For smoother performance in The Witcher 3 on PC, first turn off ray tracing or path tracing if enabled, then disable HairWorks. If frame delivery is still uneven, lower foliage visibility range and shadow quality; next, test a lower output resolution or a supported upscaling mode. Change one option at a time and compare in the same scene. These are practical starting points, not a measured ranking for the September 2026 Remastered release.
Start with the most demanding visual features
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Remastered, announced by CD PROJEKT RED in September 2026, adds path tracing, ray-traced HairWorks and newer upscaling options. Its system requirements have also changed, so settings advice for an older version may not apply directly. See the official Remastered announcement for the release’s feature context.
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Turn off ray tracing or path tracing first
If either is active and smoother frame delivery matters more than advanced lighting, test with it off. Path tracing is a new feature of Remastered, and the studio’s path-tracing QA configuration uses upscaling and Frame Generation. There is no current, published per-setting figure establishing how many frames per second disabling either option will recover on your PC.
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Disable HairWorks if it is on
HairWorks adds detailed animated hair and fur. NVIDIA’s 2015 guide reported that action sequences in its historical test could lose 15–20 frames per second with HairWorks enabled. That result is from an older version and test setup; it is not a benchmark of Remastered version 5.0, so treat HairWorks as a worthwhile option to test rather than a guaranteed source of a particular gain. NVIDIA’s historical Witcher 3 graphics guide
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Then reduce foliage and shadows
Lower foliage visibility range and shadow quality next if performance still falls short of your target. These controls are part of the game’s PC Ultra+ graphics options, along with grass density and other visual settings. Shorter foliage visibility can make distant vegetation less visible; lower shadow quality reduces shadow detail. The available official material does not quantify the current frame-rate cost or benefit of either option.
If you need to keep tuning, test other Ultra+ controls individually: background characters, grass density, texture quality, terrain quality, water quality and detail level. No current setting-by-setting benchmark establishes which of these costs the most on Remastered, so avoid treating a generic list as a universal performance ranking. CD PROJEKT RED’s PC graphics settings description identifies these controls.
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Use resolution and upscaling if those changes are not enough
Output resolution has a documented effect on performance: CD PROJEKT RED says higher resolution significantly affects FPS. If you still need more headroom, try a lower output resolution or an upscaling mode supported by your hardware. The trade-off is that a lower resolution or more aggressive upscaling can reduce image clarity.
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Repair common Windows errors and clear accumulated junk for a smoother, more stable PC - no reinstall needed.Free scan · no reinstallRemastered supports NVIDIA DLSS 4.5 with Ray Reconstruction, AMD FSR 4—including Frame Generation and Anti-Lag 2—on Radeon RX 7000 Series and newer, with FSR 2 for unsupported GPUs, and Intel XeSS 2.0 with Frame Generation and Low Latency. Which options appear depends on hardware and mode. The studio’s RT Minimum, RT Recommended and Path Tracing QA targets use DLSS, FSR or XeSS set to Auto; its Path Tracing configuration also enables Frame Generation. Other listed configurations use native resolution. Those targets therefore do not share identical rendering conditions and should not be read as a controlled comparison of individual settings. Consult the official Remastered PC feature information and system requirements for compatibility and test-condition context.
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Tune settings with a repeatable comparison
- Choose a repeatable scene. Use the same location and, as much as possible, the same activity each time; performance can vary by scene and gameplay.
- Record your current setup. Note output resolution, the active ray-tracing or path-tracing setting, upscaler and mode, and whether Frame Generation is enabled.
- Change one setting. Start with ray tracing or path tracing, then HairWorks, foliage visibility range and shadow quality. Do not change several at once if you want to know which adjustment helped.
- Compare under the same conditions. Return to the same scene and check whether frame delivery meets your target and whether the visual trade-off is acceptable.
- Continue only as needed. Test resolution or a supported upscaler, then try other Ultra+ controls one at a time.
CD PROJEKT RED cautions that performance varies with scene, system configuration, settings and output resolution. The official requirements page’s FPS targets are expected results from QA testing, not per-option measurements; its RT and path-tracing targets also use different rendering conditions from its native-resolution configurations. The reviewed material does not publish current frame-rate deltas for individual settings.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Check the Remastered requirements before troubleshooting elsewhere
Remastered brings changed system requirements. The requirements page also states that an SSD is required for the latest technical enhancements, citing faster loading, smoother asset streaming and improved overall performance. That is a requirement for those enhancements, not a graphics setting to lower or evidence that an SSD purchase will resolve a particular frame-rate problem.
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When consulting older guides, check which game version they cover. In particular, NVIDIA’s HairWorks figure above is from 2015, while Remastered introduces newer graphics features and different test conditions.
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