• Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!

DF: Witcher 3 patch 1.07 negatively impacts framerate, up to 8fps lower on XB1

I'm conflicted. On one hand, I don't really care if the frame rate drops a bit in some areas. They've added a lot of good shit in the patch, and I'm guessing the frame rate will be fixed.

On the other hand, I'm glad CDPR is getting roasted for releasing a patch like this. IF they knew about this ahead of release, the patch should have been pulled. Hopefully they'll learn from this and not commit release dates for upcoming patches.
 
It takes place in a gritty, realistic fantasy world not that dissimilar from the Game of Thrones universe, why not have similar levels of political intrigue, double crossing and whatnot play into the main story? Give me different quest objectives and goals to strive for.

Did you play TW2? That game is entirely concerned with the world's politics. In fact, many criticized the game for being too concerned with the fates of kingdoms and not nearly enough with slaying monsters. I thought it was a wonderful game, and it showed how everyone is using everyone else and everyone has ulterior motives. It fits the world perfectly.

There is also plenty of politics going on in TW3. You are in the middle of a war zone for much of the game. One thing about the games, is that they are very much for fans of the books. If you have read the books, you have such a deeper appreciation for what's going on. They do try and explain things in the games themselves, but there is still so much context that is missing. I imagine that much of the politics must go over many people's heads. If they haven't played the first two games, at least, there is just no chance they will understand it since it's not really explained in game.

I think the quests and writing are one of the game's strongest points! There are only so many quest objectives possible, but it's the way they are presented that matters. And it is done so well in TW3. Almost every quest has some human element to it. Many have some twist. Geralt's internal dialogue often adds wonderfully to these encounters. Sometimes the outcomes are quite tragic no matter what you do, and that's one of the main points of the series. Geralt is such a great character. He is world weary and cynical, but he has a noble heart. He tries to make the world a better place, but it's a deeply troubled world. He's often hated for trying to do what's right. In the end, all he really has are his friends.
 
I'd say its people like you who doesn't buy a game because it's not perfectly polished on Day 1 that have the most patience. That's not a criticism, but I think many of us are willing to look past some jank if the game offers enough of an upside, which this game clearly does for a lot of people.

In fact, I'd say that a good portion of my favourite games of all-time have some manner of performance issues, bugs, jank, etc.

Not to say that my way is the right way, but I do feel bad for you if your standards are *that* high that you cant enjoy a game unless it's a tightly polished experience. Definitely rules out many of the more ambitious games out there.

Fair enough, mate. Different people have different standards for different things. I don't need a game to be perfect technically; I enjoyed the hell out of Dragon's Dogma which had pretty average/poor graphics and a rocky frame rate but it wasn't a buggy mess that needed an endless cycle of patches and then patches to fix the patches. That's just aggravating to me so if I'm playing a game to relax and be entertained why would I want to deal with that sh*t? It's not really a matter of patience since I'm not waiting for anything. There's (thankfully) still plenty of devs out there that take the time to ensure the game is at an acceptable quality before releasing so I can just pick up one of those. No need to feel bad for me. :-)
 
???

What can't happen on PC, the Performance getting worse ? Because I assure you it can if the code has bugs in it.

Or them taking their time with PC patch ? Again if they find bugs now they might delay / pull the patch.
Yep. Just look at what happened with gtav. Newest patch fucked performance in the PC version. It can happen.
 
Fair enough, mate. Different people have different standards for different things. I don't need a game to be perfect technically; I enjoyed the hell out of Dragon's Dogma which had pretty average/poor graphics and a rocky frame rate but it wasn't a buggy mess that needed an endless cycle of patches and then patches to fix the patches. That's just aggravating to me so if I'm playing a game to relax and be entertained why would I want to deal with that sh*t? It's not really a matter of patience since I'm not waiting for anything. There's (thankfully) still plenty of devs out there that take the time to ensure the game is at an acceptable quality before releasing so I can just pick up one of those. No need to feel bad for me. :-)
Well considering this thread is talking about performance, bringing up Dragon's Dogma, which could have desperately used some patching, is just a really strange example.

I honestly couldn't play DD. Shit was in a woeful fucking technical state.
 
???

What can't happen on PC, the Performance getting worse ? Because I assure you it can if the code has bugs in it.

Or them taking their time with PC patch ? Again if they find bugs now they might delay / pull the patch.

Forced vsync with double buffer only can't happen on PC because that's not how PC works. And it looks like this is what happened to XBO version - they removed triple buffering.
 
