The Witcher 3 Bug Fix Guide And Tweak Tips For Optimum Gameplay And Performance

Open-world games, performance issues, and bizarre bugs go together like bread and butter, so it was little surprise when TheWitcher 3: Wild Hunt arrived this week with its fair share of problems. While by no means on the scale of Assassin's Creed Unity's lunacy, there are a few teething issues for those both trying to get The Witcher 3 up and running, and those wanting to tweak gameplay settings.

Here we've rounded up some of the most common issues you might face while trying to play The Witcher 3, including problems launching the game, changing those pesky keybindings, and even a few tips and tricks for Geralt's dodgy movement mechanics. 

The Witcher 3 Won’t Launch In GOG Galaxy

If you’ve spent all that time downloading The Witcher 3 and the play button is greyed out  in GOG Galaxy, then don’t worry, there is a solution. First of all, head on over to GOG.com. Login to your account here and open up your Library. Find The Witcher 3 and manually download the day one patch. It’s about 200MB or so, and once it’s done give it an install. Then restart your PC and log back into GOG Galaxy. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt should be playable now.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Will Not Start

Some users are experiencing problems whereby The Witcher 3 crashes after launch or will not respond. If The Witcher III: Wild Hunt isn’t responding then you need to ensure you have the latest graphics drivers for your graphics card. In fact, regardless of problems, if you’re playing The Witcher 3 then you’re going to have a far better experience with the latest drivers installed, including greater frame rates.

For Nvidia The Witcher 3 graphics cards drivers needed are GeForce 352.86.
For AMD the The Witcher 3 graphics cards drivers needed are Catalyst Omega 14.12. 

Radeon users, if you're looking for some further performance boosts, AMD is planning to release its dedicated Witcher 3: Wild Hunt drivers some time this week. 

Geralt's Bad Walking Mechanics In The Witcher 3 Fix

If, like a huge amount of folks out there, you find moving Geralt a bit of a chore, then there are few changes that can help out. While walking or running Geralt has a tendency to walk a good few extra steps before coming to stop, making it difficult to line him up with herbs or even get through doors sometimes. 

First things first, you may not have realised this but there is a toggleable walk button for Geralt. By default it's bound to Ctrl, and tapping this will give you a little bit more control over Geralt's movement. 

Secondly there's a fix for that juddery camera which can make orienting yourself a pain. In The Witcher 3's options, head to Menu>Options>Video> scroll to the bottom and ensure 'Hardware Cursor' is checked. 

The Witcher 3 Is Crashing To Desktop

Few things are as annoying as crashing to desktop, particularly with a game like The Witcher 3, which seems to loath autosaving. If you're having this problem then there's a simple fix which should work for most - set display mode to Windowed Fullscreen in The Witcher 3's graphics options settings. 

How to change keybindings in The Witcher 3

For some reason CD Projekt RED through it best to lock keybindings down by default in The Witcher 3. There's no options in the menus to change them, but you can still rebind them using the ini file. This can be found in your documents inside a folder called The Witcher 3, typically at   located 'C:\Users\USERNAME\Documents\The Witcher 3'. In here you'll find the 'input.settings' file. Now you've found it, before you do anything, make a copy. Just copy and paste a second version of it with a new name, as back up. Should anything go wrong with your settings, rename the backup file input.settings and you'll be back to normal.

Once that's done, you'll need to open it up with a text editor, just something basic like Notepad will do. Inside you'll see all of the key bindings. They're all pretty self-explanatory, like BASE_ATTACK_HEAVY and BASE_ATTACK_LIGHT. Underneath is written something like 'IK_LeftMouse=(Action=AttackWithAlternateLight)', for example. To change light attacks from the left mouse button to say, P, you would change the line to IK_P=(Action=AttackWithAlternateLight). If you're unsure what various buttons are called, you can find them all covered here, including gamepad setups. 

Once done, save the input.settings ini file and load up The Witcher 3 to test your new setup out. 

The Witcher 3 Ini Graphics Tweaks

We put up a full guide to The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt PC Ini config visual tweaks, which you can check out here. This includes a number of graphical changes to alter the visual settings both above Ultra, for those with beefy rigs, and below Low, if you're having trouble running The Witcher 3.

Cut-Scenes in The Witcher 3 Aren't Playing

Some users with undermined systems are reporting pre-rendered cut-scenes aren't playing in The Witcher 3; the screen is frozen and only the audio is being played. To fix this, head to the graphics options and set Lighting to Low. This should now ensure cut-scenes are rendered correctly.