The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt v. 4.0: PC Performance Benchmarks for Graphics Cards and Processors
| BASIC INFORMATION ON THE GAME |
Released : 2022
Genre : RPG
Developer : CD Projekt RED
The updated version of the game will be presented free of charge to current owners of The Witcher 3 for PC and next-generation consoles PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S. The release is scheduled for tomorrow, December 14th. CD Projekt RED announced visual and technical improvements: ray tracing, accelerated loading on consoles, and also integrates some mods into the game.
| NEW IN TESTS - GEFORCE RTX 4090 / GEFORCE RTX 4080 |
Our test now includesMSI GEFORCE RTX 4090 SUPRIM X 24 GB , courtesy of MSI . This video card is based on the Ada Lovelace architecture, operates at a frequency of 2750 MHz, has 16384 stream processors and 24 gigabytes of video memory.
This time, the top-end video card from ASUS ROG Strix GeForce RTX 4080 OC Edition (ROG-STRIX-RTX4080-O16G-GAMING) , kindly provided to us by ASUS , participates in our test . This video card is based on the Ada Lovelace architecture, operates at a frequency of 2750 MHz, has 9728 stream processors and 16 gigabytes of video memory.
| THE GRAFICAL PART |
In this subsection of our review, the main graphical aspects of this game are revealed. Particular attention is paid to the version of the graphics engine used, the version of the API used, graphics settings and the quality of the development of the main visual aspects.
In this testing, we present Next - Gen Update for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt v. 4.0, which was tested on ULTRA+ graphics quality settings with and without ray tracing.
| SUPPORTED OC AND GRAPHICS API |
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt v. 4.0 is supported by Windows 10/11.
The priority and primary graphics API for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt v. 4.0 is DirectX 11/12 .
| GAME ENGINE |
The first part of The Witcher was based on the Aurora Engine technology, a game engine developed by the Canadian company BioWare and first used in the computer role-playing game Neverwinter Nights, which was released on June 18, 2002.
Of course, even by the standards of 2007, the Aurora Engine was an outdated graphics technology and it is clear that the new part of the The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings series needed an updated graphics engine. And they became RED Engine. This engine focuses not only on graphics and physics, but also on building a non-linear quest system, allowing you to make the gameplay even closer to real life. RED Engine supports dynamic shadows, normal mapping and parallax.
The first version of the RED Engine in The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings only supports DirectX 9, which somewhat hampered the game in terms of manufacturability, although it made it inaccessible to previous generation consoles. The new version of the REDengine 2 engine brought The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings to Xbox 360, albeit with a lower level of detail and quality. On PS3, this game never came out, apparently the developers could not adapt to the architecture of the console from Sony.
In February 2013, CD Projekt RED officially unveiled its new engine, REDengine 3, on which their two new games, Cyberpunk 2077 and the then-unannounced Witcher 3, were created. a story and a system that allows you to feed large-scale open worlds in a streaming manner. The advanced technology of REDengine 3 allows RPGs to compare with top shooters, both in terms of the presentation of the world and the events of a huge scale in which the player participates.
The engine was natively compatible with current generation consoles, allowing it to blur the line between pre-rendered CGI movies and real-time graphics, revealing the most believable worlds ever created in a video game. A living ecosystem filled with objects, which are a kind of works of art, allows the player to become part of the environment. The new facial and body animation systems implemented in REDengine 3 provide realistic rendering of emotions, cinematic scenes and character interactions.
The technology uses HDR rendering with 64-bit depth, which produces the highest image quality with more realistic and reliable lighting without loss of detail. Flexible rendering ready for delayed or advanced rendering has a wide range of cinematic post-effects, including depth of field bokeh, color grading, flares from light sources. The high-quality terrain allows for multiple words of smoothly merging materials and uses tassellation to achieve the maximum amount of detail. The technology also includes seamless linking of animation and physics and a number of other features.
REDengine 3 uses a new version of the REDkit editor with tools designed specifically for creating RPG games. The editor allows you to create complex, branching quests and distribute them throughout the open world with a simplicity not available in any other editor.
| IMPROVEMENTS IN GAME VERSION 4.0 |
Next generation updates and new content are available as a free update for anyone who already owns The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. Some of these add-ons (including cross-progress, My Rewards, and add-ons inspired by the Netflix Witcher series) will also be available on previous generation consoles.
