I'm guessing that if you can run The Witcher 2 with a high framerate (high considering max settings @1080p would be ~40-60 in my book) you'll probably run The Witcher 3 just fine with high settings and probably a mix of that and max. I know my 660 Ti serves me extremely well. It runs BF3 maxed out @ 60fps and 1080p and BF4 with a mixture of high and ultra while retaining the same framerate as in BF3. Such a waste of money to keep upgrading every year just for a couple of new games. Let your great cards use some of it's potential! Sure. You'll need to find a great bang-for-the-buck card. Having to constantly upgrade and spend more time trying to fix a lot of games than you're actually playing them really makes PC-gaming the inferior race. Say what you want, but you know it's true.
By the way. Wasn't it said that PS4 would support Nvidia's advanced PHYSX features?
It is indeed optimized to run on Nvidia's tech, but it's still software which is more than possible to run on AMD. Have they compromised and written something for the PS4 just to get some licensing fees? Cause I'm sure I read something about it at the time when Knack was first shown. Even though that game might not use it.
That's only how you experience pc gaming. You don't have to upgrade if you don't want to. You only need hardware that has enough performance to play it. There is a reason why there are low options and ultra options. It's not only mid/high/ultra that exists you know.
Look at the witcher 2 system specs:
minimum: 8800gs, e4500 2,2ghz dual core cpu, 3850 gpu, 1gb of ram. Recommend only featured a 260 gtx a budget dx10 card. While a dx11 ( second gen ) top model had to be sli'ed to get ultra settings done at 1080p with ubersampling at 60 fps.
Did the dude had to upgrade his 8800 card towards 2x 580's just to play the witcher 2? nope.
example of somebody using a old gpu "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRW9RAAgkbE". ( 2006 gpu )
Now with a new generation people have to upgrade there pc at some point. But so do console gamers. There PS3's are not going to run the PS4 multiports down the road. While if you upgraded in the last few years towards a PC solution ( like i did 3 years ago ) you will be perfectly capable to keep on running future games without any additional costs. It goes both ways.
I have a 580gtx, i7 860 and 8gb of ram, my pc will last this entire generation. But if i want to play games on the quality of consoles in a few years from now. is the question. But i sure as hell won't be forced to upgrade this entire generation just to play newer games. The witcher 3 and the witcher 4 ( if 4 is getting launched in the ps4 generation ) won't give me any issue's. I wouldn't be shocked if this setup will run perfectly fine ps5 multiports down the road on low settings.
If you mean with fix a lot of games, that you need to tinker around a lot with graphical settings to get good stable performance?. which costs time and is annoying? well nobody forces you, just put the setting on lowest ( that's why its there ) and have a blast running the game on console quality. "it's also called coded to the metal or optimizing in console land".
The physx part if implanted will be high likely extremely limited. I wouldn't be suprised if its extremely limited on use in pc land already and only restricted to sli setups.