The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings

The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings

Developers
	CD Projekt Red
macOS (OS X)	Virtual Programming
Linux	Virtual Programming
Publishers
	CD Projekt
Hungary	PlayON
Engines
Past	REDengine
Enhanced Edition	REDengine 2
Release dates
Windows	May 17, 2011
macOS (OS X)	October 18, 2012
Linux	May 22, 2014
Reception
Metacritic	88
IGDB	86
Taxonomy
Monetization	One-time game purchase
Microtransactions	None
Modes	Singleplayer
Pacing	Real-time
Perspectives	Third-person
Controls	Direct control
Genres	RPG
Themes	Fantasy
Series	The Witcher

The Witcher
The Witcher	2007
The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings	2011
The Witcher Adventure Game	2014
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt	2015
Gwent: The Witcher Card Game	2018
Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales	2018
Gwent: Rogue Mage	2022
The Witcher: Remake	TBA

Key points

Has official modding tools.

Incompatible with Windows' built-in color calibration feature. Calibrated screens will have ill in-game colors.

General information

Official Forums

Official Witcher Wiki (Fandom)

Official Witcher Game Series Wiki (Gamepedia)

GOG.com Community Discussions

GOG.com Support Page

A comprehensive list of known issues and potential fixes.

The Witcher 2 for PC Technical FAQ.

Steam Community Discussions

Availability

Source	DRM	Notes	Keys	OS
Retail		SecuROM 8 and SecuROM PA DRM. Removed in patches and later retail releases.
GOG.com		Enhanced Edition. Offers various bonus goodies including the complete soundtrack in MP3 and FLAC formats.
Humble Store		Enhanced Edition.
Mac App Store		Enhanced Edition.
Steam		Enhanced Edition.
GamersGate (unavailable)
Origin (unavailable)		Enhanced Edition.

All versions can be registered on GOG.com even if a product key was not included; see Witcher Backup for details.

Essential improvements

Patches

Install the latest patches to fix bugs and remove DRM.

Modifications

No Intro Videos Mod

This mod skips all intro videos except the logo by CD Projekt.

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System	Location
Windows	%USERPROFILE%\Documents\Witcher 2\Config\
macOS (OS X)	$HOME/Library/Application Support/com.vpltd.TheWitcher2/GameDocuments/Witcher 2/config/
Linux	$XDG_DATA_HOME/cdprojektred/witcher2/GameDocuments/Witcher 2/config/

This game follows the XDG Base Directory Specification on Linux.

Save game data location

System	Location
Windows	%USERPROFILE%\Documents\Witcher 2\gamesaves\
macOS (OS X)	$HOME/Library/Application Support/com.vpltd.TheWitcher2/GameDocuments/Witcher 2/gamesaves/
Linux	$XDG_DATA_HOME/cdprojektred/witcher2/GameDocuments/Witcher 2/gamesaves/
Steam	<Steam-folder>/userdata/<user-id>/20920/remote/

Saves can be imported from The Witcher.

Save game cloud syncing

System	Native	Notes
GOG Galaxy
Origin
OneDrive		Requires enabling backup of the Documents folder in OneDrive on all computers.
Steam Cloud		Approx. 954 MB available. Steam version uses Steam save game data location when cloud is activated.

Video

Graphics feature	State	WSGF	Notes
Widescreen resolution			1280x720 and higher.
Multi-monitor			Use Flawless Widescreen or Widescreen Fixer.
Ultra-widescreen			Use Flawless Widescreen or Widescreen Fixer.
4K Ultra HD
Field of view (FOV)		The game increases FOV on outdoor areas and further when fighting. To customize, use FOV-Mod.
Windowed
Borderless fullscreen windowed		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Anisotropic filtering (AF)		No built-in option for anisotropic filtering, the game seems to use trilinear filtering. Forcing through the GPU control panel only seems to work on select surfaces, terrain remains unaffected.
Anti-aliasing (AA)
Vertical sync (Vsync)
60 FPS and 120+ FPS		No frame rate or refresh rate cap.
High dynamic range display (HDR)		See the glossary page for potential alternatives.

Sharpening filter

Enabled by default, may cause aliasing and shimmering.

Disabling sharpening filter[citation needed]
Go to %USERPROFILE%\Documents\Witcher 2\Config\. Open User.ini. Find AllowSharpen=1 and change the "1" to "0".

• 

  Sharpen off

• 

  Sharpen on

Ambient occlusion

Force HBAO+ (Nvidia only)

Download and run Nvidia Profile Inspector. Select the The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings profile. Change Ambient Occlusion compatibility value to 0x00000033. Change Ambient Occlusion setting to High Quality. Change Ambient Occlusion usage to Enabled. Press "Apply Changes" in the top-right corner. Notes SSAO needs to be disabled in the launcher. Only works with true 16:9 resolutions. The Ubersampling option prevents HBAO+ from working.

