CD Projekt RED promised an important patch for Cyberpunk 2077 in January, and the studio did so, with version 1.10 promising a number of bug fixes, stability improvements and, at least for PlayStation 4, the promise of updates actual performance figures.
And this is crucial because we have absolutely no doubt that faults can be rectified and glitches removed, but the fundamental question is this. Does previous generation hardware have the power to provide a consistent level of performance that is much closer to the 30 FPS target? The performance analysis of version 1.10 gives us optimism in some aspects, but there is still a mountain to climb.
Naturally, version 1.10 has since been updated with hotfix 1.11, which essentially provides an update to fix a couple of bugs, but the main optimization and stability boost introduced improvements in memory management, and addressed a wide variety of bugs.
What is curious is the platform-specific optimizations: there is talk of crowd optimization for the PS4 Pro and PS5, but surely the base PS4 should also improve? And why these optimizations would also not improve the situation for Xbox One users.
For its part, the Microsoft platform has seen memory management change, specifically around the creation of characters, mirrors, digitalization of cameras and much more.
Interestingly, however, our tests suggest that there are more improvements - and since the original PS4 and Xbox One really need a lot of work, these are the platforms we initially chose to take a look at.
Something we can report immediately: we did not see the game crash, or block. This is not to say that we have not found bugs and bugs, we definitely have, but cleaning up the crash problems and providing a more stable experience is probably the number one goal of CD Projekt RED.
SXN2OUFBSzM2eFE=
Playing on the standard PS4, we also noticed some improvements that don't seem to have been revealed in the patch notes. First, the image quality appears to have been noticeably improved. Even with the compressed video you'll see on this page, the drive for clarity here should be evident, perhaps CDPR has fine-tuned the renderer's temporal anti-aliasing component, fine-tuned post-TAA sharpening, or reduced pipeline post-processing. Regardless, it looks cleaner.
Getting a fix on the native resolution in this game is a challenge due to how quickly the pixel counts the offset, but our impression is that the actual rendering resolution remains unchanged from the launch code, Cyberpunk 2077 just looks cleaner.
In selected scenarios, we also observed a better performance on PS4, anything up to 5/6 FPS per second, which is quite an achievement, a significant jump in percentage terms. Interestingly, we have seen this happen in scenarios such as the shooting of vehicles with scavengers after the first mission, where the optimization of the crowd system declared by CDPR is unlikely to have had any impact.
Once again, the image quality remains clearer and the set of effects remains the same, so this is a real improvement. But it is clear that we are still far from a pleasant experience. Other areas of the game work basically the same as before and performance issues remain.
In frantic shootings, it is still possible for Cyberpunk 2077 to drop below 20 FPS on PlayStation 4, while streaming-related issues are still present. It is still very difficult to recommend this game to users of the most popular console of the last generation
Where does version 1.10 leave the Xbox One S? Well, it seems that the improved image clarity seen on PlayStation 4 also applies to the original Xbox One, but apart from the improvements in overall stability, all of our test clips did not reveal a noticeable increase in performance compared to patch 1.02 .
The often prolonged crashes have disappeared, improvements in stability are also present, but the real way the game unfolds is still as unsatisfactory as it was before. Xbox is also where I experienced a particularly serious flaw, and one issue I would like to see addressed by CDPR is how playing on one Xbox can impact the experience if you move to another.
For example, if you play Series X in quality mode, move to Xbox One or Xbox One X, you will see FPS rates drop to around 15 FPS. This can only be fully resolved by clearing all saved games from the affected Xboxs. I'll let you watch the video to see some of the other weird bugs and weird flaws I found on both platforms.
bVZXSlBZS0NNY28=
Like our work on The Witcher 3, our goal is to trace the progress of the various Cyberpunk 2077 patches and updates over time, so, having completed work on the base machines, our gaze shifts to improved consoles.
In our initial tests, the PS4 Pro, while still having serious problems in some scenarios - seemed to be the group's choice when it came to playing the game on previous generation systems.
However, impressions so far suggest that in addition to stability improvements, it is still the same experience in general - our test cases involving crowds (an area pointed out by CDPR as the focus of the optimization work in 1.10) have shown inconclusive results, and certainly no game-changing improvements.
Ultimately, our patch 1.10, and even 1.11, of Cyberpunk 2077 is quite simple. Steps have been taken to eliminate flaws in the game and to improve stability in general, the kind of fundamental improvement that should prevail, but although there are some improvements in the way the game works, it does not answer the question we had when we saw the first demo: is it really possible to run this smoothly on a PS4 or Xbox One?
On the PS4 side, there is a feeling that some genuine improvements have been made, but at the same time, if there were fundamental optimizations here, I would have expected to see some improvement on the Pro side as well.
Based on the plans revealed by CDPR, it will deliver another major patch in February, so we will report this as and when the update arrives.
I like several different works, but with a tendency for strange and funny stories.
I like arts, games, drawings and interesting things.
