Few PC video games have gone via as many technical evolutions as The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt — Remastered. CD PROJEKT RED‘s acclaimed RPG initially launched greater than a decade in the past, acquired a considerable Next-Gen update a number of years later, and has now returned as soon as once more with a Remastered model that pushes its getting older renderer significantly additional.
The headline addition is Path Tracing, however the PC model additionally receives NVIDIA DLSS 4.5, AMD FSR 4, Intel XeSS 2.0, AMD Anti-Lag 2, Intel Xe Low Latency, Path-Traced Hair, in addition to a number of different graphical enhancements. CD PROJEKT RED launched the Remastered improve on September 29 as a free replace for present house owners on supported platforms.
All this appears like a really fashionable technical package deal, however the renderer beneath it’s nonetheless based mostly on CDPR‘s proprietary and older REDengine 3. That is an engine whose foundations date again roughly a decade, and the results change into pretty apparent as soon as ray tracing and particularly path tracing enter the image. Rasterized efficiency is (considerably) respectable on quick {hardware}, however each GPU efficiency and CPU scaling deteriorate dramatically with RT enabled, whereas PT makes issues lots worse.
Thankfully, there may be loads of efficiency out there via smart graphics optimization. In our testing, an optimized rasterized configuration improved common efficiency by 76% in comparison with Extremely+, whereas our optimized ray-traced configuration was 53% quicker than maxed-out ray tracing and practically twice as quick because the path-traced configuration.
On this information, we’ll study the PC model’s technical presentation, CPU efficiency, graphics settings, ray tracing and path tracing implementations, and set up two optimized configurations: one for standard rasterization and one other for gamers who wish to retain ray-tracing.
Gameplay And Technical Overview Of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt — Remastered
At its core, that is nonetheless the identical sprawling open-world RPG that CD PROJEKT RED launched in 2015. Gamers as soon as once more take management of Geralt of Rivia as he searches for Ciri throughout Velen, Novigrad, Skellige, and the various different areas included throughout the bottom sport and its expansions.
The Remastered launch goes effectively past a easy texture improve. On PC, CDPR has added Path Tracing on high of the present Ray-Traced World Illumination, Ray-Traced Reflections, Ray-Traced Shadows, and Ray-Traced Ambient Occlusion suite, whereas additionally considerably transforming the underlying ray tracing implementation. RTGI is significantly improved over the earlier Subsequent-Gen model, with extra correct and efficient oblique lighting, whereas RT Shadows have additionally been expanded with new local-light shadowing.
The replace additionally brings a way more full set of contemporary reconstruction and latency applied sciences, together with NVIDIA DLSS 4.5 with Tremendous Decision, Ray Reconstruction, and Multi Body Era; AMD FSR 4 with Upscaling and Body Era; and Intel XeSS 2.1 with Tremendous Decision and Multi Body Era. AMD Anti-Lag 2 and Intel Xe Low Latency are additionally supported, whereas NVIDIA Reflex Low Latency carries over from the sooner Subsequent-Gen launch. On high of that, CDPR has added Path-Traced Hair for supported {hardware} alongside a broader set of lighting, materials, foliage, and rendering enhancements.
On one other observe, AMD Radeon GPU house owners, and to a lesser extent Intel Arc GPU customers, also needs to observe that Path Tracing shouldn’t be locked to NVIDIA {hardware}. In contrast to a number of earlier NVIDIA-sponsored implementations, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt — Remastered seems to make use of a vendor-agnostic path tracing implementation, and DLSS Ray Reconstruction shouldn’t be required to allow it. In different phrases, suitable Radeon and Arc GPUs can nonetheless entry PT with out being tied to NVIDIA‘s ML-based denoising stack.
One other essential factor to say is that the sport now not has its personal proprietary Temporal Anti-Aliasing and Upscaling (TAAU) answer, as an alternative solely counting on FXAA and the aforementioned GPU vendor machine learning-based options to fulfill its TAAU wants.