Input

Keyboard and mouse	State	Notes
Remapping
Mouse acceleration		See Mouse acceleration.
Mouse sensitivity
Mouse input in menus
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller support		XInput controllers only.
Full controller support		Game can be started and played with a controller, but launcher can not be fully navigated without mouse/keyboard (Enhanced Edition).
Controller remapping		Most bindings can be remapped (Enhanced Edition).
Controller sensitivity
Controller Y-axis inversion

Controller types

XInput-compatible controllers
Xbox button prompts
Impulse Trigger vibration

DualShock 4 controllers		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.

Generic/other controllers		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.

Mouse acceleration

Disable mouse acceleration[citation needed]
Go to the configuration files location. Open User.ini. Under the [MouseInput] section set the following to: MouseSmoothness=0 Smoothness=0 UseMouseDamp=false MouseDampX=0 MouseDampY=0 and save it

Audio

Audio feature	State	Notes
Separate volume controls
Surround sound		Up to 7.1
Subtitles
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
Royalty free audio

Localizations

Language	UI	Audio	Sub	Notes
English
Arabic				Fan translation by AR Team, download.
Traditional Chinese
Czech
French
German
Hungarian
Italian
Japanese
Korean				Enhanced Edition.
Polish
Brazilian Portuguese				Enhanced Edition. Only available for PC version.
Russian
Spanish
Turkish				Only available for PC version

VR support

3D modes	Native	GG3D	Notes
Nvidia 3D Vision
TriDef 3D
vorpX		G3D Officially supported game, see official vorpx game list.

Issues fixed

Linux version crashes on start

The Linux port of the game is not native but uses an outdated compatibility layer. If you have a Vulkan compatible graphic card it is highly recommended to use the Windows version of the game through Proton.

Go to Properties and enable "Force the use of a specific Steam play compatibility tool" and make sure the latest Proton is selected. If the game doesn't start, you may have to copy some files: cp -r $HOME/.local/share/Steam/SteamApps/common/the\ witcher\ 2/bin/config/* $HOME/.local/share/Steam/SteamApps/compatdata/20920/pfx/drive_c/users/steamuser/My\ Documents/Witcher\ 2/Config

First Time Setup Lock

The game attempts to reinstall the Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0 every time the game is launched.

Option 1: Registry Change (recommended)

Option 1: Registry Change (recommended)[citation needed]

Open Notepad, and enter this code: ;For 64 bit systems (x64) Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Valve\Steam\Apps\20920] "DirectX"=dword:00000001 "VCRedist"=dword:00000001 "dotNetFx40"=dword:00000001 ;For 32 bit systems (x86) Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Valve\Steam\Apps\20920] "DirectX"=dword:00000001 "VCRedist"=dword:00000001 "dotNetFx40"=dword:00000001 Save as a .reg file, and then double click on it.

Option 2: Folder rename

Option 2: Folder rename[citation needed]
Go to the installation folder. Rename redist. Launch the game.

Black Screen During the Cut-scene after the First Chapter (Enhanced Edition)

Black Screen During the Cut-scene after the First Chapter (Enhanced Edition)[citation needed]
A special cut-scene should be played off, but instead you receive a black screen and only hear Dandelion's voice. Possible Fix: Change your screen format to 16:9 ratio. It's working for most people.

Random Crashes while Saving Game, Loading a Save Game or AutoSaving

Random Crashes while Saving Game, Loading a Save Game or AutoSaving[citation needed]

The game will crash to desktop without any error messages. You may encounter this right before, after or during cut-scenes (i.e. when the game is auto-saving). The solution modifies the Windows Registry in order to allow Windows to allocate more memory to other programs. More information here. If the problem persists, either deactivate the real-time protection of your antivirus program or add exceptions for The Witcher 2 folders and executables to it. Crashes on saving or auto-saving: this will occur in 32bit systems due to low memory. To solve it, press windows key + R key to bring up the Run window. Write "bcdedit /set increaseUserVa 3072" without the " and press ↵ Enter. Reboot the PC. In order to undo this change you can bring the Run window up again and write: "bcdedit /set IncreaseUserVa 2048" without the " and press ↵ Enter. Reboot the PC. Crashes on loading save games: this will occur in some systems if you accumulate too many MBs worth of savegames. To solve it, go to your save game data folder and either delete or move most of the stored saves.

Crash to Desktop German version[citation needed]
If you have the German version there is a memory leak on display of the character ß You can test this with constantly opening and closing the chest. About 10 times should make the game crash. Here is a mod to fix the problem: https://www.nexusmods.com/witcher2/mods/850/

AMD GPU users double input

If you have AMD Gaming Evolved installed, make sure the program is not running while playing.

