The Witcher 3 PS4 Pro Patch Promises 4K Support and Better Performance, Out Now

Fair play they've done this - it will not really push PS4 sales up though obviously is might with the XB1X crowd.

I intend to try and get to this early next year...

That subtitle though

CDPR continue to impress me with their ongoing support for their product. A free update, yet some are still disappointed.

Time for that third playthrough.

What will this bring for 1080p screens, performance-wise?

@Useyourname As far as I know, it's supersampled on 1080p screens, so you can expect sharper visuals, etc.

@ShogunRok If that's the case then that's great news. 1080p 60fps is where it's happening for me!

@magiphone There's no 60fps support, mind. Would take more power than even the Pro offers to get the framerate that high.

In all fairness, what were people expecting if they were disappointed? The GPU at most is likely to only offer a 2x boost so I wouldn't be surprised if its just a resolution boost to 1440p rather than use some CB solution to push for 1800-2160p, Its good enough for Naughty Dog and their PS4 Uncharted games. It has to be 'better; than Dirt which only tweaks a few visual settings - its still just 1080p though. Whatever CDPR have done, it surely is an improvement over 1080p on a 4k TV - not that the game looked 'poor' anyway.

@ShogunRok thanks, that's a shame. I sell many 4K TVs and projectors and in my mind many games and presentations look far better on a good 1080p panel running at 60fps rather than 4K. If they can just get the Pro to nail that I would be more than delighted.

I wonder if CDPR are going to go the extra mile and fully utilise the power of the XB1 X or just do a straight port from the Pro patch?

"Now we wait for the inevitable Digital Foundry investigation..."

Yup lol they do such a amazing job of it.

@magiphone that's mostly a preference tbh. lot's of people a argue 60 fps online but the truth is not everyone likes it.

I know some who think 60fps looks unnatural.

Any excuse to spend more time with Geralt is welcome

@glitchesystem Research from NeoGAF users suggests this is the case: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1442780&page=4

Yessss!!! The greatest game of all time just got a little better!!! Now if only they would add a HDR patch... shiiii i wouldn't leave my house lol

@ShogunRok Steady 30fps in Novigrad and foggy marshes would be great, any info on that? (I wouldn't expect 60)

@Useyourname I did my second run of the game with almost every performance update installed and I thought Novigrad and the marshes were already very stable. 30fps for the most part with only the occasional dip. Huge improvement over the base release.

I haven't played the game on PS4 Pro, but from what I hear, it runs really smoothly with boost mode enabled. Obviously with this patch that's no longer an option, but I would assume it now runs pretty much perfectly going off the information at hand.

thanks CDPR! had been holding off playing more on my PS4 Pro till this arrived

Yesssss I have been waiting on this

Eurogamers (DF) preliminary look at the patch states its a CB4k.

Quoted from Eurogamer:-
We've only just started to look at the upgraded version of the title, but it's pretty clear from the outset that CD Projekt RED is using checkerboard rendering to boost the presentation of the game from its native 1080p on base hardware. This technique effectively sees the developer render a 1920x2160 framebuffer in a checkerboard configuration, typically filling in the gaps using information from prior frames.

It's proven particularly effective in games like Horizon Zero Dawn and Destiny 2, with little in the way of artefacts visible to the naked eye - it's an excellent technique for a GPU better suited to 1440p gameplay to achieve a good presentation fit for a 4K screen.

However, while some titles even pass muster on close-up screenshot inspections, the Witcher 3 isn't quite so effective and it's actually easy to spot tell-tale checkerboard artefacts.

It's early days with our testing so far, but some changes and improvements are in play. Texture filtering is improved, though the base assets - including art quality - look to be the same as the game running on the standard PlayStation 4. Curiously though, ambient occlusion looks as though it's pared back in some of the scenes we tested - something we intend to investigate in further depth [UPDATE: Ambient occlusion is actually enhanced and looks like Nvidia's HBAO). Initial tests also suggest that some of The Witcher 3's most challenging areas - such as Crookback Bog - actually run slower than base hardware, which in turn was a touch slower than the Pro running the old code under boost mode.

It seems that the game is running at 4k (CB) which in turn is affecting 'performance' in the most challenging areas making it run slower than the 'base' 1080p version but the 'best' performance was the pre-patch 'boost' mode version. How much difference between each though, we will have to wait until DF have finished their testing.

It maybe that the Pro enhanced drops a frame more often or takes longer to return to max. We could be looking at a very slight variation between the 3 where the Average frame rates are all above 29fps.

Anyway, just thought I would share so people can have a more informed opinion.