News Cyberpunk 2077 System Requirements: Ray Tracing Recs Revealed

[deesider]

So...the implication is that CDPR are now lying to us?

No one is doubting that the minimum specs will play the game. However, the readers of a tech enthusiast site would probably be disappointed in the result of the minimum specs.

 

[m3city]

I did actually see that before, but forgot about it due to RTX 30-series launch crunch. It says 1080p low and 1080p high -- but critically, no fps! That last part really matters a lot to many PC gamers. I'll tweak the article, but fundamentally I still disagree with the lack of detail, or even mentioning ray tracing. Which makes me wonder if the game will actually ship with RT and DLSS enabled, or will that get cut as well, to be added in at a future date?

I agree with @NP post no 8: this article is sooo speculative (i disagree with suggestions that author is trying to sell rtx). And the extended requirements post done by CD Projekt is the only strong point we have. It they keep up to the promise "Low settings and 1080p gaming " at (and thats my addendum) a playable level of 25fps then I'll be the first one to back-up a kickstarter campaing to built them a shrine out of concrete and golden etching . And if those specs deliver below, then it will be a blow for an outstanding history of a quality products they delivered in the last decade. Just to note - a first one.

Dear Mr Walton, I admire you insight on tech and gpu in particular. I just think that you got carried away.

 

[Olle P]

... it is REALLY strange that the 1060 6GB meets the recommended requirements, but somehow, an RX 580 8GB does not, and an R9 Fury level card is required? That seems weird.

I think this might be a matter of age:
The RX 580 might run better than R9 Fury (in DX12 with new drivers), making Fury the minimum requirement.
Same goes for the Nvidia cards:
The GTX 780 was good for DX11 but GTX 1060 is decidedly better for DX 12, especially as the older card doesn't get any "game ready" drivers.

 

[emperoralku]

"This advert was brought to you by Nvidia and RTX".

If they're not paying you for this, then they should be.

 

[adamrcharles]

This article is a really strong advertisement for the ps5 or new Xbox. Save yourself 2k and get something that works out of the box without the speculation.

 

[Deleted member 14196]

This article is a really strong advertisement for the ps5 or new Xbox. Save yourself 2k and get something that works out of the box without the speculation.

Agree

 

[Derael]

I think this article is BS. First of all, no game requires 1800$ PC. 1200$ is the max you need to have a proper experience with literally any game. You don't need an overpriced intel CPU or motherboard, and you don't need 3080, 3600 processor on B450 motherboard with 3070 graphic card is more than enough to handle anything you throw at it.

Secondly, minimal system requirements are definitely not a lie. You mentioned Witcher 3, and let me tell you, I played this game on Radeon HD 5000 series graphic card with 1Gb of graphic memory. Yes, it was minimum settings and 30 FPS, but the game didn't have any lags and ran smoothly on 1080p, I 100% finished it, clearing literally everything, and didn't have any negative experience with it, and it looked good even on minimal settings. After all, we are here for the gameplay, and not just to look at beautiful pictures. You absolutely don't need Ray Tracing or DLSS 2.0 to properly enjoy the game, those things are just nice to haves.

That's why CD Project red are most likely saying the truth, the recommended setup is more than enough for comfortable gaming experience, because comfortable gaming experience doesn't include Ray Tracing to begin with, and I'm completely sure that the minimal requirements are enough to run the game smoothly on 1080p 60 FPS at low settings, which is all most people ever need (because again, people are here for experience, and not the beautiful animations).

As for your "minimal rat tracing build", it's even worse. 2060 Super is a garbage graphic card, it's only formally capable of ray tracing, but costs like actual ray tracing card. If you have a decent graphic card with 6-8 GB of video memory, it's more than enough to run Cyberpunk 2077 comfortably, and they cost half of what 2060 Super costs.

Overall this is just plain marketing post, trying to sell people stuff they don't actually need, and I'm completely disappointed people are falling for it.

If you have spare money to purchase a PC with 700$ graphic card and 400$ processor, sure, go for it, you will have a bit more FPS and slightly better graphics. If you don't, don't bother, you can build a great PC with just 600-700$, which will still provide you with great gaming experience without any problems. If you don't compare it with ray tracing side to side, trust me, you won't even notice a difference, and even if you do, the difference isn't that big.

