Witcher 3 graphic tweaks can squeeze out a few extra frames

Fans of the Windows PC platform have been salivating over the anticipated visual splendor of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, and aside from a few recent hiccups with the last patch things seem to be going according to plan. By which I mean, there's been endless hand-wringing over how to get this crazy game to look its best. Thankfully, fans over at the CD Projekt Red forums have a great thread on graphics tweaks.

One thing that's valuable straight off the bat is the annotated list of standard graphical settings available in-game. If you don't know your chromatic aberration from your light shaft, this is a great place to start. It also lists expected performance hits for each given setting. But graphics settings are an imperfect science, and your mileage may vary.

Further down, the thread gets into the minutia of tweaking settings a little closer to the metal. For instance, do you know where your PhysX processing is taking place? I didn't, and by forcing it over to my CPU in the Nvidia Control Panel I got a few extra frames for my troubles.

Take careful notes as you flip switches, mind you. You're always one step away from breaking something when you start messing with stuff like this and it's a good plan to leave yourself options for rolling back changes. And if you do settle on some obscure tweaks that you like, keep a lookout for the next patch for your particular graphics card as it will likely change everything.