The Witcher 3 Remastered is out and, surprise, some people are struggling with poor performance on PC. The good news is that there are two workarounds that can potentially limit the load placed on your graphics card until CD Projekt Red releases further optimizations.
The first is a PSA from the studio itself which recommends turning of Nvidia’s Hairworks graphics technology. “We’ve identified an issue related to NVIDIA Hairworks that may significantly affect performance,” the official Witcher account announced on X on September 30. “We recommend disabling that setting until this is addressed in a patch.”
Same Geralt, three different hair settings.
You asked for all three, so I recorded this comparison in The Witcher 3 Remastered:
HairWorks OFF
HairWorks ON
HairWorks ON + Path Traced HairSide by side first, then each shown full-screen for a closer look. pic.twitter.com/SguSxdjeWU
— Nikfor | formerly AshenOne (@ItsNikfor) September 30, 2026
Easy enough! Coincidentally, this is a conclusion many players have already come to on their own. “Hairworks is absolutely f*cked, so that is turned off here,” one fan wrote on Reddit earlier today. “Bloom is also absolutely bugged and makes everything looking washed out.”
The second workaround requires a mod. It’s called “Path Tracing and Ray Tracing Optimization (Remastered)” and does exactly what it says on the tin. Modder HourLines claims efficiency gains of up to 30 percent in some places, though in the process, indoor spaces will get even darker and global illumination will react a bit more slowly to light changes.
Your mileage may vary, but until the first wave of big fixes come out from CDPR, these sound like two of the best options for boosting performance.
