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[Lunatic_Gamer]

The version tested was 4.00. Default video options were used.

Timestamps:
00:00 - Ray Tracing Mode and Xbox Series S Quality Mode
07:54 - Performance Mode

Xbox Series S in quality mode uses a dynamic resolution with the highest resolution found being 2560x1440 and the lowest resolution found being approximately 1536x864. Pixel counts at 1536x864 appear to be rare. Xbox Series S in quality mode seems to be using FSR 2.1 to reconstruct a 2560x1440 resolution when rendering below this resolution.

PS5 in raytracing mode uses a dynamic resolution with the highest resolution found being approximately 2880x1620 and the lowest resolution found being 1920x1080. PS5 appears to often render at or near 1920x1080 in raytracing mode. PS5 in raytracing mode seems to be using FSR 2.1 to reconstruct a 3200x1800 resolution.

Xbox Series X in raytracing mode uses a dynamic resolution with the highest resolution found being 3200x1800 and the lowest resolution found being 1920x1080. Xbox Series X in raytracing mode appears to render at 1920x1080 less often than PS5 does and the native rendering resolution seems to rarely reach 3200x1800. Xbox Series X in raytracing mode seems to be using FSR 2.1 to reconstruct a 3200x1800 resolution when rendering below this resolution.

Xbox Series S in performance mode uses a dynamic resolution with the highest resolution found being 1920x1080 and the lowest resolution found being 1600x900. Xbox Series S in performance mode seems to be using a form of temporal upsampling to reconstruct a 2560x1440 resolution. The temporal upsampling used in performance mode isn't as effective as FSR 2.1 used in quality mode.

PS5 in performance mode uses a dynamic resolution with the highest resolution found being 3200x1800 and the lowest resolution found being 2048x1152. PS5 in performance mode seems to be using FSR 2.1 to reconstruct a 3200x1800 resolution when rendering below this resolution.

Xbox Series X in performance mode uses a dynamic resolution with the highest resolution found being 3200x1800 and the lowest resolution found being 2048x1152. Xbox Series X in performance mode appears to render at 3200x1800 more often than PS5 does. Xbox Series X in performance mode seems to be using FSR 2.1 to reconstruct a 3200x1800 resolution when rendering below this resolution.

Ray Tracing Mode adds a form of ray traced global illumination and ray traced ambient occlusion. Ray tracing mode also has an improved form of screen space reflections.

Xbox Series S in performance mode has a reduced foliage visibility range compared to quality mode and the other two consoles. Some trees in the very far distance aren't visible on PS5 even though they are visible on the Xbox Series consoles in both modes https://bit.ly/3GilF1N After completing this comparison and playing the Xbox One X version, the trees in the far distance also disappeared from the Xbox Series version of the game https://bit.ly/3GhUnZh

The current gen versions of The Witcher 3 have some graphical improvements compared to the last gen consoles. Comparing PS5 in performance mode to PS4 Pro, PS5 has improvements to: foliage, shadows, anti-aliasing, LOD, NPC density and texture quality https://bit.ly/3YSjDNk

There is a bug on Xbox Series X where the foliage visibility range gets set to the setting used on Series S in performance mode https://bit.ly/3C0FYya To fix this, start the game on Xbox Series S and switch the graphics mode to quality mode.

Performance seems to degrade during an extended play session and performance can vary somewhat run-to-run.

The scenes tested here aren't exactly the same as previous tests of The Witcher 3.

Platforms	PS5 RT Mode	Series X RT Mode	Series S Quality Mode
Frame Amounts
Game Frames	13166	13759	14091
Video Frames	28360	28361	28360
Frame Tearing Statistics
Total Torn Frames	0	143	15
Lowest Torn Line	-	71	67
Frame Height	2160	2160	2160
Frame Time Statistics
Mean Frame Time	35.9ms	34.35ms	33.54ms
Median Frame Time	33.33ms	33.33ms	33.33ms
Maximum Frame Time	200ms	116.67ms	66.67ms
Minimum Frame Time	33.33ms	33.11ms	33.33ms
95th Percentile Frame Time	50ms	50ms	33.33ms
99th Percentile Frame Time	50ms	50ms	50ms
Frame Rate Statistics
Mean Frame Rate	27.86fps	29.11fps	29.81fps
Median Frame Rate	28fps	30fps	30fps
Maximum Frame Rate	30fps	30fps	30fps
Minimum Frame Rate	19fps	21fps	24fps
5th Percentile Frame Rate	24fps	26fps	29fps
1st Percentile Frame Rate	23fps	24fps	25fps
Frame Time Counts
16.67ms-33.33ms	0 (0%)	8 (0.06%)	0 (0%)
33.33ms	11150 (84.69%)	12780 (92.88%)	13900 (98.64%)
33.33ms-50ms	0 (0%)	264 (1.92%)	28 (0.2%)
50ms	2014 (15.3%)	704 (5.12%)	162 (1.15%)
50ms-66.67ms	0 (0%)	1 (0.01%)	0 (0%)
66.67ms	0 (0%)	0 (0%)	1 (0.01%)
100ms	1 (0.01%)	1 (0.01%)	0 (0%)
116.67ms	0 (0%)	1 (0.01%)	0 (0%)
200ms	1 (0.01%)	0 (0%)	0 (0%)

