The best PC settings for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt — Remastered depend on your GPU, resolution, and frame-rate target. For a reliable starting point, use a high-quality rasterized setup and leave ray tracing and path tracing off; add those features only if performance remains acceptable. The current Remastered PC version, released September 29, 2026, uses DirectX 12 only, so older advice to switch between DX11 and DX12 does not apply. CD PROJEKT RED’s Remastered notes describe the new graphics options and say the upgrade is free for existing owners within the same platform ecosystem.
Start with your resolution and performance target
Choose the resolution you want to play at and decide what frame rate feels smooth on your display before changing graphics options. There is no universal best preset: the available evidence does not establish neutral, repeatable performance costs for individual settings in Remastered or a preset that suits every PC.
Use a compatible upscaler if native resolution does not meet your target. Test changes in the same scene, one at a time, and consider image quality, frame rate, and responsiveness together. That makes it easier to tell whether a visual feature is worth its cost on your system.
Choose a starting profile
Frame-rate first
- Leave ray tracing and path tracing off.
- Start with a high-quality rasterized preset, then lower settings that matter least to you until performance is stable.
- If native resolution is too demanding, select an upscaler supported by your GPU.
Balanced
- Begin with path tracing off.
- Try ray tracing only if performance remains acceptable at your chosen resolution.
- Use a supported upscaler if needed, then judge image quality and responsiveness on your own system.
Visual showcase
- Try Ultra+ with path tracing on capable hardware.
- Use an appropriate upscaler and frame-generation option if your GPU supports them.
- Expect a demanding lighting workload. Frame generation can increase displayed output, but it is not the same as rendering that many frames natively.
These are starting points based on the documented options, not tested presets or guarantees. For tighter advice, the important details are your GPU, resolution, and target frame rate.
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What rasterization, ray tracing, and path tracing change
Rasterized rendering is the practical baseline when prioritizing performance. Ray tracing adds selected effects, such as reflections or shadows. Path tracing uses a broader lighting approach: NVIDIA describes it as unifying lighting and rendering in one system rather than combining rasterized rendering with selected ray-traced effects. It uses more rays and multiple light bounces, so treat it as the most demanding option of the three, not as a routine performance setting. NVIDIA’s Remastered feature article explains that distinction.
The Remastered edition adds path tracing, ray-traced local shadows, and ray-traced HairWorks, alongside updated screen-space reflections and shadows. The game also adds GTAO as a screen-space ambient-occlusion option. These choices are not interchangeable: screen-space effects and ray-traced effects use different rendering approaches, so compare the result and performance on your own PC rather than assuming that every setting labeled “ray traced” has the same cost.
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Use upscaling and frame generation selectively
Upscaling renders the game at a lower internal resolution and reconstructs an image for the display resolution. It can help when rendering natively is too costly, but image quality depends on the mode and scene. Frame generation creates additional displayed frames; do not treat its output as equivalent to the game rendering the same number of frames natively, or as a substitute for judging responsiveness.
Remastered supports DLSS 4.5 with Ray Reconstruction, FSR 4 with frame generation and Anti-Lag 2, and XeSS 2.0 with frame generation and low latency. CD PROJEKT RED specifies FSR 4 support for Radeon RX 7000 Series and newer; unsupported GPUs use FSR 2. Check the options available in your installation and GPU before choosing a feature.
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NVIDIA reports up to 385 FPS at 4K on an RTX 5090 and up to 245 FPS on an RTX 5080 in its described setup: Ultra+ path tracing, DLSS 4.5 6X Multi Frame Generation, and Ray Reconstruction. These are NVIDIA’s company claims, not independent results or native-frame-rate guarantees for typical players. They describe a specific feature stack and should not be used to predict performance on other hardware or settings.
Which settings should you lower first?
CD PROJEKT RED’s 2022 Next-Gen Update notes identify the Ultra+ settings families as background-character count, shadow quality, grass density, texture quality, foliage visibility range, terrain quality, water quality, and detail level. These names are useful when deciding what to test, but the available documentation does not quantify their individual frame-rate costs in the 2026 Remastered build. Lower one setting at a time in the same scene, starting with the visual changes you care about least.
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The 2022 notes also discuss ray-traced global illumination and ambient occlusion, plus optional PC ray-traced reflections and shadows. That is historical context for the Next-Gen Update, not a complete description of the expanded Remastered feature set. CD PROJEKT RED’s 2022 change list documents that earlier update.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Why older DX11 and DLSS advice may mislead
The 2022 Next-Gen Update used a hybrid DX11/DX12 renderer, but NVIDIA describes the September 2026 Remastered version as DX12 only. Switching APIs is therefore not a current Remastered settings fix. NVIDIA’s separate claim of up to a 2.3× performance increase referred to DLSS 3 in the 2022 Next-Gen Update; it is not a general performance promise for Remastered, other GPUs, or other DLSS versions. NVIDIA’s 2022 article describes the original claim.
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- Cool Comfort: Enjoy a stable surface with our lap desk's dual bolster cushion, designed for comfort and airflow, keeping your lap cool during extended use.
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