YouTube’s ‘Cycu1’ has shared an interesting video comparison between the 2018 and 2020 preview builds of Cyberpunk 2077. And, from the looks of it, the game received a graphical improvement compared to its initial demonstration.
Yeap, you read that right. Instead of downgrading its visuals, CD Projekt RED has actually improved them. The biggest improvement comes from the new lighting system which looks better than before. Thanks to the new ray traced ambient occlusion effects, the environments also look more realistic.
This is one of the rare cases in which a newer build looks better than its previous one. Thus, let’s hope that CD Projekt RED will not drop the ball as it did with The Witcher 3.
Cyberpunk 2077 – 2018 vs 2020 Preview Builds Graphics Comparison
Now while the game looks better, it also suffers from major pop-in issues. While this video comparison does not demonstrate it, I’ve seen a lot of horrendous pop-ins of objects and grass in its 2020 build. Here is hoping that CD Projekt RED will improve this (or at least provide settings to further increase their LOD values).
As we’ve reported in our previous story, Cyberpunk 2077’s official gameplay trailer featured Ray Tracing effects. However, those performance numbers we’ve reported are not telling the full picture. Yes, the 2020 preview build of Cyberpunk 2077 was running with DLSS 2.0 and Ray Tracing at 1080p. However, this was due to a GeForce Now limitation. According to reports, the preview build was streamed via Geforce Now to the press. In case you weren’t aware of, the max output resolution of Geforce Now is 1080p. So yeah, this explains why the game was running at only 1080p. My guess is that the RTX2080Ti may be able to push a smooth gaming experience at 1440p with DLSS 2.0 and Ray Tracing.
NVIDIA has also detailed the Ray Tracing effects that Cyberpunk 2077 will feature. We’ll have a separate article for this in which we’ll highlight all of the graphics effects that will be improved by Ray Tracing.
Cyberpunk 2077 releases on November 19th!
Enjoy the video graphics comparison and stay tuned for more!
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
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Looks better overall. Also the 2018 cyborg had bare breasts and nipples, the 2020 version has none (blurred out). Would that be regressive or progressive?
Its just probably for preview purposes. I would be shocked if the final game is censored other than for middle-eastern countries.
most games are banned in there i think.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0135f42bea24882b2589030af027be1d7238b5fef580547b841c4a9ddaefee17.png
Donwgrade confirmed
This is a retarded comparison. The 2020 version is during a different time of day and potentially different weather. These scene’s can’t be compared.
See, there in lies the problem. The sun is actually coming from the same direction. Yet, the scene looks completely different. They downgraded the lighting to the point it isn’t even recognizable anymore.
It’s a completely different TOD. The light you see on her face in the 2020 version is from environmental light sources, not from the sun. Still, we can all agree that the new model is uglier than the previous one.
Every single shadow in the image is heading in the same direction. That is the sun. If it was an environmental light this wouldn’t be the case.
Seriously man, it’s a different TOD. The comparison starts at 2:13 and you can easily see the different time of day. You can even see the outdoor warehouse light in the 2020 version.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/40e36636adfcb5e0dbc7333b79ba53bb8d2426e24fea116aa8c1ca7cb38f2c9d.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0eeb418c2d1d0c942800b746649862cc418a57851474d89f07004ed7db191c11.jpg
So you’re saying that light source, behind her, is lighting up the side of her face, despite the shadow distinctly appearing on hard right side of the body? The missing lights on the structures don’t show a time of day difference, instead of just missing lighting. Look at how the light is falling on the smaller pipes. Either the time of day is the same, or they have royally screwed up the lighting.
It was a point of reference for the different TOD, never said that it was the light source that was lighting up the side of her face. There are major TOD differences. If you can’t really see them, then I’m sorry but that’s your fault. Here is another hint though. There is another light (obviously from another outdoor light) lighting up the pipe. You can clearly see the orange-ish/red-ish light at the bottom of the pipe (I’m talking about the top pipe) behind the woman. The 2018 doesn’t have it because the 2020 is at night (meaning there are multiple outdoor spot lights here and there).
Even if the sun is coming from a different direction the weather looks more overcast than sunny like in 2018.
And I don’t agree that the sun is coming from the same direction. Yes it is still coming from left to right, but at a obviously different angle, indicating a different time of day.
2 image: No lighting anymore, worst textures ( low textures)
And there is no reason for it.
I think some looks better, some looks worse than the 2018 ones.
I agree, Lighting on 2020 looks more realistic. Woman on image from 2018 look like doll
What’s make-up for if it’s not for that purpose? lol.
They really uglified that woman.
Downgrade? Did you even watch the video? The graphics are obviously upgraded, this model is just bad compared to the earlier version.
It is less blurry and some textures are improved, but the lighting does look greatly reduced.
theres a few pics like that. also in the ripper doc when you get the gun as he scoots on the chair they removed the lighting on his face as he moves around the environment. know its just the same thing.
This scene is not even at the same daytime…….. all the other comparison still images are better in 2020
The only downgrade I see from the two images is the time of day one is dark from overcast clouds and the other is sunny. I fail to see your point here. Otherwise it does have more detail than the 2018 version.
It’s the age old question of if some people prefer an dull scene that looks more artistic or a sharper more detailed one that looks more realistic. I think most of the footage from 2018 is lacking in sharpness and texture detail.
It is subjectively your own and not so much of a downgrade since more detail is often considered an upgrade.
With dlss 2.0 wouldn’t 1080p be fine for 4k anyways? This sounds amazing. Nvidia gonna ship a lot of 3080’s because of this.
