While Cyberpunk 2077 might be the biggest video game lie we have witnessed since No Man’s Sky, there’s no denying that it is a technical showcase. Its raytracing features are unrivalled in the industry and its demanding world design puts all PCs to the test. Just when you thought Cyberpunk 2077 could not get any more demanding, there’s a new RT Overdrive mode heading your way that changes the raytracing landscape.
In a nutshell, RT Overdrive surpasses the highest raytracing option currently in Cyberpunk 2077 called Psycho. It is a new ambitious RT pipeline that now uses path tracing raytracing to produce even more accurate lighting and reflections than ever before.
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Real-world lighting and reflections are basically path-traced. Light enters a room and brightens it up. It bounces across surfaces and fills up every corner with shadows and light. The same goes for reflections. Everything you see in the world is directly reflected on surfaces. Up to now, raytracing has tried to copy these real-world scenarios and for the most part, produces a somewhat lifelike result. Path-traced RT is the next level and replaces the rasterized lighting with direct shadows.
This new Cyberpunk 2077 Overdrive mode is releasing this week for all PC versions of the game which means you’ll be able to test it out yourself. However, to give you an idea of what it is all about, Digital Foundry has put together a 10-minute showcase video on the new mode and even compared it to the current Pyscho mode so you can see just how drastically different it is.
In the video, you can see how the Overdrive mode replaces all shadows in the game. Even the smallest of objects such as items on a table surface, all now have shadows around them and exist in the world accurately to the lighting in the game. It is an entirely new visual style that makes it hard to go back to rasterized shadows.
Of course, you’ll need some hefty hardware to run this mode but Digital Foundry confidently claims that DLSS 3 helps boost performance where possible.
Source: YouTube
