Why does Cyberpunk 2077 run so bad?
polycounter lvl 8
I just got Cyberpunk 2077 with the newest patch and was hoping for some performance improvements but it is still running like S%^#!! I am running an old gtx 1080 because I live in Australia and it is almost impossible to by a new graphics card at the moment, but I cant see how the performance is this bad for a game that in my opinion doesn't look all that impressive. It just just looks like a bunch of tilling textures with face weighted vertex normals. Is it the lighting that makes it run so poorly? Or is it just ridiculously poorly optimized? I mean some of the game looks like it was made for PS3 in some parts with no attempt at blending anything together, it can be really jarring. I would be fine with the performance hit if I could see what it was for!! I'm probably missing something so can you guys help me out?
Replies
Man These forums truly do suck now. No one seems to read the posts and the people who do act like your stupid for asking something on a general discussion forum. No wonder no one posts on here anymore.
a 1080 should be ok in terms of drawing the pictures but having looked at the game I can imagine it's utterly brutal on the CPU - stuff like the crowds and background systems will be absolutely hammering it.
If your CPU is backed up it's not going to be able to submit the pretties to the GPU for rendering.
A 5 year old i5 probably won't cut it - a 3 year old i7 probably would (guesswork btw)
General Discussion isn't really the liveliest section here, the action is in 3D Showcase, Technical Talk, etc.
Unfortunately I think it's all too easy to misread bad intentions in a forum.
@Ashervisalis @Eric Chadwick That's what I thought. But I guess I was wrong.
@Brian "Panda" Choi It does run at medium settings at 1080p, but the pop in is crazy and I just want to understand why it's so GPU intensive.
@thomasp I am not asking how to run it, I am asking WHY it runs so poorly and I thought a site dedicated to Game art could help me understand seeing as how I believe there are better looking games that run on lower spec hardware. One reason I started to make game art is because I like optimising my work and being efficient (boring I know but I think a lot of people on here like that stuff). So when I see a game run like this one has I would like to know why? As for your comment about flamebait I agree, but I think that people should be a little angry about the game running the way it does and comment about it. I waited for the game to be fixed before paying for it because I understood it would take time to fix it, but then not only does it run just as bad or worse but one of the first dudes I shoot repeatedly tries to get up and falls to the ground in an endless loop.
@Ruz I think most of the new people who come to this site are afraid to start a discusion because some people try to make the OP look stupid for asking a question about video game art. Unless it's a question their interested in or can actually give some constructive feedback on, maybe they should just not comment.
Oh and to buy a rtx 3060 through amazon is $1400 where I live. Enough said.
Coming to a forum full of professionals to say "THIS GAME LOOKS BAD AND RUNS BAD", with no course of action other than for us to say "Oh, that's too bad..." feels a little bit like insulting someone's home when you're invited in.
There are ways to ask those questions productively, and in a way that doesn't feel like idle complaining; I imagine the responses would have been a lot different if you'd opted for that.
And they aren't bad questions to ask really. Efficiency is really important in games, and there's a lot to be said about it.
That's my thought at least~
@thomasp Thankyou for an answer! But don't the best game makers have the most efficient workflows as well? Like all the AAA games work really hard to optimize everything to get the best out of the tech that's available. I'm sorry to go on about this and if it's a question that no one person can answer because it's too multi faceted I will stop asking, but I just want to understand how a game company with so much time and money could have got it so wrong.
If you want better performance though I know there are some fan made mods that try optimizing the game in various ways. Here's the first one I came across on a google search: https://www.nexusmods.com/cyberpunk2077/mods/1642?tab=description
Everyone deserves a pass, it's been a shit year. Hugs all around.
Studios don't crunch when they're polishing little details, they crunch when they don't have time to finish it properly.
The simple answer is that the game was released before it was ready. Due to pressure from a publisher or fears of running out of money to develop the game (likely both). This means a lot of stuff that should happen towards the end of the project likely didn't. For instance:
It's doubtful (again I don't work there so I can't say for sure) that the game runs slowly because the art assets were poorly optimized or something like that related to what your average game artist would have control over. Generally speaking, the art specifications would have been known and largely locked down years before the project shipped. On more of a technical level, things like triangle count or well-optimized UVs or whathaveyou are just not nearly as important as systemic issues like how many dudes are drawn on the screen, how many particle effects are on screen, how complex the lighting is, etc.
It does have loads of very noticeable bugs though. But they're not related to the framerate.
But what forums are still great at are break downs, write ups, and internet searchability. I often wonder how much knowledge is being lost to Slack and Discord channels.
Quite likely most of the bottlenecks aren't to do with art at all. Huge GPU load for multiple instances of vehicle ai (very dense) ped ai, all the emergent gameplay systems constantly running. No idea how the game is built but different memory streaming solutions in open world games have varied success. Also the game seemed very confused about its target platform...felt like it was built for only the highest end spec but still had to be optimized to work on last gen consoles (and they clearly struggled there).
Also, for the argument of "well they had a huge team, lots of time, tons of money.." that never works out to be a direct correlation to a better game or quality. More complicated moving parts, more people, more chances for errors or miscommunication, more stuff slipping through the cracks etc.
Not intended to be a defense for the game being the way it is...but games are very complicated, open world games are the most complicated sub section of games, and art quality/consistency is really only just 1 factor that can affect performance.