Background: Players are reporting serious performance drops in The Witcher 3 after patch 4.01. The latest update for the next generation version aimed to boost stability and frame rates, but many users found the opposite. Across several tests shared by creators, the question arose: does patch 4.01 actually slow down the game, or are there specific configurations where the impact is more noticeable?
In one test, a PC was configured with an AMD Ryzen 5 5600X processor, an NVIDIA RTX 3070 graphics card, and 32 GB of 3600 MHz RAM. The test results showed a clear decline in performance compared with the previous patch. The drop was most evident when ray tracing was turned off, where frame rates fell by as much as roughly 30 percent in certain scenes, dropping from 100 FPS to around 64 FPS. The observation raises questions about how the update interacts with CPU, GPU, and memory bandwidth under varying rendering paths.
It is worth noting that when ray tracing remains enabled, the same test did not show a consistent downturn. In another video, a PC setup including an Intel Core i7-10700F processor, an NVIDIA RTX 4080 graphics card, and 16 GB of RAM reported a modest FPS improvement in some scenes, with gains of around 8 FPS observed in certain sequences. This contrast suggests that the performance delta tied to 4.01 may depend on the rendering options chosen and the overall system balance between CPU, GPU, and memory bandwidth.
Regardless of the exact configuration, developers are generally seen as actively investigating the issues. Community chatter points to patches aiming to stabilize frame times, optimize shader compilation, and address potential driver interactions that could contribute to uneven performance across hardware variants. The ongoing dialogue among players and studios underlines the complexity of optimizing a large open world at high fidelity while keeping frame consistency across diverse rigs.
Be that as it may, CD Projekt RED is widely expected to continue refining the experience and releasing further updates to smooth out performance irregularities. The goal is to deliver a consistent, stable performance profile across a broad range of CPUs and GPUs, from mainstream to high-end configurations, ensuring that players on both consoles and PCs can enjoy the game with fewer hiccups.
For now, players encountering the patch 4.01 performance questions are advised to experiment with rendering settings such as ray tracing, resolution scaling, and anti-aliasing, while monitoring frame times rather than sheer FPS. System builders and gamers are encouraged to keep drivers up to date and to apply any hotfixes released by the developer. The situation is evolving, and the community remains attentive to new reports and official clarifications, hopeful for a smoother experience in future updates.
Source: [citation withheld]