Shader Compilation And Traversal Stutters
Sadly, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt — Remastered would not pre-compile its shaders/PSOs earlier than gameplay. As a substitute, shaders are compiled as they’re encountered, leading to noticeable shader compilation stutters when new results, supplies, and environments seem. Repeating the identical sequence is often a lot smoother as soon as these PSOs have been cached.
Fortunately, traversal and asset-streaming hitches had been significantly much less problematic. They do happen sometimes, however they had been uncommon sufficient that shader compilation remained the rather more apparent supply of intermittent body time spikes throughout our testing.
We’ll return to this downside later as a result of one newly launched neighborhood mod makes an attempt to assault shader compilation stutter instantly.
HDR
HDR is supported and contains devoted controls for most show brightness, paper white, and saturation.
The implementation seemed first rate on our HDR show, though we might not place it among the many finest HDR shows out there on PC. The HDR configuration menu solely turns into out there when Home windows HDR is energetic, and a suitable show is detected.
Official PC System Necessities
The brand new specs now cowl six efficiency tiers starting from 1080p Low all the way in which to 4K Path Tracing. CD PROJEKT RED additionally confirms that its RT Minimal, RT Really helpful, and Path Tracing figures use temporal upscaling, whereas the Path Tracing goal moreover depends on body technology, which is one thing that we vehemently oppose. An SSD is now obligatory.
The Path Tracing specification is especially revealing. In truth, CD PROJEKT RED requires an RTX 5080, Core i9-13900K or Ryzen 7 9800X3D, 16 GB of VRAM, DLSS SR Efficiency mode, and body technology simply to focus on 60 FPS at 4K.
That’s an especially heavy configuration for a remaster of a 2015 sport, though our CPU testing helps clarify why CD PROJEKT RED has specified such highly effective processors.
One extra observe from the official necessities picture: the Epic Video games Retailer model requires roughly 95 GB of accessible cupboard space regardless of the listed 60 GB set up requirement.
Take a look at System And Methodology
We used the identical high-end desktop configuration featured all through our current PC efficiency evaluation & tuning guides:
| Part | Desktop Take a look at System |
|---|---|
| CPU | Intel Core i7-14700K |
| GPU | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 24 GB |
| RAM | 32 GB DDR5-7000 |
| Storage | 2 TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD |
| Working System | Home windows 11 25H2 |
For our particular person graphics settings comparisons, we used a decision of 2560×1440 with NVIDIA DLAA, which means that rendering remained at native decision relatively than being influenced by temporal upscaling.
Until in any other case famous, rasterized comparisons had been carried out in opposition to a baseline with each standard graphics setting set to Extremely+, whereas ray tracing, path tracing, and HairWorks had been disabled.
Put up-processing choices together with Sharpening, Movement Blur, Blur, Bloom, Depth of Subject, Chromatic Aberration, Vignetting, Gentle Shafts, and Digicam Lens Results had been disabled throughout our graphics testing, in order to not impression the visible comparisons in unpredictable methods.
Curiously, enabling all of these results decreased efficiency by solely round 4%, making them largely irrelevant from an optimization perspective. Select whichever ones you favor visually.
Efficiency was captured utilizing CapFrameX.
CPU Efficiency Testing
CPU efficiency was examined throughout a trek on horseback in Hierarch Sq., one among Novigrad Metropolis‘s busiest areas.
The realm comprises giant numbers of NPCs, buildings, props, and different objects inside a comparatively compact house, making it a very helpful location for stressing the sport’s CPU-side simulation and rendering workload.
Thread monitoring instantly revealed one among REDengine 3‘s main limitations. The sport makes use of a number of CPU threads, however one thread frequently approaches full utilization whereas the remainder of the processor stays significantly much less busy. That thread is probably going carefully related to rendering work, and its habits strongly means that one main thread turns into the limiting issue lengthy earlier than a contemporary high-core-count CPU has been totally utilized.
