The Next-gen version of the Witcher 3 has quite a few problems with the shadows rendering. In this video I compare the looks between the Low preset of Shadow Quality between the old 1.32 version and the latest 4.03 DX12 one (observations hold with the 4.04 patch as well).
The newer version clearly has some regressions and worse quality than the older version, and this is something unexpected.
Even the High profile of 4.x looks worse and more pixelated than the reference old Low profile, which had a more subtle loss of fidelity with distance.
Let's hope that the developers are aware of these issues and can do something about it and tweak the shadows.
For now, if playing The Witcher 3 Next-gen, use the Ultra+ Shadow Quality preset in order to get the best out of it.
The Low one was a very solid option pre Next-gen but now it's no longer the case.
* Updated to patch 4.04 and I can safely say that nothing has changed in regards of the observations and behavior captured in the video using 4.03, so I took the liberty to simply update the title to reflect that. Let's hope there will be a 4.05 with some improvements in this regard.
Contents:
00:00 Intro
00:37 Shadow flickering glitches
00:49 Comparing Low preset Shadow Quality between 1.32 and 4.03
01:44 Missing shadows outside of first cascade?
02:15 Demo of Ultra+ on version 4.03
