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Witcher 3 PC Performance Thread

Stiler

Member
Guys if I lock to 30fps, and run at 1080p, what settings will I be looking at on a 780ti? Can I run Ultra without hairworks? Or maybe even with it if its at only a locked 30fps?


I'm on a 2600k/780 dc II (not ti)/8gb ram and I'm running it locked at 30fps with everything on ultra cept foliage distance to high and shadows to high with hairworks fully on.

I think you would be fine with a ti if you have a comparable or better cpu.
 

EatChildren

Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
It didn't crash that often for me but like the fifth time the driver stopped working I just said fuck it and reverted. No crash in 4 hours.

I haven't had the black screen driver crash for a little while, but when I did have it it'd trigger only during cutscenes. That crash just killed my signal outright forcing me to restart. This crash freezes the game, but I can alt-tab out and close it.

But yeah, gonna take your advice and roll back my drivers, because fuck this. I'm so lenient when it comes to PC tinkering and inconsistencies too, just due to the nature of the problem. But I kinda gotta be able to use my inventory without high probability of crash.

EDIT: Did you notice any performance lost rolling back out of the Witcher 3 drivers?
 
Have been playing until the tavern with hairworks on on my 970 and it worked pretty well with only moderate drops. Still; gonna play with hairworks off, as amazing as it might be, I like my 60fps more. Rest of the settings can go on ultra (with the exception of that grass draw distance thing)
 

Vuze

Member
I've got it all the time. Have to try locking it via the nvidia control panel tomorrow, see if it's any better. I don't get the stuttering when it's unlocked and hovering around 40 but playing at that frame rate is just uncomfortable anyway.
Same situation here as well. 30fps ingame lock creates a stuttery mess while the game runs smooth at 40~60fps when unlocked in the same place.
 

whyman

Member
I can confirm that the game will crash on launch using a GeForce 9800. (No I did not expect anything else, just dont think anyone else has tried.)
 

ramshot

Member
Has anyone attempted leaving the game unlocked, but forcing adaptive vsync from nvidia control panel? Does it work? Adaptive vsync makes it so much easier finding that 60 fps sweet spot that won't go to shit every time you bump into something a little heavier, but just tears a little instead.
 

tauke

Member
I'm redownloading the game with GOG Galaxy. If it still CTD without any warning message after the intro video, I'm done with day one gaming on PC lol.

Bloody frustrating as whatever settings doesn't show any improvement to the CTD issue and I can play other games fine even when both my CPU and GPU OC.
 

Mutagenic

Permanent Junior Member
Crashed again on a cutscene. This is getting ridiculous.

EDIT: Hard to hard boot my computer and the game just froze again 5 seconds into gameplay.
 

red731

Member
Just turned on my PC and start GOG Galaxy to update the game. The update only reaches, maybe, 14% before it fails and starts re-downloading over and over. Any fix for this?

Since nobody responded to you - had the same problem.
Go on GOG.com website and download the patch file manualy.
(account > library > W3 > patch)

ed: beaten by different QA combo

Nope. Doesn't seem to have native support either. I have to turn on ds4windows to use my DS4, and the only option for button prompts are 360.

Aw shucks. Glad I have 360 buttons burnt under fingers from all the PC usage.
 

viveks86

Member
I haven't had the black screen driver crash for a little while, but when I did have it it'd trigger only during cutscenes. That crash just killed my signal outright forcing me to restart. This crash freezes the game, but I can alt-tab out and close it.

But yeah, gonna take your advice and roll back my drivers, because fuck this. I'm so lenient when it comes to PC tinkering and inconsistencies too, just due to the nature of the problem. But I kinda gotta be able to use my inventory without high probability of crash.

EDIT: Did you notice any performance lost rolling back out of the Witcher 3 drivers?

Oh you guys are experiencing a lot of crashes? I had 1 in 6 hours. Hmmmm...
 
Absolutely useless and wrong. R7 260x can't run it? Okay m8, tell me why I can run it medium and high settings at 30 locked?

It's best just to try it out for yourselves. Pretty damn well optimized imo, bugs aside.

Well, yeah.
I've also read some reports that even a HD 7770 can run the game.
 
My SLI 970s and i5 2500K at 4.3GHz are only getting - 50fps at 1440p Ultra, and that's with hairworks off, SSAO, blur off, sharpening off, and foliage distance set to high.

One thing I have noticed is that my GPU1 usage is hovering around 60%, perhaps the current drivers aren't doing too well for SLI. Also, I've noticed that when bumping the res down to 1080p, my video card alters the RGB settings to limited dynamic range. I'm pretty sure this is an nvidia issue for all games, but having to turn down the res has made me notice it a lot more.
 
Same situation here as well. 30fps ingame lock creates a stuttery mess while the game runs smooth at 40~60fps when unlocked in the same place.

How are you locking it to 30fps?

If you have Nvidia, to do it properly with (any game) you should turn off any 'in game' Vsync options, force 'half refresh rate' in Nvidia control panel and combine that with a 30fps cap in Afterburner Riva tuner statistics and tools.

Doing that will give you a 'nice' 30fps style console experience.
 

Resnais

Neo Member
Morning scene,

I tried to run it on a i7 860, 8gb ram, 660gtx, 3340x1440 (34" 21:9)

Graphics on low, postprocessing- everything disabled.
Created a W3 profile in nvidia settings- set everything to high performance, disabled any eye candy.

