Cyberpunk Ultra Plus Better Path Tracing and Stutter Hotfix
40% faster path tracing, stutter fixes, and more LODs. Hola. Yes, I don’t just work with Unreal Engine games (apparently).
What it does
– Improves path tracing performance by 40% (i.e. 30 fps -> 42 fps)
– Improves visual quality of path tracing in most situations
– Improves resource loading stutters (streaming) by increasing Oodle compression workers from 2 to 8
– Fixes crushed blacks by expanding lower histogram
– Fixes some poor PT scenarios by enabling probabilistic ray sampling
– Improves ray noise in dark areas by increasing dark area ray sampling
– Disables character rim lighting (should not be enabled with path tracing)
– Attempts to increase LODs of everything to improve DLSS/FSR Balanced and Performance modes
– Enables ambient occlusion on eyeballs.
Known issues
– Screen may flicker slightly (by a few lumen) in rare scenarios in “Full”
– Dithered white noise in rare scenarios with high contrast shadows in “Full”
– Far objects may flash in rare scenarios due to ray misses in “Full”
About Ultra+
“Ultra+” is a general “hotfix” style mod I’ve made for Hogwarts Legacy, RoboCop: Rogue City, and Jedi Survivor (to date). It came about from me trying to play the games on a 3070 Ti and getting annoyed with a) bugs and b) areas where visual quality could be improved.
I usually do at least two versions: “Full”, which addresses performance issues AND increases visual quality (sometimes it’s faster, somethings it’s “similar” fps), and “Insane”, for no-compromise visual improvements (while letting you enable/disable really expensive options).
Installation
1. Choose a version:
– Full will work best up to 3000 series/AMD equivalent cards
– Insane Will likely require a 4000 series and frame gen
– Experimental is whatever I’m currently working on. Right now, I’ve managed to get ReLAX working with lower edge noise and higher FPS than vanilla, but there may be bugs
2. Copy one ini to Cyberpunk 2077\engine\config\platform\pc
3. Cake time
NOTE: Be careful using this with other “increase LOD” mods, because they may have a cumulative effect which will hurt performance.
If you have any problems, great wins, let me know in Posts. I don’t check bugs nor DMs (if you want to reach me, you’ll work out how, you’re clever).
Mod conflicts
I have no idea if this works with other performance/ray/path tracing mods. Probably not at all. Your mileage may probably won’t vary (ymmpwv) things will probably just go horribly, horribly wrong, maybe even fire.
Technical background
NVIDIA NRD: For the curious. NVIDIA ray reconstruction is not really “ray reconstruction”, it’s NVIDIA NRD, which I’ve been following for a while. The term “ray reconstruction” is a little misleading (sorry NVIDIA). Instead, it does a few things: 1) It saves rays calculated from previous frames to be reused in the current frame, 2) it calculates all rays in a single procedure enabling a single denoise pass (rather than multiple denoise passes in previous-gen RTX)… enabling 3) a new denoise method. I’ve simplified the methods here a little.
Within NRD, there are several choices to be made by game devs, one of which is “which denoiser to use” — I.e. ReLAX or ReBLUR.
CDPR chose ReLAX, likely because it is “faster”. Specifically, as you move around in-game, ReLAX “resolves” the image in fewer frames, meaning within 1–2 frames, you have a stable image (and for this argument, clear reflections).
However, in my opinion this was the wrong decision. Here’s why:
Step 1: Let’s go into game and play with how many rays (R) and bounces (B) there are using ReLAX. The first thing you’ll notice is three things:
– In several common scenarios, the scene requires around 4 rays to yield accurate lighting (the game’s effective default is 2R)
– In several common scenarios, there is significant scene noise with only 2 rays, especially at the edges of objects/actors (especially at 1080p with DLSS)
– However, both scene noise and accurate lighting are “stable” after only one or two frames (even with some problems)
Step 2: Let’s switch to ReBLUR. What we notice:
– The scene takes longer (around 6 frames) to become “stable”
– The reflection quality is slightly less sharp
– However, lighting appears accurate and does not reduce at 2 or even 1 rays (more rays is brighter, but not significantly lower quality)
– The edges of objects/actors improves
With the above, it’s very important to understand ReBLUR requires tuned sensitivity to darkness, and some other specific settings, per NRD’s documentation, and these are not enabled in CP by default, but the NRD API for this functionality is implemented, so we can enable them.
SammiLucia’s “opinions”
What does this all mean. Well, it’s my opinion that:
– For stable/reliable image quality in the majority of scenarios ReLAX requires a minimum of 4 rays (CP uses 2R), which significantly reduces performance from the defaults in CP
– Therefore ReBLUR is the most appropriate option for general use, having more stable/reliable image quality with far better performance. In fact, I would argue this is exactly why NVIDIA developed ReBLUR
So, why would CDPR select ReLAX? Enter: Unreal Engine Lumen.
If you have played a UE5 game, you’ve likely noticed the crystal clear reflections produced by Lumen. This, I think, served as primary motivation to prefer ReLAX’s faster, slightly sharper reflections. If not, surely people would notice NVIDIA path tracing can look inferior to Lumen.
(By the way, Lumen is a kind of “path tracing”, but I’m not going to go open that can of worms here.)
Which to choose? ReBLUR or ReLAX
So what does ReBLUR look like while playing? To be honest, most people won’t notice the slightly slower ReBLUR while running around like a lunatic in game. On balance the visual quality is much better in most situations with ReBLUR.
If I had a high-end 4000 series I would definitely choose ReLAX. But I don’t, and I’m extremely happy with ReBLUR.
On CDPR
I’d like to state for the record, I am a huge fan of CDPR, and believed in them when Cyberpunk 2077 released. The thinking behind decisions such as above are very technical and I’m not criticising, simply offering my own (correct) perspective.
You will also notice (as usual) there are two versions of CP Ultra+ for the very reasons I’ve stated above, however the Insane version reconfigures ReLAX to the settings I believe it should have. Nerds are allowed to differ, and I offer CDPR BIG HUGS and much love for all their games, and for bringing so much heart and passion to the industry.
On streaming and stutters
What about the changes to the streamer. Well, here my experience with redENGINE is similar to Unreal. I think the streamer settings were appropriate when the game released, but hardware, the game (and mods) have changed since then and I don’t think the streamer settings have been revisited. It actually wasn’t until friends pointed out some stutters in-game that I even noticed.
Other than a few tweaks to the streamer/Oodle, Cyberpunk 2077 is an insanely optimised game. It’s insanely impressive.