The outcomes had been as follows:
- With out ray/path tracing:
The desk beneath summarizes our earlier outcomes:
| Rendering Configuration | Common FPS | 1% Low | 0.1% Low |
|---|---|---|---|
| RT/PT Off | 178.9 | 120.9 | 104.7 |
| Ray Tracing On | 90.2 | 71.5 | 66.6 |
| Path Tracing On | 66.0 | 49.3 | 34.7 |
With out ray tracing, CPU efficiency is kind of wholesome, with our Core i7-14700K averaging 178.9 FPS, backed by 120.9 FPS 1% lows and 104.7 FPS 0.1% lows. Ray tracing adjustments that image dramatically: common efficiency drops to 90.2 FPS, virtually 50% decrease, whereas the 1% and 0.1% lows fall by roughly 41% and 36%, respectively.
Path Tracing hits the CPU even more durable. Common efficiency falls to only 66 FPS, round 63% beneath the rasterized end result, whereas the 1% and 0.1% lows drop by roughly 59% and 67%. Even in comparison with common ray tracing, Path Tracing cuts one other 27% from the typical and practically 48% from the 0.1% lows.
It is fairly evident from these outcomes that REDengine 3 was merely by no means designed for workloads this heavy, and bolting fashionable RT/PT onto an engine rooted within the mid-2010s comes with a really steep CPU price.
A Deep Dive Into The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt — Remastered‘s Graphics Settings
The graphics menu in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt — Remastered supplies significantly extra scalability than many more moderen AAA video games, with presets starting from Low, Medium, Excessive, and Extremely to RT, RT Extremely, and Steam Deck. A number of settings provide little purpose to maneuver away from their most values, whereas others are surprisingly costly, significantly Grass Density, Display screen House Reflections, HairWorks, and naturally the varied ray/path-traced results. The Remastered model additionally expands the menu with newer choices similar to Ground Truth Ambient Occlusion (GTAO) and Path Tracing.
With that mentioned, the menu itself nonetheless feels rooted within the older Subsequent-Gen model relatively than a brand-new 2026 PC launch. There aren’t any dwell setting previews, detailed hardware-impact indicators, or significantly helpful explanations of what every choice prices in efficiency. Contemplating simply how huge the efficiency hole might be between a few of these settings, a extra fashionable presentation would have made tuning the sport a lot simpler.
With all of that mentioned, allow us to lastly deal with all of the related graphics settings which can be worthy of tuning.
Temporal Anti-Aliasing And Upscaling
The sport helps FXAA, NVIDIA DLSS Tremendous Decision, AMD FSR Upscaling, and Intel XeSS Tremendous Decision.
GeForce RTX house owners ought to make use of DLSS SR — ideally with the Really helpful SR override within the NVIDIA app — whereas Radeon RX 7000 Sequence and newer {hardware} can benefit from FSR 4 Upscaling. Intel Arc customers have XeSS SR out there. Native-resolution DLAA/FSR AA/XeSS AA are additionally wonderful choices when adequate GPU efficiency is out there, and it’s what we used throughout our graphics comparisons.
As regular, we suggest optimizing the graphics settings earlier than aggressively decreasing render decision. High quality mode temporal upscaling needs to be the place to begin at 1440p or 4K except path tracing or a slower GPU requires one thing extra aggressive.
Suggestion: DLSS Tremendous Decision for GeForce RTX GPUs; FSR Upscaling for Radeon GPUs; XeSS Tremendous Decision for Intel Arc GPUs
Body Era
Body Era help is unusually complete.
NVIDIA house owners can use DLSS (Multi) Body Era on suitable {hardware}, whereas AMD and Intel customers even have FG options by way of FSR Body Era and XeSS Body Era.
Body technology makes explicit sense with path tracing as a result of the rendering workload is so excessive, however we might nonetheless keep away from utilizing it to disguise a genuinely poor base body charge. A traditional body charge someplace round 50-60 FPS or greater earlier than interpolation usually supplies a way more responsive end result.
Pair FG with the corresponding low-latency know-how at any time when attainable.
Suggestion: Enabled when extra smoothness is required, offered the bottom body charge is already wholesome
Quantity Of Background Characters
This setting theoretically controls the utmost variety of NPCs seen concurrently, making it particularly related in dense areas such because the cities of Novigrad, Oxenfurt, and Beauclair.
