The Witcher 3 Remastered adds path tracing, but PC players need to check new requirements
CD PROJEKT RED's September 28 patch notes list native DirectX 12 rendering, path tracing and several GPU upscaling options for The Witcher 3 Remastered. The studio also says PC system requirements have changed. These are announced features, not independent proof of frame rates or compatibility on every machine.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Remastered reaches PC on September 29 with a much longer graphics checklist than a simple texture refresh. In patch notes published the day before release, CD PROJEKT RED lists native DirectX 12 rendering with multithreading, a revised shading model, new image-based lighting, and support for path tracing on PC. For players deciding whether to install immediately, the key distinction is between a feature the developer says the game supports and a performance result measured on a particular computer.
The rendering changes span both the scene and the tools used to display it. The notes describe updated textures and models based on assets from The Witcher 3 HD Reworked Project, improved grass and foliage lighting, revised tone mapping, ground-truth ambient occlusion as an option, and changes to skin, terrain and material rendering. They also list ray-traced HairWorks. These details explain why the release can look different even when path tracing is off: the announced revisions are not all dependent on one maximum graphics setting.
PC players also get a menu of reconstruction and latency technologies. The developer lists NVIDIA DLSS 4.5 with Ray Reconstruction, AMD FSR 4 with Frame Generation and Anti-Lag 2, and Intel XeSS 2.0 with Frame Generation and Low Latency. One explicit hardware boundary matters: CD PROJEKT RED says FSR 4 works on Radeon RX 7000 series cards and newer, while unsupported GPUs fall back to FSR 2. That is a support rule in the patch notes, not a promise that every configuration will deliver the same image quality or speed.
The studio separately warns that the remaster changes the game's system requirements and tells PC users to install current graphics drivers. It publishes a revised requirements table with the patch notes. A player whose old installation ran acceptably should therefore check the new table against the actual processor, graphics card, memory and storage in the machine before assuming the remaster will behave the same way. Path tracing and frame generation are optional technologies with their own hardware and settings implications; their presence in a feature list should not be read as a universal baseline.
The PC changes sit alongside alterations to gameplay and the interface. Skills move into a prerequisite-based tree with three ranks apiece, and the developer says existing skill points are reset as a result. The remaster also expands Photo Mode and adds an in-game cross-platform mod browser powered by mod.io. Those are separate questions for players maintaining an old save or mod setup. The patch notes identify the new systems, but do not by themselves establish that every existing mod will remain compatible after the engine and interface changes.
This is a pre-release account of the developer's September 28 documentation, not a hands-on benchmark. No frame-rate comparison, minimum-performance guarantee or independent test has been inferred from the patch notes. The first useful check after release will be whether the new rendering paths and reconstruction options function as described across supported hardware, followed by measured performance at stated resolutions and settings. Until then, the practical advice is to verify the revised requirements and preserve a record of existing settings before updating.
The accompanying image shows the inventory interface of the original 2015 game. It is archival reference material and does not depict the 2026 remaster's graphics or revised system requirements.
프리즘코리아 편집국 > Oliver Hayes
