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Witcher 3 PC Performance Thread

FLAguy954

Junior Member
My game actually runs better with every patch /290), I could also swear it generally looks better but now I have some nasty pop-ins that I never had before.

Same here. Now I get upwards to 80 fps in more empty areas with the same settings I had on Windows 8.1. I'm also running hairworks on Geralt with 4x MSAA and my frames still stay above 50 fps. Even the few final missions never went below 50 fps.
 
So are we expecting a dx12 patch at any point? I remember that was rumored before release to possibly come with an EE edition. Or was the FUD?
 

zeox

Member
No difference for me. What I did notice is my game loading much more quicker now, but I also made the jump to windows 10. Could that have made a difference?

I've had the exact experience as you on this, and I also made the jump to win10. 1.8 has been nothing but great for me so far after about 10 hours of playing
 

FLAguy954

Junior Member
So are we expecting a dx12 patch at any point? I remember that was rumored before release to possibly come with an EE edition. Or was the FUD?

I don't think they (CDPR) would be willing to go through with it.

We'll have to wait for RotTR (I hope it is DX12) and Deus Ex: Mankind Divided for our first taste of DX12 goodness.
 

vocab

Member
How does this perform at 1440P? Will be using a 980 ti. Will I have to sacrifice much?

It's a 980 TI.....

Anyway, patch didn't do much in terms of worse performance for me. I did see an improvement from 1.07 though, and it's about the same in 1.08. Not on w10 btw.
 

ss_lemonade

Member
Anyone else encountering controller issues when streaming this to a Shield Portable? I swear this game is the only game I have been having random streaming issues. Its either stuttering, or the controller won't work.

How does this perform at 1440P? Will be using a 980 ti. Will I have to sacrifice much?
I think you'll be fine. My 780 does pretty well at 1080p with 1 or 2 settings down from max. 1440p is also slightly doable for me and your 980ti is significantly more faster than my 780
 

Corpekata

Banned
I'm on a 970 at 1440p and with most things cranked I get 45-50 FPS without hairworks (on gsync so 45-50 FPS is acceptable to me). A 980 TI oughta let you play around with hairworks at 60 FPS I'd imagine.
 

Corpekata

Banned
Oh and if you want DX12 Satellite Reign is coming out of Early Access and "supports" it. I use quotes because you have to use a command line to enable it. It helps with performance there as the game is very CPU bound given it is a Unity engine game.
 
How does this perform at 1440P? Will be using a 980 ti. Will I have to sacrifice much?

My 970 gets 35+ fps at 1440p with everything on Ultra except for Shadows and Foliage Distance which are on High. Hairworks is off and I'm also running some Reshade + Sweetfx on top which eats a couple of frames. I'm sure your 980TI will run it very well.
 
I have a 980ti as well, playing at 1440p with everything else cranked all the way to the right definitely makes the card struggle. Well by struggle I mean it fails to hold 60fps consistently.

I do not have a fps counter running because I want to enjoy the game, but to have a smooth feeling, some settings have to be scaled down. In my case I have hairworks AA down to 4, grass density down to high from ultra, and shadows also down 1 notch.
 
My 970 sli has taken a massive hit in 1.08 but it might be Windows 10 drivers at fault although it was fine before the patch.

I think SLI is having some big problems under W10 right now according to what I have read on the NV forums and Guru3d.

Among other problems with the NV W10 driver (which is rather shit at the moment). Good game performance in single card though... just lacking in usability and other departments.
 
1.8 seems to have definitely imprved framerates to the point that I've been able to up a few settings without impacting my 60fps goodness.

However i'm guessing this is a weird bug but several times now when there has been thunderstorms the sea has been completely flat. Like no waves at all. Pretty off putting as it looks like my boat is hovering above the calm flat sea at times lol.
 
Not much change for me with 1.08 and Win10 but I can play the game just fine with nearly everything on High and Textures and Detail Level on Ultra.

Playing @ 1080p with unlocked framerate, I mostly get between 40 - 60fps (depending if in a town or out in the open) but it does jump around a lot during normal play so I've locked it at 30fps for now, as my GPU is showing it's age a little now.

i5 2500k @ 4.4 GHz,
MSI P67A-GD53 (B3) Motherboard,
8GB DDR3 1600MHz RAM G-Skill Ripjaws,
MSI GTX 760 Twin Frozr Gaming 2GB,
128GB Samsung SSD,
2x 2TB Samsung Spinpoint HDD,
 

SliChillax

Member
Oh I know! Guess I need to read more about the different AA types. Thanks
You definitely should, AA is not always needed at max and can definitely murder the performance, no matter what gpu you have. The higher the resolution the less AA you need basically.
 