Nonetheless, we discovered no significant distinction in NPC inhabitants or CPU/GPU efficiency between the out there ranges throughout our assessments.
There’s consequently little purpose to scale back it.
Suggestion: Extremely+
Shadow High quality
Shadow High quality impacts standard rasterized shadow map decision, filtering, and draw distance.
Extremely supplies the very best compromise. Extremely+ prices extra efficiency with out delivering a proportionate enchancment, whereas Excessive carried out basically the identical as Extremely in our assessments. Medium and Low start decreasing shadow map decision too noticeably.
Suggestion: Extremely
Display screen House Shadows
Display screen House Shadows add finer contact shading to vegetation, objects, and smaller environmental particulars.
Disabling them supplies extra efficiency, however foliage particularly turns into significantly flatter and fewer grounded.
The visible loss is simply too apparent to justify the acquire.
Suggestion: On
Terrain High quality
Terrain Qc terrain geometry and floor element, significantly over longer distances.
We didn’t measure a significant GPU efficiency distinction between its numerous ranges, so there may be little purpose to sacrifice high quality right here.
Suggestion: Extremely+
Water High quality
Water High quality influences wave simulation, floor element, and interactions round Geralt and different objects.
Excessive retains a lot of the supposed presentation whereas providing a greater efficiency profile than the best settings.
Suggestion: Excessive
Foliage Visibility Vary
This controls how far bushes, bushes, and different vegetation stay seen at greater ranges of element.
Excessive maintains most distant foliage whereas offering a modest efficiency enchancment over Extremely and Extremely+.
Dropping decrease turns into significantly simpler to note throughout the sport’s giant out of doors environments.
Suggestion: Excessive
Grass Density
Grass Density is likely one of the extra worthwhile standard settings to scale back.
Medium retains a surprisingly great amount of the sport’s vegetation whereas offering a considerable efficiency enchancment in comparison with Extremely+.
Given how vegetation-heavy Velen, Skellige, and Toussaint can change into, that is a simple optimization.
Suggestion: Medium
Texture High quality
Texture High quality impacts texture decision, streaming high quality, and texture filtering.
Usually, we might merely suggest the best worth that matches contained in the GPU’s out there VRAM. Curiously, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt — Remastered behaves considerably otherwise.
Decreasing Texture High quality from Extremely+ to Extremely measurably improved efficiency even when VRAM was not overcommitted, probably as a result of the setting additionally modifies texture filtering high quality.
Extremely nonetheless appears wonderful whereas avoiding the additional efficiency price of Extremely+.
Suggestion: Extremely
Element Degree
Element Degree controls the visibility distance and density of smaller environmental objects, decals, and miscellaneous particulars.
As with Terrain High quality, we noticed no significant GPU efficiency distinction between its numerous ranges.
Hold it maxed.
Suggestion: Extremely+
Display screen House Ambient Occlusion
The Remastered model introduces GTAO, a extra superior screen-space ambient-occlusion answer that improves contact shading round characters, vegetation, objects, and environmental geometry.
GTAO Excessive produced the very best visuals-to-performance ratio throughout our comparisons.
Suggestion: GTAO Excessive
Display screen House Reflections
Display screen House Reflections enhance reflections utilizing data already seen inside the present body.
Excessive proved surprisingly costly relative to its precise visible contribution. Water is the place the impact is most noticeable, however reflective surfaces merely aren’t frequent sufficient all through nearly all of the sport to justify paying the complete efficiency price continually.
Low retains the function whereas decreasing that burden considerably.
Suggestion: Low
NVIDIA HairWorks
NVIDIA HairWorks produces extra detailed simulated hair and fur on Geralt, monsters, and chosen characters.
It stays an costly luxurious relatively than a necessary visible function.
For an optimized configuration, we suggest disabling it. Gamers with substantial GPU headroom can allow HairWorks with 4X MSAA in the event that they significantly just like the impact.
CD PROJEKT RED additionally not too long ago issued Hotfix 5.00c, which reverted a Remastered bug that had triggered main HairWorks efficiency and visible points for some customers.