Performance and ray tracing modes for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X
Switch between two graphics rendering modes: Performance, which prioritizes 60fps frame rates, and Ray Tracing, which prioritizes graphical fidelity, and Ray Tracing Features, aiming for 30fps.
Ray Traced Global Illumination
Ray-traced global illumination is available in ray-traced mode. Ray-traced global illumination provides more realistic lighting.
Ray Traced Ambient Occlusion
Available in ray tracing mode. Ambient Occlusion with ray tracing provides more accurate and efficient surface lighting.
AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution
AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution is a powerful upscaling technology that increases frame rates and uses a spatial scaling algorithm to maintain image quality.
Fashion
A selection of mods created by the community and dedicated to various aspects of the game.
Ray Traced Reflections (PC ONLY)
Uses ray tracing technology to create more realistic reflections in the game world.
Ray Traced Shadows (PC ONLY)
Uses ray tracing technology for more realistic shadow lighting.
DLSS (PC ONLY)
An AI-powered performance multiplier that combines DLSS Frame Generation, DLSS Super Resolution (DLSS 2), and NVIDIA Reflex to dramatically increase frame rates while maintaining visual fidelity.
CD PROJEKT RED Content Additions
A number of changes including bug fixes, gameplay improvements, quality of life improvements and more.
| ADVANCED GAME SETTINGS |
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt has a wide range of graphic settings. We have both basic and advanced settings.
Below we have provided screenshots of the game at various graphics settings, where our readers can see the difference between the minimum and high graphics quality settings:
| RT ON/OFF |
| DLSS/FSR |
| TECHNOLOGIES |
The graphics in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt were already pretty good, even though the game is almost 8 years old, and with the update it has become even better:
Well, then we will go directly to the gaming tests and determine what impact this game has on modern computer hardware.
| TEST PART |
| Test configuration | |
| test stands |
GIGABYTE Z590 VISION |
| Sponsored Video Cards |
MSI GEFORCE RTX 4090 SUPRIM X 24 GB ASUS ROG Strix GeForce RTX 4080 OC Edition Gigabyte Radeon RX 5600 XT WindForce OC gigabyte Radeon RX 6500 XT 4GB GDDR6 Gaming OC |
| multimedia equipment |
Kingston XS2000 Portable SSD 1 TB - the optimal solution for testing different configurations Power Supply Seasonic PRIME TX-1000 32 GB DDR4 3600 CL16 Kingston FURY Renegade 32 GB DDR4 4000 CL18 Kingston FURY Renegade 32 GB DDR5 5600 CL40 KingstonFURY Beast |
| Software configuration |
|
| operating system | Windows 10 21H2/ Windows 11(Alder Lake) |
| Graphics driver |
Nvidia GeForce/ION Driver Release 527.56 WHQL AMD Radeon Adrenalin Edition 22.11.2 |
| Monitoring programs |
MSI Afterburner Action! |
Our video cards were tested at resolutions of 1920x1080 , 2560x1600 , 3840x2160 at ultra+ graphics quality settings with and without ray tracing. DX12 mode , in non-ray tracing mode, was not tested, as it has quite serious performance problems relative to DX11 , so if you do not use ray tracing, then it is better to forget about DX12 mode...
For MSI Afterburner monitoring to work, you need to delete the d3d11on12.dll file located in the game directory ***\bin\x64_dx12.
| GPU TEST |
In the test of video cards, the default resolution is 1920x1080, other resolutions are added and removed manually. You can also remove and add any positions of video cards. You can also select any of our test processors from the list in the drop-down menu, comparing its performance with the given video card tests (by default, the most productive solution is selected). The test is carried out on the most productive CPU in this game and is scaled to other processors, taking into account their testing on NVIDIA and AMD video cards.
DX11 Ultra+
At a resolution of 1920x1080, an average FPS of 25 frames was shown by video cards of the Radeon RX 470 or GeForce GTX 1060 level . A minimum FPS of at least 25 frames can be provided by video cards of the Radeon RX 470 or GeForce GTX 1060 level . A comfortable average FPS of 60 frames can be provided by Radeon RX Vega 56 or GeForce GTX 1070 Ti solutions .
