Hi
I'm playing Cyberpunk on a PC (RXT 3080, SSD, 32GB RAM, Intel I9-10900KF, 1920x1200 res) and I must say I am enjoying the game a lot. The amount of work that went into it is huge and, fortunately, I haven't been affected by any game or immersion breaking bugs. Since the game is running extremely well for me (everything maxed out, RTX on, DLSS on quality) I would be interested in finding out if there is a way to trade some FPS for increased quality of some effects. While waiting for CDPR to improve on the game, I'd be happy to play tweaking ini files or any parameters through a console, so I'm wondering if anyone knows (or can point to) what can be added/changed through configuration files. In example, I'm familiar with the DistanceBoost ini tweak, but I'm sure many more exist and are probably accessible. Let me describe what I'd like to change:
Environment:
1) buildings seem to have a rather aggressive LOD set on them, aggressive both in terms of when the switch between LODs happens and in terms of how decimated the lower res LOD is. The DistanceBoost parameter *seems* to only affect the distance at which detail geometry appears, but not the distance at which buildings switch LODs: is this correct? If that is the case, what would be the relevant parameters to affect LOD switching distance on buildings?
2) besides the decimated geometry, lower resolution LODs look extremely soft in terms of texturing: is there any level of control over their mipmapping, in order to retail more texture detail? Or they use separate, low-quality versions of the original textures? The softness doesn't just come from an over-smooth diffuse color, but from the disappearance of lighting variation (normals flattened out? A single value for specular intensity and roughness?), so any advice on how to retrieve some of that variation would be welcome, as it's the micro-variations that convey the correct scale of buildings at distance.
3) I have the impression that raytraced ambient occlusion is only active up to a certain distance from the player: is this possible? If that is the case, what would be the parameter used to decide up to what distance AO computation is triggered?
4) Where raytraced ambient occlusion is active, is there control over the near/far distance used by AO?
5) Is ambient occlusion computed both against environment geometry and crowds/characters, and using the same parameters?
6) this question is similar to 3), but basically: are sun/sky/local lights only computed if the pixel they are supposed to affect is closer to the player than a certain threshold? If that is the case, what would be the parameter that could tweak that?
7) and this question is similar to 4), but regarding sun/sky/local lights: when a pixel is looking around itself to figure out if it's in shadow, will it only look around up to a certain distance? And if that is the case, is there a parameter to decide what that distance is?
8) I assume the game uses temporal antialiasing to average out noise in ambient occlusion and reflections, however a bit of sizzling can still be perceived i.e. standing still and looking at a bumpy wet asphalt, so I'm wondering how many samples per pixel/frame do AO and reflections use in the first place? One? In any case, does a parameter exist to allow trying a different number of samples? I would say I have the same question about sun/sky/local light shadows.
Characters
1) both hero and crowd characters in indoor spaces tend to appear unnaturally flat: what I assume is probe-based lighting possibly complemented by raytraced indirect light has very little sense of directionality and bleeds through geometry as if unoccluded both by the character self-shadowing and by environment geometry: is AO used by characters/crowds? Very distracting are reflections on character lips that should be occluded by the character itself. If AO is used by characters/crowd what are the parameters to tweak it?
2) are shadows of crowds/hero characters cast against lower resolution geometry representations of them? That would explain some of the imprecisions;: if that is the case, is there a way to enforce shadowcasting against the full-res model?
3) crowds and the occasional hero character instance seem to use lower resolution textures (or even completely missing ones, like normals/specularity) even when quite closeup: do we have any control over what mipmaps or LOD are being used at what distance?
I know, it's a lot of questions, and some random/unofficial answers may already exist over the internet; however I was curious to understand if in the context of these forums someone with a better understanding of the workings of Cyberpunk's engine would be able to actually offer any information backed by actual knowledge instead of speculation.
If only speculation is available, I'd still be happy to tinker, as long as someone can give me a direction where to look
Thank you!