Still the game ran 10-20fps.

Then i tried 3x lower resolution in the game settings, still 10-20fps.

I can run GTA5 with adaptive vsync, fxaa on this machine 50+fps, but W3 i cant get even 30fps.

Maybe im missing some tweaks? Any recommendations? I would be really happy to get 30fps at least :)
(Please dont recommend me to upgrade my rig, this is not the game which would motivate me to do that)

Happy witch hunting!
 

dreamfall

Member
Had to just turn hairworks off. If I wanted to play it at a rock steady 30, I'd leave it on but I couldn't be bothered. Just messing around in 1080p, everything else Ultra-ed. And a smooth 60.
 

Vuze

Member
How are you locking it to 30fps?

If you have Nvidia, to do it properly with (any game) you should turn off any 'in game' Vsync options, force 'half refresh rate' in Nvidia control panel and combine that with a 30fps cap in Afterburner Riva tuner statistics and tools.

Doing that will give you a 'nice' 30fps style console experience.
While still not perfect (or I'm simply not used to 30fps gaming anymore), it looks much better and has perfect 33.3ms frame timing with this way. Cheers!
 
Had to just turn hairworks off. If I wanted to play it at a rock steady 30, I'd leave it on but I couldn't be bothered. Just messing around in 1080p, everything else Ultra-ed. And a smooth 60.

Does hairworks make much of a difference to the game? By that I mean does it look that much better than no hairworks?
 

martino

Member
7870xt crossfire
i7 950 @3.9ghz

Crossfire not working at all with profiles not breaking the game.
it's 1080p@30-35fps with at high and some ultra (like textures,terrain) and of course no hairworks.
 

Genio88

Member
Game seems to be sensitive to overclocks. I just dropped back to stock for now (cpu, 3570k was at 4.6) to stop it from crashing. Will have to tinker with my oc settings tomorrow

Understood, my i7 4770k is just slightly overclocked to 4ghz but it's a rock solid overclock, i've tested it a lot with cpu stress test and CPU intensive games like Watch Dogs, i hope i won't need to drop it, is always a pain to overclock CPUs again.
What about GPUs instead? is it particularly sensitive to GPU's overclock too? my 980 is +125mhz overclocked on core at stock voltage, and it's been pretty stable on benchmarks and Far Cry 4/Watch Dogs
 

artsi

Member
It's not ideal but I limited my FPS to 40 from the .ini file since I can't reach stable 60 with good settings. Much smoother than either locked 30 or unlocked 60 that jumps around 40-50.

[Engine]
LimitFPS=40
 

supersaw

Member
Can't really stay above 60fps with hairworks on ultra 2560 x 1440 with Titan-x, kinda sucks that these nvidia bells and whistles chew so much gpu kinda not worth leaving them on most the time.
 

pahamrick

Member
i7 920 @ 3.8ghz
12GB Ram
GTX 970 1500 GPU / 4000 Mem

So far I've managed a rock solid 30fps with everything on Ultra and Hairworks enabled. One thing I've noticed though, if you want to lock it to 30fps DO NOT USE the game's built in frame limiter. I was getting serious stutter, once I locked it using an outside program (DXTory) I didn't have that horrible stutter.
 

Darkone

Member
Hey Gaf,

I will be running the game from a 7200rpm H.D and not from SSD, does this cause performance issues?

I currently don`t have an SSD at all, planning to purchase in 2 months.
 

Saiyan-Rox

Member
I5 3370k overclocked to 4.2
GTX980
12GB Ram

Getting about 50-60 FPS but not locked it drops a lot with all settings max. Any recommended settings I should turn down to get a locked 60?
 

golem

Member
How are you locking it to 30fps?

If you have Nvidia, to do it properly with (any game) you should turn off any 'in game' Vsync options, force 'half refresh rate' in Nvidia control panel and combine that with a 30fps cap in Afterburner Riva tuner statistics and tools.

Doing that will give you a 'nice' 30fps style console experience.

The half refresh was very stuttery for me. And applying Afterburner only made it smooth when the OSD was being displayed (Titan X SLI). This is what I ended up doing:

Nvidia 3d options: Vsync - let program decide

W3 Framerate cap - 30fps (actually 40 right now)

W3 Vsync - On

W3 Fullscreen mode - Fullscreen (this is important)

Runs pretty smooth now.
 

Ryan_

Member
In the beginning of the thread, I read that some people were about to start playing with a GTX 660.

Does anybody have some follow up results or experience they can share? I'm a bit on the fence but I'd still like to get this one for PC instead of PS4.
 

pahamrick

Member
Hey Gaf,

I will be running the game from a 7200rpm H.D and not from SSD, does this cause performance issues?

I currently don`t have an SSD at all, planning to purchase in 2 months.

I'm running on a 7200RPM HD and not noticing any performance issues, and load times are pretty fast.
 

Zakalwe

Banned
I'm redownloading the game with GOG Galaxy. If it still CTD without any warning message after the intro video, I'm done with day one gaming on PC lol.

Bloody frustrating as whatever settings doesn't show any improvement to the CTD issue and I can play other games fine even when both my CPU and GPU OC.

Turn off/dial back your OC and try again. Many have reported success this way.

And this is half the fun of day 1 PC gaming. We're pioneers, brother!
 
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