The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt News

A recent update for The Witcher 3 was supposed to improve performance on PlayStation, Xbox, and PC, but the latter is actually running worse.

The Witcher 3 saw the arrival of patch 4.01 earlier this week, noting that it "improves the overall stability and performance of the game on next-gen consoles and PC, and brings various fixes to all platforms." Only problem is, as reported by Rock Paper Shotgun, that just isn't the case on PC. Upon booting up the game to test out the new settings, RPS found that if you don't have ray-tracing enabled, the game actually runs worse than before.

One of the PC-specific additions added with this update is that a performance mode for ray-traced global illumination is now available as an option, hardware permitted. This setting "improves frame rate by prioritising performance over range and precision," which apparently works well. But without any RT settings turned on, frame rates can dip lower than 25fps, making for a not particularly smooth experience (as demonstrated here).

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While the patch notes for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt’s 4.01 update claim it "improves the overall stability and performance of the game", if you’re not using the recently added ray tracing settings, it might well do the opposite. I gave the patch a whirl to try out its PC-specific changes – namely a new 'Performance' setting for RT global illumination and a fix for the broken screen space reflections setting – only to find that non-ray-traced, DirectX 12 performance has been utterly knackered. Again.

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If you've been struggling to get ray-tracing effects to work without tanking your framerate in The Witcher 3 since the launch of the RPG game's new Enhanced Edition, then the latest update has some potentially good news. The Witcher 3 patch 4.01 includes some stability improvements and performance enhancements, including a new setting for ray-tracing that trades a bit of precision for better framerates.

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• Fixed an issue where the Screen Space Reflections setting wasn't working on PC despite being turned on. Players who had previously set their SSR setting to high may notice a performance impact.
  
• Added a new performance mode for ray-traced global illumination, which can be toggled by players with compatible hardware. It improves frame rate by prioritizing performance over range and precision.
  

• Battle Preparations - Fixed an issue where it could be impossible to interact with Avallac'h during the objective "Let Avallac'h know everything's ready."
  
• Family Matters - Fixed an issue that could cause the game to crash during the transition to Ciri's Story: Out of the Shadows when speaking to the Bloody Baron.
  
• King's Gambit - Fixed an issue where it could be impossible to participate in the fistfight with the second Vildkaarl due to an invisible obstacle.
  
• Wine Wars: Belgaard - Added a retrofix for the issue we fixed in 4.00, where the quest couldn't be completed if the player destroyed one of the required monster nests during exploration.
  
• A Dangerous Game - The armor in Caesar's room should now change its appearance when the Alternate Nilfgaardian Armor is turned on.
  
• Axii Puppet - Increased the health and damage dealt by the puppet.
  
• Adrenaline Rush mutation should now work according to its description.
  
• Various small fixes to quests and cutscenes.
  

• Fixed various issues with Arabic localization.
  
• Added the localized versions of Orianna's song "Lullaby of Woe" in Korean and Simplified Chinese.
  
• Adjusted Priscilla's lip-sync animation to match her voice-over in Simplified Chinese during the song "The Wolven Storm".