Long loading times when resuming a save

Large number of saves will result in longer loading times when you open the menu for loading a save. To fix delete unused saves or move them to a backup location.

Nvidia Ambient Occlusion Flicker

When using ambient occlusion forced through Nvidia Inspector, there is a noticeable flicker while moving around, this is caused by higher-detail meshes being loaded in. To fix this issue, in the user.ini under the "rendering" section, increase "MeshDistanceScale" to a much higher value; e.g.: "MeshDistanceScale=100". This will also reduce non-AO related pop-in and in general make distant objects look better. Note that this potentially has a performance impact, test different values to see what works best on your system.

Other information

API

Technical specs	Supported	Notes
Direct3D	9.0c	Windows only.
OpenGL	2.1, 3.3	OS X and Linux only.

Executable	32-bit	64-bit	Notes
Windows
macOS (OS X)			Build compatible with macOS 10.15 (Catalina) added on 27 July 2022.
Linux

Middleware

	Middleware	Notes
Physics	Havok
Audio	FMOD Ex
Interface	Scaleform	Scaleform is also used for video playback.

Linux port

The Linux port is not native, and is packaged in a Wine-like compatibility layer called eON. eON is used for some other titles (such as Stronghold 3). It is not based on Wine, but has a similar reimplementation of the relevant Windows APIs.

Modifications

Market Price Mod

Market Price Mod makes buying and selling prices within markets more fair to the player. It reduces the 24:1 ratio between buy to sell prices and reduces it to 5:1 as seen in the original game.

Comfy Font

For people having problems with the size of text on large resolutions or on small displays, getting any variation of the Comfy Font, and placing the .dzip in the CookedPC folder will make it bigger and more visible.

Full Combat Rebalance

Full Combat Rebalance is a mod created by the developers of the game. It includes many changes, including an 80% increase in responsiveness per Geralt's animations and decreased time for returning to exploration after combat. The file is 1.5 GB in a compressed format.

Highly recommended to use with FCR2 Fixpack and QoL compilation

AI Upscale Textures

AI Upscale Textures contains over 600 character and object, 1100 original environmental and 150 weapon textures with increased resolution quality x2 (i.e. 512x512>1024x1024, up to 4096x4096) in AI Upscaled Characters Textures X2 VERSION OPTIMIZED, AI Upscaled Environmental Textures X2 VERSION OPTIMIZED and AI Upscaled Weapons Textures X2 VERSION OPTIMIZED. With minimal impact on performance.

Utilities

• The Witcher 2 Savegame manager allows for the easy backup, management, and removal of The Witcher 1 and 2 save files. Can tremendously improve the clutter of savegame files.
• The Witcher 2 Tweaker allows for greater customization of graphics options to further tailor your game for the PC. Also has helpful tips for improving performance on some computers as well.

System requirements

Windows

macOS (OS X)

Linux

Windows
	Minimum	Recommended
Operating system (OS)	XP, Vista, 7
Processor (CPU)	Intel Dual-Core 2.2 GHz AMD Dual-Core 2.5 GHz	Intel Quad core AMD Quad core
System memory (RAM)	1.5 GB (XP) 2 GB (Vista, 7)	3 GB (XP) 4 GB (Vista, 7)
Hard disk drive (HDD)	25 GB
Video card (GPU)	Nvidia GeForce 8800 ATI Radeon HD 3850 512 MB of VRAM DirectX 9.29 compatible	Nvidia GeForce GTX 260 ATI Radeon HD 4850 1 GB of VRAM

macOS (OS X)
	Minimum	Recommended
Operating system (OS)	10.8.5
Processor (CPU)	Intel Core 2 Duo	Quad Core Intel
System memory (RAM)	4 GB	8 GB
Hard disk drive (HDD)	25 GB
Video card (GPU)	Nvidia GeForce GT 650M 512 MB (on 1440x900, low) ATI Radeon HD 5770 1 GB (on 1440x900, low) Intel integrated graphics chipsets are not supported 512 MB of VRAM	Nvidia GeForce GTX 675MX (on 1920x1080, medium) AMD Radeon HD 6970M (on 1920x1080, medium) Intel integrated graphics chipsets are not supported 1 GB of VRAM

Linux
	Minimum	Recommended
Operating system (OS)	Ubuntu 14.04, Linux Mint 17, SteamOS
Processor (CPU)	Intel Core 2 Duo	Intel Quad Core
System memory (RAM)	4 GB
Hard disk drive (HDD)	25 GB
Video card (GPU)	Nvidia GeForce 9800 GT (1280x720, low) 512 MB of VRAM	Nvidia GeForce GT 640 (1440x900, medium) 1 GB of VRAM
Other	MESA based drivers are not currently supported. Intel integrated graphics are not currently supported.