I hate this so much, there wasn't such problems (and patching didn't even exist) earlier when PS2 dominated the market.

Are you saying games didn't get released with performance problems on PS2? There were plenty, high profile games too.
 
So odd. CDPR had to know these issues would be identified and publicized almost immediately. Seems like an uncharacteristic move for them.
 
I hate this so much, there wasn't such problems (and patching didn't even exist) earlier when PS2 dominated the market.

Well, one of the most beloved Ps2 games, Shadow of the Colossus, runs at 20fps during every fight WITH drops to 14-15fps.

And other ambitious games like GTA San Andreas or Resident Evil 4 also had their share of frequent framerate drops.

It's not like we didn't have framerate issues on Ps2 just because there were no patches. At least now devs can try to fix it (though they risk failing, like in this case).
 
They enabled double buffering vsync on X1. It now locks to 20fps in the swamps. Parity with PS4!

bsnX0s8.png


Who uses double buffering in 2015?! That was a sad approach even on the vram starved last gen consoles.
 
Pretty sure they have the resources. It's not a small team(though not 1000 people Ubisoft size, either).

But maybe their full vision just isn't achievable with the current console hardware? It's a huge, ambitious game, after all. Was bound to never be technically perfect, but perhaps there are just bottlenecks they run into in certain scenarios that cant be overcome through throwing more money and manpower at it?

Saying they didn't take the PS4/XB1 versions seriously is probably not fair.

I mean, I suppose you're arguing that developers should stop developing with PC as lead platform?

EDIT: Actually I think I remember you from previous posts that were pretty clearly anti-PC....

What I was saying isn't anti-PC. Please. I actually play on PC a lot and really like that platform even if I always preferred consoles.

I am profoundly skeptical about multiplatform development though.

I'll say something you don't expect: I would have preferred Witcher 3 to be a PC exclusive if it was done in order to achieve the original vision they had for this game.
 
Well considering this thread is talking about performance, bringing up Dragon's Dogma, which could have desperately used some patching, is just a really strange example.

I honestly couldn't play DD. Shit was in a woeful fucking technical state.

And now I feel bad for you that you couldn't play Dragon's Dogma because of a few framerate hiccups so I guess we are even ha ha. Also my original comment was relating to a patch for previous issues introducing new issues that were not present before, not specifically about the framerate of game.
 
Well considering this thread is talking about performance, bringing up Dragon's Dogma, which could have desperately used some patching, is just a really strange example.

I honestly couldn't play DD. Shit was in a woeful fucking technical state.

And yet it was top 3 of my favorite games last gen, Performace/Framerate is a superficial thing to stop playing a game for, But i think that is a PC gamer thing to wax lyrical over more than a console gamer would.
 
What I was saying isn't anti-PC. Please. I actually play on PC a lot and really like that platform even if I always preferred consoles.

I am profoundly skeptical about multiplatform development though.

I'll say something you don't expect: I would have preferred Witcher 3 to be a PC exclusive if it was done in order to achieve the original vision they had for this game.
So you just don't like the realities of multiplatform development, in general? I mean, ok. You'd definitely get more polished experiences this way, but it would also mean each person would have a much smaller selection of games to choose from unless they owned every platform, which would suck.

And now I feel bad for you that you couldn't play Dragon's Dogma because of a few framerate hiccups so I guess we are even ha ha.
Had way more than just a few framerate hiccups though, is my point. I mean, I got what you were trying to say, but it was just a very weird example. It was in a much worse state than TW3 is.
 
And yet it was top 3 of my favorite games last gen, Performace/Framerate is a superficial thing to stop playing a game for, But i think that is a PC gamer thing to wax lyrical over more than a console gamer would.
Yes, because nobody except PC gamers complained about Dragon's Dogma's performance. lol
 
Are you saying games didn't get released with performance problems on PS2? There were plenty, high profile games too.

Well, one of the most beloved Ps2 games, Shadow of the Colossus, runs at 20fps during every fight WITH drops to 14-15fps.

And other ambitious games like GTA San Andreas or Resident Evil 4 also had their share of frequent framerate drops.

It's not like we didn't have framerate issues on Ps2 just because there were no patches. At least now devs can try to fix it (though they risk failing, like in this case).

Okay you are right but that wasn't what I was trying to say. Those janky (in terms of performance) games weren't that frequent and were much more in line with their time (Shadow of Colossus was 10x more ambitious than Witcher 3 considering the hardware it was developed for).