Dries

Member
The thing with people posting their fps values that's bothering me is that when you say something like "with this GPU I get 45 fps at 1440p", it doesn't really mean anything. With The Witcher 3, in my expierence, the time of day, the weather, and the location really matters for the fps value. With my 980 at 1440p I can get a fps between 45 and 60 under ideal normal conditions. But if it's raining and I'm in a REALLY dense forest and the time of day is so that the sun's just about coming up (I think this lighting costs more performance than say just normal noon time), my fps can drop to around 30 easily. I must note that I'm not using HairWorks, but each graphical slider is cranked all the way up to Ultra, no compromises. Some areas are just super demanding and if it's sunrise at that moment too, then that can really, really murder your performance.
 
The thing with people posting their fps values that's bothering me is that when you say something like "with this GPU I get 45 fps at 1440p", it doesn't really mean anything. With The Witcher 3, in my expierence, the time of day, the weather, and the location really matters for the fps value. With my 980 at 1440p I can get a fps between 45 and 60 under ideal normal conditions. But if it's raining and I'm in a REALLY dense forest and the time of day is so that the sun's just about coming up (I think this lighting costs more performance than say just normal noon time), my fps can drop to around 30 easily. I must note that I'm not using HairWorks, but each graphical slider is cranked all the way up to Ultra, no compromises. Some areas are just super demanding and if it's sunrise at that moment too, then that can really, really murder your performance.

That's why I said I get 35+ and not 45-60 fps :p

I just lock it to 30 anyway because it actually feels more responsive locked than unlocked.

---

On Windows 10 with the latest drivers I am finding that the game is crashing quite a bit and even causing a couple of BSODs. Was there ever a definitive fix for this sort of thing?
 
The thing with people posting their fps values that's bothering me is that when you say something like "with this GPU I get 45 fps at 1440p", it doesn't really mean anything. With The Witcher 3, in my expierence, the time of day, the weather, and the location really matters for the fps value. With my 980 at 1440p I can get a fps between 45 and 60 under ideal normal conditions. But if it's raining and I'm in a REALLY dense forest and the time of day is so that the sun's just about coming up (I think this lighting costs more performance than say just normal noon time), my fps can drop to around 30 easily. I must note that I'm not using HairWorks, but each graphical slider is cranked all the way up to Ultra, no compromises. Some areas are just super demanding and if it's sunrise at that moment too, then that can really, really murder your performance.

Fraps has Min/Max/Average benchmarking.

Much better than just giving a value you think is representative of performance in specific conditions, as long as you're only running it when you're actually playing,
 

LilJoka

Member
The thing with people posting their fps values that's bothering me is that when you say something like "with this GPU I get 45 fps at 1440p", it doesn't really mean anything. With The Witcher 3, in my expierence, the time of day, the weather, and the location really matters for the fps value. With my 980 at 1440p I can get a fps between 45 and 60 under ideal normal conditions. But if it's raining and I'm in a REALLY dense forest and the time of day is so that the sun's just about coming up (I think this lighting costs more performance than say just normal noon time), my fps can drop to around 30 easily. I must note that I'm not using HairWorks, but each graphical slider is cranked all the way up to Ultra, no compromises. Some areas are just super demanding and if it's sunrise at that moment too, then that can really, really murder your performance.

When I say I get 60fps, I mean it. My 970 is running at about 80% usage most of the time, enough headroom for the more stressful parts.
There has only been one occasion where fps dipped to around 50 in 1 spot in the game
in skellige right before getting the mask standing next to the AI casting their spells
.

You can see my settings a few pages back.

Cranking to ultra is your problem, many settings offer no real improvement. I have Hairworks enabled too.

http://m.neogaf.com/showthread.php?p=172370036#post172370036
 

Dries

Member
When I say I get 60fps, I mean it. My 970 is running at about 80% usage most of the time, enough headroom for the more stressful parts.
There has only been one occasion where fps dipped to around 50 in 1 spot in the game
in skellige right before getting the mask standing next to the AI casting their spells
.

You can see my settings a few pages back.

