CD Projekt Red will add path tracing to PC Cyberpunk 2077 in April

CD Projekt RED is releasing an update that adds path tracing to the PC version of Cyberpunk 2077. The update will be available for free next month for the game. Path tracing is an advanced form of ray tracing for simulating realistic lighting.

Cyberpunk 2077 update 1.62 adds path tracing via a new RT Overdrive mode. That writes Nvidia, with whom CD Projekt RED developed the path tracing update. With path tracing, “virtually all light sources” in the game are rendered with ray tracing, including neon signs, billboards, street lamps and televisions from the game world. These light sources should all cast realistic soft shadows in the game world. Light is also reflected multiple times for realistic indirect lighting and occlusion. Ray-traced reflections are also rendered at full resolution in RT Overdrive mode.

Cyberpunk 2077 also receives support for Shader Execution Ordering on Nvidia’s RTX 40 GPUs. This feature should accelerate shading in the GPU pipeline by rescheduling workloads in real time to run them as efficiently as possible. DLSS 3 support with Frame Generation should also help enable path tracing at playable frame rates.

Nvidia previously showed some images of Cyberpunk 2077’s RT Overdrive mode, running on an RTX 40 GPU in combination with DLSS Frame Generation. At the time, the company did not indicate when exactly that function would appear in the game. Now the release date is known.