RefinedPT Optimized Path Tracing Performance (Remastered Compatible)

RefinedPT - Optimized Path Tracing Performance

Created and tested by Refined.

DESCRIPTION

I made RefinedPT specifically for the DX12 Path Tracing renderer in The Witcher 3 Remastered.

During testing I found that the second normal-geometry Path Tracing bounce was one of the biggest performance costs, particularly in demanding indoor scenes.

RefinedPT reduces normal geometry Path Tracing from two bounces to one while keeping the vanilla hair tracing behaviour. I also added a small first-bounce radiance compensation to recover some of the indirect lighting that would otherwise be lost by removing the second bounce.

The goal was simple upon inspecting, get a meaningful performance improvement without turning Path Tracing into a heavily cut-down graphics preset.

PERFORMANCE FROM MY TESTING

Using the same locations and settings:

Vanilla Path Tracing: 112 FPS

RefinedPT: 126 FPS

Gain: approximately 12. 5%

Vanilla Path Tracing: 86 FPS

RefinedPT: 114 FPS

Gain: approximately 32. 6%

These are results from my own testing and are not guaranteed figures. Performance will vary depending on GPU, resolution, DLSS mode, scene complexity and other settings.

VISUAL DIFFERENCE

A straight one-bounce Path Tracing change made some interiors noticeably darker during my testing.

To reduce that difference, RefinedPT applies a small 1. 10x compensation to the first-bounce accumulated radiance.

It is not mathematically identical to the vanilla two-bounce result, so small differences in indirect lighting can still exist, but the aim is to keep the overall Path Traced presentation much closer to vanilla while retaining most of the performance benefit. RefinedPT achieves near accurate vanilla PT quality whilst offering a performance improvement.

MAIN FEATURES

- Optimized normal-geometry Path Tracing

- Normal geometry reduced from 2 bounces to 1

- Vanilla hair Path Tracing behaviour retained

- 1. 10x first-bounce radiance compensation

- Ray Reconstruction untouched

- DLSS settings untouched

- Raster settings untouched

- No permanent modification to witcher3.exe

- Runtime validation before the shader is applied

- Automatic RefinedPT.log status file

INSTALLATION

1. Download RefinedPT.

2. Extract the contents directly into your main The Witcher 3 installation folder.

3. Allow the included bin folder to merge with the existing bin folder.

4. Launch the DX12 version of the game normally.

The files should end up here:

The Witcher 3\bin\x64_dx12\RefinedPT.dxil

The Witcher 3\bin\x64_dx12\xinput9_1_0.dll

After launching the game, RefinedPT will create:

The Witcher 3\bin\x64_dx12\RefinedPT.log

If everything loaded correctly, the log will show:

Status: ACTIVE

REQUIREMENTS

- The Witcher 3 Remastered

- DX12 version of the game

- Path Tracing enabled

COMPATIBILITY

RefinedPT uses xinput9_1_0.dll as its loader.

If another mod already installs an xinput9_1_0.dll inside bin\x64_dx12, do not overwrite it without checking which mod it belongs to first.

The loader checks the expected vanilla Path Tracing shader before applying RefinedPT. If the supported shader is not found, the mod remains inactive rather than patching an unknown game build.

UNINSTALLATION

The Witcher 3\bin\x64_dx12\RefinedPT.dxil

The Witcher 3\bin\x64_dx12\xinput9_1_0.dll

You can also delete RefinedPT.log.

RefinedPT does not permanently modify witcher3.exe.

Created and tested by Refined.