The Witcher 3 Currently Sucks

[Geralt unlocking fone]

Some parts of this guide are largely outdated now & the game has been receiving a lot of work, but the gist of the guide still solves the issue.

TL;DR: If your PC sucks, just switch to the Classic version.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is one amazing game, from 2015.
So why is it so fucking bloated now?

Even though the minimum requirements listed on the Steam page (as of 12.07.2026) are:

OS *: 64-bit Windows 7, 64-bit Windows 8 (8.1)
Processor: Intel CPU Core i5-2500K 3.3GHz / AMD A10-5800K APU (3.8GHz)
Memory: 6 GB RAM
Graphics: Nvidia GPU GeForce GTX 660 / AMD GPU Radeon HD 7870
DirectX: Version 11
Storage: 50 GB available space

And I'm running it on Void Linux, and it runs perfectly on Linux despite it not having a native Linux port. See the game's protondb page.

If it runs perfectly fine on Linux, like almost any other Windows game (without fuckass anticheats), then why am I complaining?

Because the performance was horrible, and it wasn't Linux's fault.

My specs are:

OS: Void Linux x86_64
Processor: Intel Core i5-4590 3.70GHz
Memory: 8 GB RAM (my Void + dwm setup consumes about 400MB~ on idle)
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6 GB
Storage: 512 GB HDD

Comparing mine to the minimum requirements, it should mean getting the game running with virtually no issues on medium/high settings.

But no. It literally crashed during the cutscene, then I lowered the settings and it crashed at the next cutscene. Then I lowered the settings even more, to the absolute minimum, and it looked like dogshit while barely running OK.

So, I wanted to figure out why it doesn't run well on my PC.
The latest version of the game is patch v4.0+, which has been out since December 2022, and guess what I found.

CD Projekt Red released an article a month ago (as of writing this) about the new minimum system requirements for v4.0+.

Wanna guess how absurd they are?

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 2600, Intel Core i5-8400
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660, AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT 8GB
VRAM: 6 GB
RAM: 12 GB
Storage: 70 GB SSD
OS: 64-bit Windows 11

Like WOAH! This is even crazier than the recommended requirements listed on the Steam page! Why haven't they updated the system requirements on the Steam page??? Because for a moment I thought I couldn't run a game from 2015 on Linux.

Now, if you have a 400MB~ RAM OS and one that idles at 3-5GB RAM or more (Windows), with 8GB RAM for your system, it's obviously going to run better with the 400MB~ RAM OS.

Also, about the SSD part...

HDDs will no longer be supported, as SSDs offer faster load times, smoother asset streaming, and improved overall performance.

What the fuck? HDDs are not good enough for gaming anymore?
This doesn't mean that HDDs won't work at all, but it means that there'll be no code optimization for HDDs.

The reason why the system requirements on the Steam page are much more reasonable, is because they are the minimum requirements for the Classic version, v1.32. You could argue they're technically correct to keep them that way in this case.

v4.0 is known as the "Next-Gen" update, because the underlying engine was heavily rewritten.
v1.32 is the original, perfectly optimized 2015 version.

On the last CD Projekt Red article that was mentioned, at the bottom it says:

Please note that it's possible to revert to an earlier version of the game, see how to do it here.

At least they give you a guide on how to revert to an older version.
But it actually isn't even correct... So, for Steam users:

  1. Go to your Steam Library.
  2. Right-click on The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and select Properties.
  3. Go to "Game Versions & Betas" and select "classic".
    The game will update automatically.

To return to the newest version of the game, simply follow the same steps and select "Default Public Version".

If you're gaming on Linux, first make sure your Proton version is 8.0-5, or 7.0-6, either will work well, but you might wanna go with 8.0-5 first, and switch to 7.0-6 if it's not running the best. Maybe your hardware could be on the older end of the minimum requirements?

Just to be sure, or if you have other games you use other, newer or older, Proton versions for, you need to:

  1. Right-click The Witcher 3 in your Steam library and select "Properties".
  2. Go to the "Compatibility" tab and enable "Force the use of a specific Steam Play compatibility tool".
  3. Then select the Proton version you want.

Now you can actually play The Witcher 3 on a machine from 2015 or whenever.

[The Witcher 3 Benchmark Screenshot]