Home Gaming The Witcher 3 is absolutely breathtaking in 4K

The Witcher 3 is absolutely breathtaking in 4K

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The Witcher 3 4K downsampled

Earlier this week Nvidia revealed the price of the Titan X, and it unsurprisingly rang in at a massive $999. Those are the types of single cards that you’d only really buy for 4K gaming, which is still far from a necessity. In fact, it’s difficult to find a game that makes a compelling case for a 4K upgrade – although The Witcher 3 is really testing my resolve.

Two brand new screenshots have emerged which show CD Project Red’s upcoming RPG epic running at a glorious 4K – with and without downsampling. There’s no word on what type of hardware the screenshots were captured with, but I wouldn’t expect anything less than something like a Titan X or R9 295X2 being able to run The Witcher 3 at anything close to stable.

And that’s what makes me so sad, because that means you’re looking at exuberantly expensive PCs just to try and replicate this. The game looks stunning at standard HD still, but if I had the chance to build a PC for this type of experience, I wouldn’t waste a second.

Better yet is that this is still short of The Witcher 3 at “Ultra” settings. CD Project Red are refusing to show off this highest graphical preset before launch, stating that they want it to be a surprise for those of us with capable PCs. I just hope it’s not something as ridiculously useless as Ubersampling in the Witcher 2, which ate graphics cards at the time for breakfast.

The Witcher 3 is out on May 19 for Xbox One, PS4 and PC. Check out both screenshots below (the first with downsampling)

Last Updated: March 19, 2015

75 Comments

  1. Kromas is drunk with power!

    March 19, 2015 at 10:42

    My age is showing. My eyesight is getting so bad I can’t tell the difference between HD and 4K anymore.

    Reply

    • Pariah

      March 19, 2015 at 10:47

      That’s because it’s downsized. You won’t be able to tell until you go full screen. Especially on a 4K screen, but in full HD (Full Screen) you should be able to notice the difference.

      The way it’s set up now though, it may as well have been rendered in HD, because at this res it’ll all look the same.

      Reply

      • Hammersteyn

        March 19, 2015 at 10:51

        For a $1000 there better be

        Reply

      • Kromas is drunk with power!

        March 19, 2015 at 10:54

        Should have added “:P”.

        My point is 4k is stupid and here is a chart why.

        Reply

        • ReaperOfSquirrels

          March 19, 2015 at 11:04

          So you need about an 80 Inch screen to get the full benefit of 4k at 5feet (1.5m) away…. LOL

          Reply

          • Kromas is drunk with power!

            March 19, 2015 at 11:08

            And remember it is for PC gaming soooo can you guess what a 80″ Gaming Monitor (2ms GtG latency) would cost? R250 000? R350 000?

            Ill stick with VR for now TYVM. 😛

          • Pariah

            March 19, 2015 at 11:13

            And so if you’re like my set up (around 3-4m away) – then you need a 90″ screen to get the benefit of HD… 4K is madness.

          • ReaperOfSquirrels

            March 19, 2015 at 11:16

            Lol! I use a 32inch TV as my PC screen running at 1080p and I’m barely 3m away.

          • Pariah

            March 19, 2015 at 11:18

            Yeah I have a 39″ TV that looks beautiful at 4m away. It’s full HD, but man do Blu Ray movies and games look pretty (PC games, of course). I tried it at my normal PC desk for a while, but having to move my head to see side to side got a bit much, and I did need lots of AA to kill those edges at that distance. (Roughly 0.5m)

        • Mossel

          March 19, 2015 at 11:52

          I sit about 30-40cm from 24″ my pc screen. So this means I will certainly be able to tell the difference. EDIT: But if I move a couple of cm back it’s all the same again. So instead of spending R10000 on a screen I can move my monitor 20cm back. xD

          Reply

        • Forc3ofWill

          March 19, 2015 at 11:59

          I’d love to read scientific definition of the word “noticable” that author of this graph used in his “study”. Because without it the only thing this screen can prove is that 80% of statistics are made up right on the spot and 97% of the people believe them.

          Most people can see the 100ppi difference on 4-5′ phone screen not to mention 20+ inch monitor. I’d encourage you to disregard this graph completely and just look at some 4k screens next time you’re shoping.

          Reply

          • Kromas is drunk with power!