Platforms	PS5 Perf Mode	Series X Perf Mode	Series S Perf Mode
Frame Amounts
Game Frames	28186	28039	27520
Video Frames	28359	28359	28358
Frame Tearing Statistics
Total Torn Frames	0	68	262
Lowest Torn Line	-	71	100
Frame Height	2160	2160	2160
Frame Time Statistics
Mean Frame Time	16.77ms	16.86ms	17.17ms
Median Frame Time	16.67ms	16.67ms	16.67ms
Maximum Frame Time	200ms	100ms	83.33ms
Minimum Frame Time	16.67ms	16.37ms	16.13ms
95th Percentile Frame Time	16.67ms	16.67ms	16.67ms
99th Percentile Frame Time	16.67ms	33.04ms	33.33ms
Frame Rate Statistics
Mean Frame Rate	59.63fps	59.32fps	58.23fps
Median Frame Rate	60fps	60fps	60fps
Maximum Frame Rate	60fps	60fps	60fps
Minimum Frame Rate	43fps	44fps	44fps
5th Percentile Frame Rate	57fps	54fps	51fps
1st Percentile Frame Rate	54fps	49fps	48fps
Frame Time Counts
0ms-16.67ms	0 (0%)	3 (0.01%)	16 (0.06%)
16.67ms	28026 (99.43%)	27653 (98.62%)	26420 (96%)
16.67ms-33.33ms	0 (0%)	128 (0.46%)	463 (1.68%)
33.33ms	158 (0.56%)	253 (0.9%)	619 (2.25%)
50ms	0 (0%)	1 (0%)	1 (0%)
83.33ms	1 (0%)	0 (0%)	1 (0%)
100ms	0 (0%)	1 (0%)	0 (0%)
200ms	1 (0%)	0 (0%)	0 (0%)

 

[DonF]

Summary?

 

[Zathalus]

Nice to get confirmation that the reduced foliage thing is a bug that can be easily fixed.

Otherwise RT mode has higher resolution and better performance on the Series X while performance mode has higher resolution on the Series X while performing better on the PS5.

Basically performance mode is near identical on both consoles while RT mode does have a notable edge on the Series X.

 

[Kenneth Haight]

 

[01011001]

Summary?

big res benefit on Series X, but the foliage draw distance was mistakenly set to Series S settings it seems, which might explain the resolution advantage

 

[DenchDeckard]

Series x with a quite large resolution benefit and framerate advantage in RT mode.

Slower and wider must benefit this game.

 

[sncvsrtoip]

The version tested was 4.00. Default video options were used.

Timestamps:
00:00 - Ray Tracing Mode and Xbox Series S Quality Mode
07:54 - Performance Mode

Xbox Series S in quality mode uses a dynamic resolution with the highest resolution found being 2560x1440 and the lowest resolution found being approximately 1536x864. Pixel counts at 1536x864 appear to be rare. Xbox Series S in quality mode seems to be using FSR 2.1 to reconstruct a 2560x1440 resolution when rendering below this resolution.

PS5 in raytracing mode uses a dynamic resolution with the highest resolution found being approximately 2880x1620 and the lowest resolution found being 1920x1080. PS5 appears to often render at or near 1920x1080 in raytracing mode. PS5 in raytracing mode seems to be using FSR 2.1 to reconstruct a 3200x1800 resolution.

Xbox Series X in raytracing mode uses a dynamic resolution with the highest resolution found being 3200x1800 and the lowest resolution found being 1920x1080. Xbox Series X in raytracing mode appears to render at 1920x1080 less often than PS5 does and the native rendering resolution seems to rarely reach 3200x1800. Xbox Series X in raytracing mode seems to be using FSR 2.1 to reconstruct a 3200x1800 resolution when rendering below this resolution.

Xbox Series S in performance mode uses a dynamic resolution with the highest resolution found being 1920x1080 and the lowest resolution found being 1600x900. Xbox Series S in performance mode seems to be using a form of temporal upsampling to reconstruct a 2560x1440 resolution. The temporal upsampling used in performance mode isn't as effective as FSR 2.1 used in quality mode.

