The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Performance Analysis

Eurogamer’s Digital Foundry has turned its eye towards The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and produced a performance and graphical analysis that puts the PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions side by side. Unsurprisingly, the PC version is the best one as long as you have the required horsepower, while Sony’s console gets the nod as far as consoles go:

Overall, CD Projekt Red’s legacy as a developer is deeply entrenched in PC, and to a great extent it shows in this version’s extras. Everything from hair physics to broader draw distances make it a cut above console – a sharper, richer-looking release that also benefits from superior textures and effects. The ability to hit and hold 60fps is, to our minds, the PC’s best advantage though. Even with its camera stutters, combat is far more responsive than the console’s circa-30fps, and on limited GPUs we’d gladly give up the above visual extras up for it.

That said, Geralt’s latest chapter is still very approachable on consoles. It’s a visuals-over-performance setup that means both PS4 and Xbox One get a density to world detail that’s rarely seen on console. And outside of the resolution divide (favouring Sony’s platform at a true 1920×1080) core graphics settings are matched between the two, mostly borrowing from PC’s medium and high presets. Performance is also a sticking point; PS4 is preferable in this case for its 30fps cap, though it suffers from some stutter, while Xbox One’s uncapped frame-rate gives us far less consistent experience. We’re still hoping for that optional 30fps cap option on the Microsoft platform.