A dense, story-driven open-world RPG set in Night City — and a flagship showcase for ray tracing, path tracing and DLSS.
Cyberpunk 2077 is CD Projekt Red's first-person action RPG set in the sprawling neon dystopia of Night City. You play as V, a mercenary chasing a one-of-a-kind implant that holds the key to immortality, shaping the story through branching quests, lifepaths and cyberware builds. Built on the REDengine, it is one of the most visually demanding PC games ever shipped: dense geometry, volumetric fog and reflective wet streets punish the GPU hard, and its RT Overdrive path-tracing mode is a genuine next-generation lighting showcase. Thanks to deep DLSS Super Resolution, Ray Reconstruction and Frame Generation support, that fidelity stays playable on modern RTX hardware.
Built for competitive players who want the highest frame rate and lowest input latency.
Ray tracing off and DLSS in Performance mode for the highest, most stable frame rate. Ideal for high-refresh monitors and mid-range GPUs that want a smooth Night City rather than a pretty one.
| Setting | Value | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Quick Preset | Low | — |
| Ray Tracing | OFF | Biggest single FPS win in this game — rasterized lighting is far cheaper. |
| DLSS Super Resolution | Performance | Renders at ~50% and reconstructs; large FPS gain at 1440p/4K. |
| DLSS Frame Generation | OFF | Skip it when chasing lowest latency; better paired with RT. |
| Texture Quality | High | Cheap on VRAM headroom, keeps the world readable. |
| Crowd Density | Low | Fewer NPCs eases the CPU in busy market areas. |
| Volumetric Fog Resolution | Low | — |
| Volumetric Cloud Quality | Off | — |
| Screen Space Reflections Quality | Low | One of the heaviest raster settings — keep it low. |
| Ambient Occlusion | Low | — |
| Local Shadow Quality | Low | — |
| Cascaded Shadows Resolution | Low | — |
| Distant Shadows Resolution | Low | — |
| Motion Blur | OFF | Clearer motion and a small frametime saving. |
| Chromatic Aberration | OFF | — |
| Film Grain | OFF | — |
Maximum visual fidelity for players who prefer the best-looking image.
Full path tracing (RT Overdrive) with every effect maxed, held together by DLSS Quality, Ray Reconstruction and Frame Generation. The definitive way to see Night City — reserved for RTX 4070-class GPUs and above.
| Setting | Value | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Quick Preset | Ray Tracing: Overdrive | — |
| Path Tracing | ON | Fully path-traced lighting, reflections and shadows — hugely GPU-intensive. |
| Ray Reconstruction | ON | Essential with Path Tracing; replaces legacy denoisers for cleaner lighting. |
| DLSS Super Resolution | Quality | Keeps path tracing playable while preserving detail. |
| DLSS Frame Generation | ON | Nearly mandatory to make RT Overdrive feel smooth at 4K. |
| Texture Quality | High | — |
| Crowd Density | High | Fills the streets — heavier on the CPU in dense districts. |
| Volumetric Fog Resolution | Ultra | — |
| Volumetric Cloud Quality | Ultra | — |
| Screen Space Reflections Quality | Psycho | — |
| Subsurface Scattering Quality | High | — |
| Ambient Occlusion | Ultra | — |
| Local Shadow Mesh Quality | High | — |
| Distant Shadows Resolution | High | — |
| Level of Detail (LOD) | High | — |
| Mirror Quality | High | — |
The sweet spot between frame rate and visuals. Drag the slider to shift the balance.
High raster settings with Ray-Traced Reflections and DLSS Quality — the sweet spot where Night City looks striking without collapsing the frame rate. A great everyday default on RTX 3060-class hardware and up.
