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To improve performance in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt — Remastered without needlessly degrading the picture, first match settings to your platform, display resolution, and GPU. On PC, use a compatible upscaler at a quality-oriented setting, then reduce ray tracing or path tracing only if performance still falls short. Change one demanding option at a time and compare the same scene. There is no universally optimal preset: results vary with hardware, resolution, settings, and gameplay.
Start with the edition, platform, and performance goal
This guidance is for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt — Remastered, released September 29, 2026. Its renderer and graphics features differ from older versions, so advice written for the 2022 Next-Gen edition may not match the current settings. CD PROJEKT RED lists Remastered for PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch 2, with upgrades for existing owners within the same platform ecosystem. See the official Remastered release notes.
Before changing anything, decide which outcome matters most: a steadier frame rate, a higher output resolution, or ray-traced lighting. These goals can conflict, particularly on PC. Advice about GPU settings does not transfer directly to console modes.
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Choose an upscaler your GPU supports
Remastered 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, FSR 2 as a fallback on unsupported GPUs, and Intel XeSS 2.0 with Frame Generation and Low Latency. Check the current game build and your GPU’s supported features before selecting one; availability is hardware-dependent.
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Start with the quality-oriented upscaling option at your intended display resolution. If performance still misses your target, try a lower render scale and check whether the improvement is worth any loss of detail or clarity. CD PROJEKT RED cautions that higher output resolution significantly affects FPS, so evaluate settings at the resolution you actually use—not a lower resolution you do not intend to play at. The official PC graphics and rendering notes describe the supported technologies.
Reduce costly lighting before broadly lowering image settings
Remastered adds ray-traced effects and path tracing, both of which can be demanding. If performance is poor with either enabled, turn it off or reduce its use before lowering unrelated settings that contribute to the image you want. Keep conventional rendering features that look good and run acceptably on your system.
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There is no evidence-backed universal “best settings” recipe for every PC. The publisher’s published targets vary by system configuration, graphics settings, resolution, scene, and gameplay. Its RT Minimum, RT Recommended, and Path Tracing targets use DLSS, FSR, or XeSS set to Auto; other listed configurations use native resolution with upscaling off, while the Path Tracing configuration also uses upscaling and Frame Generation. Compare a target only when those conditions resemble your own.
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Make controlled changes and compare the same scene
- Load a repeatable area and note your current image quality, frame rate, and frame pacing.
- Change one demanding setting—such as the upscaler’s quality mode or ray tracing—while leaving the others unchanged.
- Revisit the same area and compare clarity, frame rate, and smoothness.
- Keep the change only if it improves the experience enough to justify any visible trade-off; then move to the next setting if needed.
This process helps identify which option is actually limiting your result without assuming that a preset works equally well on every system.
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Use PS5 Pro modes according to your display and priorities
CD PROJEKT RED says PS5 Pro Performance Mode targets 60 FPS and can reach 90 FPS on VRR-capable displays. Ray Tracing Mode targets 60 FPS. The release notes also say PSSR is intended to improve fidelity without sacrificing performance. Choose Performance Mode when a higher frame-rate ceiling is the priority and your display supports VRR; choose between the modes based on whether smoother motion or ray-traced effects matter more to you. These are console mode targets, not directly comparable to PC figures. See the official release notes for PS5 Pro modes.
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For PC stutter or low frame rates, CD PROJEKT RED’s general performance troubleshooting guidance recommends a clean graphics-driver installation, verifying game files, disabling overlays, and closing unnecessary applications. If the issue began after a driver update, its support article suggests trying the previous driver version and reporting the problem. That article predates Remastered, so treat these as general diagnostic steps rather than a Remastered-specific fix list. Follow the steps in the official performance troubleshooting article.
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The updated PC requirements also require an SSD and cite faster loading, smoother asset streaming, and improved overall performance as reasons. An SSD is relevant if your PC lacks one or you encounter loading and asset-streaming issues; the requirement does not establish that changing from adequate SSD storage will raise average FPS. See CD PROJEKT RED’s updated PC requirements.
Interpret published performance figures carefully
CD PROJEKT RED says its expected FPS targets come from QA testing and can fluctuate by scene and gameplay. Hardware, settings, and output resolution affect results, with higher resolution having a significant effect. Those targets are not a promise for every PC.
NVIDIA reports up to 385 FPS at 4K on an RTX 5090 and up to 245 FPS on an RTX 5080 with Ultra+ path-traced settings, DLSS 4.5 6X Multi Frame Generation, and Ray Reconstruction. These are NVIDIA’s vendor claims for specific hardware and technologies, not independent benchmarks or expected results for other PCs. See NVIDIA’s Remastered path tracing and DLSS 4.5 article.
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