The Witcher 3 next-gen version on PC seems to be having all sorts of issues - from frame-rate drops to stuttering that can make the game unplayable. Here's what you can do to fix these issues.
The Witcher 3 next-gen update on PC is quite demanding. Players with graphics cards like Nvidia 3080 and even 4090 report surprisingly poor performance, many due to the stuttering that seems to occur no matter what graphical settings you choose.
We've tested the game and discovered that the stuttering and FPS drops are sadly very frequent. This should be patched out by CD Projekt Red in the next couple of days but until then, here's what you can do to make your Witcher adventure at least playable.
The Witcher 3 next-gen low FPS and stuttering fixes
Switch to DX11
The DirectX 11 version of the game seems to work much better than the DirectX 12 one. Yes, you will lose some options like ray-tracing but if you're looking to improve the FPS, you won't need ray-tracing anyway.
To switch to DirectX 11 on GOG Store, go to The Witcher 3 page and click on the settings icon right next to the Play icon. Then choose The Witcher 3 DX11 under Additional Executable.
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If you play on Steam, right-click The Witcher 3 in your library, go to Properties, General tab and add "-dx11" (without quotation marks) in Launch Options.
Set the Display Mode to Full Screen
The Witcher 3 sets the display mode to Borderless Window by Default. Setting the game to Full Screen has been proven to help increase performance before in The Witcher 3. Go to Options, Video, Display and under Display Mode choose Full Screen.
Remove the FPS limit in the in-game Video settings
Some players report that removing the FPS limit can improve the performance so set the FPS limit slider to "Unlimited". Go to Options, Video, Display and there you'll find the "Maximum Frames Per Second option."
Don't run any mods, for now.
While CD Projekt Red have released a list of supported mods for the next-gen update , it does seem that some of them still don't work and can cause performance issues. We couldn't fast-travel to Velen at all with Super Turbo Lightning Mod enabled, even though this mod is compatible with the update according to CD Projekt Red.
In addition to this, you can always try updating your graphics card drivers and turning off unnecessary programs running in the background and performance tracking software like MSI Afterburner.
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