'The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt' Gets Second Patch, Fixes Graphics And Keyboard Controls

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By Rexly Peñaflorida
published

Only a few days after launch, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt already has two patches under its belt. The first one was a day-one patch that users had to install after downloading the initial game to actually play it. The second patch brings the game to version 1.03. We didn't run into any big issues during our time with the game, but it seems that a few changes are still needed.

The latest update includes 17 changes to the game. Aside from further stabilizing gameplay and the UI, there are graphical fixes including an improvement to Nvidia HairWorks performance and a correction on grass and foliage popping after settings were changed on foliage density. One of the more notable changes is an improved response in keyboard controls. The game seems to be better suited for a controller, but some players still prefer the traditional mouse and keyboard, and this latest patch makes the keyboard controls more tolerable. More details on the latest patch are listed below.

Improved stability in gameplay and the UI.Improved performance, especially in cutscenes and gameplay.Fixed grass and foliage popping that could occur after density parameters were changed.Improved Nvidia Hairworks performance.Boosted texture anisotropy sampling to 16x on Ultra preset.Sharpened post-process settings extended from Off/On to Off/Low/High.Blood particles will now properly appear after killing enemies on the water.Corrected a bug where player was able to shoot bolts at friendly NPCs.Improved menu handling.Corrected an issue with Stamina regeneration while sprinting.Fixed a cursor lock issue that sometimes occurred when scrolling the map.Generally improved world map focus.Improved input responsiveness when using keyboard.Corrected some missing translations in the UI.Corrected an issue in dialogue selections.Rostan Muggs is back.Minor SFX improvements.

Unbeknownst to most players, the day-one patch was full to the brim with upgrades, containing 600 fixes to the game. There might be more updates in the future, but hopefully none of that magnitude. In fact, patch 1.03 seems to be more about issues found after release. As always, players can report bugs and other issues on the game's technical support forum.

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Rexly Peñaflorida
8 Comments Comment from the forums
  • tomc100
    You can enable hairworks on AMD gpu without a major performance hit or stability issues by opening CCC, create a new profile for the witcher 3 executable. Turn on application forced tesselation and set it to either 4x or 8x depending on your system. Save, and done.

    http://wccftech.com/witcher-3-run-hairworks-amd-gpus-crippling-performance/
    Reply
  • Merry_Blind
    You can enable hairworks on AMD gpu without a major performance hit or stability issues by opening CCC, create a new profile for the witcher 3 executable. Turn on application forced tesselation and set it to either 4x or 8x depending on your system. Save, and done.

    http://wccftech.com/witcher-3-run-hairworks-amd-gpus-crippling-performance/

    You can also lower the MSAA level on hair. It's at 8xMSAA by default. As for tessellation, from pictures I've seen, I wouldn't recommend setting it at anything lower than 8x as it completely messes up the hair and at that point you're just better with HairWorks entirely off.

    8xTessellation + 4xMSAA should work great for most people.
    Reply
  • agentbb007
    I was crashing like crazy but last night shut down MSI Afterburner and haven't crashed since.
    Reply
  • beetlejuicegr
    strangely enough, although i have a semi damaged r9 290 thati spent months of making it work properly, black screens and game crashes down to 1 crash per week, in Witcher 3 i have had no crashes . even with everything in ultra.
    Reply
  • GObonzo
    did not "fix" the keyboard issues.
    you can rebind the locked options from the menu now but it does not entirely work. you still have to use the default keys to close any of those menus you open or navigate through them. also a few of the actions, though rebound, still require the default button to function in-game. a terrible idea by CdProjektRed for both Witcher 2 & 3 to hardbind important functions to awkward keys.
    Reply
  • beetlejuicegr
    i refuse to play an rpg game with gamepad, i am ok-ish with keyboard/mouse atm in the game. will keep going like this
    Reply
  • Merry_Blind
    15961055 said:
    i refuse to play an rpg game with gamepad, i am ok-ish with keyboard/mouse atm in the game. will keep going like this

    Why?... some games play better on a gamepad and others play better on mouse and keyboard.
    Reply
  • GObonzo
    15968372 said:
    15961055 said:
    i refuse to play an rpg game with gamepad, i am ok-ish with keyboard/mouse atm in the game. will keep going like this
    Why?... some games play better on a gamepad and others play better on mouse and keyboard.
    there are some console ports and others that still work better with gamepad. Dark Souls, Assassin's Creeds, and a few other action games i've played. but if they're correctly designed for PC the key\mouse controls and options are always better for me.
    nothing bothers me more in games than playing with a gamepad and having to give up control of the camera to do most actions. that is the worst design i've ever encountered for controls.
    Reply