Wednesday, November 23rd 2022
The Witcher 3 Next-Gen Update Adds Higher-res Textures, Ray Traced GI, DLSS and FSR 2
CD Projekt RED announced an unexpected content update for the now-7 year old "The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt," an immensely popular AAA game that continues to be a favorite among GPU reviewers and PC enthusiasts. The content update, dubbed simply "Next Gen Update," is expected to go live on December 14, 2022. The free update adds several visual enhancements that would normally be marketed as a "Remastered" title, and sold separately.
To begin with, CDPR has increased texture resolutions, and redesigned the foliage to be more realistic. It gets new real-time ray traced global illumination (RT-GI), which should significantly improve the lighting throughout the game. The game also gets super-sampling performance enhancements, namely NVIDIA DLSS and AMD FSR 2. Thanks to the higher-resolution assets and RT-GI, the graphics settings now include a new preset called "Ultra+," which maxes out everything, including the new assets. The game's UI now offers more camera perspectives. For next-generation consoles, the update adds a new "Performance" mode that runs it at 60 FPS, and a new "Quality" mode that enables RT-GI along with FSR 2.
The trailer for the new content update follows.
To begin with, CDPR has increased texture resolutions, and redesigned the foliage to be more realistic. It gets new real-time ray traced global illumination (RT-GI), which should significantly improve the lighting throughout the game. The game also gets super-sampling performance enhancements, namely NVIDIA DLSS and AMD FSR 2. Thanks to the higher-resolution assets and RT-GI, the graphics settings now include a new preset called "Ultra+," which maxes out everything, including the new assets. The game's UI now offers more camera perspectives. For next-generation consoles, the update adds a new "Performance" mode that runs it at 60 FPS, and a new "Quality" mode that enables RT-GI along with FSR 2.
138 Comments on The Witcher 3 Next-Gen Update Adds Higher-res Textures, Ray Traced GI, DLSS and FSR 2
@AusWolf RT being CPU intensive is nothing new, it just never gets talked about.
PS i am playing this at 4k
Two years after announcing the next-gen version this was the best they could come up with?
The game loads here "windows 7" & I can get to the main menu. When I click to start any quest it starts to load then crash. Not sure if there is a roll back but I do have a back-up of the old version..
EDIT: It looks like only the GOG version you can roll-back.
Same process in GOG Galaxy’s equivalent settings.
But it look like there is few trend.
- Without latest drivers, be prepare to crash
- You need to restart the game after every change in the settings EVEN if the game doesn't ask you to do so
- If you dont want to use RT, use DirectX11 mode that have all the same graphic update as non RT Max detail but without so much stutter
- Some people report that renaming/deleting the file in the Game folder\Bin\x64_dx12\ named d3d11on12.dll help with the stutter. Not sure, i think it did for me, but also renaming it allow overlay like steam or RTSS to work properly.