At a resolution of 2560x1440, an average FPS of 25 frames was shown by video cards of the Radeon RX 470 or GeForce GTX 1060 level . A minimum FPS of at least 25 frames can be provided by video cards of the level Radeon RX 570 or GeForce GTX 1060 . A comfortable average FPS of 60 frames can be provided by Radeon RX 6600 XT or GeForce RTX 2070 solutions .
At a resolution of 3840x2160, an average FPS of 25 frames was shown by video cards of the Radeon RX 6600 or GeForce GTX 1070 level . A minimum FPS of at least 25 frames can be provided by video cards of the Radeon RX 6600 levelor GeForce GTX 1080 . A comfortable average FPS of 60 frames can be provided byRadeon RX 6800 or GeForce RTX 3080 .
DX12 RT Ultra+
At a resolution of 1920x1080, an average FPS of 25 frames was shown by video cards of the Radeon RX 6600 FSR or GeForce RTX 2070 level . A minimum FPS of at least 25 frames can be provided by video cards of the level Radeon RX 6700 FSR or GeForce RTX 2070 DLSS . A comfortable average FPS of 60 frames can be provided by GeForce RTX 3080 DLSS solutions .
At a resolution of 2560x1440, an average FPS of 25 frames was shown by video cards of the level Radeon RX 6700 FSR or GeForce RTX 3060 Ti . A minimum FPS of at least 25 frames can be provided by video cards of the level Radeon RX 6800 XT or GeForce RTX 2080 DLSS . A comfortable average FPS of 60 frames can be provided by GeForce RTX 4080 solutions .
At a resolution of 3840x2160, an average FPS of 25 frames was shown by video cards of the level Radeon RX 6800 XT FSR or GeForce RTX 3080 Ti . A minimum FPS of at least 25 frames can be provided by video cards of the level Radeon RX 6950 XT FSR or GeForce RTX 4080 . A comfortable average FPS of 60 frames can be provided by GeForce RTX 4090 DLSS solutions .
DX12 RT Ultra+ DLSS Frame Generator
So far, at the moment, only 2 video cards support DLSS Frame Generator - these are the GeForce RTX 4090 and GeForce RTX 4080 , and they provide a comfortable frame rate in any mode. It should be noted that despite many problems with the DLSS Frame Generator technology in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt v. 4.0 the picture is better and smoother thanks to it and almost all friezes and stutters are removed - it becomes much more comfortable to play.
And personally for a comfortable game in 4K in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt v. 4.0, we would choose the GeForce RTX 4090 +DLSS Frame Generator without the use of DLSS technology, which, with its activation, can lead to micro-flickering on some items.
| VIDEO MEMORY CONSUMPTION |
Testing of the video memory consumed by the game was carried out by the MSI Afterburner program. The results on video cards from AMD and NVIDIA at resolutions of 1920x1080, 2560x1440 and 3840x2160 with various anti-aliasing settings were taken as the indicator. By default, the graph displays the most up-to-date solutions. Other graphics cards are added and removed from the chart at the reader's request.
GameGPU
DX11 Ultra+
At a resolution of 1920x1080 , the consumption of video memory for video cards with 4 gigabytes is 4 gigabytes, for video cards with 6 gigabytes 4 gigabytes, for video cards with 8 gigabytes 3 gigabytes , with 12 gigabytes 3 gigabytes , with 16 gigabytes 3 gigabytes with 24 gigabytes 4 gigabytes .
At a resolution of 2560x1440 , the consumption of video memory for video cards with 4 gigabytes is 4 gigabytes, for video cards with 6 gigabytes 4 gigabytes, for video cards with 8 gigabytes 3 gigabytes , with 12 gigabytes 4 gigabytes , with 16 gigabytes 4 gigabytes with 24 gigabytes 4 gigabytes .
At a resolution of 3840x2160 , the consumption of video memory for video cards with 4 gigabytes is 4 gigabytes, for video cards with 6 gigabytes 6 gigabytes, for video cards with 8 gigabytes 4 gigabytes , with 12 gigabytes 5 gigabytes , with 16 gigabytes 5 gigabytes with 24 gigabytes 5 gigabytes .
DX12 RT Ultra+
At a resolution of 1920x1080 , the consumption of video memory for video cards with 8 gigabytes is 6 gigabytes , with 12 gigabytes 7 gigabytes , with 16 gigabytes 7 gigabytes with 24 gigabytes 7 gigabytes .
