This guide will show you the best graphics settings for The Witcher 3 Next Gen 2022 update. These settings are only for those who want to use Ray-Tracing.
If you are someone who doesn’t want Ray Tracing, and just want to play the vanilla version of the game, you can pretty much set everything to Ultra. It won’t matter. This game is 8 years old, and most modern-day GPUs should be able to run this without issues.
You need to tweak the settings and figure out what is best for you. Therefore, let’s go ahead and see what are best graphics settings for Witcher 3 Next Gen.
Witcher 3 Next Gen Best Graphics Settings
- Ray Tracing (Global Illumination): On [We are going to enable every Ray Tracing setting because we are trying to achieve playable FPS with RT on]
- Ray Traced Reflections: On
- Ray Traced Shadow: On
- Ray Traced Ambient Occlusion: On
- Anti-Aliasing: DLSS/FSR [Ray tracing without DLSS or FSR makes the game unplayable. Even on a RTX 3070 Ti.]
- FSR Quality: Balanced [If you are using FSR]
- DLSS Quality: Balanced [If you are using DLSS. The “Quaility” preset is more demanding]
- Dynamic Resolution Scaling: Off [Randomly blurs out the game to maintain performance]
- Sharpening: Low [Low is good enough]
- Screen Space Ambient Occlusion: Off [Doesn’t matter. “Ray Traced Ambient Occlusion” will override this]
- Screen Space Reflections: Off [Again, doesn’t matter. “Ray Traced Shadow” will override this]
- Motion Blur: Off [Personal preference. No effect on performance]
- Blur: Off [Personal preference. No effect on performance]
- Bloom: On [I have always liked Bloom in Witcher 3. Makes the game look good]
- Depth of Field: Off [Personal preference. No effect on performance]
- Chromatic Aberration: Off [Personal preference. No effect on performance]
- Vignetting: Off [This just adds a black hue to the corners of your screen. No effect on peformance]
- Light Shafts: On [Makes the game look good but have no effect on performance]
- Camera Lens Effects: On [Personal preference. No effect on performance]
- Nvidia HairWorks: Off [If you want to use RT, then you will have to disable HairWorks. This is probably the most demanding setting after RT]
- Nvidia HairWorks AA: Doesn’t matter
- Nvidia HairWorks Preset: Doesn’t matter
- Number of Background Characters: Medium [Inside the settlements, sometimes too many NPCs start showing up together. This greatly affects performance]
- Shadow Quality: Medium [Shadows are, as usual, demanding]
- Terrain Quality: Medium [Medium holds up quite well, actually. I couldn’t find many differences between Medium and High in the Textures department]
- Water Quality: High [You don’t come by water that much, so High is fine]
- Foliage Visibility Range: Medium [Straight up got a boost of 8 FPS after changing this to Medium from High]
- Grass Quality: High [Witcher 3 is all about flora and fauna. The grass is what makes the game looks so gorgeous]
- Texture Quality: High [We don’t want the Textures to look bad. Otherwise, what is the point of keeping RT on]
- Detail Level: Medium
- Go to Display Settings
- Display Mode: Full Screen [Gives the best performance]
- Vsync: Off
- Resolution: 2560×1440 [I am using an Odyssey G7 1440p. If you are using a 1080p monitor, then more fps for you]
- Maximum Frames Per Second: Unlimited
- NVIDIA Reflex Low Latency: Off [This works best on PvP titles. Kind of useless in a story game]
Specifications of the Test System
- GPU: RTX 3060 Ti
- CPU: Ryzen 5 5600x (Not overclocked)
- RAM: 16 GB 3200mhz G.Skill Trident Z RAM
- MOBO: Asus ROG Strix B550-F Gaming (Wi-Fi) Motherboard
- AIO: Cooler Master MasterLiquid ML240P Mirage
- STORAGE: 1 TB WD Blue SSD
- PSU: Corsair AX 1200W Gold PSU
- DISPLAY: Odyssey G7 240Hz | BenQ GW2480 IPS (Dual Monitor Setup)
- OS: Windows 10 64-bit
- DRIVER: Nvidia Game Ready Driver 527.56 [Release date: December 2022]
Performance Analysis of The Witcher 3 Next Gen Update
Instead of writing more stuff, I have made a video showing the performance Witcher 3 on a RTX 3060 Ti, with Ray Tracing enabled. Check it out:
If you watch the video, then you will know the situation. If you ask me, I don’t know who this update is for. People who have been playing Witcher 3 all these years are mostly people with Low to Medium-end gaming rigs. Trust me when I say, that very few high-end GPU users play Witcher 3. Most of my friends who still play this game are mainly using GPUs like GTX 1060, RX 570, GTX 1660, etc.
But this update has now made the game extremely heavy, and in no way these old players would be able to play the game with Ray Tracing enabled. Don’t get me wrong. The game looks absolutely magnificent. But that doesn’t change the fact that the game lacks optimization[*flashbacks from Cyberpunk*].
IMO, if you want to get playable framerates on this next gen version of The Witcher 3, then you must have at least a RTX 3060. Otherwise it would become a struggle-fest for you.
GTX 1050 Ti and GTX 1650 users. Don’t bother.
That’s all, folks!
Last Updated on December 29, 2023
Shoaib, 30, is a simple guy who loves to play video games, and enjoys new cuisines sporadically. He has been gaming since he was 7 years old, and with an experience of 22 years, under his belt, there is not a single AAA game in this world, that he hasn’t played. Despite being a MBA Graduate he decided to follow his passion. And because of his love for gaming, Frondtech came into existence.
