The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Complete Edition is "the best it's ever been" on PS5, according to those eggheads over at Digital Foundry. The team's latest video goes in-depth on update 4.02, which launched last month. This patch promised to improve performance across the board, and based on Digital Foundry's findings, that's exactly what's happened.
And that's good news for developer CD Projekt Red, because the previous update, version 4.01, actually managed to have a negative impact on the RPG's frame rate — even in its 60fps performance mode.
Mistakes have been undone, then, but as this analysis points out, the most recent patch goes beyond a mere fix, introducing the smoothest frame rate to date. Putting various combat encounters and cutscenes to the test, Digital Foundry finds that the aforementioned performance mode stays locked to a silky 60fps more often than not.
However, there are still areas where the PS5 title drops a few frames. Most notably, the bustling city of Novigrad seems to be the frame rate's archenemy, preventing a rock solid 60fps almost every time.
It's a similar story with the game's 30fps ray tracing mode, which has seen some big improvements since the Complete Edition's release in December of last year. More often than not, it's hitting that 30fps cap, but again, there are some instances where the frames falter ever so slightly. Hopefully CDPR continues to improve things.
Have you been playing The Witcher 3 on PS5? Have you noticed any performance issues? Throw some signs in the comments section below.
[source youtube.com]
Comments 19
It’s almost time for me to finally get around to playing this game.
Only a few more patches and it’ll be great! 🤞
(It feels so sad to say this about an eight-year-old game 😭)
I want to play this again, but I played it to death back when it originally released and I literally can't think of anything further I can do in the game. That said, glad they got the performance figured out. I am jealous of those who will get to experience this masterpiece for the first time at this level of fidelity.
Despite buying it on PS4, I never got around to playing The Witcher 3 last gen and since the free PS5 update, I’ve been waiting for a decent patch before getting around to it in its new-gen form. Sounds like we’re very nearly there.
GOD OF WAR RAGNAROK NEW GAME PLUS IS OUT!!!!!
I would love to replay this, in its “best-ever” condition. And I will get around to it someday.
But right now, nothing seems to be able to tear me away from Hogwarts.
Do not try to pull me back in. This is not the year.
Damn, I stopped right before Novigrad to hoping for a better fix ASAP. I’ll just have to keep waiting for another update.
Its bizarre to hear about patching yet to make the game playable in Novigrad 7 years after launch... 3 years ago it ran fine.
CDPR showing they don't know when to leave well enough alone, again.
@Impossibilium you’re right but otherwise we need to keep in mind that all these updates were given out for free and there is for sure only a very small team that is still working on the Witcher 3.
CD Projekt Red is an incredibly talented studio. Their games might be buggy at launch, but they support their games like no other. In The Witcher 3, there are side quests better than the main quests in other games.
In my view, the Hearts of Stone expansion is incredible and better than most other full games.
I heard otherwise that it was broken somehow?
@Loamy
They absolutely have not
I've been playing it since the previous patch, so consistently for the last month and a half or so. Yes the performance is much better, specifically in Novigrad but this game is still buggy as hell, one specific example is when going through the inventory and geralts character model will be glitched out and you can't see his appearance at all. Roach is still an absolute glitch fest with terrible pathing, slowing down randomly and she literally can't jump over any wall over 5cm above ground, also whilst in Ard Skellige I ran into a horse with 3 heads which was hillarious.
The last thing that will heavily impact anyone thinking of playing this patch is the literal freezing for 1-3 seconds anytime the game auto-saves, which is very often, any time you finish a quest, some times when you run into a different area, leveling up sometimes. So in conclusion the fps is fixed for sure but the game is still and always will be buggy, although the freezing issues don't make sense to me as I played the PC version prior to ps5 and the auto-saving didn't produce freezing nearly as bad.
I really don't see some of these issues ever getting fixed, NGL Witcher 3 is more buggy than Skyrim for me by far yet it's still in my top 3 games of all time, I'm about to cross the 100 hour threshold on my current playthrough, so if anyone is deciding if they should wait to dive in, they should, some of these issues are never getting fixed yet the game is still a masterpiece in design. I'm currently burnt out on open world games, but I get sucked into the Witcher 3 as if it's a brand new game!
I started playing this in 60fps mode on launch day in December, expecting it to keep me occupied until a certain game comes out next month... and I'm still going at it, 100 hours in and enjoying every minute of it.
I still experience occasional weirdness and brief crashes but it is what it is. I'm loving the game regardless. This is only my second play-through, and first in several years, so I'm having a blast.
I'd be playing already if I could get the damned save-transfer system to work! My NG+-ready save is trapped on the PS4 version of the app, and CDPR's save transfer system just refuses to work for me despite repeated attempts!
I've put about 30 hours into the PS5 version of this game trying to love it but it's just not for me. The writing is great but the gameplay is ridiculous. Had to turn the difficulty up to the highest setting and I'm still waltzing through the game without ever dying. It feels like they didn't even try to balance the difficulty. I'm used to playing games on Normal and at least dying on occasion. It may have some of the best writing ever but Witcher 3 has below average gameplay in my opinion.
@Impossibilium Haha don't feel sad! There are ALOT of PS4 games from 2013-2014 that I still haven't gotten around to playing.
Despite having owned them since 2017 at the earliest lol.
@KidBoruto Yeah, I’m not actually that worried about it either. I have a backlog that spans decades. 😂
@Impossibilium Same, and in the 400+ range for me just between PS4 and PS5 rip.
Show Comments
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...