Next-gen upgrade and old computer

[Nikos Phobodeimos]

Hello,

I bought the Witcher series today but only learnt about the upcoming next-gen upgrade for The Witcher III after the purchase.

What does the upgrade do once released, exactly? Is this like a "free DLC" that you must manually acquire on the store page while the original Witcher III still runs unaffected as long as I didn't got the upgrade? Does it adds a series of advanced options that becomes available in the setting menus, but don't affect the previous version of the game if they aren't enabled? Or does it just replaces the game with a graphical high-end remaster needing much more resources and advanced softwares to just function?

I've got a old and obsolete PC which still runs Windows 8, all three games currently work, but I have no idea if my computer would be able to run the post-upgrade version. I'm actually worried if a game I just legally bought and which works NOW will still function on my PC in two weeks.

[rckrz6]

you can continue to play the old version

[Nikos Phobodeimos]

Great. Thank you.

[V_]

Originally posted by Nikos Phobodeimos:

Hello,

I bought the Witcher series today but only learnt about the upcoming next-gen upgrade for The Witcher III after the purchase.

What does the upgrade do once released, exactly? Is this like a "free DLC" that you must manually acquire on the store page while the original Witcher III still runs unaffected as long as I didn't got the upgrade? Does it adds a series of advanced options that becomes available in the setting menus, but don't affect the previous version of the game if they aren't enabled? Or does it just replaces the game with a graphical high-end remaster needing much more resources and advanced softwares to just function?

I've got a old and obsolete PC which still runs Windows 8, all three games currently work, but I have no idea if my computer would be able to run the post-upgrade version. I'm actually worried if a game I just legally bought and which works NOW will still function on my PC in two weeks.

From what they've said its an update. Not a DLC you download on its own. The good news is all the graphical options must be toggled on if you want to use them, so if your PC runs the game right now then it should continue to run it when it updates if you don't toggle these on. You simply may not be able to run the new "ultra" settings since these have the new graphical options such as ray tracing.

[󠁳 ⁧HardLimiter]

Originally posted by V_:

Originally posted by Nikos Phobodeimos:

Hello,

I bought the Witcher series today but only learnt about the upcoming next-gen upgrade for The Witcher III after the purchase.

What does the upgrade do once released, exactly? Is this like a "free DLC" that you must manually acquire on the store page while the original Witcher III still runs unaffected as long as I didn't got the upgrade? Does it adds a series of advanced options that becomes available in the setting menus, but don't affect the previous version of the game if they aren't enabled? Or does it just replaces the game with a graphical high-end remaster needing much more resources and advanced softwares to just function?

I've got a old and obsolete PC which still runs Windows 8, all three games currently work, but I have no idea if my computer would be able to run the post-upgrade version. I'm actually worried if a game I just legally bought and which works NOW will still function on my PC in two weeks.

From what they've said its an update. Not a DLC you download on its own. The good news is all the graphical options must be toggled on if you want to use them, so if your PC runs the game right now then it should continue to run it when it updates if you don't toggle these on. You simply may not be able to run the new "ultra" settings since these have the new graphical options such as ray tracing.

I don´t know why ppl want these new graphic settings.
It´s "just" 4k.
There are mods with 8k textures and few other better mods.

Witcher + Mods are still better, even after this update.
It doesn´t make sense for me, they should add the 8k textures for this game.
It´s a step backwards for me because I dont ´t need these settings. They re worse than my modded game.

[V_]

Originally posted by HardLimiter:

Originally posted by V_:

From what they've said its an update. Not a DLC you download on its own. The good news is all the graphical options must be toggled on if you want to use them, so if your PC runs the game right now then it should continue to run it when it updates if you don't toggle these on. You simply may not be able to run the new "ultra" settings since these have the new graphical options such as ray tracing.

I don´t know why ppl want these new graphic settings.
It´s "just" 4k.
There are mods with 8k textures and few other better mods.

Witcher + Mods are still better, even after this update.
It doesn´t make sense for me, they should add the 8k textures for this game.
It´s a step backwards for me because I dont ´t need these settings. They re worse than my modded game.

Its not just textures, it has ray traced settings. Mods cannot replicate this to the same degree, its also adding SSR which again mods can't replicate at an accurate level. So aside from textures it'll look better than anything mods offer. The geometry is also changed, something most texture mods don't affect, this can be seen in the reveal and is noticeable on the new rock formations on the ground.

