---
title: '007 First Light PC Review - DLSS Finally Fixed, But Other Issues Still Need Fixing'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=OqBmDmVmX5g'
video_id: 'OqBmDmVmX5g'
date: 2026-06-18
duration_sec: 815
---

# 007 First Light PC Review - DLSS Finally Fixed, But Other Issues Still Need Fixing

> Source: [007 First Light PC Review - DLSS Finally Fixed, But Other Issues Still Need Fixing](https://youtube.com/watch?v=OqBmDmVmX5g)

## Summary

This video reviews the PC performance of '007 First Light', focusing on the recently fixed DLSS upscaling issues and the game's scalability across different hardware. It examines the visual and performance trade-offs of various graphics settings, comparing them to console equivalents, and highlights remaining concerns like limited upscaling and frame generation support.

### Key Points

- **DLSS Fix** [0:02] — Patch 1.05 fixed DLSS upscaling, which was previously broken and underperforming.
- **Shader Compilation** [2:53] — First boot on a Ryzen 5 5600 took about 3 minutes for shader compilation, but gameplay was hitch-free.
- **DLSS Performance** [3:15] — After the fix, DLSS now delivers expected performance scaling, though FSR 4 and XeSS are still missing.
- **FSR 3 CPU Overhead** [4:15] — In CPU-bound scenarios, FSR 3 underperforms, suggesting a measurable CPU overhead, which is unusual for a GPU-focused task.
- **CPU Demands** [4:45] — Scenes with many NPCs or chase sequences can push frame rates below 60 FPS on a Ryzen 5 5600, while a Ryzen 9 7950X3D delivers over double the performance.
- **Volumetric Effects Quality** [5:35] — Ultra settings offer minimal visual improvement over lower presets but cause significant performance drops; high is recommended.
- **Volumetric Fog Quality** [6:46] — Visual differences between Ultra and high are subtle, with medium offering a 10% performance gain over Ultra.
- **Texture Quality** [7:26] — Ultra provides the sharpest textures; low is a noticeable downgrade. 8 GB cards may prefer medium at 1440p to save VRAM.
- **Level of Detail** [8:07] — Ultra reduces pop-in compared to console medium, but has minimal GPU impact; it's more CPU-dependent at lower resolutions.
- **Shadow Quality** [8:44] — Higher settings produce sharper shadows; low removes self-shadowing and offers a 5% performance gain over medium.
- **Global Illumination** [9:14] — Ultra and high look nearly identical; medium and low reduce bounce lighting with minimal performance gain.
- **Reflection Quality** [9:43] — Affects planar reflections on mirrors; medium reduces clarity, low removes them entirely, offering up to 10% performance gain.
- **Console Equivalent Settings** [10:41] — IO Interactive's console settings align with optimized PC settings, offering near-max visuals with lower performance cost.
- **Max Settings Impact** [11:05] — Maxing all settings reduces performance by 18% compared to console equivalent, with only minor visual refinements.
- **Path Tracing Absence** [11:27] — The lack of promised path tracing is felt strongly; it could fundamentally change visuals, unlike current ultra settings.
- **Remaining Issues** [12:01] — FSR 4 and XeSS are absent; frame generation is Nvidia-only. IO's previous Hitman work set a better example for broad support.

### Conclusion

The PC port of '007 First Light' is decent with a fixed DLSS, but it lacks broader upscaling support and promised path tracing, leaving room for improvement to match IO Interactive's previous standards.

