Witcher 3 VR v0.9.5 Alpha 1 (V1267)

Witcher 3 VR v0.9.5 Alpha 1

This release introduces the new AER + AFW render modes, preliminary Ray Tracing support, Asymmetric Projection across all supported stereo modes, a major TAAU upgrade, and the long-awaited First Person overhaul—along with new HUD, Cinema and comfort options.

Important

AER + AFW, Ray Tracing, Asymmetric Projection and First Person remain experimental.

Highlights

AER + AFW Render Modes

The launcher now includes two new rendering modes:

• AER + AFW — TAAU
• AER + AFW — DLSS

AER renders one complete eye at a time, while PureDark AFW generates the companion eye. This provides a new high-performance alternative to traditional Stereo, which renders both eyes independently.

AER + AFW is intended for users looking for the highest possible performance while retaining stereoscopic geometry and temporal anti-aliasing.

Special thanks to Puredark for AFW and the extra debug!!

Ray Tracing Unleashed

Preliminary Ray Tracing support has arrived.

The game’s ray-traced ambient occlusion, shadows and reflections can now be used in VR with:

• AER + AFW — TAAU
• AER + AFW — DLSS

Ray Tracing can considerably improve lighting, shadowing and reflections, but it also has a substantial GPU and VRAM cost.

This feature is still experimental and may produce temporary visual artifacts or flickering in some scenes.

True TAAU

Like i did for DLSS in 0.9.4 TAAU has received a major upgrade and runs faster.

In v0.9.4, TAAU relied primarily on reconstructed camera motion. It can now use the native motion vectors produced by the game, including movement from world geometry, objects, characters and animations.

This improves temporal stability, reduces ghosting and smearing around moving objects, and produces a cleaner image during both player and headset movement.

Asymmetric Projection in Every Mode

Asymmetric Projection is no longer limited to Stereo No AA. It can now be enabled with every supported AER + AFW and Stereo mode:

• No AA / FXAA
• TAAU
• DLSS

Each eye uses its real OpenXR off-axis view instead of rendering a larger symmetric area containing pixels that may never be visible in the headset.

Depending on the headset, this can:

• Reduce wasted rendering;
• Improve visible image quality at the same resolution;

Presentation Size also remains adjustable. The image can be made smaller to increase visible pixel density or enlarged to use more of the headset’s available field of view.

The benefit is headset-dependent and may be small on some devices.
For Quest 3 VD HIGH asymmetric provides more quality than VD GODLIKE symmetric, so you can basically step down by 2 with vd resolution and keep the same quality as before.

First Person Revamp

The long-awaited First Person overhaul has arrived.

Press F11 to switch between the standard camera and the experimental First Person view.

The new First Person system includes:

• Improved camera placement relative to Geralt;
• Geralt following the viewing direction while standing;
• Optional strafe and backward movement;
• Body rotation and target-lock behaviour;
• Optional automatic switch to third person during combat;
• Automatic return to First Person after combat;
• Reduced lateral and vertical head bobbing;
• Improved aiming and made stereo aware chrossair;
• Improved projectile and crossbow alignment;
• Gamepad snap turning at 30°, 45° or 60°;
• Headset-directed movement;
• Hide face/hair during first person to avoid clipping with the camera;
• Configurable Camera Follow behaviour.

Camera Follow provides three options:

• Always On
• Only Horse/Boat — default
• Always Off

This allows horse and boat gameplay to retain a following camera while on-foot First Person remains headset-directed.
Is mandatory to keep camera follow when riding with a gamepad as you have to keep pressing A to run and you need octopus fingers to move the right stick at the same time.
Camera follow interfere with strafe option so it must be off while unmounted, that's why i took control over that option.

Movable and Resizable Dialogues and Subtitles

The HUD Editor can now independently move and resize:

• Gameplay/Cutscene subtitles;
• Gameplay/Cutscene Dialogue text/choices.

Separate settings are saved for the VR and Cinema3D HUD profiles. The editor also displays preview text, allowing these elements to be adjusted without entering a dialogue or cutscene.

Important

These controls affect the actual text used during cutscenes. Users with customized HUD or Cinema settings may need to readjust subtitle and dialogue size or position after updating.

Hide Static HUD Outside Combat

A new optional Hide static HUD outside combat setting provides a cleaner view during exploration.

When enabled, it can hide:

• Minimap;
• Quest tracker;
• Buffs;
• Health and Wolf Head;
• Equipped items and item information;
• Companion status;
• Damaged-item warnings;
• Control feedback.

The required HUD elements return automatically during combat or while using Witcher Sense. Horse races also restore the Minimap and Quest tracker.

This option is disabled by default.

Launcher Auto resolution option

No more need to check for headset resolution, launcher will detect your configured resolution before opening the game and applies automatically in the ini

4:3 Cinema Mode

Cinema Mode now offers two aspect ratios:

• 5:4 — default
• 4:3

The selected ratio applies to both automatic and manual Cinema Mode.

The new 4:3 option provides a more familiar screen shape while still fitting comfortably inside the headset. A conventional 16:9 screen is generally too wide for comfortable VR viewing or must be reduced enough to waste much of the available vertical field of view.

Other Features

• Added Asymmetric Projection support to VR cutscenes.
• Added complete launcher tooltips for rendering and advanced settings.
• Added Alternate Presentation Resize for Virtual Desktop foveated-rendering compatibility.
• Improved configuration migration while preserving unrelated custom INI settings.

Special thanks to Philippe Debaty for PR #11 and the original Virtual Desktop foveated-rendering resize work.

Fixes

• Fixed HUD and Cinema presentation issues on AMD Radeon GPUs.
• Fixed render distance, texture LOD and object-culling distance not being applied correctly in some cases.
• Fixed smoke and transparent effects occasionally moving or being positioned incorrectly.
• Fixed many cases with flickering render or hud
• Fixed many cutscenes problems with both the new aer and asym projection
• Fixed DLSS/TAAU not injecting in some cutscenes

Limitations

• Ray Tracing is experimental and supported only with AER + AFW using TAAU or DLSS.
• Asymmetric Projection improvements are headset-dependent.
• SSR High remains unsupported.
• Far/Distant camera modes are not implemented.
• First Person remains experimental and may not align correctly with every animation.

Known Issues

• Ray Tracing may cause occasional flickering in the rendered image or HUD.
• Ray Tracing may produce temporary visual artifacts when transitioning into or out of cutscenes.
• Some Full VR cutscenes may show floating or unstable landscapes and terrain.
• First Person movement may behave unexpectedly when walking backward with Strafe Movement enabled.
• Sometimes the game wrongly allocate threads on cpu cores during startup init and affect performance, it's sill being investigated. game needs to be restarted.

Pimax users recommendation

There is an issue with Pimax openxr and stereo mode so that it may cap framerate at half of your headset (eg. 45 fps max on a 90hz display). AER isn't affected. Use SteamVR's OpenXR for proper stereo mode.