For the best experience in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Remastered on PC, first confirm you have the September 29, 2026 edition, update your graphics driver, and establish a baseline at your display’s resolution before enabling ray tracing or path tracing. Then add upscaling and frame generation only if your graphics card supports them and the result looks and feels good on your system. There is no single best preset: performance depends on the scene, hardware, resolution, and settings, and generated-frame counts are not the same as natively rendered frame rates.
What changed in the Remastered PC version?
CD PROJEKT RED describes Remastered as a free upgrade for eligible owners, with Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine included. Its PC feature list specifies native DirectX 12 rendering with multithreading, path tracing, and Ray-Traced HairWorks. The update also adds support for newer upscaling and frame-generation technologies.
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This is a different release from the 2022 Next-Gen update. NVIDIA describes that earlier update as offering a hybrid DirectX 11/DirectX 12 renderer and selected ray-traced effects, while Remastered uses DirectX 12 only. NVIDIA characterizes path tracing as integrating lighting and rendering effects into one system, rather than applying ray tracing to selected effects. That is the vendor’s explanation of the technologies, not an independent visual comparison.
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- Confirm the edition and platform version. Check your game library or launcher to make sure the installed game is Remastered, rather than assuming an older installation has updated. CD PROJEKT RED says eligible owners on listed platforms receive the upgrade at no charge; the announcement also says the two expansions are included.
- Check the current requirements for your hardware. Use CD PROJEKT RED’s current support page and inspect its requirements table directly. The detailed tiers are presented there as an image and are not reproduced here, so do not rely on guessed minimum or recommended GPU and CPU models.
- Install a current graphics driver. NVIDIA recommends its latest Game Ready Driver for the Remastered upgrade. CD PROJEKT RED’s feature page links driver sources for NVIDIA, AMD, and Intel; use the source for your GPU vendor.
- Set your intended output resolution and establish a baseline. Start at the resolution you actually plan to play at. If you want to understand native performance, turn off upscaling and frame generation for this initial comparison. Change one major setting at a time and compare the same kind of scene where practical.
- Try upscaling before the most demanding lighting modes. Enable the supported upscaler for your GPU, then check image quality, frame pacing, and input feel. Upscaling can reduce rendering load, but the result depends on the mode, resolution, and game scene.
- Add ray tracing or path tracing last. Compare the visual result and responsiveness against your baseline. If performance or control feel becomes unacceptable, return to a less demanding lighting mode, reduce rendering load, or use a supported upscaling mode.
This sequence is a practical way to isolate the effects of settings; it is not a claim that any particular combination has been independently benchmarked.
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What settings should I use?
Choose settings around your priority rather than copying a preset meant for different hardware. The central trade-off is image fidelity versus responsiveness: higher rendering demands can improve visual effects but lower performance, while upscaling and frame generation change how the displayed result is produced.
- If stable responsiveness matters most: Start with native rendering and frame generation off to see what your PC can sustain. If you need more performance, try a supported upscaling option before adding path tracing.
- If visual effects matter most: Compare ray tracing and path tracing after finding a resolution and upscaling setup that performs acceptably. Path tracing is the more comprehensive lighting approach, and can require substantially more rendering work.
- If you use frame generation: Judge the result by more than the displayed FPS number. Consider image quality, pacing, and input response as well; generated frames do not represent an equal increase in frames rendered directly by the GPU.
- If the result looks worse or feels less responsive: Disable frame generation or return to the prior upscaling and lighting settings. A higher counter reading is not automatically a better play experience.
Which upscaling option should I use?