The original may look worse to some people because the material had obviously lower bitrate as the author couldn’t snag the native quality footage. Pretty much the same game overall. The devs seem to have removed some perspective warping effects and added some extra crap on top.
That’s the biggest thing I noticed aside from the few different art choices. Wouldn’t call it much of an upgrade.
They enabled RTX effects with better lighting and shadows
You can read article on GeForce page from Nvidia website
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 – 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 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 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.
The “Control” approach, i like it.
I hope it’s using DXR 1.1 that’s suppousedly more optimized.
so many ray things 80% of ppl wont see
People with slow hardware can disable RTX in options. This game will be released AFTER Nvidia Ampere
??? RDNA 2 and RTX 3000 is coming out before this game.
You’re wrong.
yeah … only for 1499 ,,,, or just turn of a gimic and you can have the same preformance with a 499 card ….
No.
Awesome John!
Btw, what the hell is up with almost all ppl over here. Frikking negative Nancies. All they do is complain and complain. Must be really miserable freaks. Sad really!
This game looks really nexgen more then anything I have seen. Cant wait for it. Will be fantastic and thanks a lot for all work you are doing man 🙂
Dont let the f*ckn Nancies here get you down. Most of them should be banned forever 😉
Actually logged in just to give you a thumbs-up love the positive words brother keep it up!!!
Hi there!
Makes me happy to hear that. Great to see there is nice people out there 🙂
Thanks again, and be safe bro and enjoy life!
Awesome post really. You made my day. Thanks mate!
This is just sad how some people act – look at wccftech where 95% of people are angry because their GPU can’t run game on ultra settings with RTX enabled. Those people will be responsible for huge downgrade like with Witcher 3.
Publisher need to earn money and when they see that 95% of people want ‘ultra’ on old hardware developers will be forced to downgrade max settings to sell more copies. They disable ultra and rename medium as new ‘ultra’. Just like they done with Wither 3 when they disable global illumination to lower hardware reqiurements
I never undersand why those people can’t just go to options and choose high-medium settings without RTX.
LOL yeah so very true John.These people must have a really miserable life – nothing to be happy about. All is crap yada yada. It’s sad to see really :/
And if the game dont look good enough, they b*tch about that. And oh it’s so fantastic to hate on everything. If the game dont have RT it’s crap and sh*t. And if it does, they think it should run for free. Same as with PhysX. Just hate hate hate!
Crazy really that they dont see how they are. Folks like that should be banned from everything tech, and be forced to go outside. Even better place them on an Island so they can get a frikking life. And find some happiness!
Keep up the good work buddy. Love this place 🙂
All they do is complain and complain
🙂
Looks pretty amazing, some shadow issues and a lot of pop in while driving the outskirts, but overall God Damn!!!!
Shadows were massively downgraded. There were two overlapping shadow casting lights in many of the 2018 scenes. These instances have been removed in the 2020 version and the shadows themselves are unnaturally blurry, at least in indoor scenes.
i think those pop in issue will not be fixed until ps5 xbsx releases
It’s literally an ini tweak just like for Witcher 3… uses the same but upgraded engine after all.
Quit making stuff up.
In TW3 you could improve grass pop-in, nearly everything else was hardcoded, modders are only now beginning to improve the LOD after years of trying.
U sure? https://www.geforce.com/whats-new/guides/the-witcher-3-wild-hunt-graphics-performance-and-tweaking-guide#the-witcher-3-wild-hunt-tweaking
Yes I’m sure…You can somewhat increase LOD on ground clutter and grass, but actual static 3d models are hard coded.
Well said John, too much pop-in indeed.
The size of the crowds were massively downgraded.
This comes from console version
Mostly looks better. Nice !
Mostly better light effects, but overall way prettier.
1) Lighting looks flat in some areas.
2) Pop-in is obvious and draw distance is low as hell in Badlands.
3) FOV is also low, hopefully there is an FOV slider.
4) Chromatic aberration is ever-present, hopefully there is an in-game on/off toggle. I could get behind the use of chromatic aberration after using some drugs.
5) If raytracing is used in the game I haven’t noticed it at all.
6) The world as a whole and objects in it (weapons, characters) don’t look futuristic at all. When you read Neuromancer you get the sense of all the cool future things. But in the recent videos it pretty much looks like GTA-5 populated by folks with metal in their faces. Weapons, especially the assault rifle with a hideous kid’s chamo akin to CS:GO skins is bad, really bad.
7) Male V sounds and looks extremely generic, female V in 2018 gameplay vid had more charisma to her.
8) If techie class (along with the spider things gameplay, sigh) was removed then it leaves you with two? Solo and netrunner? So much for multiple charcter classes (well I guess two counts for multipel nowadays).
9) Music in all three videos was extremely forgettable. Deep Dive had at least one great guitar riff going for it. I assume it was Paul Leonard Morgan’s work.
10) NPC count looks very low. As in Bethesda levels of low.
11) Suicide squad aestethic (over-the-top color barrage when your eye fails to focus on any one specific thing) isn’t my cup of tea.
In my opinion for the worse.
This video pretty much confirms: They captured this video on PS5/XBOX Consoles, not PC for sure.
You literary have zero evidence to back that up.
???
It just looks like they turned off TAA
Reflections are worse now. If those in the new footage are the ray-traced ones then they must have limited the ray length too much or something. Doesn’t look convincing at all. You’ve got light and reflections leaking all over the place. In the 2018 footage objects seemed more believable. Something in a dark corner would be dark and only reflect darkness as well. Now you’ve got parts of clothing for instance reflecting all kinds of light they shouldn’t.
Based on what the description John99 posted says about reflections I have to conclude that RTX reflections were OFF for the video.
GeforceNow enough said…