| Setting | Value | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Quick Preset | Ray Tracing: Medium (custom) | — |
| Ray-Traced Reflections | ON | The single most transformative RT effect on wet Night City streets. |
| Ray-Traced Sun Shadows | OFF | Costly for the benefit — leave off in Balanced. |
| Ray-Traced Lighting | OFF | Path tracing / RT lighting reserved for the Graphics profile. |
| DLSS Super Resolution | Quality | Renders at ~67% — near-native clarity with a solid FPS gain. |
| DLSS Frame Generation | ON | Roughly doubles displayed FPS on RTX 40-series; needs a ~60fps base for good feel. |
| DLSS Ray Reconstruction | ON | Sharper, more stable RT denoising — turn on whenever any RT is active. |
| Texture Quality | High | — |
| Crowd Density | Medium | — |
| Volumetric Fog Resolution | High | — |
| Screen Space Reflections Quality | Medium | — |
| Ambient Occlusion | High | — |
| Local Shadow Quality | High | — |
| Cascaded Shadows Resolution | Medium | — |
| Motion Blur | Low | — |
| Field of View | 90 | — |
| Metric | CompetitiveMax FPS / Performance | BalancedBalanced | High GraphicsBest Graphics / RT Overdrive |
|---|---|---|---|
| Input Latency | Lowest | Low | Standard |
| Graphics Quality | |||
| GPU Usage | Medium | High | Very High |
| Competitive Score | 90/100 | 70/100 | 46/100 |
| Recommended For | High-refresh play and mid-range GPUs that want a locked, fluid frame rate. | Players who want RT reflections and a clean image while keeping frames smooth. | RTX 4070-class GPUs and up chasing reference-quality path-traced visuals and screenshots. |
Official minimum and recommended specs for Cyberpunk 2077.
| Component | Minimum | Recommended |
|---|---|---|
| OS | 64-bit Windows 10 | 64-bit Windows 10 |
| Processor | Core i7-6700 or Ryzen 5 1600 | Core i7-12700 or Ryzen 7 7800X3D |
| Memory | 12 GB RAM | 16 GB RAM |
| Graphics | GeForce GTX 1060 6GB or Radeon RX 580 8GB or Arc A380 | GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER or Radeon RX 5700 XT or Arc A770 |
| DirectX | Version 12 | Version 12 |
| Storage | 70 GB available space | 70 GB available space |
Minimum
Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system OS: 64-bit Windows 10 Processor: Core i7-6700 or Ryzen 5 1600 Memory: 12 GB RAM Graphics: GeForce GTX 1060 6GB or Radeon RX 580 8GB or Arc A380 DirectX: Version 12 Storage: 70 GB available space Additional Notes: SSD required. Attention: In this game you will encounter a variety of visual effects that may provide seizures or loss of consciousness in a minority of people. If you or someone you know experiences any of the above symptoms while playing, stop and seek medical attention immediately.
Recommended
Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system OS: 64-bit Windows 10 Processor: Core i7-12700 or Ryzen 7 7800X3D Memory: 16 GB RAM Graphics: GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER or Radeon RX 5700 XT or Arc A770 DirectX: Version 12 Storage: 70 GB available space Additional Notes: SSD required.
Source: Steam
Pick your hardware and preset to estimate your frame rate — results update instantly.
Frame generation is never counted: every figure is rendered frames only.
Your Estimated Cyberpunk 2077 Performance
Ultra · native · 1080p
67
Low end
67
Estimate
67
High end
FPS values displayed on GamerSpecs are estimates. Actual game performance may vary depending on hardware configuration, drivers, cooling, power limits, background applications, and game updates.
How is this calculated?Safe, technically-sound tips to get the most out of Cyberpunk 2077.
Turn on DLSS Super Resolution (Quality at 1440p/4K, Balanced at higher resolutions) — it is the single biggest, safest performance lever in this game with almost no visual cost.
Reserve DLSS Frame Generation for when your base frame rate is already around 60fps; it smooths motion dramatically but feels sluggish if the underlying framerate is low.
If you enable any ray tracing, also enable DLSS Ray Reconstruction — it improves lighting quality and denoising while often costing nothing or slightly helping performance.
Screen Space Reflections and Volumetric Fog Resolution are among the heaviest rasterized settings — drop them a notch first when you need frames, before touching textures.
Keep Texture Quality high but watch VRAM: path tracing and 4K can exceed 8GB cards, causing stutter — lower resolution or upscaling preset if you see VRAM-related hitching.
Update to a current 'Game Ready' GPU driver for Cyberpunk 2077, but if a new driver regresses performance, roll back to the previous stable one — newer is not always faster for a specific title.