Cranking to ultra is your problem, many settings offer no real improvement. I have Hairworks enabled too.

http://m.neogaf.com/showthread.php?p=172370036#post172370036

Yeah, it's true. Cranking everything to Ultra is just laziness on my part. If I'm satisfied with the performance I get (which I am) while cranking everything to Ultra then I just let it sit and enjoy the game. The drops to the low 30's are rare enough and G-sync seals the deal. I really don't care that much, but most of all I just want to play the game instead of comparing settings/fps values. I've been down that road a couple of times and it just leeches my soul. I work 40 hours a week and have a fairly busy social life, so with the small amount of time I have left for gaming I just want to actually play the game.

I'm still interested in the mod for enabling HairWorks only on monsters though.

Also I'd like to share this .ini tweak again which I actually got from you, LilJoka. Put

[Streaming/Textures]
UseMipRefiner=true

at the bottom of your .ini file. It will make textures clearer and sharper. Everyone can do this, it's easy and there's no reason you shouldn't do it. It may not be so commonly known around here, so therefore I'm mentioning it again.
 

LilJoka

Member
I did not realise you had g sync, that's all good then.
If you want to enable Hairworks just tone the settings down a bit. After 1.07 I don't get the drops with Witcher senses or camera close to Geralt anymore.

I'm not using the ini tweaks anymore, couldn't notice a difference playing on a 1024x768 plasma. But glad they helped.
 
Yeah, it's true. Cranking everything to Ultra is just laziness on my part. If I'm satisfied with the performance I get (which I am) while cranking everything to Ultra then I just let it sit and enjoy the game. The drops to the low 30's are rare enough and G-sync seals the deal. I really don't care that much, but most of all I just want to play the game instead of comparing settings/fps values. I've been down that road a couple of times and it just leeches my soul. I work 40 hours a week and have a fairly busy social life, so with the small amount of time I have left for gaming I just want to actually play the game.

I'm still interested in the mod for enabling HairWorks only on monsters though.

Also I'd like to share this .ini tweak again which I actually got from you, LilJoka. Put

[Streaming/Textures]
UseMipRefiner=true

at the bottom of your .ini file. It will make textures clearer and sharper. Everyone can do this, it's easy and there's no reason you shouldn't do it. It may not be so commonly known around here, so therefore I'm mentioning it again.
Do you have any screens of the difference per chance? I notice quite often at ultra 4K, that texture mips tend to be a bit too close to the camera. They should resolve further away.
 
Is the performance difference between full screen and border less windowed that much?

I never benchmarked fps between the two modes, but there was a noticeable difference in stutter favoring borderless windowed mode for me. Plus you can use your own ICC color profile. Though Win10 borderless windowed isn't as smooth for me right now as 8.1 was. Don't know if it's Nvidia, Microsoft, or CDPR.

Here are some benchmarks comparing the last few patches and even OS's. I haven't done 1.08 yet, but initial fps monitoring indicates performance is about the same.
 

Dries

Member
Do you have any screens of the difference per chance? I notice quite often at ultra 4K, that texture mips tend to be a bit too close to the camera. They should resolve further away.

Here you go:

OFF: https://www.flickr.com/photos/123482229@N07/18103456835/

ON: https://www.flickr.com/photos/123482229@N07/18104446361/

Can't take credit for the pics though, all come from: http://forums.cdprojektred.com/threads/36088-A-compendium-of-tweaks-and-fixes-for-the-PC-version
 
Dear lord, my stability has gone to absolute shit as I've progressed through the story. I'm in Kaer Morhen now and I can barely play for more than ten seconds without a driver crash.

I've tried:
- All framerate capping options, including turning them all off.
- Turning off HairWorks.
- Disabling MSI Afterburner.
- Disabling/Uninstalling GFE and Shadowplay.
- Disabling Reshade and Sweetfx.
- Using Afterburner to downclock my GPU to the reference clock speeds.

And after all that nothing has changed. I'm on Windows 10 with the 353.62 WHQL driver and I'm wondering if anyone else has had similar issues.

Witcher 3 is the only game I've had this much trouble with and frankly I'd just like to be done with it at this point.

Edit: Should mention, I've got a GTX 970.
 
Dear lord, my stability has gone to absolute shit as I've progressed through the story. I'm in Kaer Morhen now and I can barely play for more than ten seconds without a driver crash.