I'm playing Cyberpunk on a PC (RXT 3080, SSD, 32GB RAM, Intel I9-10900KF, 1920x1200 res) and I must say I am enjoying the game a lot. The amount of work that went into it is huge and, fortunately, I haven't been affected by any game or immersion breaking bugs. Since the game is running extremely well for me (everything maxed out, RTX on, DLSS on quality) I would be interested in finding out if there is a way to trade some FPS for increased quality of some effects. While waiting for CDPR to improve on the game, I'd be happy to play tweaking ini files or any parameters through a console, so I'm wondering if anyone knows (or can point to) what can be added/changed through configuration files. In example, I'm familiar with the DistanceBoost ini tweak, but I'm sure many more exist and are probably accessible. Let me describe what I'd like to change:
Environment:
1) buildings seem to have a rather aggressive LOD set on them, aggressive both in terms of when the switch between LODs happens and in terms of how decimated the lower res LOD is. The DistanceBoost parameter *seems* to only affect the distance at which detail geometry appears, but not the distance at which buildings switch LODs: is this correct? If that is the case, what would be the relevant parameters to affect LOD switching distance on buildings?
2) besides the decimated geometry, lower resolution LODs look extremely soft in terms of texturing: is there any level of control over their mipmapping, in order to retail more texture detail? Or they use separate, low-quality versions of the original textures? The softness doesn't just come from an over-smooth diffuse color, but from the disappearance of lighting variation (normals flattened out? A single value for specular intensity and roughness?), so any advice on how to retrieve some of that variation would be welcome, as it's the micro-variations that convey the correct scale of buildings at distance.
3) I have the impression that raytraced ambient occlusion is only active up to a certain distance from the player: is this possible? If that is the case, what would be the parameter used to decide up to what distance AO computation is triggered?
4) Where raytraced ambient occlusion is active, is there control over the near/far distance used by AO?
5) Is ambient occlusion computed both against environment geometry and crowds/characters, and using the same parameters?
6) this question is similar to 3), but basically: are sun/sky/local lights only computed if the pixel they are supposed to affect is closer to the player than a certain threshold? If that is the case, what would be the parameter that could tweak that?
7) and this question is similar to 4), but regarding sun/sky/local lights: when a pixel is looking around itself to figure out if it's in shadow, will it only look around up to a certain distance? And if that is the case, is there a parameter to decide what that distance is?
8) I assume the game uses temporal antialiasing to average out noise in ambient occlusion and reflections, however a bit of sizzling can still be perceived i.e. standing still and looking at a bumpy wet asphalt, so I'm wondering how many samples per pixel/frame do AO and reflections use in the first place? One? In any case, does a parameter exist to allow trying a different number of samples? I would say I have the same question about sun/sky/local light shadows.
Characters
1) both hero and crowd characters in indoor spaces tend to appear unnaturally flat: what I assume is probe-based lighting possibly complemented by raytraced indirect light has very little sense of directionality and bleeds through geometry as if unoccluded both by the character self-shadowing and by environment geometry: is AO used by characters/crowds? Very distracting are reflections on character lips that should be occluded by the character itself. If AO is used by characters/crowd what are the parameters to tweak it?
2) are shadows of crowds/hero characters cast against lower resolution geometry representations of them? That would explain some of the imprecisions;: if that is the case, is there a way to enforce shadowcasting against the full-res model?
3) crowds and the occasional hero character instance seem to use lower resolution textures (or even completely missing ones, like normals/specularity) even when quite closeup: do we have any control over what mipmaps or LOD are being used at what distance?
I know, it's a lot of questions, and some random/unofficial answers may already exist over the internet; however I was curious to understand if in the context of these forums someone with a better understanding of the workings of Cyberpunk's engine would be able to actually offer any information backed by actual knowledge instead of speculation.
If only speculation is available, I'd still be happy to tinker, as long as someone can give me a direction where to look
Thank you!