            March 19, 2015 at 12:24

            Not going to argue here but I am fairly sure you can dig up the scientific method for that chart somewhere. It is fairy old but it should still hold up in the original article. Also there was an article in Dualshockers a while back that had people confused as to the difference between 720,900 and 1080p as they could not see any difference. It is all about eyesight,distance from monitor and monitor size and many many many articles agree with that statement. (google should verify that easily enough).

            Framerate has a much much more impact full effect (up to a point ofc) than resolution on a small (read below 40″) PC screen (ie 30cm-1m from average users face) .

            Edit: Okay I lied about not arguing. 😛

        • Darren Peach

          March 19, 2015 at 17:58

          I disagree with this chart completely. Utterly irrelevant. Let me explain, Have you seen HD and SD side by side ? The picture quality on HD is way more superior. The Picture is sharper and looks so gorgeous relative to SD. 1,920×1,080 = 2,073,600. Compare that to SD which is 720×576 which equals 414720. HD has four times the information when running in progressive and not interlace which would be considered HD ready. 4k is 4096 x 2160 which equates to 8847360 pixels. That is more than 4 times higher resolution than HD. If you theoretically had a 4k TV and looked at HD and 4k side by side. HD would look just as bad as Pal compared to HD. This chart is so wrong. Trust me. When you go to the movies you are watching 4k and you can see it.

          Reply

          • Darren Peach

            March 19, 2015 at 18:09

            Eight million eight hundred and forty seven thousand three hundred and sixty is going to look nicer than two million and seventy three thousand six hundred pixels. I thought writing it out would put it in perspective.

          • Kromas is drunk with power!

            March 20, 2015 at 01:50

            8 Billion sand granules near the sea will look like a beach. take 1 million away and still it would look like the exact same beach. Unless ofc you have supervision and can actually see granules from any distance.

          • Darren Peach

            March 20, 2015 at 13:24

            You have no Idea what you are talking about. Yes, from a distance you can’t see each individual grain of sand. But, All those tiny grains create a fractal variation that make up the beauty of the world we see. There is infinite visual information in real life. For all intents and purposes, It is impossible to capture that amount of information and begin to even come close to what you see in real life but…………..When you film something at 4k you are capturing waaaay more detail than if you film at HD.

        • Darren Peach

          March 19, 2015 at 18:28

          Another consideration is up-scaling. If you have a HD TV. HD native channels look good. But if you watch a SD channel on a HD TV it looks dodge. Example, Dstv has a handful of HD channels that looks vivid and crisp. Those channels are not even full HD. The amount of Bandwidth needed to broadcast full HD is impractical. Therefore you only get a 720 picture. If you rent a Blu ray from the Video shop, That`s when you get full HD. Getting back to SD, It upscales to match your televisions native resolution. In this process it loses sharpness and you immediately see blurring. and a somewhat faded picture with soft edges. So, Theoretically, If you had to upscale HD to 4k you would have the same problem. Native resolution is a factor. Content created at HD or SD will naturally look better on a TV with those respective native resolutions. So when you hear Developers talking about the magic HD, It means that their games are developed to run optimally at HD and when you get a bad PC port it looks crap. Why, Because the game was designed for that specific platform meaning all the textures, Models and whatever else is optimized for said platform. This begins to enlighten as to the enormity of the costs of building exclusive versions of the same game for PC’s and Consoles. Another reason next gen is still not truly next gen yet.

          Reply

          • Kromas is drunk with power!

            March 20, 2015 at 01:47

            I understand what you are saying but I disagree because you are making active comparisons between different size screens. Do yourself a favour and get a SD,HD and UHD clip (same clip btw) now put it on your phone and play it to people and ask them what version was the better one. Now do the same thing on say a 24″ screen and so forth and so on. People will only start seeing better quality as the screen size goes up or their distance from the screen changes. Humans unfortunately have limitations and this is one of them.

          • Darren Peach

            March 20, 2015 at 13:07

            I am looking at it purely from a traditional point of view, I game on a console and a TV. I would think it rather silly to have a 4k phone screen. Point is, When you talk about resolution it would be only ever be relevant on a relatively big screen. 42 and up. When UHD becomes the next standard, You will get what I am saying. When in your lounge, Sitting in front of a TV, The more information the TV is outputting purely from a resolution perspective, The better the image quality. There is physically more detail that is captured. You will be able to see the pores on peoples faces more clearly. There is a greater colour depth. Contrast is better. Gradient within the picture will be smoother, Less banding. The picture will be sharper and you will see more subtle details that would normally not be captured at lower resolutions. It is not even a debate. The picture is far greater at higher resolutions as long as you bear in mind that if you are using a UHD tv you are watching content captured at UHD.

