Cyberpunk 2077 1.04 patch adds seizure warning; likely AMD CPU performance boost spotted

Polish game developer and publisher CD Projekt Red recently launched its much-awaited AAA video game title, Cyberpunk 2077. However, the launch has been marred with multiple reports about bugs, and inferior performance on last-generation consoles. In addition, initial reports also outlined that certain sections in the game could induce seizures in a small section of gamers. Most games with such content come with a warning on the loading screen of the game. However, CD Projekt Red did not add a warning outright regarding seizure warning. Instead, it added the warning in the end-user license agreement (EULA) of the game, something that a majority of players don’t read.

In addition, initial reports also outlined that the game does not perform that well on AMD-based PCs or laptops. Going through the information regarding the issue, it looks like Cyberpunk 2077 uses an Intel C++ compiler while does not offer game optimizations on non-Intel CPUs. Some users have tinkered around to disable the check for the compiler to “gain 10-20% performance” on AMD CPUs. However, follow-up comments noted that tweaks disable checks from GPUOpen. These tweaks allow the game scheduler to use more cores depending on the AMD CPU family.

CD Projekt Red and Microsoft Xbox also announced that they are teaming up with the non-profit Limbitless Solutions. As part of the team-up, Limbitless Solutions has brought the Johnny Silverhand-themed prosthetic arm to the real world. Let’s check out all the details around Cyberpunk 2077 here including the update, AMD CPU performance, and the prosthetic arm.

Cyberpunk v1.04 update rolling out with multiple bug fixes including seizure warning, details

According to the official announcement about the update, CD Projekt Red has likely fixed a number of bugs with the new Cyberpunk 2077 update. This new update brings the version number of the game to 1.04. The update is currently available on all the supported platforms including PC, PlayStation, and Xbox consoles. One of the most important things that the company added in the update is the addition of a seizure warning. In addition, the company has also “modified the flashing effect on braindances to reduce the risk of inducing epileptic symptoms”. The developer has “smoothed out” the effect with reduced frequency and magnitude of the flashes.

The update amounts to 1.4GB on PC and about 16GB on Xbox Series X. Beyond the seizure warning, the update likely focuses on reducing the crashes to make the game more stable. Other fixes include addressing the missing NPC animations in cinematic cut scenes and fixing weapon preview during crafting. The developers also removed that one copyrighted track that slipped through even with the “Disable Copyrighted Music” toggle enabled. This last thing came after initial reports about DMCA strikes on Cyberpunk 2077 video streams. These reports prompted CD Projekt Red to ask streamers to disable the music entirely. The company has also tweaked quests in the game with several optimizations. One can check all the details in an official changelog post from CD Projekt Red.

Alleged tweaks that boost Cyberpunk 2077 performance on AMD CPUs

According to a Reddit thread, it looks like Cyberpunk 2077 is only recognizing physical cores on AMD chips instead of the logical cores. This means that the game ignores SMT (Simultaneous Multi-Threading) on AMD Ryzen CPUs. This means that the game will perceive your 6 core, 12 thread processor as a 6-thread processor. In contrast, Intel users are not facing the same issue which is hurting players with select AMD processors.

However, as noted above, tweakers have likely figured out a way to gain back the performance with the help of a quick edit in the main Cyberpunk 2077 executable file. Interested players can use a Hex Editor and follow the instructions from Hot Hardware to make the necessary edits. The report also shared a deeper analysis of the issue along with the difference in performance after the fix. Though, before you get started, we would advise you to wait for an official fix regarding the issue in a future update.

Cyberpunk 2077-themed 3D printed bionic arms announced

As mentioned above, Xbox and CD Projekt Red have teamed up with Limbitless Solutions to announce Johnny Silverhand-themed prosthetic arms. Limbitless Solutions will donate these 3D-printed bionic arms to “adults in upcoming clinical trials starting in 2021”. The non-profit organization also shared a video to outline the design of the upcoming prosthetics. The video also outlined how the non-profit is working to create these arms.