Anonymous edits have been disabled on the wiki. If you want to contribute please login or create an account.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

From PCGamingWiki, the wiki about fixing PC games
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt cover
Developers
CD Projekt Red
Publishers
CD Projekt
Engines
REDengine 3|REDengine|REDengine 3
Release dates
Windows May 19, 2015
Linux TBA
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt on Wikipedia
The Witcher
The Witcher 2007
The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings 2011
The Witcher Adventure Game 2014
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt 2015
Gwent: The Witcher Card Game 2018
Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales 2018
Gwent: Rogue Mage 2022
The Witcher: Remake TBA

Key points

Fairly extensive graphics settings, with good amount of configuration files for fine tuning.
Has official modding tools.[1]
Poor performance on AMD systems with HairWorks enabled. AMD recommends adjusting the Catalyst Control Center tessellation multiplier.[2]

General information

PC Report
Official Website
Official Forums
Official Witcher Wiki
The Witcher 3 Nexus Mods
GOG.com Community Discussions
GOG.com Support Page
Steam Community Discussions

Availability

Source DRM Notes Keys OS
Retail
DRM-free
Initial retail release requires the launch file. Launch file requirement removed in later retail releases. Patches and DLC are only available by activating on GOG.com, otherwise, they can be simply downloaded from other sites for free.[3]
Error: key type 'GOG' not recognised
Windows
Amazon.com
GOG.com key
Windows
Gamesplanet logo.svg
GOG.com key
Windows
Incorrect store name. See here for available options.
GOG.com key
Windows
GOG.com
DRM-free
Windows
Green Man Gaming
GOG.com key
Windows
Humble Store
GOG.com key
Windows
Origin
DRM-free after installation through Origin client (notes may include more details)
Windows
Steam
DRM-free after installation through Steam client (notes may include more details)
The client always downloads the complete set of goodies when installing the game.[4]
Windows
Incorrect store name. See here for available options.
GOG.com key
Windows
Incorrect store name. See here for available options.
GOG.com key
Windows
All the digital distribution versions come with goodies that include the soundtrack in MP3 and FLAC formats.
All versions of the can run without GOG Galaxy and does not require any type of authentication, activation, or digital distribution software at all.

DLC and expansion packs

Name Notes
Expansion Pass Includes Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine.
Windows
Hearts of Stone
Windows
Blood and Wine
Windows
Temerian Armor Set Free DLC
Windows
Beard and Hairstyle Set Free DLC
Windows
Alternative Look for Yennifer Free DLC
Windows
New Quest 'Contract: Missing Miners' Free DLC
Windows
Nilfgaardian Armor Set Free DLC
Windows
Elite Crossbow Set Free DLC
Windows
New Quest 'Fool's Gold' Free DLC
Windows
'Ballad Heroes' Neutral Gwent Card Set Free DLC
Windows
New Quest 'Scavenger Hunt: Wolf School Gear' Free DLC
Windows
Alternative Look for Triss Free DLC
Windows
New Quest 'Contract: Skellige's Most Wanted' Free DLC
Windows
Skellige Armor Set Free DLC
Windows
New Quest 'Where the Cat and Wolf Play...' Free DLC
Windows
Alternative Look for Ciri Free DLC
Windows
New Finisher Animations Free DLC
Windows
New Game + Free DLC
Windows

Essential improvements

Patches

The retail release requires a launch file to play. Further patches require activating on GOG.com[3] or they can be simply downloaded from other sites for free.

Skip intro videos

Instructions

The Witcher 3 Config Tool

The Witcher 3 Config Tool enables an extensive range of options.
The Witcher 3 Config Tool enables an extensive range of options.
Witcher 3 Hunter's Config tool allows more control over graphics options and settings.

Photo Mode

The Witcher 3 photo mode can be achieved by using internal console command. Camera angle and game condition (time of day, weather, pause/resume, etc.) can be manipulated as needed (also works while in realtime cutscene).

The Witcher 3 HD Reworked Project

The Witcher 3 HD Reworked Project aims to improve the graphics by reworking models and textures to better quality.