Suggestion: Off; On with 4X MSAA if in case you have vital GPU headroom
Ray Tracing And Path Tracing
That is the place the biggest visible and efficiency variations seem.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt — Remastered supplies Ray-Traced World Illumination, Reflections, Shadows, Ambient Occlusion, full path tracing, and DLSS Ray Reconstruction. There’s sadly no help for FSR Ray Regeneration, although.
Path Tracing and Path-Traced Hair are new additions in comparison with the earlier Subsequent-Gen launch. It is also value noting that Path-Traced Hair relies on the NVIDIA RTX 50 Sequence-exclusive Linear-Swept Spheres (LSS) know-how, and is thus unusable on non-Blackwell GPUs.
Ray-Traced World Illumination
RTGI supplies by far probably the most significant visible enchancment among the many standard ray-traced results.
Lighting turns into significantly extra pure, significantly indoors and in areas the place bounced illumination has a significant affect on the scene.
If you wish to preserve ray tracing enabled, that is the impact we might prioritize.
The Efficiency setting retains sufficient of the RTGI presentation to justify its price whereas being significantly extra manageable than the upper values.
Suggestion: Efficiency
Ray-Traced Reflections
Ray-Traced Reflections enhance reflection protection past what Display screen House Reflections can reproduce.
The development is seen round water and sure reflective supplies, however these surfaces are merely not frequent sufficient for us to think about the extra GPU price worthwhile in an optimized configuration.
Suggestion: Off
Ray-Traced Shadows
Ray-Traced Shadows enhance shadow accuracy and protection, however the standard shadow implementation already appears good — although maybe not solely real looking — at our really helpful Extremely setting.
With ray tracing putting huge extra stress on each the GPU and CPU, this is likely one of the first RT options we might sacrifice.
Suggestion: Off
Ray-Traced Ambient Occlusion
RTAO improves contact and oblique shadowing between close by surfaces.
Nonetheless, GTAO Excessive already performs this job fairly successfully, making the extra price of the ray-traced implementation troublesome to justify when optimizing efficiency.
Suggestion: Off
Path Tracing And DLSS Ray Reconstruction
Path Tracing replaces the extra selective RT method with a considerably extra complete rendering method that traces a number of lighting interactions all through the scene.
It might probably produce some wonderful outcomes, significantly indoors, however the efficiency price is gigantic.
As demonstrated by our CPU benchmark, PT shouldn’t be merely GPU-heavy. It decreased CPU-limited efficiency by roughly two-thirds in comparison with rasterization on our Core i7-14700K.
We additionally observed that the trail tracing presentation can look overly shiny and fewer contrasty outdoor. Disabling Bloom helps considerably, however doesn’t fully resolve the problem.
For our regular optimized configuration, Path Tracing due to this fact stays disabled.
Nonetheless, there’s a very fascinating neighborhood optimization that makes it significantly extra viable, which we are going to study later.
Then again, DLSS Ray Reconstruction replaces the sport’s standard hand-tuned RT denoisers with NVIDIA‘s neural denoising system.
RTX house owners utilizing ray/path tracing ought to allow it. In our view, the reconstruction high quality advantages outweigh any purpose to stay with the traditional denoisers.
Suggestion (Path Tracing): Off for the optimized profile; contemplate the neighborhood optimization detailed beneath
Suggestion (DLSS Ray Reconstruction): On for supported NVIDIA RTX GPUs
Optimized Graphics Settings For The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt — Remastered
Primarily based on our testing, we created two configurations.
The primary is designed round standard rasterization and prioritizes the very best general visuals-to-performance ratio. The second retains Ray-Traced World Illumination whereas eradicating the much less worthwhile RT results.
