Witcher 3 Remastered: RTX 5080 Struggles With Path Tracing

The Witcher 3 Remastered's path tracing mode brings even an RTX 5080 to its knees, averaging just 30 fps at 4K. Here's what you need to know before playing.

Think your RTX 5080 can handle The Witcher 3 Remastered with path tracing? Think again. According to new system requirements and hands-on testing, even Nvidia's penultimate GPU struggles to hit 60 fps without frame generation.

The Witcher 3 Remastered launches tomorrow, September 29, as a free update on PC, PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch 2. It brings a host of improvements, but if you want to max out the game with path tracing at 4K, you'll need an RTX 5080—which costs around $1,650. And even then, you'll need both DLSS upscaling and frame generation to reach 60 fps.

In a test run through Novigrad, the RTX 5080 averaged just 30 fps at 4K with everything enabled, including path tracing and hairworks, and DLSS set to Performance. Turning on frame generation bumped it to 59 fps, but the low base frame rate caused noticeable artifacts, especially in ground textures. Hairworks has always been a performance killer in The Witcher 3, so disabling it helps—but even then, the 5080 only manages 44 fps on average, which jumps to 80 fps with frame gen.

The best way to get smooth performance without buying an RTX 5090 is to disable path tracing entirely. With path tracing off, the RTX 5080 hits 55 fps in Novigrad, a notoriously demanding area since 2015. You can also disable other ray tracing effects to further improve performance.

Luckily, the updated system requirements suggest the game will scale down well to lower hardware. It's just a matter of which settings you're willing to turn off. Still, it stings to play an 11-year-old game on one of the most expensive graphics cards and not be able to max everything out at a good frame rate.

For more on The Witcher 3 Remastered, check out our roundup of all the improvements and global release times. And to ease you into Geralt's life on the road, don't miss the things The Witcher 3 doesn't tell you, plus our walkthrough and endings guide. When you're ready for tough choices, our sex and romance guide has you covered. And to make Geralt as strong as possible, check out all the Witcher gear locations, Places of Power, and Gwent card locations.

Will you be picking up The Witcher 3 Remastered, or are you waiting for a GPU upgrade first? Let us know in the comments!