## Transcript

Cyberpunk 2077 First Light, it's one of
the biggest gaming highlights of the
year from my perspective. Now, we've
talked in depth about the game's new
technology and the mostly successful
console versions. We've also shared
initial thoughts on the PC build in DF
Direct, but there's more to discuss
here. There have been developments. One
of the reasons this review was delayed
was that a crucial feature of the game,
DLSS upscaling, was essentially broken.
With the latest patch, 1.05,
that is now addressed, making First
Light that much more accessible to those
with lower-end systems using lower-end
RTX graphics cards. And beyond that, IO
Interactive, well, they were generous
enough to share their console equivalent
settings with us. But the question
remains, how much further does the game
scale, both downwards and upwards? And
beyond console quality, are we looking
at diminishing returns? And have our
thoughts on the PC version changed much
at all since the direct beyond the
upscaling issues? But before we go any
further, a big thanks to Alienware for
sponsoring our PC performance reviews.
>> [music]
>> And with all of our high-end testing,
we'll be using the firm's newly revised
Alienware Area-51.
Yes, the flagship gaming PC has received
a full refresh with a refined focus on
high-quality design paired with high-end
cooling, taking care of the best gaming
silicon on the market. In addition to
supporting high-end RTX 5000 GPUs up to
the RTX 5090, the new Area-51 also
supports AMD's top-of-the-line Ryzen
9000 processors, from the brilliant
Ryzen 7 9800X3D
through to the latest Ryzen 9 9950X3D
II. In our tests, Ryzen 9000 X3D
processors offer up by far the best CPU
gaming performance available, a key
recommendation for a high-spec gaming
PC.
Keeping thermals in check is the new
gasket architecture using a combination
of 180 and 140 mm fans to create
positive pressure, moving 25% more air
while being 45% quieter than prior
Area-51 generations. There's a 1500 W
platinum power supply and more than
enough thermal headroom to handle the
extreme demands of the RTX 5090, which
pulls 600 W just by itself. Put simply,
the new Area-51 is built for the
absolute limit of modern PC gaming, the
perfect hardware for testing the
high-end PC experience in our
performance reviews. Check out the link
in the video description below to find
out more.
But of course, that kind of hardware is
offering gigantic levels of CPU and GPU
power. And so in addition to testing
with that kit, we're keeping things
grounded as well by looking at more
modest components. So, let's kick off by
looking at the first boot experience on
a Ryzen 5 5600 test system, shader
compilation took around 3 minutes to
complete. Thankfully, gameplay
afterwards was largely hitch-free with
no obvious PSO related stutter
encountered during normal play. Now, as
I mentioned in the intro, the good news
is that DLSS is basically fixed now with
the most recent update. To quickly
recap, DLSS was delivering substantially
less performance than expected relative
to its internal rendering resolution,
resulting in surprisingly small gains
across the board. Now, according to the
release notes, the update fixes an issue
where the game could launch with
quote-unquote incorrect upscaling
settings impacting performance. Whatever
the underlying cause, our updated
testing shows DLSS performing much more
as expected, uh delivering the kind of
scaling we'd normally expect from the
technology.
Some limitations remain, however. The
game still lacks support for FSR 4 and
XeSS, while the dynamic resolution
scaling system used by the console
renditions is also absent on the PC
version. Frame generation support is
similarly limited, with only DLSS frame
generation and multi-frame generation
available. AMD and Intel users are left
without equivalent FSR or XeSS frame
generation options, which isn't great.
We did uncover one curious result during
CPU-limited testing, however. At 1080p
and CPU-bound scenarios, FSR 3
consistently underperformed. In other
words, FSR 3 seems to be carrying some
kind of measurable CPU overhead once GPU
limitations are removed. And this one's
a bit of a mystery, bearing in mind that
FSR 3 doesn't have much, if any, CPU
overhead in our experience. It's an
entirely GPU-focused task. And as for
CPU performance itself, First Light can
become quite demanding in scenes with
large numbers of NPCs. Areas such as
this hotel level are enough to push
frame rates below 60 FPS on the Ryzen 5
5600, while chase sequences that heavily
test the game's streaming systems can
also make it difficult to sustain a
consistent 60 FPS. Uh by comparison, the
Ryzen 9 7950X3D delivers more than
double the performance of the 5600 under
the same CPU-limited conditions. That
gives you some idea of the kind of
contrast between mid-range and high-end
processor performance in this game. Um
but beyond that, you're looking at frame
generation to push yourself further into
high refresh rate display territory.
Now, with that out of the way, let's
take a look at what the higher PC
settings actually bring to the table.
Going to start with a volumetric effects
quality, which governs the quality of IO
Interactive's new Smolder volumetric
system, one of the key rendering
upgrades discussed in our recent
developer interview. It's also one of
the most visually prominent additions to
Glacier's rendering technology while
simultaneously being one of the game's
most demanding rendering features across
the board. When this feature is prolific
on screen, frame rates can tumble.
What's surprising, however, is just how
little changes visually as we move down
at the preset ladder. Ultra does produce
a slightly cleaner result while lower
settings introduce a somewhat grainier
appearance, but the underlying behavior
effect remains largely unchanged. Smoke
density persistence lighting
interaction, and shadowing all remain
intact across the range of presets,
making the differences surprisingly
difficult to spot during normal
gameplay. Performance, however, tells a
different story with high improving
frame rate by around 16 percentage
points over Ultra. Medium and low
provide only modest additional gains
beyond that, making Ultra difficult to
justify given the relatively minor
visual differences. Volumetric fog
quality controls the fidelity of the
game's atmospheric fog and volumetric
lighting effects, and it's an effect
used extensively throughout First Light.
Visual differences between Ultra and
