One of the most anticipated games of 2020, Cyberpunk 2077, has finally hit the street after several release delays. However, despite these delays, the game has launched with some high profile bugs. One of these bugs can force the game to crawl even if you have some of the most powerful system processors available.
But, what hardware do you need to play the game well? Jarred Walton at Tom's Hardware wrote a piece showing how the game played on a large variety of GPUs. The Frames Per Second (FPS) ranged significantly at 1280x720 Low, with the GTX 1050 Medium coming in as low as 13 FPS and the GTX 1650 Super maxing out at 105.1 FPS. At 1920x1080, the GTX 1050 performed at the bottom with 8.2 FPS, and the RX 6800 XT maxed out at 110.8 FPS. Obviously, those numbers drop as the resolution increases.
But, even if you have everything you should need, you might fail to get the correct performance. This is if you are using a modern AMD processor because the rendering engine is set up to prevent older AMD processors from overloading. It searches for AMD Bulldozer processors and, if it is not one of those, it disables usage of half of the processor. The problem is that Bulldozer is an architecture that predates the 3 generations of Ryzen. So, if you do have a Ryzen or Threadripper processor, this bug affects you. There is a "fix" but apply it at your own risk.
In addition, the company has apologized for not showing enough information about the Cyberpunk 2077 running on current generation hardware. Gamers have been disappointed with the performance on the hardware it is currently available for (PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X support will come later). As such, Sony and Microsoft are offering refunds in their stores, and retail has been asked to accept refunds.
Scott is a developer who has worked on projects of varying sizes, including all of the PLUGHITZ Corporation properties. He is also known in the gaming world for his time supporting the rhythm game community, through DDRLover and hosting tournaments throughout the Tampa Bay Area. Currently, when he is not working on software projects or hosting F5 Live: Refreshing Technology, Scott can often be found returning to his high school days working with the Foundation for Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST), mentoring teams and helping with ROBOTICON Tampa Bay. He has also helped found a student software learning group, the ASCII Warriors, currently housed at AMRoC Fab Lab.
Avram's been in love with PCs since he played original Castle Wolfenstein on an Apple II+. Before joining Tom's Hardware, for 10 years, he served as Online Editorial Director for sister sites Tom's Guide and Laptop Mag, where he programmed the CMS and many of the benchmarks. When he's not editing, writing or stumbling around trade show halls, you'll find him building Arduino robots with his son and watching every single superhero show on the CW.