PS5 in performance mode uses a dynamic resolution with the highest resolution found being 3200x1800 and the lowest resolution found being 2048x1152. PS5 in performance mode seems to be using FSR 2.1 to reconstruct a 3200x1800 resolution when rendering below this resolution.

Xbox Series X in performance mode uses a dynamic resolution with the highest resolution found being 3200x1800 and the lowest resolution found being 2048x1152. Xbox Series X in performance mode appears to render at 3200x1800 more often than PS5 does. Xbox Series X in performance mode seems to be using FSR 2.1 to reconstruct a 3200x1800 resolution when rendering below this resolution.

Ray Tracing Mode adds a form of ray traced global illumination and ray traced ambient occlusion. Ray tracing mode also has an improved form of screen space reflections.

Xbox Series S in performance mode has a reduced foliage visibility range compared to quality mode and the other two consoles. Some trees in the very far distance aren't visible on PS5 even though they are visible on the Xbox Series consoles in both modes https://bit.ly/3GilF1N After completing this comparison and playing the Xbox One X version, the trees in the far distance also disappeared from the Xbox Series version of the game https://bit.ly/3GhUnZh

The current gen versions of The Witcher 3 have some graphical improvements compared to the last gen consoles. Comparing PS5 in performance mode to PS4 Pro, PS5 has improvements to: foliage, shadows, anti-aliasing, LOD, NPC density and texture quality https://bit.ly/3YSjDNk

There is a bug on Xbox Series X where the foliage visibility range gets set to the setting used on Series S in performance mode https://bit.ly/3C0FYya To fix this, start the game on Xbox Series S and switch the graphics mode to quality mode.

Performance seems to degrade during an extended play session and performance can vary somewhat run-to-run.

The scenes tested here aren't exactly the same as previous tests of The Witcher 3.

Platforms	PS5 RT Mode	Series X RT Mode	Series S Quality Mode
Frame Amounts
Game Frames	13166	13759	14091
Video Frames	28360	28361	28360
Frame Tearing Statistics
Total Torn Frames	0	143	15
Lowest Torn Line	-	71	67
Frame Height	2160	2160	2160
Frame Time Statistics
Mean Frame Time	35.9ms	34.35ms	33.54ms
Median Frame Time	33.33ms	33.33ms	33.33ms
Maximum Frame Time	200ms	116.67ms	66.67ms
Minimum Frame Time	33.33ms	33.11ms	33.33ms
95th Percentile Frame Time	50ms	50ms	33.33ms
99th Percentile Frame Time	50ms	50ms	50ms
Frame Rate Statistics
Mean Frame Rate	27.86fps	29.11fps	29.81fps
Median Frame Rate	28fps	30fps	30fps
Maximum Frame Rate	30fps	30fps	30fps
Minimum Frame Rate	19fps	21fps	24fps
5th Percentile Frame Rate	24fps	26fps	29fps
1st Percentile Frame Rate	23fps	24fps	25fps
Frame Time Counts
16.67ms-33.33ms	0 (0%)	8 (0.06%)	0 (0%)
33.33ms	11150 (84.69%)	12780 (92.88%)	13900 (98.64%)
33.33ms-50ms	0 (0%)	264 (1.92%)	28 (0.2%)
50ms	2014 (15.3%)	704 (5.12%)	162 (1.15%)
50ms-66.67ms	0 (0%)	1 (0.01%)	0 (0%)
66.67ms	0 (0%)	0 (0%)	1 (0.01%)
100ms	1 (0.01%)	1 (0.01%)	0 (0%)
116.67ms	0 (0%)	1 (0.01%)	0 (0%)
200ms	1 (0.01%)	0 (0%)	0 (0%)

There are also perf mode stats btw

 

[M1chl]

More or less it needs a patch, the 30 FPS is the most unplayable shit, I have ever encounter. It might actually run close to 30FPS, but there is something, which makes it weird and it is really hard to explain. You just don't want to play it like that.

 

[adamsapple]

 

[Neo_game]

I think devs should go back to fixed resolution and optimize their game instead there is no reason why they can't achieve fixed fps. If they want to use dynamic resolution then at least reduce the differences between lower and upper bound resolution considerably within 25% of each other at the worst. What is the point if looking at sky or nothing on screen it runs higher res but in most gameplay condition it is 1080P or something.

 

[Thebonehead]

Consoles + Ray tracing = 30fps

From memory only a few titles have reached 60fps on console: Spiderman and Metro Exodus

Still I guess it leaves the door open to revisit this in 2027 when the next gen consoles drop and ray tracing is hopefully a bit more performant on the AMD side.

