A user on Reddit has discovered a PC config file for Cyberpunk 2077 may have been improperly programmed, and has provided a fix.
As previously reported, the games numerous delays and leaked footage were not the end of the woes for CD Projekt Red. One reviewer suffered a major epileptic seizure, and accused the developer on basing the Braindance headset off a medical device designed to intentionally induce seizures.
Despite high praise from initial reviews, the Metacritic user score was far less. Currently the Metascore for the PC version of the game is 89, with a user score of 7.0 (out of 10). Meanwhile, the game’s PlayStation 4 and Xbox One user scores are 3.0 and 4.1 respectively.
It should be noted that those who have not played the game may also be submitting user reviews, as Metacritic does not verify if a user has completed or played a game. In February for example a user of Reset Era orchestrated the review bombing of AI: The Somnium Files.
Metacritic placed a 36 hour grace period on user reviews for video games in July of this year. Metacritic would later insist this decision was not motivated by reactions to any particular game. That year also say low user review scores for Warcraft III: Reforged, and The Last of Us Part II.
Users complained of Cyberpunk 2077‘s numerous glitches and bugs, along with poor optimization and the console version having inferior graphics. Even critic reviews that praised the game also discussed those issues. Since then a hotfix has been released, but CD Projekt Red stock value dropped by 29% in a week.
CD Projekt Red later apologized for not showing Cyberpunk 2077 running on last-gen consoles (though they did show the game running on PlayStation 4 Pro), and for the unstable launch. As such they offered refunds, though there have been some claims that PlayStation and Microsoft are not offering refunds in some cases.
Now, Reddit user ThePhoenixRoyal may have just have worked out how to alleviate some of the game’s issues on Windows PC. In short, as the user was a C# developer, they looked into the game’s configuration files (config files) to see if anything could be adjusted.
He discovered one of the files were set up with statistics for PC, Durango, and Orbis. The latter two are for Xbox and PlayStation operating systems respectively. The PoolCPU and PoolGPU settings are the same across the board, which is abnormal for Windows PC.
The PhoenixRoyal modified the config file and achieved better graphical performance- using more of their CPU and graphics card to run the game. Loading time was also increased tenfold. As such, it appears CD Projekt Red shipped the game with the wrong or erroneous config files.
However, that hotfix patch 1.04 overrides these changes. As such, The PhoenixRoyal has provided a guide on how to tweak the config files. In summation, they recommend Pool CPU is set to half the system’s RAM (minus 4GB for the Windows operating system), and PoolGPU equal to the VRAM of the graphics card.
Before you change anything, the user does warn that results may vary, and that it may crash the game and even the operating system. For example, our own tech writer Allen Watts going performance in both GPU and CPU bound scenarios improved, though found stability was worse and with more frequent crashes.
We hear at Niche Gamer also highly recommend conducting in-depth research before modifying files on your computer, and making back-ups of important files. We also recommend keeping a copy of the config files before modifying them.
After gaining advise from others in the Reddit thread, the user created a video guide with a more in-depth explanation. Other uses also shared a GitHub list of modifications and tweaks.
Cyberpunk 2077 is available on Windows PC (via Epic Games, GOG, and Steam), PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Google Stadia. The game is also coming to PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S in 2021, and players on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One respectively will be able to upgrade to the next-gen for free. You can expect our review on Cyberpunk 2077 soon.
