Mod Enables DLAA and With Ray Reconstruction in Cyberpunk 2077

Cyberpunk 2077 Phantom Liberty screenshots
(Image credit: CD Projekt Red)

The "DLSSTweaks" mod recently got an update over on Nexus Mods, enabling DLSS 3.5 Ray Reconstruction with native resolution rendering in conjunction with Nvidia's DLAA (Deep Learning Anti-Aliasing). This update appears to specifically target Cyberpunk 2077, as it's the only game right now utilizing Ray Reconstruction — at least until Alan Wake 2 comes out.

For now, DLSS 3.5 Ray Reconstruction in Cyberpunk 2077 version 2.0 is only supported when using DLSS upscaling. The feature cannot be enabled at native rendering without DLSS, nor can it be used with DLAA. However, this is a "known limitation" and Nvidia noted in a pre-release guide for testing DLSS 3.5 that it was working to train Ray Reconstruction for use with RT-Ultra settings as well as with DLAA. For now, enabling DLAA in the game turns off Ray Reconstruction (and disables the toggle switch).

With the latest DLSSTweaks update, however, you can brute force your way into enabling Ray Reconstruction in conjunction with DLAA. In theory, running Nvidia's Ray Reconstruction algorithm at native resolutions should enable even higher fidelity path-traced visuals. In practice, we're not sure what exactly will happen.

Nvidia states that DLAA is unsupported with Ray Reconstruction as the technology has not yet been trained with appropriate data. What will Ray Reconstruction actually do when forced to run alongside DLAA? It ought to look even better, and of course run slower than with DLSS, but there's also a good chance Ray Reconstruction will produce artifacts and possibly look worse compared to running with DLSS upscaling.

The good news is that this is only a temporary problem and Nvidia will update Ray Reconstruction in the future to work with DLAA. In the meantime, impatient graphics enthusiasts who want to push Nvidia's Ray Reconstruction algorithm to the limit and see how it performs outside of its intended use case can give the updated DLSSTweaks mod a shot. Keep in mind that only an RTX 4090 can break 60 fps with path tracing at 1080p, so set your expectations for performance accordingly.

Aaron Klotz
Contributing Writer

Aaron Klotz is a contributing writer for Tom’s Hardware, covering news related to computer hardware such as CPUs, and graphics cards.

  • evdjj3j
    "In practice, we're not sure what exactly will happen."

    The Tom's Hardware of old would have downloaded and tested the mod instead of publishing an article that says we don't know what will happen.
    Reply
  • mac_angel
    evdjj3j said:
    "In practice, we're not sure what exactly will happen."

    The Tom's Hardware of old would have downloaded and tested the mod instead of publishing an article that says we don't know what will happen.
    I was thinking the same thing. If you heard about it, why not try it? Better to have more information when writing an article than pretty much posting rumours.
    Reply
  • BX4096
    evdjj3j said:
    The Tom's Hardware of old would have downloaded and tested the mod instead of publishing an article that says we don't know what will happen.
    "Dammit, Jim, I'm a journalist, not a researcher!"

    In all seriousness, though, that's asking a lot of a modern reporter. Next thing you'll want is them fact checking stuff.
    Reply