What I was saying is: these days, every multiplatform release has his load of problem at least on one platform, sometime it's PC, often it's consoles and I won't even talk about those crossgen games that are hideously downported on last gen. Every game out there lacks polish and it's even more evident on ambitious multiplatform ones. The further it gets the further we go in a crash route where market will be even more contracting.

Software should be working as intended from the get go, if no it's a failed product with the consequences it should come with (thanks Valve for the refund policies). Janky framerates aren't acceptable, it is a technical failure. Rock solid 30fps should be the last baseline. (And 60fps the norm *winks*)

I blame publishers.
 
Ok, how about testing a section outside of the effects heavy bog?

So far, so good for me, than again I'm not overly sensitive to dips (at least not the small drops). I'm sure PS4 players are in the same boat.
 
The PS4 version locked up at 20 fps in the swamp area? WTF. I'm glad have a capable PC.
Locked at 20 fps throughout an entire area is what I call unplayable. The input lag must be horrible.


And people told us the PS4 framerate was just fine and perfectly playable. Unbelievable...
Some people have frighteningly low expectations when it comes to framerate. Frighteningly low expectations.

It was fine for me. Sure a hitch here or there but nothing that stopped my enjoyment. Glad my enjoyment frightens you.
 
Maybe blame other consumers for their low standards? A significant portion are more than fine with a lot of the less egregious performance issues.

There's been a ton of backlash to these kinds of things lately. Publishers should know already that people have expectations about this stuff. I'm just hoping it's the teething issues of the new generation.
 
Yes, because nobody except PC gamers complained about Dragon's Dogma's performance. lol

My point was, that you stated it stopped you from playing the game, Yet i and many others didnt let a few frames dropping stop us playing it.

Wasnt even released on PC, But considering your PC centric you probably went full snob mode at the performance.
 
There's been a ton of backlash to these kinds of things lately. Publishers should know already that people have expectations about this stuff. I'm just hoping it's the teething issues of the new generation.

We're almost 20 months into this generation, the time for teething is long past.
 
Had way more than just a few framerate hiccups though, is my point. I mean, I got what you were trying to say, but it was just a very weird example. It was in a much worse state than TW3 is.

I don't think this is true at all. People couldn't even launch this game at launch as far as I recall.

Dragon's Dogma bugs (counted 18, almost all of them minor)

The Witcher 3 bugs (I counted 8 in the major bugs and crash bugs category alone, far too many for me to count in the full list).
 
I started out with the PS4 version but the prolonged lock to 20fps during certain situations really put me off. So I went and bought the Xbox version, all was much better. And now they replicate the same problem I switched versions to avoid. I hope they fix this in another patch. I really wish there was a way I could downgrade back to 1.5.
 
And yet it was top 3 of my favorite games last gen, Performace/Framerate is a superficial thing to stop playing a game for, But i think that is a PC gamer thing to wax lyrical over more than a console gamer would.

DD/DD:DA on 360 is one of my all time favorites, hands down. But I couldn't play more than two hours of the PS3 version because of how shit the frame rate was. It literally gave me headaches and I had to stop, it wasn't worth it.
 
There seems to be some huge texture streaming issues on PS4 in that one DF video:

http://youtu.be/-oNdvGcJ-vc

Take a look as he's riding on the bridge to Novigrad at the left wall (2.10 onwards) and several times thereafter in the city itself on different buildings.
 
Okay you are right but that wasn't what I was trying to say. Those janky (in terms of performance) games weren't that frequent and were much more in line with their time (Shadow of Colossus was 10x more ambitious than Witcher 3 considering the hardware it was developed for).

What I was saying is: these days, every multiplatform release has his load of problem at least on one platform, sometime it's PC, often it's consoles and I won't even talk about those crossgen games that are hideously downported on last gen. Every game out there lacks polish and it's even more evident on ambitious multiplatform ones. The further it gets the further we go in a crash route where market will be even more contracting.

Software should be working as intended from the get go, if no it's a failed product with the consequences it should come with (thanks Valve for the refund policies). Janky framerates aren't acceptable, it is a technical failure. Rock solid 30fps should be the last baseline. (And 60fps the norm *winks*)

I blame publishers.

Welcome to the world of patches, pre-orders and bullshit PR.

It's just the new way of things and consumers have frankly done little to show they will punish companies for their anti-consumer practices.

Games were bad in other eras but they rarely had the trifecta we get almost frequently today with games: ridiculous bullshots/PR promises, pre-order bonuses/day one dlc, technical messes at launch.

Cdpr is guilty very heavily of two of those things. And when one of the consensus best developers is even in on the game it shows just how ingrained this new world is.
 
Top Bottom