high are generally difficult to spot
during normal gameplay while medium and
low introduce a slightly coarser
appearance to the effect. Despite its
heavy use throughout the game,
performance scaling remains fairly
reasonable with medium improving frame
rate by around 10 percentage points over
Ultra test scene while low extends that
lead slightly further. Unlike volumetric
effects quality, however, the visual
reductions here are more proportionate
to the performance savings on offer.
Next up is texture quality, and this
scales consistently across the range
with each step down reducing texture
detail on surfaces and environmental
assets. Moving from Ultra down to medium
results in fairly subtle reductions to
texture quality, though Ultra does
provide the sharpest presentation. Low,
however, is a much more obvious
downgrade with noticeably blurrier
textures and some signage becoming
illegible. 8 GB cards may be better
served by medium at 1440p
as it retains most of the visual quality
while reducing memory usage. If you
prefer to play at 4K, however, further
reductions may be necessary to keep VRAM
usage in check. Moving on, let's look at
level of detail which controls the draw
distance of distant objects and foliage.
Visually higher on ultra noticeably
reduce pop-in compared to the console
equivalent medium preset by keeping the
higher detailed geometry visible much
further from the camera. This setting
has very little impact when GPU limited
with only around 1 to 2 percentage
points separating ultra from low.
However, at 1080p where the game becomes
more CPU limited, uh the gap grows to
around 6 to 7 percentage points on a
Ryzen 5 5600 making this primarily a CPU
scaling related setting.
The focus now shifts to shadow quality
and this one scales pretty much as you'd
expect. Higher settings produce sharper,
more clearly defined shadows while each
step down results in progressively
softer shadowing. In the scene we tested
performance differences were fairly
minor overall with only the low setting
delivering a measurable gain of around 5
percentage points over medium.
Much of that performance uplift comes
from the removal of self-shadowing on
vehicles and foliage as well as a
general reduction in shadow detail.
Global illumination next which controls
the quality of the game's screen space
GI elements and radiance probes. Ultra
and high look largely identical
maintaining indirect light bounce and
scene depth while medium and low
noticeably reduce bounce lighting
particularly in the distance alongside
some of the subtle shadowing that helps
ground objects within the scene with
only a single percentage point
separating the highest and lowest
settings in our testing, the visual
reductions on medium and low are
difficult to justify. Reflection quality
primarily affects the quality of the
game's planar reflections. While these
are used exclusively on mirrors, mirrors
themselves appear frequently throughout
First Light, making this a more relevant
setting than it might initially seem.
Ultra and high produce near identical
results, while medium noticeably reduces
reflection clarity, resulting in a
softer and lower resolution appearance.
Low removes planar reflections
altogether, leaving mirrors to rely
solely on cube map reflections.
Performance costs are largely tied to
these planar reflections, with medium
improving frame rate by around 10
percentage points over ultra in our
mirror test, while low extends that lead
further.
Screen space reflections tell a
different story. Here, visual
differences are limited to slightly
reduced reflection coverage at lower
settings, while performance remains
effectively unchanged. As a result, the
primary trade-off of this setting is
really centered around the quality and
cost of planar reflections.
Taken as a whole, the console equivalent
settings provided by IO Interactive also
happen to align closely with what we'd
consider our optimized settings. For
most users, this is where we'd start, as
they deliver a visual experience that
remains remarkably close to maximum
settings while avoiding much of the
associated performance cost. But, what
happens if we simply max out everything
then?
>> [music]
>> Using the console equivalent settings as
our baseline, moving every option to its
highest setting reduced performance by
around 18% in our testing. So, the
improvements are certainly there if you
go looking for them, but they're spread
across the numerous smaller refinements
rather than any single transformative
upgrade. And that perhaps explains why
the absence of the promised path tracing
updates is felt so strongly.
>> [music]
>> The current ultra settings improve the
visuals in a number of ways, but they
don't fundamentally alter the visual
experience in the same way a more
advanced rendering feature potentially
could. Now, path tracing, it's coming.
So, let's just say that we're very much
looking forward to seeing how the game
evolves once that update arrives. At the
same time, it's good to see IO
Interactive responding to feedback. The
latest update does appear to have
resolved the DLSS scaling issues we
previously highlighted with our updated
testing showing performance behavior
much more in line with expectations. But
that said, there are still areas where
we'd like to see improvement. IO
Interactive told us that the use of the
static FSR 3.1.5 library for PC is down
to commonality with the console versions
of the game. Essentially, it streamlines
development for them. But my view at
this point is that if a new game
supports DLSS, the dynamic library FSR
framework should be in there, too. And
there needs to be support for Intel's
upscaling technology, as well. FSR 4 and
XeSS are both absent right now, while
frame generation support is currently
limited just to Nvidia hardware. IO's
prior work on Hitman was exemplary in
this regard. All technologies embraced
and supported, and I kind of want to see
that here, too.
So, I think we got a pretty decent PC
port here for 007 First Light, but there
are areas where we'd like to see the
feature set expanded. The lack of
broader upscaling support is one, while
path tracing remains the obvious missing
component for higher-end hardware. We'll
be reporting back on the path tracing
side of things soon, but for now, if you
found the content interesting or useful,
please do like, subscribe, share, and
ring bells and such for instant
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>> [music]
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