That's why you shouldn't worry, as long as you meet CD Project Red's recommended requirements.

 

[King_V]

"This advert was brought to you by Nvidia and RTX".

If they're not paying you for this, then they should be.

This is what you joined the forum to say?

 

[tennis2]

@JarredWaltonGPU

While I was [pleasantly/cautiously] surprised to see the recommended specs, I think this article stinks of paid sponsorship.

Some [loosely organized] thoughts for the author:

• How dare they make a game that has system requirements that ARE ACCESSIBLE TO A LARGE AUDIENCE instead of catering to only those with deep pockets.
• Sure, system requirements by most devs are generally BS, and not providing any real guidance to what frame rates one can expect is not helpful. But at least system requirements are generally in the ballpark, even if specific CPU/GPU model don't always make sense.
• While I don't disagree with the generalities and comparisons to Witcher 3, I think it's a bit silly to pretend like you know exactly what the game will need, or that you know what every consumer wants.
• I see no good reason (except for sponsorship) to list such specific build lists. A step too far.
• Ray tracing is neat, but it's NOT a requirement. Ray tracing doesn't make a bad game good.

IMO, this article overstepped the nature of the content (since the game isn't even released). If you're going to get this specific about an unreleased game, you need to provide better proof to back up your claims.

 

[hotaru.hino]

• Ray tracing is neat, but it's NOT a requirement. Ray tracing doesn't make a bad game good.

I keep seeing this, but every time I do, I go "but X graphical feature isn't a requirement" and the list keeps getting bigger until I think "the Quake 1 engine was peak 3D graphics, that's all we really need"

Anyway, while yes, graphics don't make a bad game good, they add to the overall experience. If the artists in charge of the technical aspects for the game designed their aesthetic around certain things, then not having those certain things may detract from the experience.

 

[evdjj3j]

Why such an expensive board for the min spec RTX build, the SSD is Gen 3. A person could save about $50 by buying a B450 board.

 

[emperoralku]

This is what you joined the forum to say?

Yes, I felt that strongly about being clickbaited into an advert.

 

[Aliothale]

Intel Ivy Bridge is still a monster in 2020. Sure, Bulldozer chips are hot garbage but Ivy will still put out insane frames with high end GPU's.

If you have a 3770k @ 4.5ghz and a solid GPU you're still playing games with good 60+ framerates in 2020. Sure the i5 will stuggle a bit in heavily threaded games but it still has great raw performance that can sustain 60+fps with even a slight overclock in modern titles.

Recommending people an $1,800 PC when what they have is probably fine is shady.

 

[JarredWaltonGPU]

Why such an expensive board for the min spec RTX build, the SSD is Gen 3. A person could save about $50 by buying a B450 board.

Motherboards are the mother of the rest of your PC components. I've been burned too many times with budget boards to feel like saving $50 on a mobo. Can you get a good board for $100 or less? Sure. And you'll get fewer BIOS updates, less support for memory kits, potential for more incompatibilities, etc. So, I almost always trend toward more expensive boards that have higher end features that you might not need or even use, but they also have higher quality that's more difficult to quantify. Basically, I don't let friends buy $100 boards if they ask me for advice.

 

[JarredWaltonGPU]

@JarredWaltonGPU

While I was [pleasantly/cautiously] surprised to see the recommended specs, I think this article stinks of paid sponsorship.

Some [loosely organized] thoughts for the author:

• How dare they make a game that has system requirements that ARE ACCESSIBLE TO A LARGE AUDIENCE instead of catering to only those with deep pockets.
• Sure, system requirements by most devs are generally BS, and not providing any real guidance to what frame rates one can expect is not helpful. But at least system requirements are generally in the ballpark, even if specific CPU/GPU model don't always make sense.
• While I don't disagree with the generalities and comparisons to Witcher 3, I think it's a bit silly to pretend like you know exactly what the game will need, or that you know what every consumer wants.
• I see no good reason (except for sponsorship) to list such specific build lists. A step too far.
• Ray tracing is neat, but it's NOT a requirement. Ray tracing doesn't make a bad game good.

