The Witcher

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

Key points

Any version of the game, including retail, can be redeemed for a DRM-free copy on GOG.com; see here for details.

General information

Official Website - contains download links and basic information about the patches

Official Forums

Official Witcher Wikia

Official Wiki

GOG.com Community Discussions

GOG.com Support Page

Steam Community Discussions

Availability[edit]

Source	DRM	Notes	Keys	OS
Retail		TAGES Solidshield v1.9.5.1 and TAGES v5.5.2.8 DRM. DRM removed in the latest Patches.
GamersGate
GOG.com		Provides high quality bonus goodies.^[1]
Humble Store
Origin
Steam		Enhanced Edition Director's Cut.

All versions can be registered on GOG.com even if a product key was not included; see here for details.

Essential improvements[edit]

Patches[edit]

There are two patches available for download on the official page:

Patch 1.4 upgraded the game to the Enhanced Edition.
Patch 1.5 removed the DRM and fixed bugs introduced by patch 1.4. It also contains five community-made adventures.

Modifications[edit]

Skip intro videos[edit]

Walking in OTS view[edit]

In the base game, there is no option or toggle for walking, as opposed to running in the over the shoulder camera view. A small mod addressing this is available here. The download also contains installation instructions.

Game data[edit]

Configuration file(s) location[edit]

System	Location
Windows	HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\CD Projekt RED\Witcher\Settings
macOS (OS X)
Linux (Proton)	<Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/20900/pfx/^{[Note 1]}

Save game data location[edit]

System	Location
Windows	%USERPROFILE%\Documents\The Witcher\saves\
macOS (OS X)	~/Library/Application Support/com.cdprojektred.TheWitcher/GameDocuments/The Witcher/saves/
Linux (Proton)	<Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/20900/pfx/^{[Note 1]}

Save game cloud syncing[edit]

System	Native	Notes
GOG Galaxy
Origin
Steam Cloud		Approx. 954 MB available.

Video settings[edit]

Video settings.

Graphical settings.

Graphics option	WSGF	Notes
Widescreen resolution
Multi-monitor		Use jackfuste's fix.
Ultra-widescreen
4K Ultra HD		In-game AA must be disabled.
Field of view (FOV)
Windowed
Borderless fullscreen windowed	Use Borderless Gaming with Auto-Maximize disabled.
Anisotropic filtering (AF)
Anti-aliasing (AA)	Up to 4x MSAA; 8x MSAA can be forced in the graphics card control panel.
Vertical sync (Vsync)	See Force Vsync.
60 FPS and 120+ FPS	No frame rate or refresh rate cap.^[2]
Color blind mode

HBAO+[edit]

Use NVIDIA Profile Inspector^[3]

Open The Witcher driver profile via Nvidia Profile Inspector.
Change Ambient Occlusion compatibility to 0x0000002D (MechWarrior Online).
Change Ambient Occlusion usage to Enabled.
Change Ambient Occlusion setting to whichever quality desired.
Apply changes.

Input settings[edit]

Input settings.

Keyboard and mouse	Native	Notes
Remapping
Mouse acceleration		Negative acceleration cannot be turned off.^{[citation needed]}
Mouse sensitivity
Mouse input in menus
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller support		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.

Audio settings[edit]

Audio settings.

General settings.

Audio options	Native	Notes
Separate volume controls		Music, battle music, SFX and voice.
Surround sound
Subtitles
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
EAX support		EAX 5.0.^[4]

Localizations

Language	UI	Audio	Sub	Notes
English
Traditional Chinese
Czech
French
German
Hungarian
Italian
Polish
Russian
Spanish
Brazilian Portuguese				Fan translation, Download.

Issues fixed[edit]

"Fixes to Common Problems" - A comprehensive list of known issues and potential fixes

Crash at launch[edit]

Recent Steam Beta clients may cause the Steam version of the game to crash.

Only applies to the Steam version of the game. Refer to "Fixes to Common Problems" for other solutions.

Opt out from Steam Beta client^{[citation needed]}

Open Steam settings and select the "Account" tab.
In "Beta participation" click "Change..." and select "NONE".
Steam should ask you to restart the client and download the latest stable release of the client.

Minimum system requirements not met[edit]

Disable the system requirements check^[5]

This fix is known to cause other issues. You might be unable to change the game's resolution above a certain limit, and the texture quality and antialiasing settings might be locked to the lowest settings. To avoid this, try the optional step or the registry edit solution below.

Create a shortcut to witcher.exe (the game itself, NOT the game's launcher).
Right-click the shortcut and choose Properties.
Add -dontforceminreqs to the end of the Target field.

