The PlayStation 4 can finally run Cyberpunk 2077 without crashing on Patch 1.23, but streaming issues remain a bugbear for it and the PlayStation 4 Pro
CDPR released Patch 1.23 for Cyberpunk 2077 to little fanfare last week, despite the game's return to the PlayStation Store. Sony does not have much faith in CDPR's latest title though, especially running on the base PlayStation 4. Specifically, Sony warns against people installing Cyberpunk 2077 on a base PlayStation 4, even after six months of development.
Patch 1.23 does not contain any PlayStation-specific changes either, unlike with PC and Xbox. However, Digital Foundry has re-tested Cyberpunk 2077 on the PlayStation 4, PlayStation 4 Pro and the PlayStation 5 with Patch 1.23 applied. Surprisingly, the latest patch improves the game's playability on both PlayStation 4 consoles, albeit to a limited extent.
Fundamentally, Patch 1.23 addresses the crashes to the system menu that frequently occurred on the PlayStation version of the game. Additionally, Cyberpunk 2077 now runs closer to 30 FPS on the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 4 Pro in most instances. Digital Foundry has shown occasions when framerates drop below that 30 FPS target, but their frequency is fewer than on Patch 1.2. Similarly, the PlayStation 5 maintains 60 FPS in most cases and drops to 50 FPS in demanding areas.
Unfortunately, Patch 1.23 does not rectify the streaming issues that plague Cyberpunk 2077. Anecdotally, we have noticed pop-in while playing the game on a PC with an AMD Ryzen 5 5600X and an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070, a combination that should run Cyberpunk 2077 smoothly. Pop-in is much worse on the base PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 4 Pro though, with objects and enemies seemingly appearing out of thin air at the last moment. NPCs also render as low polygon models, both on the base PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 4 Pro.
Ultimately, we would be surprised if CDPR resolves these streaming issues for the base PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 4 Pro. Undoubtedly, the company will release more patches to mitigate the problems shown below. Still, AMD's Jaguar cores are likely the bottleneck for Cyberpunk 2077's engine on the base PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 4 Pro. You can what changes CDPR has made this time in its Patch 1.23 notes.
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