates than expected for a given hardware configuration.

4. High System Requirements

The minimum and recommended system requirements for Cyberpunk 2077 are relatively high compared to other games. This indicates the level of hardware needed to run the game at playable frame rates and settings. Even meeting the recommended specifications doesn’t guarantee a smooth experience, especially at higher resolutions or with demanding graphical settings enabled. To avoid issues, it’s best to go higher than the “recommended” specs on the store page.

5. Demanding VRAM Requirements

The game requires a significant amount of Video RAM (VRAM), the memory on your graphics card, especially at higher resolutions and texture settings. If your GPU lacks sufficient VRAM, the game may experience stuttering or frame rate drops as it struggles to load and process textures. Even if your GPU is powerful, limited VRAM can severely restrict performance in Cyberpunk 2077.

6. Lack of Cutting Edge CPU Optimizations

Cyberpunk 2077 was not designed to take full advantage of CPU technologies such as AVX-512 instruction sets that increase the overall throughput of the CPU in certain operations that are well optimized.

7. Denuvo DRM

While the inclusion of Denuvo DRM has been removed from Cyberpunk 2077 since the game’s initial release, DRM of this kind can still be an impediment to CPU performance. Denuvo DRM prevents the game from being reverse engineered, modified, or illegally distributed. Denuvo does this by adding layers of software to the game to deter pirates, but it also ends up harming overall performance by utilizing the CPU and causing it to perform unnecessary background tasks. This results in additional overhead and can result in performance degradation, even on higher end systems.

8. Volumetric Fog

Volumetric Fog is a technique used in video games to simulate fog and smoke in three dimensions. Volumetric fog is often used to create a sense of atmosphere and depth in the game. This is done by generating a three-dimensional grid of points in the game world. For each point, the fog density is calculated based on the distance to the camera, the color of the fog, and the amount of light that is passing through the fog. Volumetric fog can be computationally expensive.

9. Shadow Quality

Shadows are a demanding rendering feature for the CPU and GPU. Cyberpunk 2077 includes a variety of shadow quality settings to adjust to balance performance with quality. These shadows come in different flavors: Contact Shadows, Local Shadow Mesh Quality, Local Shadow Quality, Cascaded Shadows Range, Cascaded Shadows Resolution, and Distant Shadows Resolution.

10. Improved Facial Lighting Geometry

The game’s “Improved Facial Lighting Geometry” option can also impact performance. This setting improves the realism of character faces by adding more detail and realistic lighting, but it does so at the cost of additional processing power.

How to Improve Performance

Fortunately, there are several steps you can take to improve performance in Cyberpunk 2077:

Lower Graphics Settings: Reduce texture quality, shadow quality, and other graphical settings to ease the burden on your GPU and CPU.
Enable DLSS/FSR: Nvidia’s Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) and AMD’s FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) are upscaling technologies that can improve frame rates without significantly sacrificing visual quality.
Optimize CPU Usage: Close unnecessary background applications and processes to free up CPU resources.
Update Drivers: Ensure you have the latest drivers for your graphics card, as these often include performance optimizations for specific games.
Adjust Resolution: Playing at a lower resolution can significantly improve frame rates, although it may come at the cost of visual clarity.
Upgrade Hardware: If possible, consider upgrading your CPU, GPU, or RAM to meet or exceed the recommended system requirements.
Use SSD: Install Cyberpunk 2077 on an SSD (Solid State Drive) for faster loading times and improved performance.
Disable Overlay Apps: Discord or other overlay apps sometimes conflict with Cyberpunk 2077. Try disabling these overlay features to see if they’re impacting performance.

Is the Game Worth the Hype?

Despite its performance challenges, Cyberpunk 2077 offers a compelling and immersive open-world experience with a rich story, memorable characters, and stunning visuals. While it may require some tweaking and compromise to achieve optimal performance, the game is worth playing for those willing to invest the time and effort.

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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

1. Is Cyberpunk 2077 harder to run than Red Dead Redemption 2 (RDR2)?

They are both demanding games, but Cyberpunk 2077 generally requires more powerful hardware than RDR2, especially with ray tracing enabled. However, optimization and API differences also play a role. Some users find RDR2 more demanding, while others struggle more with Cyberpunk.

2. Why is Cyberpunk 2077 running slow on my PC?

Several factors can contribute to slow performance: your CPU or GPU not meeting the game’s requirements, insufficient RAM, outdated drivers, high graphical settings, or background applications consuming resources.

3. How do I fix Cyberpunk 2077 not launching?

Reinstall your graphics drivers.
Uninstall and reinstall Microsoft Visual C++ redistributables.
Disable unnecessary apps, especially those with overlays.
Verify the integrity of game files through Steam or GOG.

4. Why does Cyberpunk 2077 keep flatlining (crashing) on my PC?

Disable Steam Overlay or other overlay apps.
Check for corrupted game files.
Ensure your graphics drivers are up to date.
Your PC components might be overheating. Check the cooling solutions in your PC.

5. Is Cyberpunk 2077 the most demanding game ever?

While not universally considered the absolute most demanding, Cyberpunk 2077 is consistently ranked among the most graphically intensive games ever created, especially when ray tracing is enabled.

6. Is Cyberpunk 2077 more CPU or GPU intensive?

Cyberpunk 2077 is both CPU and GPU intensive. The GPU handles the heavy lifting for graphics rendering, while the CPU manages the open world, AI, and physics.

7. Is “Normal” difficulty in Cyberpunk 2077 too easy?

“Normal” difficulty is designed to offer a balanced experience for most players. However, difficulty is subjective, and some players may find it too easy, while others find it challenging.

8. What are the recommended specs for Cyberpunk 2077 at 1080p?

OS: Windows 10 (64-bit)
CPU: Intel Core i7-4790 or AMD Ryzen 3 3200G
RAM: 12GB
GPU: Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 6GB, GTX 1660 Super, or AMD Radeon RX 590
Storage: 70GB SSD

9. Is Cyberpunk 2077 CPU heavy or GPU heavy after the Phantom Liberty update?

The Phantom Liberty expansion increased CPU intensity due to the expanded world and enhanced AI.

10. Does Cyberpunk 2077 use a lot of RAM?

Yes, the game recommends at least 12GB of RAM, and more (16GB or 32GB) is beneficial for smoother performance, especially at higher settings.

11. Can I play Cyberpunk 2077 on a bad PC?

It depends on what you define as a “bad PC.” The game requires at least a modest dedicated GPU and a decent CPU to run at playable frame rates, even at low settings. An SSD is almost essential.

12. Does Cyberpunk 2077 run well now?

After numerous patches and updates, Cyberpunk 2077 runs significantly better than at launch. With the right hardware and settings, it can offer a smooth and enjoyable experience.

13. How long does it take to beat Cyberpunk 2077?

The main story takes around 25 hours to complete, while a completionist run can take upwards of 100 hours.

14. What is the best setting in Cyberpunk 2077 to improve performance?

Enabling DLSS/FSR is the best setting to improve performance. Lowering volumetric fog and shadows are also great settings to improve performance on lower end machines.

15. What if I’m still having problems sprinting in Cyberpunk 2077?

This is usually a rare glitch. A common fix is to simply unholster and reholster your weapon.

Why is Cyberpunk so hard to run?