OR

Download TexSettings.d2a and move the file to <path-to-game>\Data\Override.

If the Override folder does not exist, create the folder and then move the file to that folder.

Disable DirectDraw emulation mode^[6]

This fix is only recommended for experienced users. Incorrectly applied registry edits can severely harm your computer. Proceed at your own risk.

Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\DirectDraw
You should see the key EmulationOnly set to 1. Double click the key and change its value to 0.
Reboot your computer, and retry the game.
When you plan to play another game, revert the registry entry back to 1 as it may interfere with some games using DirectDraw, such as older 2D games.

No mouse in the main menu[edit]

Press Shift^{[citation needed]}

In some cases, when the intro cinematic is skipped, the mouse is not visible on the main menu. This can be fixed by pressing the key that releases the mouse in Over the Shoulder view(Shift by default).

Frequent game crashes[edit]

Allocate more virtual memory to the program^[7]

Download NTCore's 4GB Patch.
Run the program, apply the patch to the witcher.exe located in <path-to-game>\System\witcher.exe.

Set the game to run in windowed mode^{[citation needed]}

Use a program such as Borderless Gaming to force the game to run in a borderless window.

Pre-rendered cutscenes don't display[edit]

Audio will still play, but the video will freeze to the last displayed frame.

Lower the lighting setting^{[citation needed]}

Go to Advanced Settings.
Set Lighting to low. Cutscenes should now display correctly.

You can revert the lighting setting afterwards. However, the setting will need to be altered before each pre-rendered cutscene.

In-game cut-scenes appear pixelated[edit]

Use any 16:9 resolution^{[citation needed]}

Go to Options, Video Options.
Choose a 16:9 resolution (1280x720, 1920x1080, 2560x1440, etc.)

Lights visible through walls[edit]

On some systems with SLI enabled, light sources are sometimes visible through walls.

Change SLI rendering mode^{[citation needed]}

In the Nvidia control panel go to "Manage 3D settings."
Hit the tab "Program settings" and add <path-to-game>\system\witcher.exe
Scroll down through the settings to the one called "Multi-GPU rendering mode" and change it to Force Alternate frame rendering 2.
Click Apply.

Other information[edit]

API[edit]

Technical specs	Supported	Notes
Direct3D	9
64-bit executable

System requirements[edit]

Windows
	Minimum	Recommended
Operating system (OS)	XP, Vista
Processor (CPU)	Intel Pentium 4 2.4 GHz AMD Athlon 64 2800+	Intel Pentium 4 3.0 GHz AMD Athlon 64 3000+
System memory (RAM)	1 GB	2 GB
Hard disk drive (HDD)	15 GB
Video card (GPU)	Nvidia GeForce 6600 ATI Radeon 9800 DirectX 9.0c compatible	Nvidia GeForce 7800 GTX ATI Radeon X1950 XT
Sound (audio device)	DirectX version 9.0c-compatible sound card

macOS (OS X)
	Minimum	Recommended
Operating system (OS)	10.8
Processor (CPU)	Intel Core i5	Intel Core i5 Intel Core i7
System memory (RAM)	4 GB
Hard disk drive (HDD)	14.5 GB
Video card (GPU)	Nvidia GeForce GT 650M AMD Radeon HD 6750M Intel HD Graphics 5000 256 MB of VRAM	Nvidia GeForce 7800 GTX AMD Radeon HD 6970M Intel Iris Pro 5200 512 MB of VRAM
Other	Not recommended to use native Retina resolutions

Notes

↑ ^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>/20900/ in addition to or instead of this directory. The app ID (20900) may differ in some cases. Treat backslashes as forward slashes. See the glossary page for details.

References

[Proton_path_note-2] 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>/20900/ in addition to or instead of this directory. The app ID (20900) may differ in some cases. Treat backslashes as forward slashes. See the glossary page for details.

[1] ttps://steamcommunity.com/app/20900/discussions/0/864977026156369874/

[3] New 120Hz Games Report

[4] ttps://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1sq0vgFlerS-YT093TS2jEpx6xjZP7X1x1BcAs7EHXYY/pubhtml

[5] EAX DOES Work with Alchemy - Steam Users' Forums (retrieved)

[6] Fixes to Common Problems at GOG.com

[7] FIX: Minimum Requirements Not Met on Win7 x64 at GOG.com

[8] Fix for constant crashing on Windows 7, 8 (or 8.1) and 10

[1]

[Note 1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

[7]

Developers

	CD Projekt Red
macOS (OS X)	Virtual Programming
Publishers
	Atari
Poland	CD Projekt
Engines
	Aurora
Release dates
Windows	October 26, 2007
macOS (OS X)	April 5, 2012