 

[Gaiff]

I think devs should go back to fixed resolution and optimize their game instead there is no reason why they can't achieve fixed fps. If they want to use dynamic resolution then at least reduce the differences between lower and upper bound resolution considerably within 25% of each other at the worst. What is the point if looking at sky or nothing on screen it runs higher res but in most gameplay condition it is 1080P or something.

My guess is these are CPU-related drops. The DRS can still kick in even for CPU-related drops.

I think this is a similar situation to Gotham Knights where RT just hammers one or two threads and leaves the others practically on idle. You end up in a situation where it is impossible to lock to even 30fps no matter. Not much difference from PC where even with a 13900K, you'll still see sub 60fps drops. This is what happens when your game is heavily single-threaded and I don't think the console version is very different.

As for the thread, yeah, it's bad on both the PS5 and SX. Stick to performance mode. Not only is the fps bad, but the latency and jaggy camera exacerbate the problem. It's not a good experience at all.

 

[01011001]

I think devs should go back to fixed resolution and optimize their game instead there is no reason why they can't achieve fixed fps. If they want to use dynamic resolution then at least reduce the differences between lower and upper bound resolution considerably within 25% of each other at the worst. What is the point if looking at sky or nothing on screen it runs higher res but in most gameplay condition it is 1080P or something.

the game is terribly low threaded on the CPU, so the dynamic res is most likely working perfectly fine but it's the CPU that's acting up.

 

[adamsapple]

Consoles + Ray tracing = 30fps

Good thing there's the much superior performance mode right ?

Besides RT, all the Ultra and Ultra+ equivalent settings also transfer to the Performance mdoe.

It's the way to go. And for anyone experiencing the foliage bug, on Xbox at least VGTech have the solution to fix it too.

 

[Arioco]

Consoles + Ray tracing = 30fps

From memory only a few titles have reached 60fps on console: Spiderman and Metro Exodus

And Ratchet.

 

[adamsapple]

And Ratchet.

And Resident Evil: Village, Doom Eternal, DMC 5 Special Edition, RE2, 3 and VII. Watch Dogs: Legion also added a 60 FPS mode but I'm not sure if it retained RT or not.

Capcom are pushing RT more than any other dev.

 

[Thirty7ven]

Is there a requirement for PS5 versions to have v sync?

 

[Del_X]

Torn frames on Xbox or stuttering on ps5.

 

[adamsapple]

Series x with a quite large resolution benefit and framerate advantage in RT mode.

Slower and wider must benefit this game.

I'm surprised the PS5 version has a near 10% drop in 33.33 ms consistency, the DF and NXG videos made it seem they were about the same.

Series S also holding its own like a champ, sans RT.

 

[ManaByte]

Series S also holding its own like a champ, sans RT.

Been playing exclusively on a Series S for the last few days and I love the little thing. GAF's hate for it is bizarre.

 

[skit_data]

That 99.43% in performance mode doesn’t seem entirely representative.
Using witcher sense in Novigrad is definitely not 60fps on PS5, the framerate slows to a crawl in some areas with a lot of NPCs and objects. At times there are noticable frame drops outside of citites as well (I think that’s loading related though).

Series X also has frame drops mentioned above?

 

[adamsapple]

That 99.43% in performance mode doesn’t seem entirely representative.
Using witcher sense in Novigrad is definitely not 60fps on PS5, the framerate slows to a crawl in some areas with a lot of NPCs and objects. At times there are noticable frame drops outside of citites as well (I think that’s loading related though).

Series X also has frame drops mentioned above?

I'm sure SX has the same drops, if not worse, in the performance mode in Novigrad stress areas, we've seen that in the DF and NXGamer videos.

That Novigrad stress areas even buckles on 12900K equipped PCs, so the poor console CPUs are gonna strain there too.

 

[Arioco]

That 99.43% in performance mode doesn’t seem entirely representative.
Using witcher sense in Novigrad is definitely not 60fps on PS5, the framerate slows to a crawl in some areas with a lot of NPCs and objects. At times there are noticable frame drops outside of citites as well (I think that’s loading related though).

Series X also has frame drops mentioned above?

No idea about Series X, but on PS5 using witcher senses in the middle of any big city makes the frame rate tank, I'm not sure why, I mean, it's not like it adds lots of heavy effects or anything like that, maybe it's just a bug or something CPU related. And it must be dropping well below 48 fps since not even VRR can save it, unfortunately there is no LFC for this game on PS5. On Series X since you can always force LFC at system level and its VRR range is wider (40fps vs 48) you would expect the game to run smoother if you play on a VRR compatible display, it might even help in RT Mode to a certain degree, since the game doesn't drop below 20 fps as far as I know.

But fortunately this is an exception and the game runs generally well in Performance Mode I must say.