A free mod on Nexus Mods is reportedly offering a more practical way to run The Witcher 3 Remastered on PC with ray tracing and path tracing enabled, a useful prospect for a game Wccftech describes as especially demanding with its higher-end lighting features.
Wccftech reports that the Path Tracing and Ray Tracing Optimization mod by Hourlines is designed to improve performance with only limited visual compromise. In the mod description highlighted by the site, Hourlines describes it as a way to make the game’s RT and PT modes faster with minimal visual impact, chiefly by changing path tracing to use one light bounce instead of two and by lightening RTXGI behavior for ray tracing (Wccftech).
Reported gains are largest indoors
The biggest improvement appears to be tied to interior scenes. Wccftech says Hourlines shared test results from an RTX 5070 running at 1440p with DLSS Quality, with reported gains of about 10% outdoors in path tracing, about 30% indoors in path tracing, and about 5% to 8% in ray tracing (Wccftech).
That aligns with the mod’s stated focus. As summarized by Wccftech, the main path-tracing win comes from reducing the number of light bounces, with the strongest effect indoors, where path tracing is slowest in the first place (Wccftech).
What changes, and what doesn’t
The tradeoffs described in Wccftech’s report are fairly specific rather than sweeping. Hourlines reportedly says that with path tracing enabled, the darkest indoor corners become about 10% darker because less bounced light reaches them, while lit areas, candles and windows remain similar and outdoor brightness showed no measured difference. Under ray tracing, global illumination reportedly reacts a bit more slowly to lighting changes. The modder also says the in-game RTGI preset stops having any effect while the mod is installed (Wccftech).
One major bottleneck seemingly remains. Wccftech says ray-traced shadows — which it describes as the game’s most taxing ray-tracing setting — were effectively left alone because adjustments there produced only about a 1% performance gain. That means users still have to decide for themselves whether to leave that option on or disable it (Wccftech).
The settings Wccftech highlighted
Wccftech also published some of the values shared alongside the tweak, including and as part of the path-tracing adjustments (). In practice, those settings are meant to offset the visual hit from fewer effective light bounces while still reducing the rendering load enough to improve frame rates, especially in enclosed spaces.
