Last updated: 5 September 2026
The Witcher 4 Graphics & Tech Demo — What NVIDIA Actually Showed
Most of what's circulated about The Witcher 4's visuals so far is speculation about hardware requirements nobody has confirmed. The one genuinely detailed, numbers-backed look at its graphics tech came from NVIDIA itself at GDC 2026, showing off vegetation rendering built with actual Witcher 4 assets. Here's exactly what that demo showed.
At GDC 2026, NVIDIA showed off a Witcher 4 forest scene built to demonstrate its new RTX Mega Geometry technology: nearly 60 million individually modeled plants, about 1 million trees across more than 200 species, in a 5x5 km area, with foliage modeled down to individual pine needles and no flat alpha-card shortcuts. Fully path-traced, the demo ran at roughly 80 FPS at 4K (with DLSS Quality) on an RTX 5090, and around 58 FPS at 1440p on the far more common RTX 4070. This was an NVIDIA-led technology showcase built with Witcher 4 assets, not a gameplay reveal — CD Projekt Red has not confirmed these exact numbers apply to the shipping game.
01What the Demo Actually Was
This wasn't a CD Projekt Red gameplay reveal — it was an NVIDIA technology demonstration, shown at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2026, built around Witcher 4 forest assets to showcase NVIDIA's new RTX Mega Geometry system running on Unreal Engine 5. NVIDIA's ray tracing team lead, Martin Stich, presented the scene and its underlying numbers.
The centerpiece was vegetation density and detail: a dense forest scene rendered with full path tracing, designed to show what's possible when foliage doesn't need to be faked with flat, low-detail "alpha card" billboards — a common shortcut in most current games.
02The Scene, By the Numbers
- Nearly 60 million plants and roughly 1 million trees, spanning over 200 different plant species, across a 5×5 km area.
- Foliage modeled as real geometry down to individual pine needles, with no alpha cards in the base assets — some individual large trees exceed 10 million polygons each.
- According to Martin Stich, if the entire scene were flattened to its maximum level of detail, it would total over 5 trillion triangles.
- RTX Mega Geometry is designed to update scenes of this complexity up to 100x faster than previous geometry-handling methods, which is what makes real-time path tracing across a scene this dense feasible at all.
03Performance: 80 FPS at 4K, Even on an RTX 4070
With full path tracing enabled — reportedly consuming around 50% of total GPU render time per frame — the demo ran at:
- ~80 FPS at 4K (upscaled from 1440p using DLSS 4 Quality mode) on an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090.
- ~58 FPS at 1440p (upscaled from 960p using DLSS Quality mode) on an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 — a much more mainstream GPU, which is the more relevant data point for what this technology might mean beyond high-end hardware.
04What This Confirms, and What It Doesn't
It's genuinely confirmed that The Witcher 4 is built on Unreal Engine 5 with NVIDIA DLSS 4 and full path tracing support, and that CD Projekt Red is working with real game assets at this level of vegetation fidelity as of early 2026.
- It is not confirmed that these specific frame rates, resolutions, or GPU pairings will match the shipping game — tech demos are built to showcase a specific feature under controlled conditions, not to represent full open-world gameplay with AI, physics, combat, and everything else running at once.
- No official PC system requirements have been published. Any "minimum/recommended specs" list you see elsewhere is a third-party estimate, not something CD Projekt Red or NVIDIA has confirmed.
- This demo doesn't tell us anything about console (PS5, Xbox Series X) performance targets, which CD Projekt Red has not detailed.
FAQ
Was The Witcher 4's NVIDIA tech demo actual gameplay?
No. It was an NVIDIA-led technology showcase for its RTX Mega Geometry system, built using Witcher 4 forest assets to demonstrate vegetation rendering — not a CD Projekt Red gameplay reveal.
What frame rate did the Witcher 4 RTX demo run at?
Roughly 80 FPS at 4K (with DLSS Quality) on an RTX 5090, and roughly 58 FPS at 1440p (with DLSS Quality) on an RTX 4070, with full path tracing enabled.
How detailed was the vegetation in the demo?
Extremely detailed: nearly 60 million plants and about 1 million trees across 200+ species in a 5x5 km area, modeled down to individual pine needles with no flat alpha-card shortcuts, and over 5 trillion triangles if flattened to maximum detail.
Does this tell us The Witcher 4's official PC system requirements?
No. CD Projekt Red has not published system requirements. This demo shows what NVIDIA's RTX Mega Geometry tech can do with Witcher 4 assets under specific, controlled conditions — not confirmed minimum or recommended specs for the finished game.
What game engine is The Witcher 4 using?
Unreal Engine 5, with confirmed support for NVIDIA DLSS 4 and full path tracing, replacing CD Projekt Red's proprietary REDengine used for the original trilogy.
Sources
Where the facts on this page were checked. If one of them now says something different, we want to know — tell us and we will fix the guide.
- The Witcher 4's RTX Mega Geometry Foliage Demo Ran at 4K@80FPS (with DLSS Quality) on a 5090 Wccftech
- Witcher 4 RTX Mega Geometry Foliage demo runs at almost 60 FPS on an RTX 4070 and 80 FPS at 4K on a RTX 5090 TweakTown
- The Witcher 4s new tech demo shows how ambitious CDPR's graphics goals really are Dualshockers
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