Cyberpunk 2077 is a graphically demanding game. If you are just getting started or getting ready for Phantom Liberty, then you want to optimize the in-game settings to get the best balance between graphics and performance. In this Cyberpunk 2077 guide, we go over the best settings to boost FPS while maintaining visual fidelity.
How well the game runs is going to depend on your PC hardware. Since Cyberpunk 2077 is graphics intensive, you will need a reasonably decent gaming PC. CDPR recommends having an Intel Core i7-4790 or AMD Ryzen 3 3200G with a GTX 1060 6GB, GTX 1660 Super, or Radeon RX 590. An SSD and 12GB of RAM are also recommended.
While the minimum requirements of the game are lower, you will have a hard time having a decent experience and balancing visuals with performance.
Best Balanced Settings For Cyberpunk 2077
Here are the settings that we recommend for Cyberpunk 2077:
- Volumetric Fog Resolution: Low
- Volumetric Cloud Quality: Low
- Max Dynamic Decals: High
- Screen Space Reflections Quality: Low
- Subsurface Scattering Quality: High
- Ambient Occlusion: Low
- Color Precision: Medium
- Mirror Quality: Medium
- Level of Detail (LDD): High
- Ray Tracing: Medium
- DLSS: Quality
- Film Grain: Off
- Chromatic Aberration: Off
- Lens Flare: Off
- Motion Blur: Off
- Contact Shadows: Off
- Improved Facial Lighting Geometry: Off
- Cascaded Shadow Range: Low
- Cascaded Shadow Resolution: Medium
- Crowd Density: Medium
- Field of View: 85-90
Once you have made changes to the graphics settings, you should restart the game.
I do not have the latest hardware (Intel 9400F, RTX 3060 Ti), but with these settings, I was able to get a boost of around 40 FPS compared to the default settings. Using DLSS, if you have an RTX graphics card, is a must to get a significant boost in FPS. Your mileage will vary depending on the hardware that you use.
I recommend not using the Ultra graphics preset at 1080p or 1440p. You should only use it if you are interested in playing the game at 4K and have really high-end hardware.
If you are still unable to hit 60 FPS on your hardware, then you can make additional tweaks to the settings mentioned above, like turning down Volumetric Cloud Quality, Crowd Density, and Ray Tracing.
Cyberpunk 2077 Ray Tracing Settings
If you have an Nvidia RTX graphics card, then we recommend using ray tracings since it adds to the immersion of Night City. This is very taxing on performance, so you should use it alongside DLSS. Use the Quality DLSS settings with ray tracing to get a good boost in performance while taking advantage of ray tracing effects. DLSS is able to counter the performance hit from ray tracing and should enable a smooth 60 FPS experience.
AMD graphics cards now support ray tracing in Cyberpunk 2077. To take advantage of the feature, we recommend using FSR 2.0 in balanced mode.
Additional PC Optimization Tips
There are a few other optimizations that you can make to get better performance in Cyberpunk 2077.
Download Latest Game Ready Drivers
Whether you have an Nvidia or AMD graphics card, make sure that you have the latest game ready drivers to ensure smooth gameplay. These drivers often enhance your gaming experience and can even boost in-game FPS. You should restart your PC once the drivers have been installed.
Nvidia Graphics Settings
Once you have downloaded and installed the latest game-ready drivers, if you have an Nvidia graphics card, then you should open the Nvidia Control Panel. head into Manage 3D settings and then select Program Settings. Add Cyberpunk 2077 and make the following changes.
- Sharpen: 0.40
- Image Film Grain: 1.00 (for 1080 without DLSS)
- Anisotropic Filtering: Application Controlled
- Antialiasing Gamma correction: On
- Low Latency Mode: Enabled
- Power Management Mode: Prefer Maximum Performance.
- Shader Cache: Enabled
- Texture Filtering – Anisotropic Sample Optimization: Off
- Texture Filtering – Negative LOD Bias: Allow
- Texture Filtering Quality: High Performance
- Texture Filtering Trilinear Optimization: Enable
- Threaded Optimization: Auto
- Triple Buffering: Off
With that out of the way, head into the change resolution tab.
Under resolution, select the native resolution of your monitor. Also, select the refresh rate, which is on the right. Under that, make sure “Use NVIDIA color settings” is selected. Use the following settings:
- Desktop color Depth: Highest (32-bit)
- Output color depth: 8 bpc
- Output color format: RGB
- Output dynamic range: Full
Turn On Image Sharpening (AMD Graphics Cards)
If the graphics seem blurry and you are using an AMD graphics card, then you can open the AMD Radeon software and use the Image Sharpening settings. Set this to above 75%. This might need some tweaking to see what percentage works best for you.
Enable Ultimate Performance
Typically, Windows 10 runs on a balanced power plan, which has its limitations. You can change this to the Ultimate Performance Plan to make sure that your CPU is being utilized properly and runs at high frequency.
- Open Command Prompt or Windows PowerShell
- Enter code “powercfg -duplicatescheme e9a42b02 -d5df -448d-aa00 -03f14749eb61”
- This will allow you to see the Ultimate Performance plan in power options
- Select start, edit power plan, and the power options
- Check Ultimate Performance
Maximize GPU Usage For Cyberpunk 2077
Just like the Ultimate Performance plan in Windows 10, you can set the graphics settings to prioritize Cyberpunk 2077. Search for Graphics Settings and open.
Click on browse and add Cyberpunk. Now, set its graphics preference to high.
Close Unnecessary Applications
Random applications running in the background can use up RAM. We recommend closing all the programs that you aren’t using while playing Cyberpunk 2077 to increase the RAM pool for the game. This should ensure a much smoother experience.
Furthermore, you can disable annoying startup programs that you do not use.
Install The Game On An SSD
Installing the game on an SSD will ensure faster loading times and will eliminate issues like crashes and texture pop-ins. CDPR recommends using an SSD, and I would advise the same. If you experience FPS drops when driving or exploring, then you can turn on the Slow HDD mode, even if you are using an SSD.
These are our recommended best settings for playing Cyberpunk 2077 on PC, along with some tweaks that you can make to boost FPS.
