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Witcher 3 PC Performance Thread

AEREC

Member
I keep getting crashes every so often and they are always the same:

- Game image freezes
- Audio keeps playing like normal
- After a few seconds it eventually Crashes to desktop

Ive played the game since launch and have been through several Game patches and nvidia drivers (playing on i7 and a 970 GTX) and even a OS (win 8.1) reinstall and it's still the same type of crash.

No other game has this issue.

Ive seen multiple people complain about this exact crash scenario but Ive never seen CDPR comment on it or address it.

Is this being looked at at all?
 
I'm only getting 5-10 xp per quest recently at level 21. Did the recent patch screw with the XP mod?

If you're six levels above the recommended level for a quest it will turn grey in your quest log. These quests used to give you zero XP but after the patch you now get 5-10 XP for completing them.
 

LordAmused

Member
I keep getting crashes every so often and they are always the same:

- Game image freezes
- Audio keeps playing like normal
- After a few seconds it eventually Crashes to desktop

Ive played the game since launch and have been through several Game patches and nvidia drivers (playing on i7 and a 970 GTX) and even a OS (win 8.1) reinstall and it's still the same type of crash.

No other game has this issue.

Ive seen multiple people complain about this exact crash scenario but Ive never seen CDPR comment on it or address it.

Is this being looked at at all?

Is your GPU overclocked? The game doesn't seem to like it very much.
 
I turned RTSS off a week or so ago and in the past 15-20 hours of play I've only had two driver crashes - both after very long sessions. Not perfect, but beforehand I was maybe getting 40-60 minutes before a crash and having to constantly save for fear of losing several minutes or more of progress.

If you're using an overlay or some other injection tool I'd try playing without.

I'll try this, but I use RTSS to do custom fan profiles on my cards so I'd prefer to have it running.
 
Is your GPU overclocked? The game doesn't seem to like it very much.

Yep. OC'ing in Afterburner/PX was definitely leading to this crash for me regardless of which driver I was using. One option you could look into, if you're willing to go this in-depth, is baking your "game stable" OC into your card's BIOS, and ditching AB/PX. Since doing that, I've had no issues.

EDIT: Obviously, before going to such trouble, you might try playing for a few hours without AB/PX and with no OC, if you're doing any of that. If you don't experience any crashing, then you'll know what the culprit is.
 

knitoe

Member
nope...I never mess with overclocking. My GPU is this though:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814487088

The crashing is a a little odd since I can go really long play sessions without sometimes.

It's a factory OC card so it is. Lookup the stock core and memory speeds for that GPU. Install MSI Afterburner or EVGA Precision. Launch the program, move the core / memory sliders to the stock speeds and click apply. Then, play the game and see.
 

AEREC

Member
It's a factory OC card so it is. Lookup the stock core and memory speeds for that GPU. Install MSI Afterburner or EVGA Precision. Launch the program, move the core / memory sliders to the stock speeds and click apply. Then, play the game and see.

I may try that after a while...does it matter even if the card is sufficiently cooled?
 

Awntawn

Member
If it's a unstable OC, problems could still appeared if the card has good cooling.
honestly the OC talk is nonsense IMO. the game itself was full of crash inducing bugs with nvidia releasing a set of terrible drivers at the same time. CDPR has fixed most of the problems on their end it seems, but nvidia's still not giving a second fuck. new drivers should come out with batman... we'll see if people still get TDRs in google chrome
 

spannicus

Member
New patch made my load times longer, thats the only thing i noticed. maintaining 60 fps at 1440p with everything maxed out. Hairworks off ofcourse, with it on i drop to 57 here and there. 980 ti.
 

knitoe

Member
honestly the OC talk is nonsense IMO. the game itself was full of crash inducing bugs with nvidia releasing a set of terrible drivers at the same time. CDPR has fixed most of the problems on their end it seems, but nvidia's still not giving a second fuck. new drivers should come out with batman... we'll see if people still get TDRs in google chrome

It's not nonsense since downclocking has helped for many people. Now, once you downclock and you are still experiencing issues, you can look at other causes and try other things.
 

GHG

Member
Got my 980 ti yesterday.

My god this thing at 60fps with all bells and whistles is something to behold.

Where has this been all my life?
 

LilJoka

Member
honestly the OC talk is nonsense IMO. the game itself was full of crash inducing bugs with nvidia releasing a set of terrible drivers at the same time. CDPR has fixed most of the problems on their end it seems, but nvidia's still not giving a second fuck. new drivers should come out with batman... we'll see if people still get TDRs in google chrome

I've played about 10hours without any crashes, half with 350.12 and half with 353.12, my card is heavily overclocked but extremely thoroughly stress tested.