I've tried:
- All framerate capping options, including turning them all off.
- Turning off HairWorks.
- Disabling MSI Afterburner.
- Disabling/Uninstalling GFE and Shadowplay.
- Disabling Reshade and Sweetfx.
- Using Afterburner to downclock my GPU to the reference clock speeds.

And after all that nothing has changed. I'm on Windows 10 with the 353.62 WHQL driver and I'm wondering if anyone else has had similar issues.

Witcher 3 is the only game I've had this much trouble with and frankly I'd just like to be done with it at this point.

Edit: Should mention, I've got a GTX 970.

Windows 10, GTX 970, same drivers, stock (OC) speeds, and no crashes. CPU is also OC, but temps are OK.

CPU OC? Have you tried stock everything? Windows 10 upgrade or clean install? Remove previous drivers completely? Tweak config files or anything? Have any mods installed? Run prime95, furmark, mem test to test stability when pushed hard? Witcher 3 really works my system harder than anything else I have.
 
Windows 10, GTX 970, same drivers, stock (OC) speeds, and no crashes. CPU is also OC, but temps are OK.

CPU OC? Have you tried stock everything? Windows 10 upgrade or clean install? Remove previous drivers completely? Tweak config files or anything? Have any mods installed? Run prime95, furmark, mem test to test stability when pushed hard? Witcher 3 really works my system harder than anything else I have.

Drivers are a clean install, that was one of the first things I tried when the crashes became quite frequent. No overclocking on my end apart from a factory OC'd GPU which is now at lower clocks. I haven't edited any configs for the Witcher and don't have any mods installed. I've ran all sorts of tests and everything looks to be incredibly stable, it just seems to be the Witcher that brings on these driver crashes and hangs.

Anyway, switching the game from borderless windowed mode to fullscreen seems to have stopped it from crashing for the time being.
 

Leatherface

Member
The thing with people posting their fps values that's bothering me is that when you say something like "with this GPU I get 45 fps at 1440p", it doesn't really mean anything.


Or maybe just maybe people are reporting an average across a time frame in various conditions? I think most people here who are tweaking the game for optimal performance are aware that different things effect the framerate. If most of the time it's dialed in to 45FPS, it seems like that would be a reasonable FPS to report, no? I am one of those people BTW. ;)
 

RedSwirl

Junior Member
I've been able to keep a steady 30fps so far (GTX 760) but the frame pacing is very uneven. I've tried locking through both RTSS and the in-game limiter but I don't see any difference between them. If I turn off in-game vsync and only use Nvidia control panel it get's even worse.
 

zeox

Member
Drivers are a clean install, that was one of the first things I tried when the crashes became quite frequent. No overclocking on my end apart from a factory OC'd GPU which is now at lower clocks. I haven't edited any configs for the Witcher and don't have any mods installed. I've ran all sorts of tests and everything looks to be incredibly stable, it just seems to be the Witcher that brings on these driver crashes and hangs.

Anyway, switching the game from borderless windowed mode to fullscreen seems to have stopped it from crashing for the time being.

I had the same problems as you (same card also), and switching to fullscreen completely stopped the crashing for me. I've played about 20 hours after i switched and not a single crash.
 
I had the same problems as you (same card also), and switching to fullscreen completely stopped the crashing for me. I've played about 20 hours after i switched and not a single crash.

Yeah, it's been perfect since I did that. The game is way smoother in fullscreen as well which is a nice bonus, but unfortunately the game resets my monitor colour settings when I run it in fullscreen.

Still, that's a minor inconvenience compared to the constant crashing in borderless windowed mode.
 

dEvAnGeL

Member
i installed the game on a new ssd and now the game wont start, it started the first time ive tried the game but now it tries to start and goes back to the desktop immediately, so weird, don't know what to do
 

Easy_D

never left the stone age
Appears to have added scripting stuff for mods and an achievement hotfix for stuff that got broken in 1.08

Edit: It also fixed my janky inventory, it's not slow and awkward now :).
 

Tovarisc

Member
4GB download for this?

Patch 1.08.1 (14.08.2015)
  • Introduces a retro-active fix to some of the achievements that were amended in the patch 1.08.
  • Adds sources for scripts (mod support).
What has caused such patch size bloat, CDPR isn't only team releasing huge patches to fix 1-2 things?
 
This runs great on my 290x with everything on ultra other than the Nvidia stuff, but it's definitely not the graphical beast I was expecting. Looks real good, but nowhere near the pre-release material. Bit of a shame I thought it would be the new Crysis which PC games need.
 
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