The cyberpunk cat adventure Stray is one of the most beautiful games of 2022. In our test, it was bursting with atmosphere and a game world that is second to none. Since it’s a PS5 title and the game world is covered in reflective puddles and neon lights, everything about Stray actually screams “ray tracing”. In the menu, however, all ray tracing features are deactivated by default.
But there is a trick with which you can activate (St)ray tracing (which had to be) on the PC – and which could even indicate an official update.
How to enable hidden ray tracing for Stray
To enable ray tracing on PC, all you have to do is add DX12 support to your launch options.
- Right-click Stray in your Steam library
- Go to properties
- In the “General” tab you will find the “Startup Options” field
- Type “-dx12” (without the quotes) in this field and close the window
- If you now start Stray, the game runs automatically with raytracing shadows, ambient occlusion and reflections
- Consider: Of course, there is no such detour on the PS5
Reddit user speedtree shared this comparison of both versions, which, however, have a strong impact on performance.
The fact that ray tracing can be activated in Stray in this way is due to the fact that the appropriate DirectX library DXR (DirectX Raytracing) is part of DirectX 12. The effects in Stray are therefore missing under DirectX 11, but games can also use DirectX 12 without offering ray tracing. So this trick does not work by default for all games that offer multiple interfaces including DX12.
There is one big catch: the performance
The switch to DirectX 12 is currently causing severe performance drops due to the ray tracing effects. You have to say goodbye to 60 FPS even on a low resolution. At the same time, there are no upscaling processes such as AMD FSR and Nvidia DLSS to ensure better performance.
The hidden feature could also hint at a planned ray tracing update for Stray that has already been implemented into the code and that will hopefully add ray tracing options as well as FRS and DLSS support. We have therefore followed up with the developers and will keep you posted!
You can see how beautiful Stray is even without ray tracing in our test video:
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Stray really is one of the most beautiful games of the year – and it’s really good too
If you want to experience the cyberpunk hit yourself and get the most out of the short playing time, then we recommend our guide for the most fun in the unique game world:
Guide
With these 5 tips, the cyberpunk hit is the most fun
However, if you’ve already beaten Stray, then we recommend checking out the best mods for the game that might be worth a second try.
Have you already played Stray? Do you miss ray tracing? Would you play it again with a graphic update? Tell us in the comments!
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