Optimized Graphics Settings With out Ray Tracing
| Graphics Setting | Optimized Worth |
|---|---|
| Variety of Background Characters | Extremely+ |
| Shadow High quality | Extremely |
| Display screen House Shadows | On |
| Terrain High quality | Extremely+ |
| Water High quality | Excessive |
| Foliage Visibility Vary | Excessive |
| Grass Density | Medium |
| Texture High quality | Extremely |
| Element Degree | Extremely+ |
| SSAO | GTAO Excessive |
| Display screen House Reflections | Low |
| HairWorks | Off |
| Ray-Traced World Illumination | N/A |
| Ray-Traced Reflections | N/A |
| Ray-Traced Shadows | N/A |
| Ray-Traced Ambient Occlusion | N/A |
| Path Tracing | N/A |
| DLSS Ray Reconstruction | N/A |
The most important standard reductions are Grass Density, Water High quality, Foliage Visibility Vary, Display screen House Reflections, and the transfer from Extremely+ to Extremely textures and shadows.
Terrain High quality, Element Degree, and Background Characters stay at Extremely+ as a result of decreasing them didn’t present significant efficiency advantages throughout our testing.
HairWorks might be enabled for those who just like the impact and have sufficient GPU efficiency headroom to spare.
Extremely+ Vs Optimized Graphics Settings – With out Ray Tracing
The above 1440p DLAA comparability produced the next outcomes:
| Graphics Configuration | Common FPS | 1% Low | 0.1% Low |
|---|---|---|---|
| Extremely+ | 100 | 90 | 88 |
| Optimized | 176 | 127 | 121 |
| Enchancment | +76% | +41% | +38% |
The outcomes communicate for themselves.
Common efficiency elevated from 100 FPS to 176 FPS, representing an infinite 76% uplift, whereas the 1% lows improved by 41% and the 0.1% lows by 38%.
These features are significantly spectacular as a result of the optimized configuration nonetheless retains a number of settings at Extremely or Extremely+ and retains the overwhelming majority of the sport’s visible presentation throughout regular gameplay.
Optimized Graphics Settings With Ray Tracing
| Graphics Setting | Optimized Worth |
|---|---|
| Variety of Background Characters | Extremely+ |
| Shadow High quality | Extremely |
| Display screen House Shadows | On |
| Terrain High quality | Extremely+ |
| Water High quality | Excessive |
| Foliage Visibility Vary | Excessive |
| Grass Density | Medium |
| Texture High quality | Extremely |
| Element Degree | Extremely+ |
| SSAO | GTAO Excessive |
| Display screen House Reflections | Low |
| HairWorks | Off |
| Ray-Traced World Illumination | Efficiency |
| Ray-Traced Reflections | Off |
| Ray-Traced Shadows | Off |
| Ray-Traced Ambient Occlusion | Off |
| Path Tracing | Off |
| DLSS Ray Reconstruction | On for NVIDIA RTX GPUs |
This profile successfully concentrates the out there ray tracing price range the place it supplies the biggest enchancment: international illumination.
RT Reflections, Shadows, and Ambient Occlusion are eliminated as a result of rasterized options already deal with these areas moderately effectively, whereas RTGI adjustments the lighting much more considerably.
Identical to with the non-RT optimized profile, you may allow HairWorks for those who nonetheless have sufficient GPU headroom after enabling RT.
Path Tracing Vs Max Ray Tracing Vs Optimized Ray Tracing
The 1440p DLAA video comparability from above produced the outcomes beneath:
| Graphics Configuration | Common FPS | 1% Low | 0.1% Low |
|---|---|---|---|
| Extremely+ & Path Tracing | 44 | 38 | 33 |
| Extremely+ & Ray Tracing | 57 | 53 | 51 |
| Optimized Ray Tracing | 87 | 77 | 68 |
| Enchancment over Extremely+ PT | +97% | +103% | +106% |
| Enchancment over Extremely+ RT | +53% | +45% | +34% |
In contrast in opposition to maxed-out ray tracing, our optimized RT profile improved common efficiency by 53%, the 1% lows by 45%, and the 0.1% lows by 34%.
The distinction in comparison with Path Tracing is even bigger. Common efficiency rises by 97%, whereas the 1% and 0.1% lows enhance by 103% and 106%, respectively.
In sensible phrases, our optimized configuration delivers virtually twice the typical efficiency of Path Tracing whereas nonetheless retaining RTGI, which we contemplate probably the most worthwhile a part of the sport’s RT presentation.
