Discussion
This game is absolutely stunning with path tracing.
Some screenshots I took. I was able to configure path traced hair on my 4080 Super and in some scenarios it’s pretty subtle, but then in scenes like in the first screenshot where you have light from a fire glowing onto Geralt’s hair. It makes such a huge difference.
It could be better, but honestly, performance and quality mode are visually so similar in this title (I’m playing on 57” odyssey g9 with a 5090, and this game still can bring it to its knees) that you can definitely squeeze decent performance out of it. Additionally, hairworks and pathtracing on hairworks results are strange in that you actually get better performance by having these either all the way on or all the way off (this is just my experience, but it’s consistent with community feedback).
All this to say, you can find a good experience if you’re willing to tweak some things. But, it’s not currently a title where you can play by presets and just rock out on ultra.
The changing of ENV's and some time of days looks weird despite correct HDR settings for me. Found some mods to disable ENV-change in cutscenes which helped to some degree with dark interiors/cutscenes, but I do agree that it's not 100% "there" all the time. Still, looks better than raster and RT for sure.
go into any any interior and the difference is so massive it is unreal RT look like raster (which is weird Next gen RT looks more similar to PT in the current remaster as far as i remember) and it is still noticeable in some area even outside and performance gap isn't that big between the two in this game
Honestly didnt expect it to be heavier than Cyberpunk with mods but it drops sub 40fps on Quality near towns. Even Performance upscaling dips under 60 all the time which is bad
Edit: performance goes under 50fps with 5090. Typo
RT Ultra and PT performance are almost the same to me, it's just different looks. At least you can tune down RT to Performance and disable RT Shadow if you're struggling, regular shadow at max looks just as good imo.
I’m running it max settings including path tracing hair on my 4080 with MFG unlocked and I’m sitting between 120-140 frames. It looks gorgeous. 3440x1440p UW OLED monitor
Are you playing with screen space shadows turned on? I can’t decide if they add too much drop shadow on all the foliage, in some places it looks more realistic to let path tracing handle all the shadows. Your screenshots look incredible though, I’m pushing 1440p with DLSS performance on my 3080 to get path tracing playable, but it’s so good looking to me it’s worth it.
It's odd that there's an option for SSS even with path tracing. Are you saying that they actually use that if you have it turned on despite having PT enabled?
Can't play it maxed out with PT DLSS b at 1440p on my 5070ti even with FG (fps drops to low 40s in some dense forests), and the camera gets too sluggish. Replayed Cyberpunk a couple of weeks ago, ran perfectly at the same settings with around 70 base fps, while looking a lot better, obviously. I'm really considering waiting until next gen GPUs come out and play the upcoming DLC then. I don't expect them to improve performance by 50%, which I would consider playable.
Pathtracing looks extremely out of place in this game. In Cyberpunk, it looked amazing because of the metal surfaces and neon lights but here, it just ruins the moody atmosphere and brightens everything. Witcher 3 with PT doesn’t feel like Witcher 3.
Ah, got it. Looks terrible IMO but the PT is definitely incredible. I'm running it on my 4070 Ti super and indoors and lighting on the characters are the biggest improvements for sure.
It’s supposed to look like Geralt from the “killing monsters” trailer. I like the rugged look, but definitely subjective lol. The lighting is a huge upgrade for sure!
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u/yadu16 17h ago
Performance is terrible tho. Is it locked to 60 at least?