[Nikos Phobodeimos]

The 1.32 version had decent performance on my computer, the update lags so much it is unplayable (and that's after disabling all the new advanced options). Thank gods the unpatched 1.32 version of the game is available as a "Beta".

[Nikos Phobodeimos]

Thank you CDPR for forcing me to get a FREE update I didn't want to begin with, and which tanked the game's performance so much it's now unplayable.

I rolled back to 1.32, ran the game in DX11 mode, and disabled all the graphical features I could. It still run very poorly. Performances were good until the update. I'm very angry about being unable to play a relatively old game which worked correctly at the time I got it.

[Icy1007]

Originally posted by Nikos Phobodeimos:

Thank you CDPR for forcing me to get a FREE update I didn't want to begin with, and which tanked the game's performance so much it's now unplayable.

I rolled back to 1.32, ran the game in DX11 mode, and disabled all the graphical features I could. It still run very poorly. Performances were good until the update. I'm very angry about being unable to play a relatively old game which worked correctly at the time I got it.

If you're on the old 1.32 version and performance is still bad then the issue is with your PC.

[Samiri]

Originally posted by Nikos Phobodeimos:

Thank you CDPR for forcing me to get a FREE update I didn't want to begin with, and which tanked the game's performance so much it's now unplayable.

I rolled back to 1.32, ran the game in DX11 mode, and disabled all the graphical features I could. It still run very poorly. Performances were good until the update. I'm very angry about being unable to play a relatively old game which worked correctly at the time I got it.

delete your mod folder and it will work :)

[Nikos Phobodeimos]

Originally posted by Icy1007:

Originally posted by Nikos Phobodeimos:

Thank you CDPR for forcing me to get a FREE update I didn't want to begin with, and which tanked the game's performance so much it's now unplayable.

I rolled back to 1.32, ran the game in DX11 mode, and disabled all the graphical features I could. It still run very poorly. Performances were good until the update. I'm very angry about being unable to play a relatively old game which worked correctly at the time I got it.

If you're on the old 1.32 version and performance is still bad then the issue is with your PC.

It doesn't make sense. Performance was OK yesterday.

Originally posted by Samiri:

Originally posted by Nikos Phobodeimos:

Thank you CDPR for forcing me to get a FREE update I didn't want to begin with, and which tanked the game's performance so much it's now unplayable.

I rolled back to 1.32, ran the game in DX11 mode, and disabled all the graphical features I could. It still run very poorly. Performances were good until the update. I'm very angry about being unable to play a relatively old game which worked correctly at the time I got it.

delete your mod folder and it will work :)

I don't use mods.

[corinsentry820]

Originally posted by Icy1007:

Originally posted by Nikos Phobodeimos:

Thank you CDPR for forcing me to get a FREE update I didn't want to begin with, and which tanked the game's performance so much it's now unplayable.

I rolled back to 1.32, ran the game in DX11 mode, and disabled all the graphical features I could. It still run very poorly. Performances were good until the update. I'm very angry about being unable to play a relatively old game which worked correctly at the time I got it.

If you're on the old 1.32 version and performance is still bad then the issue is with your PC.

They said the game ran fine before, so that is not an issue with their PC.

[X-Vector]

I've got an older PC as well (i7 2600k/8GB/R9 380 4GB/1280x960); the next-gen version does perform worse than 1.32 with similar settings, but it's not a night-and-day difference in my case.
I was running everything on high before the update (no Hairworks, chromatic abberation, depth of field, motion blur and vignetting) and to get a similar kind of perfomance I had to turn some settings down to medium (texture quality, terrain quality and world detail are still on high).
NB: this is on DX11, DX12 crashed not only while loading saves but also when starting a new game.

[Nikos Phobodeimos]

I fixed it. Reverting to 1.32 wasn't enough, the performance issue was caused by the new launcher. It ran fine once I disabled it.

What to do after downgrading:
1) Add " --launcher-skip" to the game's starting setting in Steam (without the "" and with a space before the --)
2) Edit the "launcher-configuration.json" file with any text editor to replace "fallback": "DirectX 12" by "fallback": "DirectX 11"

[X-Vector]

Nice to know you've got it working well again, I personally fixed the "issue" by copying the W3 folder to an external HDD before the update so I can easily access both versions now.