        • Hailey

          March 19, 2015 at 18:48

          My tv is 98″ and I play from 7.5′ away.It’s a 4K 3D curved OLED.
          I do agree that 4k isn’t all that wonderful unless the tv is large and you’re close to it.
          I was at a friend’s and she has a 55″ 4k tv and is a little further away from it than mine, I think around 9′? Well it looks no better than 1080p to me from that distance.

          Reply

        • Hailey

          March 19, 2015 at 18:48

          My tv is 98″ and I play from 7.5′ away.It’s a 4K 3D curved OLED.
          I do agree that 4k isn’t all that wonderful unless the tv is large and you’re close to it.
          I was at a friend’s and she has a 55″ 4k tv and is a little further away from it than mine, I think around 9′? Well it looks no better than 1080p to me from that distance.

          Reply

          • Darren Peach

            March 20, 2015 at 12:44

            Does she have any 4k content ?

          • Hailey

            March 20, 2015 at 23:16

            Yes. Everything I watch is in 4K. 4K Netflix, currently.

          • Darren Peach

            March 21, 2015 at 10:27

            You are streaming UHD which means there is a high compression ratio to be feasible.

            http://www.trustedreviews.com/netflix-4k-ultra-hd-review

          • Darren Peach

            March 21, 2015 at 10:35

            http://bgr.com/2015/03/19/should-i-buy-a-4k-tv/
            Here is a reason that UHD is just not there yet.

          • Hailey

            March 22, 2015 at 14:44

            http://www.techradar.com/us/news/television/ultra-hd-everything-you-need-to-know-about-4k-tv-1048954

            So there you go. 4K is NEARLY the same as UHD. Regardless, I can always afford the best of everything, every time. That even goes for the home Imax theaters I have heard about. So it doesn’t matter to me what is truly best, cause I will always have the best that money can buy. This whole argument is now useless…I proved via link that UHD is extremely close to 4K and now I am done. Bye

          • Darren Peach

            March 23, 2015 at 13:07

            Yeah, You proved that you like to boast about how fortunate you are. What I felt I need not mention is the fact that I am a Vfx artist and it’s my business to understand this topic. Seeing as you are fortunate enough to buy anything, Maybe you should buy the Industry and make it bend to your will. Idiot.

          • Ryanza

            March 23, 2015 at 13:25

            You two are confusing me. I was in the shop the other day, saw they advertising 4k UHD tv’s.
            So let’s just get this straight. Will there be 4k tv’s with a resolution of 4096×2160? or will it tv’s just have 3840×2160?

            Is 4096×2160 just going to be a filming standard to get those black bars on the top and bottom for that “movie” experience?

            1920 times 2 and 1080 times 2. Four times HD = a 4k tv. Question is are they going to waste money on 4096×2160 tv’s? If not, then 4k = four times HD, UHD, for tv’s.

        • Hailey

          March 19, 2015 at 18:48

          My tv is 98″ and I play from 7.5′ away.It’s a 4K 3D curved OLED.
          I do agree that 4k isn’t all that wonderful unless the tv is large and you’re close to it.
          I was at a friend’s and she has a 55″ 4k tv and is a little further away from it than mine, I think around 9′? Well it looks no better than 1080p to me from that distance.

          Reply

    • Hammersteyn

      March 19, 2015 at 10:49

      Same here

      Reply

      • ReaperOfSquirrels

        March 19, 2015 at 10:56

        Yeah I have the same issue.

        Reply

    • RinceThis

      March 19, 2015 at 11:04

      Nor I 0_O

      Reply

    • Chaos Lord Norm

      March 19, 2015 at 11:10

      Same, so I call it 4KHD

      Reply

      • Kromas is drunk with power!

        March 19, 2015 at 11:13

        Actually 4K is known as Ultra HD or UHD to non-gamers (or I suppose console gamers 😛 )

        Reply

        • Pariah

          March 19, 2015 at 11:13

          UHD is in fact 2K, not 4K. Just saying.