Ideas On How To Enhance Your The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt — Remastered Expertise
Path Tracing And Ray Tracing Optimization – The Mod We Advocate Making an attempt First
Essentially the most fascinating efficiency mod we discovered is Path Tracing and Ray Tracing Optimization (Remastered) by HourLines. It may be downloaded from the hyperlink beneath:
https://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/mods/13025
Reasonably than merely disabling path-traced options wholesale, the mod reduces the conventional Path Tracing lighting configuration from two gentle bounces to 1 and compensates for a few of the misplaced oblique illumination.
In response to the developer, this produces roughly 10% extra efficiency outdoor and as a lot as 30% indoors, the place the vanilla PT implementation is especially demanding.
That method makes loads of sense. The second bounce is pricey, however the visible distinction is usually considerably smaller than the efficiency distinction, significantly as soon as indirect-light brightness is adjusted to compensate.
The mod additionally exposes extra controls instantly contained in the graphics menu. Ray-Traced Shadows might be disabled whereas Path Tracing stays energetic for an additional claimed efficiency enhance of roughly 10%, with the sport falling again to rasterized shadows. Ray-Traced caustics can equally be disabled within the regular RT mode for an additional smaller acquire.
Much less Stutter FPS Enhance Shader Cache May Handle The Sport’s Greatest Body Time Drawback
One other significantly related mod is Much less Stutter FPS Enhance Shader Cache by Marllun, which might be downloaded from the next Nexus Mods hyperlink:
https://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/mods/13168
This one pursuits us as a result of it instantly targets an issue we encountered throughout regular gameplay: shader compilation stutter.
The mod makes use of a light-weight d3d12.dll proxy that data graphics pipelines, compute pipelines, root signatures, and DirectX Ray Tracing (DXR) state objects. Beforehand encountered PSOs can then be replayed on background employee threads to heat the GPU driver’s shader cache earlier than the sport wants them throughout regular rendering.
Keep away from Consistently Clearing Your Shader Cache
Given the shader compilation habits we encountered, repeatedly clearing your NVIDIA, AMD, or Intel shader caches is especially counterproductive right here.
Eradicating the cache forces beforehand compiled work to be carried out once more.
Until you might be troubleshooting corrupted shaders, a damaged driver set up, or a selected rendering bug, enable the cache to persist between classes. Areas, results, and supplies you will have already encountered ought to usually behave higher than fully recent PSOs.
Remaining Phrases
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt — Remastered is a formidable technical improve, however it additionally exposes the boundaries of REDengine 3. CDPR has layered path tracing, improved ray tracing, up to date fashionable ML-based TAAU and body technology options, in addition to carried out Ray Reconstruction for improved RT/PT denoising onto a sport whose underlying engine was by no means constructed for workloads this heavy. The end result appears wonderful, however shader compilation stutters stay noticeable and RT efficiency, particularly on the CPU aspect, is much from very best.
The excellent news is that the sport responds extraordinarily effectively to optimization. Our rasterized settings delivered a 76% enhance in common FPS over Extremely+, whereas the optimized RT profile was 53% quicker than maxed-out ray tracing and 97% quicker than Path Tracing. The visible compromises are comparatively small, particularly since we preserve the settings that really make a noticeable distinction.
For many gamers, our optimized rasterized profile is the very best general method to play. In case you have sufficient GPU headroom, including Efficiency RTGI provides you a lot of the visible profit with out paying for each RT impact. Full PT stays far more durable to justify in inventory kind because of its enormous CPU and GPU price, although neighborhood optimization mods make it significantly extra sensible.
In brief, maxing out The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt — Remastered is straightforward. Getting it to look practically nearly as good whereas operating dramatically quicker is the place the true features lie.
In regards to the author: Sebastian Castellanos is a knowledge scientist by training and coaching. He is additionally deeply enthusiastic about PC gaming {hardware} and software program. He has not too long ago began writing technical articles and guides on Wccftech about PC hardware, video games and mods.
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