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Witcher 3 PC Performance Thread

On Windows 7, 16GB RAM, i7 4770K OC'd to 4.2GHz, GTX 770 2GB. Performance is fucking abysmal. At 1080p, even with everything set to low and no post-processing effects except HBAO+, I'll get some drops below 60. Raise some settings, and I have to turn off AO completely to keep the framerate above 45. Fucking GTA V both looks and runs better for me.
 
The theory on the Nvidia forums is that the latest drivers either purposely crippled Kepler or did nothing for it to get everyone to move to Maxwell or some shit, but Nvidia are denying it and said they're investigating the issue. All Kepler GPUs specifically have seriously shitty performance for some unknown reason. 290x destroying a 780 Ti (it's always the opposite), a 960 is beating a 780 (780 is usually 36% ahead of a 960). Titan (original) beating the 960 (BY ONLY 2 FPS). They estimated a 40% performance penalty for Kepler for absolutely no known reason.

It's clear the Kepler GPUs have been fucked over in some way, which is the claim other sites are making as well (It doesn't take a genius to notice, just look at the benchmarks, they make absolutely no sense...), and there's also a long reddit post (it's apparently accurate) claiming that the GameWorks libraries are what crippled Kepler. I don't know what's going on man...

But yeah... Nvidia has commented saying they're investigating the issue... As if they'd do anything.

All of us with Kepler are basically fucked thanks to Nvidia's shitty business practices.

Edit: People on Kepler are getting performance improvements rolling back driver updates. Look at the Nvidia forum.

Ahh this is starting to make sense... couldn't figure out why my Kepler-based rig couldn't maintain a framerate of 30 even at low resolutions. Will try the rollback tomorrow.
 

plenilune

Member
Since I have a GTX 760 I tried using my TV (1360x768) instead of my 1920x1200 PC monitor. It's not even HD, but surprisingly, it looks amazingly good, I gain ~50% FPS and since I play 4ft away on couch, I can turn off the expensive AA I won't even notice. I get constant 60ish FPS on high-ultra setting w/o hairworks.

Anyone do the same? I'm sure 1080p looks better, but I'm certain it's not worth the 50% FPS gain.
 
When turning on FXAA in nV control panel, what do I do with the other AA settings?

alt4U9C.png
 

Belmire

Member
On Windows 7, 16GB RAM, i7 4770K OC'd to 4.2GHz, GTX 770 2GB. Performance is fucking abysmal. At 1080p, even with everything set to low and no post-processing effects except HBAO+, I'll get some drops below 60. Raise some settings, and I have to turn off AO completely to keep the framerate above 45. Fucking GTA V both looks and runs better for me.

Reduce foliage distance.
 

Black_Stride

do not tempt fate do not contrain Wonder Woman's thighs do not do not
Yeah I'll be running at 1080p, so honestly if I can have a locked 30fps on on low settings with maybe textures medium I'll be happy enough. Might not look quite as good as the PS4 version but should still be alright.

Can anyone give me a recommendation here, any help is appreciated

i5 2500k (non OC)
570 GTX
12 GB ram

Should I go PS4 or PC with my setup? What are the equivalent setting on ps4 to PC. Thanks for any help!!

A little something for us running with older rigs.

My exact setup
i5 2500K, GTX 570 and 16GB Ram. (Everything OC'd)

Running the game locked to 30 with these settings:
  • Post Processing - All on(yes even Chromatic Aberration)
  • Hairworks - Tested it on all 11fps, tested it on Geralt only 16fps.....OFF
  • AO - HBAO+.
  • Res - 1080p.
  • DispM - Full Screen.
  • Bgrnd Characters - Low(The is no difference between each setting cuz i havent found any spot in the game where 150 characters even exist together)
  • Shadows - Medium
  • Terrain - High
  • Water - Medium
  • Grass Density - High
  • Texture Quality - High
  • Detail - High/Medium - I didnt notice a difference in frame rate or GPU usage during my test fights.
  • Foliage Visibility Range - Medium (this is the biggest performance hog by far. Difference between Medium and Ultra performance wise is extreme to say the least.)

Overall im more than happy with the performance of my GTX570, its really held its own against the witcher even if most of the setting are on medium and im locked at 30.

I havent compared these settings to XBO/PS4 as im more than happy with what the game looks like and how it runs, I can take screenshots if need be if you guys wanna compare it to the console version.
 

Exoda

Neo Member
Ok so I'm 90% sure the "stutter" when rotating the camera slowly with a gamepad is an issue with the controller input and not frame-pacing or anything like that.

I just did a test where I stood in place and rotated the camera, got the stutter. Then I walked Geralt in circles in the exact same spot, letting the camera auto rotate with him, no stutter. Stopped Geralt, rotated cam manually again, stutter.

My testing shows the same thing, I've tried with 2 controllers and all other games work fine with both.
 

antonz

Member
Even with it set to low, shitty performance. Since I first got the PC back in Autumn 2013, this is probably the second game I've played to have utterly terrible performance no matter my settings, along with Watch Dogs.

Seems like something affecting performance not game related. People with worse machines then you doing far better
 

Belmire

Member
Even with it set to low, shitty performance. Since I first got the PC back in Autumn 2013, this is probably the second game I've played to have utterly terrible performance no matter my settings, along with Watch Dogs.

I have an i5 4670k with a 780 and half your ram as a secondary system. The gap can't be that big between a 770/80...
 
I have an i5 4670k with a 780 and half your ram as a secondary system. The gap can't be that big between a 770/80...

Strange. I'll try uninstalling my drivers and doing a clean reinstall. Haven't had issues with any other games. My performance in GTA V pretty much stayed consistent after the recent driver update.
 

