The Witcher 3 HDR Patch Sacrifices Visuals For Performance

CD Projekt Red’s third-person open-world adventure, The Witcher 3 has just received a new patch that allows the PS4 and PS4 Pro to be compatible with HDR TVs. While the deployed patch works perfectly to enable HDR, the game suffers from some graphical downgrades in favour of higher performance.

According to EuroGamer in 4K mode, the game’s draw distances for both shadows and foliage for trees and plants have reduced, and as a result, some players are experiencing these parts of the environment to pop in as you walk closer (almost as if the grass is growing a few metres ahead)

That being said, when playing in 1080p mode, none of these issues occurred and performance was allegedly even better. Regions like Crookback Bog now run at 30fps. Strangely enough, the Xbox One and Xbox One X has also received the HDR patch – but haven’t come across the same issues. So far CD Projekt Red hasn’t responded to the issues yet, but we should expect a patch soon.

The Witcher 3 is out now for PC, PS4 and Xbox One.