IMO, this article overstepped the nature of the content (since the game isn't even released). If you're going to get this specific about an unreleased game, you need to provide better proof to back up your claims.

For the record, there is absolutely zero sponsorship of this article -- not by Nvidia, not by CDPR. I state in multiple places that the hardware lists are not things you need to buy, and that the GPU is the main point of contention. But if you're running a 2013-era CPU and mobo, don't be surprised if performance ends up being less than stellar with Cyberpunk 2077.

The build lists are ecommerce links. Yup, my job requires me to put in ecommerce links to a lot of articles, because it helps pay the bills. I have no idea how much money Future makes off those links, but I can tell you this: if anyone sponsored the article, it's Future. My employer. That's a helluva good reason to include the lists in my book, and it's also why the text says you DON'T need to buy the parts in those lists.

The point isn't that CDPR should or shouldn't force people to upgrade -- I'm glad the minimum specs are low. But CDPR should also be forthcoming about what level of performance people should expect, and take things a step further and say, "Here's what you'll need if you want to run at 1440p, or 4K, or with ray tracing." Ray tracing won't make a bad game great, but it could make a good game better! I'd definitely put Control into that category -- you can play without the RT effects, and it's still fine. But the eye candy with RT enabled definitely makes a difference.

Let me also say that I think the RT effects in Battlefield V, Call of Duty, Metro Exodus, and Shadow of the Tomb Raider are all largely meaningless. If you look for them, they're visible, but they don't really alter the experience much at all. You need multiple RT effects to get there. Also, with higher rendering modes, stuff that isn't correct and present becomes more noticeable. Your character doesn't cast a shadow in Call of Duty, for instance, so when I run in front of a light source and nothing happens, it has the opposite effect and pulls me out of the game. A less correct shadowmap would have been better than more correct shadows but not from the player. This is a game-specific complaint, though -- CoD probably had good reasons (maybe it interfered with aiming and shooting too much).

Alternative titles for the article that were considered but not used, because part of my job is also SEO -- as in, getting people to read things!

Cyberpunk 2077 system requirements: Quit sandbagging and give more detail!
Cyberpunk 2077 system requirements: How to have an Xbox One experience on a new game
Cyberpunk 2077 system requirements: Coming soon to a previous-gen console near you
Cyberpunk 2077 system requirements: Runs on old PC hardware, but does it run well?
Cyberpunk 2077 system requirements: The developers don't even know how it will run
Cyberpunk 2077 system requirements: Please click this and read our article

What I can tell you is that clickbait isn't always bad. It's a crutch term used by anyone that disagrees with anything. And yet clickbait clearly works, and many places are way worse about clickbait. (Also, YouTube ... don't even get me started on the paid advertisements that exist there.) The text gives lots of flavor and explains why the title was used. It explains that we still don't know how the game will run on any set of hardware, but based on lots of other data, we can at least make some educated guesses. It lists parts and says, "This is what's required for ray tracing, if that's what you want -- and I for one very much want another game where ray tracing matters." Not in those exact words, but that's the general gist. Also, tons of people read the article and are still reading the article, which means articles like this are going to be more likely in the future rather than less likely.

 

[damric]

Hi Jarred, Welcome to THW. There are many hardware experts here. Utilize them to get you brought up to speed. Years of experience playing games is different than years of experience in troubleshooting hardware. It's not your fault because you are new, and the new owners of THW want to push advertising sales over knowledge, but the saltier hardware guys see articles like this over the past year on THW and it looks like a clown wrote it. Your statement about "any bronze PSU will do the job" was hilarious, and utterly incompetent. Right now the best PSUs for the buck in the USA are the LEADEX III, which are sold now directly through Amazon and Newegg as of 2020. If you really can't be assed to learn about PSU internals, the easy way to know if it is a junker is to look at the temperature rating and the warranty length. Shoddy units will be rated 30C or less and have less than a 3 year warranty. Mediocre, but still somewhat sketchy units are rated for 40C, while trustworthy units will be rated at 50C (actual ATX spec wow) and have a long warranty typically over 7 years because the manufacturer knows it will last. Lastly, don't write performance articles for a game is not released, no matter what sponsors or management want. Again, these kinds of situations just make you look like a clown.

