In 2015, my GTX 770M laptop computer crumpled like a paper bag when it squared up in opposition to the Witcher 3, leaving me hungry for extra energy and impressed to construct a GTX 1080 desktop a yr later. In 2020, that noble beast was in flip introduced low by Cyberpunk 2077, hardly preserving to a constant 60fps at 1080p low.
The seasons change, the tide rolls in, and CD Projekt destroys my computer systems: the beefy, dear RTX 3070 I acquired simply final yr can simply barely crest 40fps with the Witcher 3’s new ray tracing implementation, and this is likely one of the uncommon occasions I’ve checked out RT comparisons and gone, “hey, that truly does look higher!” For those who’re like me and wanting to eke some additional efficiency out of The Witcher 3 Subsequent Gen’s ray tracing, you might wish to strive modder alikoko’s Optimized Raytracing (opens in new tab) over on NexusMods.
Basically, alikoko’s mod lowers the variety of probes producing mild rays to bounce round a given scene of the sport, decreasing the load in your GPU whereas nonetheless offering ray traced lighting. I consider it as a user-hacked excessive/medium/low settings slider for The Witcher 3’s RT world illumination, and alikoko cited a 20-30% efficiency enchancment on an RTX 2060 Tremendous. Different customers within the feedback famous related uplift, and I discovered alikoko’s mod useful on my setup, typically delivering greater than 50fps with the “efficiency” preset, RT world, and largely Extremely settings on DLSS Efficiency.
Alikoko does warn of doubtless inaccurate lighting on indoor scenes, nevertheless, and the mod doesn’t but make any tweaks to the RT sub-settings of shadows, reflections, or ambient occlusion. Different points with The Witcher 3 Subsequent Gen, just like the inefficient CPU usage (opens in new tab) and ray tracing-associated memory leak (opens in new tab) reported by Digital Foundry, likewise nonetheless stay.
Alikoko’s mod is a worthwhile software for the common Joe in search of a style of that RTX 4090 life, however I’ve in the end thrown within the towel—even with a G-Sync monitor, the sport feels sluggish beneath 60fps, and I used to be not pleased with how a lot efficiency would degrade over an extended play session with ray tracing enabled. With RT off and every thing else cranked to Extremely+ (and even the dreaded Hairworks enabled) I’ve acquired a fairly exhausting flooring of 70fps at 1440p, DLSS High quality.
For my subsequent Witcher 3 lighting mod experiment, I am pondering of taking jojolapin102’s Better SSAO (opens in new tab) for a spin—is it actually PC gaming if you happen to’re not obsessively tweaking this crap greater than really taking part in the sport? For those who’re leaping into the Witcher 3 for the primary time or a replay, you’ll want to try our information to getting the Henry Cavill armor (opens in new tab) they added in 4.0, and we now have related guides to the primary spherical of Ursine (opens in new tab) and Feline (opens in new tab) Witcher college units.