Btw I'm bad at the game, any tips? I die like all the time, I tried to fight some bandits, one has the crossbow, I can't beat them =(. I just got the first mutagen thing (green one).
I've just done the bit where you play as Ciri
 

Madridy

Member
Hey guys, I'm about to start the game soon and have couple questions:

Spec:
GTX 980
3570k @ 4.4
16GB RAM

Target: 1080p60 playable at all times (don't mind rare drops to the low 50s)

Should I update my GPU drivers (Nvidia)? I'm currently at 347.88
I've heard the latest few nvidia drivers were awful

What graphic options should I start with If I want to achieve my playable target?
 
Holy hell my titan X dual sli was running at 95-97C for a while with fans at 100%. 4K is intense...
I guess it's time to watercool the system. I have a lot to learn!
 

knitoe

Member
Holy balls. I don't think I've ever seen my cards go above 85 in 4K o_O
You are hitting the 84C thermal limits. So, cards are downclocking and not hitting boosting speeds.

I've never seen that happen before. May have been some fluke.

Are you using increase power by %10 option? If yes, the cards can and will push thermal limits hitting 90+ C. You could go with a aftermarket cooler, like EVGA ACX 2+, or water.
 
Hey guys, I'm about to start the game soon and have couple questions:

Spec:
GTX 980
3570k @ 4.4
16GB RAM

Target: 1080p60 playable at all times (don't mind rare drops to the low 50s)

Should I update my GPU drivers (Nvidia)? I'm currently at 347.88
I've heard the latest few nvidia drivers were awful

What graphic options should I start with If I want to achieve my playable target?

This will lock you in @ 60FPS nearly 100% of the time and will still look absolutely gorgeous:

Everything "Ultra" except for view distance and shadows, which you'll want set to "High".

Hairworks off. Sharpening, Chromatic Abberation, and Vignetting off. Everything else on.

I'd have no problem upgrading to the newest drivers. A little wonky with Google Chrome, where I had to disable hardware rendering, but it's been rock-solid in-game.
 

mosdl

Member
From what I've read on the official forums, they don't do anything to fix any issues. If that's true, then Nvidia has released 3 trash drivers in a row. This is starting to become extremely frustrating.

Just tried the new drivers - got 2 crashes in 30 mins of play.
 

ss_lemonade

Member
Got my 980 ti yesterday.

My god this thing at 60fps with all bells and whistles is something to behold.

Where has this been all my life?
How's hairworks on the 980ti? As much as I like the added hair stuff, I just can't justify the crazy performance hit so I've been thinking of upgrading. I've been doing a lot of streaming lately to my Shield Portable so I'm ok with dropping resolution to 720p but even then, hairworks can still drop my framerate below 60 :(
 

LilJoka

Member
I have noticed that 353.12 uses a core clock of 1545Mhz, whereas 350.12 uses 1495Mhz, this might be why people cards started crashing. I havent touched my overclock settings for many months, but only recently upgraded them. In GTA V it would un at about 1495Mhz at 63c, only 1545Mhz when the game begun and temps were very low (50c). But now even in Witcher 3, it runs at 1545Mhz at 70c. Which is unusual as its well known that at 70c you drop atleast 1 bin (13Mhz), but its not anymore, even at 72c. MSI GTX 970 Gamer.
 

The Llama

Member
I have noticed that 353.12 uses a core clock of 1545Mhz, whereas 350.12 uses 1495Mhz, this might be why people cards started crashing. I havent touched my overclock settings for many months, but only recently upgraded them. In GTA V it would un at about 1495Mhz at 63c, only 1545Mhz when the game begun and temps were very low (50c). But now even in Witcher 3, it runs at 1545Mhz at 70c. Which is unusual as its well known that at 70c you drop atleast 1 bin (13Mhz), but its not anymore, even at 72c. MSI GTX 970 Gamer.

That seems incredibly weird to me, have previous nVidia drivers changed clockspeeds before?
 
Aw shit scared to download the driver now.

You needn't be. I've played more than 60 hours with Geralt and Ciri via my GTX 970 on nVidia's "trash" drivers, including today's release, and have yet to have a single crash.

EDIT: Over four of those hours today, 60 FPS with Hairworks OFF, all other settings maxed, save for foliage distance and shadows set to HIGH.
 

LilJoka

Member
That seems incredibly weird to me, have previous nVidia drivers changed clockspeeds before?