          Reply

          • Chaos Lord Norm

            March 19, 2015 at 11:14

            My wallet could do with either 2K or 4K :<

          • Pariah

            March 19, 2015 at 11:14

            lel, you and me both XD

          • Kromas is drunk with power!

            March 19, 2015 at 11:16

            Crap you are right. Still won’t notice the difference. 😛

          • Pariah

            March 19, 2015 at 11:19

            Not even almost lol. XD There’s literally no point to it besides bragging rights.

        • Hailey

          March 19, 2015 at 18:44

          Idk if you look at Futureshop or Best Buy, they advertise these TV’s as 4k. I think the term 4k is mainstream knowledge, rather than Ultra HD or UHD. Or maybe I’m just more informed. Also, I am a PS4 only player, or have been so far. I’m buying a mega kick ass computer to play TW3 though! :3

          Reply

          • Kromas is drunk with power!

            March 20, 2015 at 01:51

            Yeah I was wrong UHD is actually 2K as someone pointed out.

          • Darren Peach

            March 20, 2015 at 13:39

            4k is film. UHD is the next standard in TV.

          • Hailey

            March 20, 2015 at 23:15

            Did you look at future shop? It applies to tvs apparently because they are selling them as 4K, not UHD.
            Also technically 4K isn’t really 4K anyways.

          • Darren Peach

            March 21, 2015 at 10:22

            Shops think consumers are stupid therefor they label UHD as 4k.

          • Hailey

            March 21, 2015 at 22:30

            The difference is there between 4K and UHD, but it is very, very small.

          • Darren Peach

            March 21, 2015 at 10:33

    • Sageville

      March 19, 2015 at 12:49

      If you can see the 4K awesomeness then you are in the 1% of all gamers….

      The other 99% of us frankly don’t give a metric shit.

      Reply

  2. Pariah

    March 19, 2015 at 10:49

    Ps, trying to download full res makes the API bug out. Need to refresh to try again.

    Reply

    • Pariah

      March 19, 2015 at 10:51

      The only way to see the full thing is to view on IMGUR, but I was wrong. Even at full HD you can’t see the difference. This will literally only matter if you have a 4K monitor.

      Reply

      • Hammersteyn

        March 19, 2015 at 10:53

      • Capt. Bob of the Blood Ravens

        March 19, 2015 at 10:54

        I tried the full screen image. The second screen shot seems to be clearer/sharper but that was the only difference I saw. No way I can afford a 4k setup. 1080p for me.

        Reply

  3. Dutch Matrix

    March 19, 2015 at 11:20

    How it will look on the average gamer’s PC

    http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ru/8/81/Quake_1_(screenshot_01).png

    Reply

    • Klipkop1980

      March 19, 2015 at 11:45

      This is probably still a better game.

      Reply

      • Brady miaau

        March 19, 2015 at 13:20

        Different is not equal to better

        Reply

        • Klipkop1980

          March 19, 2015 at 14:53

          That’s what (I wish) she said.

          Reply

  4. Klipkop1980

    March 19, 2015 at 11:47

    I spent 10 minutes flicking between the two images, then I realized that I opened the same image twice….then I realized they both look exactly the same.

    Reply

  5. Ryanza

    March 19, 2015 at 12:13

    I tend not to say anything in these Witcher articles anymore. Trying to keep the troll comments directed at me at bay. Only 2 months left till release day.

    Now I’m reading a few people saying that they can’t see the different between the 4k picture and HD.

    The difference does not come from just looking at the two pictures. It should look the same.

    The difference comes in how much farther you can zoom into the 4k picture and still see clearly. Before you see blocks, in other words.

    the pixels are closer together in 4k resolution. in other words:
    http://cdn.toucharcade.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Rubber-band-splay-1.jpg

    That’s the difference. So stop saying dumb shit like they look the same. Say clever shit like, I can zoom in farther.

    Don’t Support DRM. The Witcher 3 is coming.

    Reply

    • Pariah

      March 19, 2015 at 12:21

      Nobody zooms in to a game. And if there is zoom in game, it’s still rendering at HD or 4K, just displaying different pixels. What we’re saying is still valid, because unless you have a 40″ monitor, you won’t see the difference between HD and 4K.