Use a mode your graphics card supports, then compare its image and responsiveness on your own PC. The Remastered feature list names the following technologies and qualifications:
| Technology | What CD PROJEKT RED lists for Remastered | What to check |
|---|---|---|
| NVIDIA DLSS | DLSS 4.5 with Ray Reconstruction | Availability depends on compatible NVIDIA hardware and the relevant feature support. |
| AMD FSR | FSR 4 with Frame Generation and Anti-Lag 2 on Radeon RX 7000 Series and newer; FSR 2 is used on unsupported GPUs. | Check which option the game makes available for your GPU rather than assuming every FSR 4 feature works on every card. |
| Intel XeSS | XeSS 2.0 with Frame Generation and Low Latency | Use the mode supported by your hardware and compare its visual quality and input feel. |
These features are not interchangeable in every respect, and support for an upscaler does not by itself establish support for all of its frame-generation or latency features. Start with upscaling alone if you are evaluating image quality; add frame generation separately so you can tell what changed.
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Try them only after setting a workable resolution and upscaling baseline. Ray tracing applies selected effects; path tracing brings lighting and rendering effects together into a more comprehensive approach, according to NVIDIA’s description. The extra workload can make path tracing a poor starting point on a system that is already struggling at its chosen resolution.
CD PROJEKT RED’s performance notes say the path-tracing configuration in its expected-FPS testing used upscaling and frame generation. Consequently, those expectations do not describe native rendering without frame generation, and should not be treated as a promise for a player’s PC. The same notes say results vary with scene, system configuration, settings, and output resolution.
What do the published FPS figures mean?
CD PROJEKT RED says its expected FPS targets are based on QA tests and can fluctuate with gameplay scenes, system configuration, graphics settings, and output resolution. Its test method differs by tier: RT Minimum, RT Recommended, and Path Tracing used DLSS, FSR, or XeSS set to Auto; other configurations used native resolution with upscaling off; the Path Tracing configuration used upscaling and Frame Generation. Compare a target only with those conditions in mind.
NVIDIA also publishes vendor performance figures for its own RTX configurations. These are not independent benchmarks, and results involving frame generation should not be read as native-rendered FPS.
| NVIDIA-reported result | Configuration detail stated by NVIDIA | How to interpret it |
|---|---|---|
| Up to 385 FPS at 4K on RTX 5090 | Ultra+ path tracing, DLSS Ray Reconstruction, and 6X Multi Frame Generation are described for this RTX 5090 result. | Vendor-reported figure with multi-frame generation; it is not a native-rendered frame rate. |
| Up to 245 FPS at 4K on RTX 5080 | NVIDIA reports this as a vendor figure; the cited material does not establish the same full configuration detail for this result. | Do not treat it as an independent result or assume an unstated test setup. |
| Up to 420 FPS at 1440p on RTX 5090 | NVIDIA describes DLSS Ray Reconstruction and Dynamic Multi Frame Generation for this result. | Vendor-reported figure using frame generation, not a native-rendered frame rate. |
Can my PC run the Remastered version?
Check CD PROJEKT RED’s current official requirements table against your actual processor, graphics card, memory, operating system, and storage. The support page says an SSD is now required to support the game’s technical enhancements and cites faster loading, smoother asset streaming, and improved overall performance. It does not specify a required capacity or drive interface in the readable page text.
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The precise minimum and recommended hardware tiers should be taken from the official table, not inferred from vendor FPS examples. No broad, reproducible independent benchmark results across CPUs and GPUs are established here, so there is no reliable basis to promise a particular frame rate for a reader’s configuration.
Windows support and older versions
CD PROJEKT RED says it no longer officially supports or tests Windows 10. It also clarifies that this does not mean the game will necessarily stop running on Windows 10. The company says it supports only components that continue to receive official updates from their manufacturers.
The support page describes rollback options that depend on the platform; it mentions version 4.04 as an earlier version after Remastered’s release. Check the instructions for your store or launcher before changing versions, since rollback availability and steps are platform-specific.
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Reduce rendering load first: use a less demanding lighting mode, revisit the resolution or supported upscaling option, and keep frame generation only if its image and input response work for you. If local hardware cannot deliver an acceptable result, NVIDIA identifies GeForce NOW as a cloud-streaming option for people without a capable local GeForce RTX system. Check current game access, regional availability, membership conditions, and your network situation before relying on a streaming service; its performance and image quality are not guaranteed independently of those conditions.
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