1 more point I'd like to add. It is possible to have ray tracing on non-dedicated ray tracing hardware. Whether or not your unreleased game can implement that or not is still unknown. Regardless, if you want to see how good ray tracing looks on older hardware, check out Cryengine's Neon Noir benchmark. It is free to download. Run it, write a nifty article on THW all about your experience, look smart, and win over our hearts and minds.

 

[JarredWaltonGPU]

Hi Jarred, Welcome to THW. There are many hardware experts here. Utilize them to get you brought up to speed. Years of experience playing games is different than years of experience in troubleshooting hardware. It's not your fault because you are new, and the new owners of THW want to push advertising sales over knowledge, but the saltier hardware guys see articles like this over the past year on THW and it looks like a clown wrote it. Your statement about "any bronze PSU will do the job" was hilarious, and utterly incompetent. Right now the best PSUs for the buck in the USA are the LEADEX III, which are sold now directly through Amazon and Newegg as of 2020. If you really can't be assed to learn about PSU internals, the easy way to know if it is a junker is to look at the temperature rating and the warranty length. Shoddy units will be rated 30C or less and have less than a 3 year warranty. Mediocre, but still somewhat sketchy units are rated for 40C, while trustworthy units will be rated at 50C (actual ATX spec wow) and have a long warranty typically over 7 years because the manufacturer knows it will last. Lastly, don't write performance articles for a game is not released, no matter what sponsors or management want. Again, these kinds of situations just make you look like a clown.

1 more point I'd like to add. It is possible to have ray tracing on non-dedicated ray tracing hardware. Whether or not your unreleased game can implement that or not is still unknown. Regardless, if you want to see how good ray tracing looks on older hardware, check out Cryengine's Neon Noir benchmark. It is free to download. Run it, write a nifty article on THW all about your experience, look smart, and win over our hearts and minds.

Seriously? Can you be any more condescending?

I've been writing about hardware for 16 years, I've been a hardware enthusiast since my teens (in the 80s and 90s). No one -- literally no one -- can know everything about every component. PSUs? Not my major concern, because frankly they're pretty darn boring to read or write about, and most are 'good enough' if you get at least a Gold PSU. Hitting gold ratings means a certain level of efficiency, which means a certain level of components. Anyway, I've edited many PSU reviews over the years, prior to coming to TH. They're still boring. LOL

The fact is that just about any 80 Plus Bronze PSU will work on a modest PC. Not that it's a great pick, but juggling price vs benefit while trying to reach a certain level of performance is always about tradeoffs. Every enthusiast does this when they build a PC. Many go way overkill on the PSU, spending $200+ for negligible benefits. Sometimes there's crunch and you rush things out. Try writing about hardware as a job and you'll quickly discover this -- always too much to do, not enough time to do it. So when you have to update an older article and a part goes out of stock, something worse than originally intended might get slotted in as a quick placeholder (which is precisely what happened with the Apevia PSU).

It's easy to come up with reasons to choose a better GPU, CPU, or mobo and have hard data about performance. PSUs ends up with nebulous ripple and reliability statements, which are extremely difficult to quantify for the average user. I've had 'bad' PSUs -- a couple of Enermax 850W bronze models that I bought as spares for "just in case" refused to work with several X570 boards I tested, even though I was never pulling more than 350W. (But they worked fine with Z390 boards, go figure.) I've had highly scored units (eg, from JohnnyGuru) that had problems as well. It's tough to know if it's the PSU model, or just one bad PSU. Still, it's hard to justify putting $50-$100 more into a PSU rather than picking a faster GPU.

As for CryEngine... based on what I'm seeing from Crysis Remastered, I don't put too much stock in the software ray tracing techniques. Neon Noir is a tech benchmark, but when applied to an actual game things apparently didn't scale very well.

 

[hotaru.hino]

1 more point I'd like to add. It is possible to have ray tracing on non-dedicated ray tracing hardware. Whether or not your unreleased game can implement that or not is still unknown. Regardless, if you want to see how good ray tracing looks on older hardware, check out Cryengine's Neon Noir benchmark. It is free to download. Run it, write a nifty article on THW all about your experience, look smart, and win over our hearts and minds.

