Cyberpunk 2077 looks gorgeous from what has been shown to the public so far but the graphics coupled with the game's intricacy had fans wondering how base PlayStation 4 and Xbox One would be able to run it.

According to Jakub Knapik, the lighting and FX art director, and Marcin Gollent, the lead graphics programmer, this will be partially possible due to the game running only on DirectX 12. The API has proven to be somewhat problematic with other games but there is no doubt that performance gains are significant when it works.

In an interview with PC Games Hardware, the duo mentioned the benefits of raytracing and the four raytraced effects that are used in CP2077:

As a result of the heavy investment in DirectX Raytracing, CDPR decided to go with DirectX 12 only, meaning there would be some limitations for certain setups. For example, Windows 8 does not support DX12 and as such, Cyberpunk 2077 will not be available on that operating system.

Thankfully, Windows 7 SP1 included DX12 support so those who still have it as their favourite OS will be able to play CP2077. Other than that, Windows 10 will be needed.

As for the GPUs, Gollent stated that DX12 Ultimate and Cyberpunk 2077 "will work absolutely fine with all DX12-compatible GPUs" so if you keep wondering if your rig is good enough for CP2077, it might be good to check its API compatibility.

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