The Witcher 3 Remastered: RTX 5080 4K Path Tracing Needs Frame Generation for 60 FPS — Megathread

The studio published the full PC requirements the day before launch. The updated requirements arrive one day before the Remastered version launches on September 29 as a free upgrade for existing owners. According to Notebookcheck, anyone buying a fresh copy will get the new version plus both DLCs for no extra cost.

The official path-tracing target, read carefully​

The top tier is steep. CD Projekt Red lists a GeForce RTX 5080, 16 GB of VRAM, 24 GB of system memory and either a Core i9-13900K or Ryzen 7 9800X3D for 4K at 60 FPS. That target requires DLSS upscaling and Frame Generation to be enabled. VideoCardz put it bluntly: the target uses both upscaling and Frame Generation, so it does not represent native 4K rendering.

The testing notes explain how each tier was measured. The ray-tracing configurations were tested using DLSS, FSR or XeSS in Auto mode. The non-RT configurations were tested at native resolution, while the path-tracing configuration used both upscaling and Frame Generation. The studio also warns that performance may vary by scene and configuration.

Here is the full ladder, as reported by Notebookcheck:

The minimum tier may undersell older cards. While the minimum configuration is officially listed around a 1080p 30 FPS target, CD Projekt RED says the GTX 1660 can actually achieve 60 FPS or higher at Minimum settings. VideoCardz also reports that the GTX 1660 floor exists partly because NVIDIA ended Game Ready Driver support for Maxwell, Pascal and Volta GPUs.

Section takeaway: Path tracing is an optional top tier, not the entry fee. And even that tier counts on generated frames to reach 60.

IGN's RTX 5080 run: 30 FPS rendered, 59 FPS displayed​

Jacqueline Thomas, IGN's senior tech editor, tested an RTX 5080 on a lap around Novigrad. At 4K with everything enabled, including path tracing and hair works, with DLSS upscaling set to 'Performance,' the Nvidia 5080 gets an average of 30 fps. That goes up to 59 fps with frame generation, but at that low of a base frame rate, there are some very noticeable artifacts, particularly in the ground textures.

HairWorks, which has been dragging down frame rates since 2015, accounts for a lot of that. With hairworks disabled and path tracing enabled at 4K with DLSS set to performance, the game manages a 44 fps average, which jumps to 80 fps when frame generation is enabled. In IGN's test, turning path tracing off completely raised the RTX 5080 to 55 FPS. IGN notes the game has plenty of other ray-tracing effects you can switch off for more speed.

IGN's run in one table:

IGN also said the RTX 5080 was going for about $1,650 at the low end when it published. Treat that as IGN's snapshot, not a verified current price. And remember that Novigrad has been a performance problem spot since the original release, so one city lap won't tell you how the whole game runs.

Section takeaway: CD Projekt Red's "60 FPS" matches what IGN measured, but only with Frame Generation on and HairWorks enabled. Underneath, the GPU was rendering about 30 real frames per second.

Why a 30 FPS base rate matters more than the 59 FPS counter​

Frame Generation inserts extra frames between the ones the GPU actually renders. The motion looks smoother, but the game doesn't respond any faster. ComputerBase's technical review makes the same point: you need a render rate of roughly 50 to 60 FPS for the game to feel good, and Frame Generation isn't meant to rescue a game that's already stuttering. It says input lag doesn't improve with generated frames and often gets a little worse.

ComputerBase's latency data is useful here. It comes from an RTX 5070 Ti at 4K with optimised ray tracing, not path tracing:

• DLSS Performance with no Reflex: 81 ms
• With Nvidia Reflex: 39 ms
• 2× Frame Generation: 48 ms
• 4× Multi Frame Generation: 55 ms
• 6× Multi Frame Generation: 58 ms

According to ComputerBase, DLSS Frame Generation keeps frame pacing stable in this game, and the small latency cost is barely noticeable once the render rate is around 50 FPS. It found 6× mode produces visibly more artifacts than 4×. FSR Frame Generation raised average FPS more, but its frame pacing was noticeably worse than Nvidia's. That's why the reviewers found 101 FPS on an RX 9070 XT felt less smooth than 97 FPS on an RTX 5070 Ti.

This lines up with IGN's ground-texture artifacts. Generating frames from a 30 FPS base leaves more gaps to fill, and third-person games make the flaws easier to spot.

