by Today is the day that The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt’s much-hyped free next-gen update arrives on PC and consoles, but it’s not going too well for many of us on PC. People have already taken Chirping, Reddit, and Steam with their own stories of performance issues since the update arrived, with Steam reviews stating it’s caused everything from dropped frame rates to issues with the HUD. RPS Treehouse has also had issues since installing the 4.0 update, getting very inconsistent frame rates on the new maximum settings even with an RTX 3080 unless they turn off ray tracing and other new graphics features. Hardware editor James and vid bud Liam will talk more later, but for now, here’s how to keep the next-gen update from ruining your Witcher 3 experience and keep Roach running smoothly.
Anyone with any version of The Witcher 3 should be able to download the 4.0 next-gen update today, but we recommend sticking with the classic version until it’s patched. To do this, you will need to switch to the Classic branch available on Steam and GOG.
ON GOG, go to Settings and select Manage installation. Then choose Configure and select the classic version to roll back to from the beta branch drop-down menu.
ON Steam, go to Properties, then Beta and select the same Classic branch from the drop-down menu. This should bring the game back to version 1.32.
It might seem a long way behind today’s 4.0 next-gen patch, but 1.32 was the final patch for the PC version of The Witcher 3, so it should be stable enough to run.
I started my copy on GOG, avoided the update and had no problems running the game. This seems to be the best option right now, as trying to roll back the game after installing the update could very well make things a little more awkward.
With the 4.0 update installed for the PC version, some players were experiencing massively reduced frame rates. A gamer who posted on The Witcher subreddit described the game as “unplayable” and claimed to have gotten 100-120fps while walking around Novograd in 4K yesterday. Post-update, which was down to 45fps even with updated drivers. “RTX 3080 here. I went to Novigrad with RT on. I was probably under 30fps, regardless of resolution,” one commenter said on the post. “It’s amazing.”
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Complete Edition is out now on Steam, GOG, and the Epic Game Store, but yeah, it’s probably worth holding fire for now until CD Projekt Red releases another patch.
