Introduction

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Next-Gen update has finally released on PC and console, with plenty of visual enhancements over its original release in 2015, such as ray traced global illumination, ray traced shadows, ray traced ambient occlusion, ray traced reflections, Ultra+ settings which increase draw distances, foliage density, background character detail, asset quality, and more, texture resolutions are also increased and environments gain new geometric detail. This version on PC also has support for NVIDIA’s DLSS Super Resolution (DLSS 2.4), NVIDIA’s DLSS Frame Generation (DLSS 3) and AMD’s FidelityFX Super Resolution 2.1 (FSR 2.1) from day one. In order to run this game at maximum graphics settings and reasonable framerates at native resolution, quite a powerful GPU is required, which is why upscaling solutions are so important. But depending on the game, there are subtle differences in the implementation of NVIDIA’s DLSS Super Resolution (DLSS 2.4), NVIDIA’s DLSS Frame Generation (DLSS 3) and AMD’s FidelityFX Super Resolution 2.1 (FSR 2.1), so we are keen to have a look at these temporal upscalers in this game.

Below, you will find comparison screenshots at 4K, 1440p, 1080p, and in different DLSS and FSR 2.1 quality modes; the TAA and DLSS Frame Generation screenshots are also available in the dropdown menu. For those who want to see how DLSS Super Resolution, DLSS Frame Generation and FSR 2.1 perform in motion, watch our side-by-side comparison video. The video can help uncover issues like shimmering or temporal instability, which are not visible in the screenshots.

All tests were made using a GeForce RTX 4080 GPU at Ultra+ graphics settings with ray tracing enabled; motion blur, chromatic aberration and depth of field were disabled for better image viewing. DLSS Super Resolution in this game shipped with version 2.4.0, but for our testing we manually updated it to the 2.5.0 version.

Screenshots

Side-by-Side Comparison Video

Conclusion

In The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, the in-game TAA solution, DLSS and FSR 2.1 implementations all use a sharpening filter in the render path, and the game has the ability to tweak the sharpening values through a separate slider, but in this game it is a bit different: you have the ability to completely disable all sharpening or use only two options—”low” or “high,” in which “high” uses the highest value for sharpening. In our testing we disabled all of the sharpening for TAA, DLSS and FSR 2.1. The inclusion of a separate sharpening filter for each upscaling and temporal anti-aliasing solution is a great option to have, but there is one important issue of note. At lower internal resolutions, such as 1080p DLSS/FSR 2.1 Quality mode for example, even the lowest value for sharpening filters can cause negative side effects in this game, such as excessive shimmering in motion, so we recommend to disable the sharpening filter for 1080p resolution, when using upscaling.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is a fast paced action game, so when using any temporal upscaling solutions, the temporal stability of the image is key to enjoyable gameplay. When using DLSS, the image was stable in motion in Quality modes, the level of detail rendered in vegetation and tree leaves is greatly improved in comparison to the in-game TAA solution, and small details in the distance, such as fishing nets or thin steel objects, are rendered more correctly and completely. The FSR 2.1 implementation comes with noticeable compromises in image quality—in favor of performance in most sequences of the game. We spotted excessive shimmering and flickering on tree leaves and vegetation; they are shimmering even when standing still at 1440p and lower resolutions. Speaking of the ghosting issues, the original DLSS 2.4.0 has some noticeable ghosting issues, the most noticeable were flying birds with black trails behind them at medium and far distance. You can fix these ghosting issues by manually adding the DLSS 2.5.0 dll file into the game folder. To be fair, FSR 2.1 also has these issues, but only at extreme angles and you can notice the ghosting only for a few miliseconds, which isn’t very distracting during normal gameplay.

Speaking of DLSS Frame Generation implementation, the overall image quality is quite impressive, even small flying particle effects, such as snow on Skellige, are rendered correctly in a fast movement scenario. However, there are also a few important issues of note. We spotted excessive shimmering and flickering on tree leaves and vegetation at 1440p and below, and these shimmering issues are visible even when standing still, but it is less pronounced when compared to the FSR 2.1 shimmering issues. In other DLSS Frame Generation supported games we’ve tested, all of them had issues with the in-game on-screen UI, which had a very jittery look—the DLSS Frame Generation implementation in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt does not have this issue.

Speaking of performance, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is a very CPU intensive game in DirectX 12, as the CPU usage is mostly single-threaded on PC due to very poor DirectX 12 implementation, and high-powered GPUs such as the GeForce RTX 4080 can end up CPU bottlenecked in some sequences of the game, even at 4K. In a such CPU limited scenario, comes a very welcome help from the DLSS Frame Generation technology, which has the ability to bypass CPU limitations and provide additional frames. With DLSS Super Resolution in Quality mode and DLSS Frame Generation enabled, you can expect more than doubled performance at 4K and 1440p, and during our testing, overall gameplay felt very smooth and responsive, we haven’t spotted any issues with the input latency.