System Specs:

Ryzen 5950x (PBO OC Curve) - 420 MM AIO
64GB DDR4 3600 RAM (XMP is enabled and verified functioning)
ASUS Crosshair VIII Hero
NVIDIA RTX 3080 Ti 12GB - Air Cooled
2TB Samsung 980 Pro SSD - w/heatsink and shielding

This thing is a beast because I am a software developer and r/homelab enthusiast. So the following caveats apply:

The Windows 11 VM:
Runs on 8 dedicated cores (16 threads) and has 32GB of RAM, the storage is using native mode on the VFIO driver backed by a RAW vm image (not qcow2), I then pass-through my USB controllers and GPU.

So for the purposes of calculating hardware, 8 cores in a VM is probably something like a 3800X in performance and there is a marginal performance decrease for disk IO, but only about 20% under load. The GPU itself suffers no detectable performance loss in other games or my Machine Learning stuff.

If you are a Cyberpunk Dev here, I have the ability to easily compress and send a disk image file for reproduction on a similarly configured workstation (with the xml configs of course!).

Platform of Purchase: GOG

Performance before the update:
Up until now, I've been able to run the "Raytracing: Ultra" preset on 4K just fine. When setting the DLSS setting to "Performance" I'd get about 35-65 FPS, which sounds about right with my "adjusted" specs. The lows mostly came in crowded areas where the CPU bottleneck is a bit more prevalent. In a lower configuration like "Ultra" I recall seeing 80-100 FPS at 4K - all numbers that scaled logically to me.

Performance after 1.6.
Now I can't seem to breach 28 FPS, even on LOW.

All other games run identically to before, but in most cases I haven't benchmarked other titles.

Things I have tried:

- Resetting all settings to default
- Deleting the usersettings.ini file
- DDU and Reinstall of NVIDIA drivers (WAY difficult on my config by the way)
- DDU and install of the last version of NVIDIA drivers (driver update around the same time as 1.6)
- Reinstall Cyberpunk 2077 no less than 4 times, 2 of which I wiped any remaining directories, cache files, and registry entries.
- Cleared out the Nvidia shader caches (the new ones too)
- Cleared out the DirectX Shader Caches
- Uninstall NVIDIA GeForce experience
- Setting the app profile in the GPU settings to "Ultra Low Latency" and "Maximum Power" (even though some threads suggest that doesn't change anything - and it didn't)
- Restart the VM
- Restart the whole darn thing
- Update the host (Arch linux)
- Check for new Windows updates and drivers.
- Try the Cyber Engine Tweaks AMD SMT fix (even though it shouldn't matter in a VM)
- Lower crowd density. (Doesn't improve benchmark performance much anyways)

I'm pretty sure there are other things I've tried that I'm also forgetting. I'm basically out of ideas.


UPDATE - It was the "Virtual Machine Platform" Windows optional feature. This is frequently enabled when installing Docker Desktop or using Hyper-V virtual machines.

It's sad, though. It means no docker machine learning shenanigans for me. :(

in December 2020 on my 1600 and 1070 i was getting 17fps flat. no matter what resolution or settings. only the gpu usage was changed between 4k and 720p (or whatever was the lowest)

the issue was my overclock cpu. when i dropped it back to stock the game worked normally maxing out gpu giving me high fps.

Is your cpu overclock? maybe the same issue again?

i cant run the game whatsever now on my 5600 and 6700xt. crashes immediately. will be going back tg older save.

I rebought the game after refund in December 2020.

Interesting theory, but if that were the case, I wouldn't have been able to get such excellent FPS just 6 days prior on patch 1.5. That's where most EVERYONE's theories seem to completely fall apart. Since they all hinge on some hardware or software thing, if what folks are suggesting is true, I never would have had good FPS...

But that isn't at ALL the case, I had great FPS, and I'd be happy to post the benchmark files for proof.

I was averaging 55FPS prior to 1.6
Now I average 26FPS - a 20FPS/45% reduction.

I mean, I see your point, but the idea of my overclock not mattering, then suddenly it does, doesn't make me think the OC is the actual problem. If it were, then the game would never have performed well.

It is the game fault but I'm just saying if the same issue I had initially is now back with 1.6?

Nope! In fact, from a troubleshooting standpoint, VMs are a dream in terms of QA. It's an exactly reproducible environment that takes hardware differences out of the equation. But, you did have me consider something else.

I recently installed Docker Desktop - it's off when I'm playing Cyberpunk, so I didn't originally consider the culprit. I uninstalled it and all of it's features. Now everything is working again!

I can reproduce it now. I just have to enable the "Virtual Machine Platform" Windows 11 Optional feature (required for Docker). With that feature enabled my FPS in Cyberpunk 2077 is somehow capped to 28. Disable it, and everything is fine.

The devious nature of this is that uninstalling Docker Desktop doesn't disable the feature. You have to know about it and turn it off manually.

--Summary--

Cause: "Virtual Machine Platform" Windows 11 feature.

Resolution: Disable the "Virtual Machine Platform" feature.


*edit - Added a clear summary since I cannot mark my own post as a solution.

Well you got my hopes up because I'm experiencing almost the same problem and we have very similar systems. I even run Docker Desktop with WSL, Hyper-V and Virtual Machine Platform... except that I'm capped at ~80 fps. If I lower settings the only thing that changes is my CPU/GPU utilization goes down. Frame rate never goes up.

I uninstalled Docker and removed all the Windows features I installed to run it aaaaand... Nothing. Still stuck at 79 fps with low utilization.