Yurikerr

This post isn't by me, it's by a guy with the same username as me.
In think RadeonPRO is not affecting my game.

How do you guys injected SMAA in the game?

Edit: Found it. My RadeonPRO was in 32bits only mode.
 

Portugeezer

Member
Man, even with this "fix" HairWorks still tanks my framerate.

I was running the game at 35-40 with almost everything on ultra (foliage high). When i turned hairworks on Geralt my fps gos to 25-27, with everything on high and foliage on medium i gained like 2 frames.

I'll try the 8x setting.

Yeah, I get about a 10fps drop, and anything below 8x makes the horse look stupid so I just turned it off to maintain a smooth 60fps.

nevermind see its been posted.

Yeah it was posted, and I have a r9 290 and get performance hits when using 16x or 8x, maybe he OC'd but I find gamers' claims to be full of shit sometimes.
 

hlhbk

Member
Not sure if this has been posted yet. To disable the message that a gamepad has been detected over and over again:

http://www.reddit.com/r/witcher/comments/36k02v/question_disable_the_gamepad_detected_box/

Go to your Witcher 3 folder location and go into this folder:

"...\The Witcher 3\bin\config\base"

Open up "hidden.ini" with notepad.

Change "LockControlScheme=0" to "LockControlScheme=2"

This will get rid of the annoying message box and will always show the controls for the controller. You still can switch to your KB/M whenever you want, but it won't display the KB/M controls on the hud.
 

CHC

Member
I've given up on downsampling from 1440p to 1080p on my GTX 780. Instead I'm just running SweetFX with SMAA & sharpening, then also running in-game AA and sharpening. Between the two AA modes and the sharpening it still looks crisp and pretty much wipes out aliasing as best as can be hoped for at native resolution.

Managing to run high and ultra mix and still keep above 30, and the loss of image quality is really not that appreciable when things are in motion.
 
Performance is great on my mid-range PC! I expected worse--much worse.

Specs:
i3-4160
8 GB RAM
R9 270 (OC'd to 270X speeds)

Settings:
1920x1080
High (Textures & Terrain on Ultra, HairWorks disabled)

Frame rate:
~40-50
 

jackharm

Neo Member
My setup:
  • 4670k at 4.2 (bad overclocker :< )
  • GTX 970 at 1506 core (custom bios)
  • 8GB DDR3 1600mhz (should upgrade to 16GB later in July)
I'm able to get a steady 60fps at 1080P with everything on ultra/high foliage with hbao+ and hair works. (Of course when you zoom onto Geralt's head it'll drop down to 45-50ish fps).

However I have had a few freezes every now and then with both borderless and fullscreen (albeit less with fullscreen).

Remember to kill you Nvidia Streamer service for a bit of a fps boost!

----
EDIT: If I downsample 1440p my fps hovers around 45-53ish with previously mentioned settings.
 

tuxfool

Banned
I've given up on downsampling from 1440p to 1080p on my GTX 780. Instead I'm just running SweetFX with SMAA & sharpening, then also running in-game AA and sharpening. Between the two AA modes and the sharpening it still looks crisp and pretty much wipes out aliasing as best as can be hoped for at native resolution.

Managing to run high and ultra mix and still keep above 30, and the loss of image quality is really not that appreciable when things are in motion.

Seriously?

I have an R9 290. On paper the gtx 780 should be faster. I have 1440p downsampling and things on ultra. I get extremely rare fps drops to 28.
 
Idk if this has been posted yet, but in case someone doesn't know you can reduce/remove the AA from hairworks to get better performance if you can deal with aliasing (It defaults to 8x MSAA).

you can find the setting in:

\The Witcher 3\bin\config\base\rendering.ini

HairWorksAALevel
 
3570k @ 4.4
970 SLI OC

1080p Ultra w/everything + hair

I could barely get over 45fps until I switched from borderless windowed to fullscreen, now I'm locked 60. It's something to try if you haven't yet and your performance is baffling you.
 

CHC

Member
Seriously?

I have an R9 290. On paper the gtx 780 should be faster. I have 1440p downsampling and things on ultra. I get extremely rare fps drops to 28.

Yeah something is fucked up with the Kepler series (nVidia 6 and 7). The game runs like shit on my system. I won't be hyperbolic and say "unplayable" but all Ultra (without hairworks) shoots me down into the 20s at 1440p, and all high drops into the 20s for certain scenes (entering town, going near certain parts of the woods). I think something is actually wrong on a driver level right now, even the 960 is pulling equivalent / better FPS.

It still looks good in 1080p but come on I should be able to push it a little more.
 
Is there a way to get proper V-sync support with triple buffering in fullscreen? Full-screen gets me the best performance but I can't stand the tearing. Uncapping the framerate removes most of the tearing but introduces judder.
 

Wag

Member
Turned on SLI, much better. Now it's actually playable on my SLI Titans in 4k. Even with everything turned on, including hairworks @ 60fps. One thing I did notice is the voice overs tend to be out of sync during the quests.
 
Saw this on reddit on how to use hairworks with an AMD card without too much of a performance hit

http://www.reddit.com/r/witcher/comments/36jpe9/how_to_run_hairworks_on_amd_cards_without/

Anyone with an AMD card want to try it out and see how it goes?

It definitely helps, but it still eats up 5-10 or more FPS for me.

With HairWorks off, I see about 40 FPS outside. When I turn it on (with the "fix") my frame rates drop to about 30. Before the fix, I was plummeting down to 20-25.

I'm still going to keep it off for the time being because the performance hit just isn't worth it.
 
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