My SSC 960 is running the game very well on Ultra, with Foliage Distance on Low. There are just some times, even when Geralt is not moving where FPS goes down by just a bit, maybe 5 or so frames? And in SOME scenes, like fighting the werewolf outside of the Whispering Hillock's cave. The FPS seems low, but it's actually more than acceptable at 50 FPS. I'm not talking nonsense, I honestly believe part of the problem here are my eyes. I've met a number of people who can't tell the difference between 50 and 60 FPS. Some people can't tell the difference between 60 and 30 or below but that's an entirely different issue altogether.

In any case, what's the best way to overall boost performance all across the board. And by optimizing FPS i'm really talking about optimizing. I have no interest in explainations of the different graphics settings. I can change those myself. I'm talking about precision and a next-to-non-existent change in visual quality while boosting FPS. I'm very familiar with Bethesda games and have spent a lot of time tweaking Oblivion and Skyrim's .ini files.

What are my best options for The Witcher 3?

ALSO. When i'm changing the user.settings files on my C drive in My Documents/Witcher 3, does the game automatically point to the file in the Witcher 3 directory? Because I made my backups in another folder that resides in the Witcher 3 folder where the loose user.settings and user.settings BAK files are. I really hope it's not messing me up, here.

Hairworks off, or atleast lower the Hairworks AA. That'll keep your FPS's low.

I used this guide to tweak my game to myliking and hitting steady 60fps mark:
https://www.gamersnexus.net/game-bench/1952-complete-witcher-3-graphics-optimization-guide-and-performance

For ini-tweaks I used this:
https://www.gog.com/forum/the_witcher_3_wild_hunt/witcher_3_performanceultra_tweaks_for_both_amd_and_nv

Quick Facts: The game is made for consoles and its innerds have been calibrated to 30fps (the physics, animations and all) but that looks really awfull...