First time ive seen this happen. Need others to confirm, since i do run a custom BIOS.

I have also put in about 15 hours now with the 353.12 driver, no crashes at all.
GPU usage at 90-99% with hair works on. Settings mostly maxed out, shadows medium, AA off, 1080p. Pretty much holds 60fps most of the time unless the camera pans close to hair.
 

kraspkibble

Permabanned.
any idea of what the amd 15.6 (batman) driver is like? 15.5 (witcher 3/project cars) is running just fine for me. just want to check before updating.
 

Vitor711

Member
This will lock you in @ 60FPS nearly 100% of the time and will still look absolutely gorgeous:

Everything "Ultra" except for view distance and shadows, which you'll want set to "High".

Hairworks off. Sharpening, Chromatic Abberation, and Vignetting off. Everything else on.

I'd have no problem upgrading to the newest drivers. A little wonky with Google Chrome, where I had to disable hardware rendering, but it's been rock-solid in-game.

Eh, Sharpening, CA and Vignetting are not performance hits, they're a taste thing. I'd recommend leaving them on and see what you think before writing off the features completely.

Also have a 980 here and I can confirm that the above will give you a locked 60 for like 99% of the time (some wooded areas will still bring you down by 10FPS or so).
 
Eh, Sharpening, CA and Vignetting are not performance hits, they're a taste thing. I'd recommend leaving them on and see what you think before writing off the features completely.

Also have a 980 here and I can confirm that the above will give you a locked 60 for like 99% of the time (some wooded areas will still bring you down by 10FPS or so).

Oh yeah, Sharpening, CA, and Vignetting don't affect performance. They just look like shit :p.
 

Larogue

Member
I keep getting crashes every so often and they are always the same:

- Game image freezes
- Audio keeps playing like normal
- After a few seconds it eventually Crashes to desktop

Ive played the game since launch and have been through several Game patches and nvidia drivers (playing on i7 and a 970 GTX) and even a OS (win 8.1) reinstall and it's still the same type of crash.

No other game has this issue.

Ive seen multiple people complain about this exact crash scenario but Ive never seen CDPR comment on it or address it.

Is this being looked at at all?


Unlock the fps, play with settings until you achieve either ~75fps or ~45fps (whatever feels better for you) then lock your fps accordingly to either 60 or 30 fps.

By doing so you are running the game with the GPU underloaded, less likely to heat, get overworked and crash.
 

FLAguy954

Junior Member
I just updated to version 1.06 and dropped the shadows setting to medium and now I get a really consistent 60+ fps everywhere except for Novigrad. Feels good mane.

Specs:

i5 4670K @ 4.5 GHz
MSI R9 290 1007/1350
8 GB Ram
Playing on my 1 TB HDD
 

SkyscraperFan

Neo Member
Kind of disappointed that I'm only pulling off medium settings at 40-45 fps with a gtx 670 and 3570k.

My i5 is running at stock 3.4Ghz. Would it be worth it to try and overclock for the first time? Or is the gpu the bottleneck here?
 
Kind of disappointed that I'm only pulling off medium settings at 40-45 fps with a gtx 670 and 3570k.

My i5 is running at stock 3.4Ghz. Would it be worth it to try and overclock for the first time? Or is the gpu the bottleneck here?

GPU is almost always the bottleneck in Witcher 3.
 

mosdl

Member
I've managed to seemingly get rid of all my driver crashes on my EVGA 970 SC by underclocking (in Precision) it by 50 MHz with the latest drivers.
 

Corpsepyre

Banned
any idea of what the amd 15.6 (batman) driver is like? 15.5 (witcher 3/project cars) is running just fine for me. just want to check before updating.

I need to know this as well. Hopefully, it doesn't have any negative effects.

How much did your driver update help with performance? I'm still on 15.4, I believe.
 
Anyone with Maxwell card see any FPS improvements in witcher 3 with new drivers?

The only mention of Witcher 3 in the driver notes is an added/updated dx11 SLI profile.

On that note, how long do Nvidia drivers usually support game optimization after the game is released? Are we likely seeing the best optimization we're going to see driver/patch-wise?
 

dr_rus

Member
The only mention of Witcher 3 in the driver notes is an added/updated dx11 SLI profile.

On that note, how long do Nvidia drivers usually support game optimization after the game is released? Are we likely seeing the best optimization we're going to see driver/patch-wise?

You can only optimize that much for any game so it's not a question of how long but more a question of how good these optimizations are. If they've reached the top then there won't be anything more. It is impossible to say if they did however. New drivers may bring performance improvements years after a game release.
 
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