This is the big one for The Witcher 3. Measuring in at 15GB on console, update 1.10 arrives with an essay’s worth of patch notes – easily the biggest to date from CD Projekt Red. Among its 600 plus entries, we’re mostly looking at bug fixes and gameplay tune-ups, and curiously no performance boosts are noted at all for PlayStation 4 or Xbox One. But with each update comes a huge expectation that console frame-rates will – at last – see improvement. And after so many false dawns, we can safely say patch 1.10 is finally the one to deliver – for PS4, at least.
The good news first. PS4 benefits hugely from the update, and our first stress-test in Crookback Bog shows the biggest gains in the shift to patch 1.10. This area’s fog and water transparency effects push the engine hardest, and notoriously, prior versions of the game locked PS4 to the 20fps line here. But with everything updated fully, frame-rates now stick closer to the 30fps line across the entirety of our run. At points this gives The Witcher 3 a boost of 10fps overall on PS4, and it overtakes a fully-patched Xbox One version in direct comparison.
Drops are still felt, and the graph hits 28fps at points – sometimes lower. But it’s fair to say it’s a step forward, and a much smoother gameplay experience overall in what were previously troublespots. As one of the worst case scenarios, Crookback Bog doesn’t fairly represent frame-rates across the breadth of the game. Nevertheless, for the missions that include it, we’re looking at a far more stable read-out.
Keeping with the PS4, this uplift applies for the more challenging cut-scenes too, where we can match each patch to the precise frame. Again we see performance is finally unlocked from the 20fps line, and though patch 1.10 still shows drops on PS4, they aren’t nearly as low as they were in the previous patch. In comparison with Xbox One, the unlocking of this cut-scene’s frame-rate means PS4 also now often leads by 2-3fps.