Neon Noir doesn't really look that impressive when:

• Reflective surfaces smear worse than DLSS 1.0
• Ray tracing extends out only so far from the camera
• The demo only did reflections, it didn't cover other aspects of lighting (evident by oddities like higher brightness in places even though the light is obscured by objects)
• Using lower quality models in the reflections (though to be fair, this is an optimization technique)

The ray tracing implemented in Crysis Remastered is much better, and it has the added benefit of also running on RTX cards for faster performance.

(also finally, we have an application that has both a software RT path and a hardware accelerated RT path)

 

[King_V]

For the record, there is absolutely zero sponsorship of this article -- not by Nvidia, not by CDPR.

Now now . . don't go ruining perfectly good conspiracy theories with pesky facts!

 

[deesider]

CDPR make great games and their respect for their customers is admirable - but anyone who accepts their recommendations on technical specs without scepticism has clearly forgotten the Hairworks debacle of The Witcher 3.

No doubt a game is enjoyable at medium quality and 30 fps, but a visual spectacle and smooth framerate is even better.

 

[JarredWaltonGPU]

(Also finally, we have an application that has both a software RT path and a hardware accelerated RT path)

I'm still not totally sure what CryTek is doing with hardware RT right now on PC. I know that in many scenes, the one "ray tracing" setting in the game hardly changed the rendered image and still caused a massive performance hit, even on RTX 3080. It's more viable at 1080p of course, which I wasn't testing. The game doesn't tell you that the various settings do inside the menu, though, which makes it more time consuming to figure out what's what. I'll have to check a 1080 Ti with the game and see how that performs (or doesn't perform, as the case may be).

The whole ray tracing in hardware without using Vulkan RT or DX12 is where I get suspicious. But I don't have time to delve into it right this minute, because 3090.

 

[hotaru.hino]

I'm still not totally sure what CryTek is doing with hardware RT right now on PC. I know that in many scenes, the one "ray tracing" setting in the game hardly changed the rendered image and still caused a massive performance hit, even on RTX 3080. It's more viable at 1080p of course, which I wasn't testing. The game doesn't tell you that the various settings do inside the menu, though, which makes it more time consuming to figure out what's what. I'll have to check a 1080 Ti with the game and see how that performs (or doesn't perform, as the case may be).

The whole ray tracing in hardware without using Vulkan RT or DX12 is where I get suspicious. But I don't have time to delve into it right this minute, because 3090.

Digital Foundry said Crysis Remastered uses Vulkan with NVIDIA's RT extensions to do hardware accelerated ray tracing.

Although that leads me to believe you can't the run ray tracing option on AMD cards.

 

[sx57]

i logged in after a long time ,so that i could express my disappointment in this baseless useless nvidia-gpus-advertising article. seriously this article is very low level and cheap .shame on you. there was a time when tomshardware was way more trustworthy.

 

[cryoburner]

These are the things that drive me nuts about minimum and recommended requirements - at what resolution and frame rate? It may be pretty egregious here, but it seems like most games don't specify.

Absolutely maddening!

Yeah, some games do that, but they seem to be in the minority. CDPR did clarify a bit that the minimum requirements were for 1080p low, and the recommended for 1080p high, but that doesn't mean much without them specifying what sort of frame rates to expect at those levels. And of course, there's no telling how "low" or "high" settings will look compared to the screenshots and trailers they've been showing off.

If I had to guess though, these recommendations might be based on recreating an experience comparable to the existing consoles. So, the minimum might be for roughly an Xbox One / PS4 level experience, and recommended for an Xbox One X / PS4 Pro level experience, both of which will probably be running at around 30fps.

Cyberpunk 2077 system requirements: Please click this and read our article

Now that's a headline that would draw me in. It might lose some of its effectiveness if you did it for every article though.

 

[mildew]

I intend to be playing it on a 3570K @ 4.8Ghz , 1070 TI @ 2Ghz , 16GB DDR3 @ 2.2Ghz.
Will be interesting to see how it runs - im old so im fine with 59fps. (driver locked to 59 and no vsynch)
Then possibly replaying on PS5 depending on level of mouse/key support. Fingers crossed that Sony wants to hook PC gamers enough to support a sane aiming device