Other outlets, other methods, similar result​

Several outlets have tested path tracing, each in its own way. Their numbers should not be merged into one chart.

• ComputerBase tested maximum details with HairWorks off and DLSS 4.5 Ray Reconstruction Performance at 50% render resolution, in a GPU-heavy countryside scene. The test PC ran a Ryzen 7 9800X3D and Windows 11 25H2 with HVCI enabled. At 4K the RTX 5080 averaged 37.6 FPS (34.0 FPS 1% low), the RTX 4090 46.4 FPS and the RTX 5090 61.9 FPS. At 1440p the 5080 averaged 64.8 FPS.
• Hardware Unboxed, as summarised by GameGPU, tested 4K with the RT Ultra preset, path tracing and Performance upscaling. The GeForce RTX 5090 32 GB took first place in the benchmark with an average of 59 FPS, followed by the GeForce RTX 5080 16 GB with 43 FPS and the GeForce RTX 5070 Ti 16 GB with 40 FPS.
• Hardware Unboxed at 1080p, per Club386: even Nvidia's flagship RTX 5090 peaks at an average of 62fps when running this mode at 1080p... with DLSS upscaling enabled with the Quality preset. That's the exact same result as an RTX 5080, and even an RTX 5070 Ti is just 1fps behind. Club386 reports the channel said that the path-traced frame rate does go up to around 80fps once you get outside this area. The cause of that ceiling hasn't been confirmed.
• PurePC, as reported by GameGPU, turned upscaling off entirely at native 4K in Velen: the GeForce RTX 5090 32 GB took the lead in the benchmark, achieving an average of 22 FPS, and the GeForce RTX 5080 16 GB rounded out the top three, achieving 13 FPS on average.

ComputerBase adds a CPU caveat that fits the Novigrad results. Towns and villages full of NPCs load the processor heavily. In the reviewers' tests, even a Ryzen 7 9800X3D couldn't keep an RTX 5090 fully busy at 4K in those scenes, whether path tracing was on or off.

Is path tracing worth it at all? Hardware Unboxed isn't convinced: "Path tracing is very underwhelming in this title," says Hardware Unboxed, "and in some cases just looks bad." ComputerBase is kinder but still calls the extra benefit of path tracing small, while describing the reworked standard ray tracing as a clear visual upgrade.

Section takeaway: Every method points the same way. Even Nvidia's top cards don't hit 60 FPS at 4K with path tracing on real rendered frames.

The Windows angle: Windows 11, SSDs and drivers​

A few platform changes matter for PC players:

• Windows 10 is no longer tested. Notebookcheck reports that CD Projekt Red has stopped developing and testing the game on Windows 10 and can't guarantee future compatibility or performance. That doesn't mean the game will stop working on Windows 10 straight after the update. GameGPU's copy of the path-tracing tier lists 64-bit Windows 11.
• An SSD is now mandatory. The studio says the remaster needs faster asset streaming. GameGPU lists 60 GB of SSD storage (95 GB in the Epic Games Store).
• Radeon RDNA 4 owners should watch driver versions. ComputerBase saw heavy graphics corruption on RDNA 4 with the official Adrenalin 26.9.1 driver. A pre-release driver (26.20.15.02) supplied by CD Projekt fixed it, and ComputerBase believes it's close to Adrenalin 26.9.2. On Nvidia, ComputerBase used GeForce 617.14.
• You can roll back. Players who cannot or do not want to use the Remastered build will still have the option to revert to version 4.04, while the older Classic 1.32 branch also remains available.

A practical tuning order for high-end cards​

This list is based on the published results above, not our own testing. If you have an RTX 5080-class card and a 4K display, try this order:

• Turn off HairWorks first. In IGN's run that took the base rate from 30 to 44 FPS at no cost to the lighting.
• Check your real frame rate with Frame Generation off. If it's below roughly 50 FPS, expect more lag and artifacts once generation is on.
• Try standard RT Ultra instead of path tracing. Hardware Unboxed calls path tracing's visual payoff underwhelming, and ComputerBase calls it small.
• Switch off individual ray-tracing effects if you're still short. IGN says there are many to choose from.
• Drop the output resolution to 1440p if you really want path tracing. ComputerBase's RTX 5080 cleared 60 FPS there.
• Keep Reflex on if you use Frame Generation. ComputerBase's figures show it cuts latency sharply.