At a resolution of 2560x1440 , video memory consumption for video cards with 8 gigabytes is 7 gigabytes, with 12 gigabytes 8 gigabytes , with 16 gigabytes 8 gigabytes with 24 gigabytes 8 gigabytes .
At a resolution of 3840x2160 , video memory consumption for video cards with 8 gigabytes is 8 gigabytes, with 12 gigabytes 9 gigabytes , with 16 gigabytes 10 gigabytes with 24 gigabytes 10 gigabytes .
| CPU TEST |
Testing was carried out at a resolution of 1920x1080. In the processor test, you can remove and add any positions of the processors. You can also select any tested video card from the list in the drop-down menu, comparing its performance with the results of processor tests (by default, the most productive solution from NVIDIA is selected). Testing takes place on the most productive NVIDIA and AMD video cards and scales up to lower models.
DX11 Ultra+
When using NVIDIA video cards, Ryzen 3 1200 or Core i 3 4330 processors showed an acceptable rate of at least 25 frames per second , and Ryzen 5 3600 or Core i 7 8700 solutions can provide an FPS rate of at least 60 frames per second .
When using AM D video cards, Ryzen 3 1200 or Core i 3 7100 processors showed an acceptable rate of at least 25 frames per second , and Ryzen 5 3600 or Core i 7 8700 solutions can provide an FPS rate of at least 60 frames per second .
DX12 RT Ultra+
When using NVIDIA video cards , Ryzen 7 5960X or Core i 7 1800X processors showed an acceptable rate of at least 25 frames per second , and Core i 9 13900 K level solutions can provide an FPS rate of at least 60 frames per second .
When using AMD video cards, an acceptable rate of at least 25 frames per second was shown by Ryzen 3 1800 or Core i 5 8600 processors .
DX12 RT Ultra+ DLSS Frame Generator
When using NVIDIA video cards, Ryzen 3 1200 or Core i 3 7100 processors showed an acceptable rate of at least 25 frames per second , and Ryzen 5 5600 or Core i 7 8700 solutions can provide an FPS rate of at least 60 frames per second .
GameGPU
The game can download up to 16 threads. The game uses 12 threads as efficiently as possible.
| RAM TEST |
The test was conducted on the base configuration Core i 9 13900K with 32 GB DDR5 6400 MHz pre-installed memory. All used RAM was taken as an indicator. The RAM test on the entire system was carried out on various video cards without running extraneous applications (browsers, etc.). In the graphics, you can add and remove any resolutions and video cards as desired.
GameGPU
DX11 Ultra+
At a resolution of 1920x1080 , the consumption of RAM for video cards with 4 gigabytes is 10 gigabytes, for video cards with 6 gigabytes 9 gigabytes, for video cards with 8 gigabytes 8 gigabytes , with 12 gigabytes 8 gigabytes , with 16 gigabytes 8 gigabytes with 24 gigabytes 8 gigabytes .
At a resolution of 2560x1440 , RAM consumption for video cards with 4 gigabytes is 10 gigabytes, for video cards with 6 gigabytes 9 gigabytes, for video cards with 8 gigabytes 8 gigabytes , with 12 gigabytes 8 gigabytes , with 16 gigabytes 8 gigabytes with 24 gigabytes 8 gigabytes .
At a resolution of 3840x2160 , the consumption of RAM for video cards with 4 gigabytes is 12 gigabytes, for video cards with 6 gigabytes 10 gigabytes, for video cards with 8 gigabytes 8 gigabytes , with 12 gigabytes 10 gigabytes , with 16 gigabytes 8 gigabytes with 24 gigabytes 8 gigabytes .
DX12 RT Ultra+
At a resolution of 1920x1080 , the consumption of RAM for video cards with 8 gigabytes is 12 gigabytes , with 12 gigabytes 12 gigabytes , with 16 gigabytes 12 gigabytes, with 24 gigabytes 12 gigabytes .
At a resolution of 2560x1440 , the consumption of RAM for video cards with 8 gigabytes is 13 gigabytes , with 12 gigabytes 12 gigabytes , with 16 gigabytes 12 gigabytes with 24 gigabytes 12 gigabytes .
At a resolution of 3840x2160 , the consumption of RAM for video cards with 8 gigabytes is 15 gigabytes , with 12 gigabytes 13 gigabytes , with 16 gigabytes 12 gigabytes with 24 gigabytes 12 gigabytes .
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