Best Witcher 3 Next-Gen settings for RTX 3070 (with and without ray tracing)

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt's Next-Gen upgrade brought several enhancements to the title, including a massive graphical overhaul. This update also granted gamers the ability to use DLSS and FSR, along with ray tracing, in the title. However, the title, when all the visual settings are maxed out, is extremely resource-hungry and will require top-of-the-line graphics cards to produce respectable framerates.

RTX 3070 is an upper mid-range card from Nvidia. The second generation Nvidia's RTX offering came with significant upgrades compared to the RTX 2000 series. The 3070 can run anything you throw at it, even with ray tracing enabled. Moreover, it offers better rasterization performance than its predecessor, the RTX 2070. This guide will provide the best settings to use in Witcher 3 with the second-gen card.

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RTX 3070 runs Witcher 3 exceptionally well without ray tracing but struggles with feature turned on

RTX 3070 is perfectly capable of handling the game at 1440p without Ray Tracing, provided it runs in the DirectX 11 mode. However, things change when the feature is enabled. To use ray tracing or DLSS, users will have to play Witcher 3 in DirectX 12, which is known to cause performance issues.

Also, if gamers want to use ray tracing, it is suggested they drop the resolution from 1440p to 1080p. That being said, these are the best settings to use in Witcher 3 with RTX 3070:

Without ray tracing

Display

• Display mode: Full Screen
• Vsync: Off
• Resolution: 2560 x 1440
• Maximum Frames Per Second: Unlimited
• Hardware Cursor: Off

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Graphics

• Anti-Aliasing: TAAU
• Sharpening: High

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• Screen Space Ambient Occlusion: On
• Screen Space Reflections: High

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• Motion Blur: Off*
• Blur: Off*
• Bloom: On*
• Depth of Field: Off*
• Chromatic Aberration: Off*
• Vignetting: Off*
• Light Shafts: Off*
• Camera Lens Effects: Off*

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• Nvidia HairWorks: On
• Nvidia HairWorks AA: 8
• Nvidia HairWorks Preset: High

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• Number of Background Characters: Ultra+
• Shadow Quality: Ultra+
• Terrain Quality: Ultra+
• Water Quality: Ultra+
• Foliage Visibility Range: Ultra+
• Grass Density: Ultra+
• Texture Quality: Ultra+
• Detail Level: Ultra+

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With ray tracing

Display

• Display mode: Full Screen
• Vsync: Off
• Resolution: 1920x1080
• Maximum Frames Per Second: Unlimited
• Nvidia Reflex Low Latency: On
• Hardware Cursor: Off

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Graphics

• Ray Tracing (Global Illumination): On
• Ray Traced Reflections: Off
• Ray Traced Shadows: Off
• Ray Traced Ambient Occlusion: Off

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• Anti-Aliasing: DLSS
• DLSS Quality: Quality
• Sharpening: High

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• Screen Space Ambient Occlusion: On
• Screen Space Reflections: High

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• Motion Blur: Off*
• Blur: Off*
• Bloom: On*
• Depth of Field: Off*
• Chromatic Aberration: Off*
• Vignetting: Off*
• Light Shafts: Off*
• Camera Lens Effects: Off*

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• Nvidia HairWorks: Off

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• Number of Background Characters: High
• Shadow Quality: High
• Terrain Quality: Ultra
• Water Quality: High
• Foliage Visibility Range: High
• Grass Density: Ultra
• Texture Quality: Ultra
• Detail Level: High

Note:

1. The settings marked with * can be set according to the user's personal preference and do not have a major impact on performance.
2. To use ray tracing and Nvidia DLSS, players will have to run the game in DirectX 12.

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These are the perfect settings to use in Witcher 3 Next-Gen with RTX 3070. However, if gamers wish, they can tinker with the graphics options as they please. That said, it is recommended to start with these settings and then adjust based on personal preferences.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Next-Gen is now available on PC (via Steam, GOG, and Epic Games), Xbox Series S|X, and PlayStation 5.