The Witcher 3 Remastered apparently needs an RTX 5080 for 4K 60 FPS path tracing with Frame Generation

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is about to get significantly more demanding on PC. CD Projekt Red has published the complete system requirements for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Remastered. It includes separate hardware targets for conventional rendering, ray tracing and path tracing ahead of the update’s September 29 release as a free upgrade for anyone who already owns the game. Anyone buying a fresh copy will get the new version plus both DLCs for no extra cost.

At the lower end, players targeting 1080p at 30 FPS on the Low preset will need at least an Intel Core i5-8400 or AMD Ryzen 5 2600, paired with a GeForce GTX 1660, Radeon RX 5500 XT 8 GB or Intel Arc A580. The minimum specification also calls for 12 GB of system memory and 6 GB of VRAM.

The requirements rise considerably from there. For 1080p at 60 FPS on the High preset, CD Projekt Red recommends a Core i7-8700K or Ryzen 5 3600X alongside a GeForce RTX 2060 Super, Radeon RX 6600 XT or Intel Arc B580. Moving up to 1440p/60 FPS at Ultra requires a Core i7-13700K or Ryzen 7 7700X and either a GeForce RTX 3070 Ti, Radeon RX 6800 XT or Arc B580 with XeSS.

Ray tracing understandably brings another substantial jump. The minimum RT configuration targets only 1080p at 30 FPS with upscaling enabled and calls for a Core i7-11700K or Ryzen 7 5800X paired with an RTX 2060 Super, RX 6600 XT or Arc B580. For 1440p at 60 FPS with the Ray Tracing Ultra preset, CD Projekt Red recommends an RTX 4080 or Radeon RX 9070 XT together with a Core i7-13700K or Ryzen 7 7700X.

Path tracing is considerably heavier for The Witcher 3 Remastered. 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, which has become increasingly common in path-traced titles. Even Nvidia’s DLSS5 implementation practically required Frame Generation to be playable at 60+ FPS. 

CD Projekt Red notes that the ray-tracing configurations on The Witcher 3: Remastered 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.

Another notable change is the move away from Windows 10. CD Projekt Red says it is no longer developing or testing The Witcher 3 against Microsoft’s older operating system and therefore cannot guarantee future compatibility or performance. This does not mean the game will immediately stop working on Windows 10 after the update. An SSD is now mandatory as well.

According to CD Projekt Red, the requirement reflects the need for faster asset streaming and loading brought by the Remastered version’s technical upgrades. Interestingly, the Epic Games Store version requires 95 GB of storage space, whereas the Steam version needs only 60 GB.