Should You Choose DX11 Or DX12 in The Witcher 3

"The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is an ever-running timeless classic. New or returning, you can choose to play the classic DX11 version or the new modern update of DX12.

Each of these two versions offers a host of different advantages and disadvantages to consider, so the issue is not that cut and dry. It all depends on what your personal gaming priorities and preferences are. Because of this, we've included below some of the key features and benefits for each of the following versions to help you make an informed decision. Consider things like gameplay style, graphics quality, performance, and additional content or features that matter to you, for example. By carefully considering each of these, you'll be able to choose a version that best suits your goals in gaming and makes it more enjoyable for you.

Option 2:

"Which of these two to choose is, of course, a matter of personal preference, and the right choice will be determined by your personal priorities in games and game priorities. For a better understanding, we have summarized below the key points and advantages of each alternative. Consider the following aspects:

• Game style: Are you into fast action or a more strategic game?

• Graphics: Is high-resolution graphics something which really matters for you?

• Performance: How smooth the gameplay should be and whether it has lag or drops in frame rates.

• additional content: Are there any features or modes you're looking to get?

You may then choose a version that would serve you best and give maximum enjoyment with your gameplay.

Which of the two to choose is a matter of personal judgment and taste. To help you make an informed choice, we have identified key similarities and differences in features and benefits for each option detailed in the table below. Consider the following factors:

• Gameplay: Which version offers the gameplay style that you enjoy most?

• Graphics: Do you prefer high-quality visuals or are you more focused on performance?

• Features: Which features or modes are most important to you?

• Value: Which gives the best value for money?

By keeping these factors in mind, you can choose which version provides the closest thing to what you want out of your gaming experience."

What Was The Next-Gen Update For The Witcher 3?

Recently, a big free update came to The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt that really ramped things up, in particular for PC players. That update brought with it new content, highly-requested features, quality-of-life improvements, officially integrated mods, bug fixes, and so much more. The console update isn't quite as relevant to us, but the PC update brings with it a treasure trove of enhancements including a brand-new DX12 version of the game.

This version of DX12 also has a number of advantages over the original version, the DX11 version-offers improved performance and ray tracing capability, and generally more graphical fidelity. However, this comes at the heavy cost of increased system requirements. You might just have a better experience in performance if your hardware is not really updated with the previous version, DX11. Ultimately, it comes down to your personal preference and system specification.

Reasons To Choose DX11 For The Witcher 3

For example, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt at the DX11 runs significantly smoother compared to its DX12 counterpart, running similar graphics settings. This is primarily because DX11 is so much better optimized on CPUs. While DX12 has introduced ray tracing, DLSS, and FSR, among other features, these usually come with reduced performance.

Despite the performance gain, DX11 does not support a number of the newer technologies, including ray tracing and upscaling. It does include AMD Fluid Motion Frames, which can help on AMD GPUs in some rare scenarios. More importantly, though, DX11 users can now take advantage of the Ultra+ graphics preset, which is a huge boost compared to the original 2015 look of the game and provides a stunning visual experience in its own right, if one that does not include ray tracing.

Choose DX11 When:

As a matter of fact, for the majority of users who have less potent CPUs, it is quite common to get a higher framerate in 1080p, simply because of the lesser computational load required. However, if maximum FPS is your sole priority and one does not need fancy visual features such as Ray Tracing or upscaling technologies, then 1080p is the way to go.

Reasons To Choose DX12 For The Witcher 3

However, the DX12 version of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt opens the game to a whole new level of visual fidelity, mainly thanks to the implementation of ray tracing. Ray tracing is technology that emulates the real-life behavior of light in the environment. It allows much better reflection, shadow rendering, and ambient occlusion. Meanwhile, thanks to DX12, combined with technologies such as DLSS and FSR, it is now much easier to push frame rates much higher and improve the overall graphical quality.

However, all these good things come at the expense of quite significant performance. The settings that include heavy ray tracing can hit system resources particularly hard, making upscaling technologies all but required in order to play at playable frame rates. There's also a bug, never fixed, that prevents the use of both ray tracing and HairWorks at the same time, which leads to this…thoroughly unappealing brown-haired Geralt abomination:.

While the DX12 version offers an absolutely stunning visual experience, its heavy performance requirement also brings into play, along with the hair-related bug, which could still tilt their favor to the DX11 version. The latter gives up the ray tracing and upscaling for better hair rendering and potentially lower system requirements. In the end, either DX11 or DX12 will be dependent upon the respective priorities that one possesses and the hardware capabilities.

Choose DX12 When:

You want to see the real deal with ray tracing in your high-class PC. Though a playable framerate matters, you will be okay with some sacrifice on performance for visual quality. Since you have a resolution higher than 1080p, the GPU will be the main bottleneck, and that will make ray tracing all the more significant. As long as you have no maximum framerates, you do not mind the lack of HairWorks.

Final Verdict for The Witcher 3: DX11 vs. DX12

All told, and weighing up the pros and cons of both, DX11 is the way to go. You get virtually all of the upsides of DX12 without that gigantic CPU performance overhead. While the ray tracing in DX12 looks really nice, the performance hit it takes is still just too big for most systems. The upscaling technologies of DX12, while useful, are largely negated by a CPU bottleneck-the overall better choice being DX11.

As the 10-year anniversary for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt draws near, more updates may appear from its developer. Indeed, with how they have continuously supported this game with updates, it would not be surprising to see them fix outstanding issues to further enhance gamers' experiences.

Well, that's all you need to know about Should You Choose DX11 or DX12 in The Witcher 3?, so hopefully we've been as helpful as possible.