The bottom line​

Taken together, the two headlines give an accurate picture. CD Projekt Red was open that its 4K path-tracing target relies on DLSS and Frame Generation. IGN showed what's underneath: about 30 rendered FPS with HairWorks on, rising to 44 with it off, on a card that costs a lot. The 60 FPS in the requirements is real, but the GPU isn't rendering all of those frames.

Most players don't need to worry. The game runs on a GTX 1660, standard ray tracing scales well, and ComputerBase found 60 FPS without ray tracing was reachable on mid-range cards. The takeaway for enthusiasts: when a requirements sheet says "with Frame Generation", check what the GPU is actually rendering before you buy hardware based on that number.

Update: Additional details (September 29, 2026)​

Hardware Unboxed also reportedly found the Radeon RX 9070 GRE averaging 58 FPS at 2560×1440 on RT Ultra, with a 49 FPS 1% low—an additional data point supporting standard ray tracing rather than path tracing for smoother performance.

CD Projekt Red’s PC patch notes also list DLSS 4.5 with Ray Reconstruction, FSR 4 with Frame Generation and Anti-Lag 2, plus XeSS 2.0 with Frame Generation and Low Latency. FSR 4 requires a Radeon RX 7000-series GPU or newer; older AMD cards use FSR 2.

Update: Prima Games reports RTX 5060 results at 1440p (October 1, 2026)​

Mid-range performance testing adds a new comparison below the previously covered high-end cards. According to Prima Games’ October 1 report, its RTX 5060 system reportedly reached 60 FPS at 1440p with Ultra+ settings and ray tracing disabled, using some upscaling. That is not a native-resolution result and does not establish that the card meets CD Projekt Red’s official Ultra specification.

With ray tracing enabled using settings the outlet describes as “Performance,” the same system reportedly achieved a fairly stable 50–55 FPS at 1440p with Ultra+ textures in open-world areas without dense crowds, according to Prima Games. Its report does not specify the complete system configuration, exact upscaling mode or whether Frame Generation was enabled, limiting comparisons with the earlier benchmarks.

For Windows players using an RTX 5060, these reported results suggest that disabling ray tracing offers a more practical route to 1440p at 60 FPS. The ray-tracing result is narrower: it falls short of a steady 60 FPS and does not demonstrate equivalent performance in crowded locations such as Novigrad.

Update: Hotfix reportedly restores DLSS for Xbox Play Anywhere PC players (October 2, 2026)​

According to GamingBolt’s October 2 report, CD Projekt Red has released a hotfix for PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S that includes a fix for the Xbox Play Anywhere version’s inability to enable DLSS. For affected Windows players, that reportedly restores access to an upscaling option used in the performance targets discussed above. It does not establish that the update improves underlying rendering performance or changes the earlier benchmark results.

GamingBolt also reports lighting adjustments, including fixes for interiors that appeared too dark, alongside console-specific changes. The report supplies no post-hotfix PC benchmarks, so the extent of any frame-rate improvement remains unverified.

A separate PC hotfix addressing a saving issue is reportedly next, according to GamingBolt; the outlet gives no release date or precise description of the fault. The report also says the developers are investigating submissions through their Technical Support portal and plan further fixes. The saving fix should therefore be treated as forthcoming, rather than part of the update already released.

Update: Five further fixes planned, with no release date announced (October 5, 2026)​

According to Pure Xbox’s October 5 report, CD Projekt Red has outlined five areas it is working on for another Witcher 3 Remastered update: further performance improvements, particularly on PS5; additional visual adjustments; My Rewards and Twitch Drops fixes; expanded regional availability of Ukrainian localization on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S; and console voiceover audio fixes. These are planned changes, not fixes confirmed as available.

For Windows players, the newly identified rewards and Twitch Drops issues are worth watching, although the report does not specify which platforms those fixes will cover. The performance work is described as particularly focused on PS5, so it should not be read as confirmation of improved PC frame rates or reduced path-tracing demands.

Pure Xbox also reports that CD Projekt Red social media director Marcin Momot indicated more fixes are coming, without announcing a release date. The report does not confirm whether the previously announced PC saving fix will be included in that next update.