      Reply

      • Ryanza

        March 19, 2015 at 13:40

        Download these 2 pictures and you can zoom in. That is what I was talking about. It’s the easiest and cheapest way, than testing out how 4k looks on a jumbo screen at say a football stadium.
        That’s the difference. 240p resolution on say your 40″ screen. 4k is beyond what the average gamer can afford. When we can play games on a massive screen seeing how these images are stretched out.

        So yes 4k is useless for these tiny 40″ screens we have. But that’s not really the point. Zoom into 4k pictures and see for yourself.

        Reply

        • Pariah

          March 19, 2015 at 13:44

          Great. So I’ll game in 4K just for the epic screenshots. Yeah, that’s going to make a difference to my gaming experience.

          #Genius.

          Reply

          • Ryanza

            March 19, 2015 at 13:49

            Did Lazygamer.net show us gaming experiences or 4k images. Take those 4k images and put them onto a 24″ monitor, it will look good. Take those 4k images and put them onto 500″ screen, then you might start seeing a difference because of the pixels being stretched out.

            But keep on turning it into idk what you trying to do here.

          • Pariah

            March 19, 2015 at 13:55

            I’m just speaking from a consumer standpoint. I don’t care how good the screenshots are. How does it look WHILE gaming? Because I’m a GAMER, not a SCREENSHOT TAKER.

            I’m not turning it into anything, I’m just standing by a gamer’s perspective. Which for the record, is 100% fine at HD.

            #Genius.

          • Ryanza

            March 19, 2015 at 14:08

            I wasn’t really talking about the point of view nor speaking bad about that point of view.

            Yes Witcher 3 will look fine on Xbox One with it’s 900p resolution. Oh you said HD. The Witcher 3 will look fine on the PS4 with it’s 1080p resolution.

            Yes 1080p is still the reality for God near everybody.
            But can’t we get excited for 4k on big ass screens. I know it won’t be a reality anytime soon.

          • Ryanza

            March 19, 2015 at 14:23

            And on that note. Is there 4k porn out yet, so I can zoom in and see the makeup covering the 1080p stretch marks.

      • Klipkop1980

        March 19, 2015 at 14:54

        Old people zoom in.

        Reply

    • Kromas is drunk with power!

      March 19, 2015 at 12:28

      I have stopped trolling you about the DRM thing ages ago (cause it was not funny anymore and I actually respect your opinion even though I do not share it) but your Zoom comment merits a response.

      Actually … no I can’t even…

      Reply

      • Ryanza

        March 19, 2015 at 13:45

        Yes I was talking about screen size and stretched images, not fucking zooming into a game. You can download two images and I was saying you can zoom into those two images, not zoom into the fucking game. I was saying that because of pixel count and stretched images. So when we finally can afford the wall to wall TV screens, 4k might not look that good all stretched out. But we not there yet. For now, zoom into those 4k pictures. It’s cheaper.

        Reply

    • Sageville

      March 19, 2015 at 12:59

      “You can zoom in farther”?

      How exactly is that statement relevant to games?

      Reply

      • Ryanza

        March 19, 2015 at 13:25

        Taking an image and putting it onto say a 24″ monitor and then putting that image onto a 300″ screen. Just an example.
        The closer the pixels, the better the image will look stretched out.

        Reply

        • Sageville

          March 19, 2015 at 17:50

          When I win the lotto I’ll give it a go….

          Reply

        • Sageville

          March 19, 2015 at 17:50

          When I win the lotto I’ll give it a go….

          Reply

    • Klipkop1980

      March 19, 2015 at 14:56

      If they made Minecraft in 4k, would the world implode?

      Reply

  6. Tbone187

    March 19, 2015 at 15:59

    Lets just say 4k’s pixels have pixels which has pixels… …. which has pixels but your eye can only see the biggest pixel. phew!

    Reply

  7. John Fak

    March 23, 2015 at 20:37

    breathtaking … not.
    That grass in incredible bad quality. Just because its 4K resolution doesn’t mean its nice.

    Yes I saw the big 4K image, not the small version. Still sucks.

    Reply

    • Ryanza

      March 23, 2015 at 21:02

      The Witcher 3 is full of content and will tell a good story with good voice actors and good dialog. The combat should be decent too. And you worried about fuckin grass.

      Reply

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