Increased LOD

Increased LOD is a mod for The Witcher 3 that improves mainly the mesh draw distance of the game by 10 to 40% with very little to no performance impact. This mod alleviates the pop in problem. Use this with HD Reworked Project for better overall quality.

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

Template:Game data/rowTemplate:Game data/row
System Location
Steam Play (Linux) <Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/292030/pfx/[Note 1]

Save game data location

Template:Game data/rowTemplate:Game data/row
System Location
Steam Play (Linux) <Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/292030/pfx/[Note 1]

Save game cloud syncing

System Native Notes
GOG Galaxy
Origin
Steam Cloud

Video settings

In-game graphics settings.
In-game graphics settings.

Template:Video settings

Widescreen resolution

Instructions

Input settings

In-game control settings.
In-game control settings.

Template:Input settings

Audio settings

In-game audio settings.
In-game audio settings.

Template:Audio settings

Localizations

Language UI Audio Sub Notes
English
Arabic
Brazilian Portuguese
Traditional Chinese
Czech
French
German
Hungarian
Italian
Japanese
Korean
Polish
Russian
Spanish

VR support

3D modes State Notes
Nvidia 3D Vision
See Helix Mod: The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.
TriDef 3D
UI is 2D by default, occasional rendering problems with distance shadows and decals.

Issues fixed

Unable to summon your horse

Instructions

Mouse delay/lag

Instructions

Framerate drops

Even on high-end GPUs, it is possible to experience choppy framerate when in Novigrad or other large cities. Frame rate capping can provide a fix.
Instructions
In addition, framerate drops and stutter may be caused by the game triggering the garbage colector all the time to save VRAM. To aliviate this simply navigate to "...\The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt\bin\config\base" and open "gc.ini" with a text editor. Then find the line with "ObjectMemoryTrigger" and change it's value to 512. In most cases this will fix stutter in novigrad entirely.
Other known way is navigating to your "The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt/bin/x64" folder and simply deleting the APEX_ClothingGPU_x64.dll file there has been known to solve some stuttering issues and improve framerates for multiple users ever since launch.

Poor performance on Nvidia Kepler GPUs

This occurs on Kepler GPUs due to issues with certain Nvidia driver versions.
Instructions

Axii's alternative mode not working

This bug occurs when points are spent both in Delusion and Puppet
Instructions
Instructions

Proper HUD positioning for different aspect ratios

For 16:10 change the value of uiVerticalFrameScale to 1.1253.
For 21:9 change the value of uiHorizontalFrameScale to 1.3125.
Instructions

Stutter while using a controller

Instructions

(Hearts of Stone DLC) Game crashes / minimizes / freezes during a romance scene with Shani

Instructions

Mouse input problem/actions mapped to mouse buttons unresponsive

Instructions

Other information

Improve performance on AMD-based systems

Instructions

Change in-game cinematic framerate

Instructions

Disable cinematic upsampling

Instructions

Disable radial blur when using Witcher Senses

Instructions

Improve HairWorks performance

Instructions

Improve HairWorks performance on AMD hardware

Instructions

30FPS framerate cap fixes framerate buffering problems

Instructions

API

Technical specs Supported Notes
Direct3D 11
Shader Model support 5
Executable 32-bit 64-bit Notes
Windows
Linux

Middleware

Middleware Notes
Physics PhysX
Audio Wwise XAudio2
Interface Scaleform
Cutscenes CRI Movie 2

System requirements

Windows
Minimum Recommended
Operating system (OS) 7, 8, 8.1 (64-bit only)
Processor (CPU) Intel Core i5-2500K 3.3GHz
AMD Phenom II X4 940
System memory (RAM) 6 GB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 35 GB
Video card (GPU) Nvidia GeForce GTX 660
AMD Radeon HD 7870
DirectX 11 compatible
This game requires a 64-bit operating system to play.

Notes

  1. 1.0 1.1 File/folder structure within this directory reflects the path(s) listed for Windows and/or Steam game data (use Wine regedit to access Windows registry paths). Games with Steam Cloud support may store data in ~/.steam/steam/userdata/<user-id>/292030/ in addition to or instead of this directory. The app ID (292030) may differ in some cases. Treat backslashes as forward slashes. See the glossary page for details.

References