The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt got a native PS5 release when the Complete Edition launched back in December, marking the first time PlayStation players could travel The Continent and murder much of its wildlife at a silky-smooth 60fps.

And while it all looked and ran well, there was still room for improvement, and so in early February, we got the performance-focused patch 4.01. The wizards over at Digital Foundry have had some time to kick the tyres on the update, and their findings were quite surprising.

Using a busy section of the city of Novigrad as a testing ground, Digital Foundry found that RT Mode benefited from the latest update, gaining around 3-4fps in most areas. RT Mode comes far closer to hitting its 30fps target than the launch build did, which would hover around the low 20s in this busy area.

Bizarrely, however, Performance Mode has taken a massive step back in patch 4.01 in the same location. Whereas at launch, Performance Mode could and would hit 60fps, it appears to have taken a hit of as much as 8 or 9 frames for no discernable visual upgrade, running far closer to 50fps than the advertised 60.

Digital Foundry does point out this is perhaps the most technically taxing area in the game, and performance gains can be observed outside the city, but it is also one of the most crucial. Players spend a lot of time in the sprawling metropolis, which is home to a significant stretch of critical path quests.

Have you noticed a drop in performance in The Witcher 3's Performance Mode since patch 4.01 was released? Or has it been business as usual as far as you are concerned? Let us know in the comments section below.

[source eurogamer.net]