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[Black_Stride]

i72600k, 6950 2gb, 8gb ram

ultra settings, 1080p vsynced to 60 fps

YAY!....Looks like Ill be able to lock it at 60

From what I've heard a generally high end PC(i7, 570, 6gb ram) can still be given a workout at max with around 30-60 fps.

What?....thats a huge margin, 30 - 60 fps......does that mean the game will dip to the 30s and max out in the 60s during regular play?
Terrible, just terrible.....might as well lock it at 30.

I really hope that is wrong though, cuz my machine can handle Battlefield 3 on Ultra(sans MSAA using FXAA injection) no problem 60fps all day every day.
If Skyrim causes it real sweat (30s is unacceptable) ill be pretty shocked.

 

[TheExodu5]

Why not just force transparency AA to improve the foliage? Should be a much better solution than some post filter.

Transparency AA is incredibly demanding. Would probably cut your framerate in less than half.

 

[Durante]

Transparency AA is incredibly demanding. Would probably cut your framerate in less than half.

I'm talking about transparency multisampling, not transparency supersampling. The former usually doesn't have a huge impact on performance. Anyway, I'll be able to try it in a few minutes

 

[neoism]

Press the § key to the left of the 1, then type fov 80 if you want 80

do you only have to do this once?

I noticed an issue using the 360 pad on PC.

Look straight up.

Time how long it takes to look straight down. Takes 4-5 seconds.
Time how long it takes to look straight up. Takes about half that time.

Why on Earth can I look down faster than I can look up?

not fixable... very disappointing. New Vegas works perfect on PC..... damn it beth fix yo shit.

 

[Infinite_Daremo]

What can i expect from the game:

i7 M620 @ 2.67GHz
4GB DDR3
Radeon HD 5850 1GB

Ran Witcher 2 ~30fps at 1080p but i never have luck with Bethesda games. Oblivion constantly stutters for me.

 

[Zaphod]

Are there any game breaking bugs showing up in the initial release of PC the game?

 

[Wallach]

I'm talking about transparency multisampling, not transparency supersampling. The former usually doesn't have a huge impact on performance. Anyway, I'll be able to try it in a few minutes

In my experience with Fallout 3 and NV on a 5850, letting the game handle transparency multisampling resulted in some pretty fucked up dithering. When I force AA through CCC and turn off Gamebryo's AA, even with adaptive multisampling it would catch stuff like the distant towers but not the foliage, so they were pretty aliased. Supersampling on alpha worked but as mentioned, the framerate hit is brutal.

From his shot it looks like this rewrite of theirs won't apply alpha multisampling through the in-game AA anymore, so I'm trying to decide how to handle it. I do like FXAA though so I'll probably run with that.

 

[BoobPhysics101]

Maxed out, with 8x AA and Ultra everything, Vsync off, 1080p I'm getting 55-80 FPS throughout the intro.

Will update with more after I get out into the real game world.

 

[Zeliard]

Yay BoobPhysics, glad it worked out for you.

 

[TheExodu5]

Edit - Could I bug you for one more comparison shot of FXAA without MSAA?

I won't even bother posting it. It looks the exact same as 4x MSAA + FXAA. The performance is untouched as well. I'm guessing this means that FXAA is forcing MSAA by default, or something. =\

Maxed out, with 8x AA and Ultra everything, Vsync off, 1080p I'm getting 55-80 FPS throughout the intro.

Will update with more after I get out into the real game world.

Playing with vsync off is really annoying as the mouse Y axis gets super sensitive when your framerate gets high.

 

[neoism]

So it takes 2-3 seconds to swap weapons/magic etc using a 360 controller but that is considered normal? Why the hell did they get rid of the 8 way d-pad selection used in Oblivion, it worked so much better.

So If I use a bow and shoot an enemy, I have to pause the game by going into the favourites menu to change to some close range weapons...this is frustrating.

wow are you serious..... I loved that,,,, WTF BETHDESA the 24 hours I have to wait for this just got a lot easier...

 

[Zeliard]

I won't even bother posting it. It looks the exact same as 4x MSAA + FXAA. The performance is untouched as well. I'm guessing this means that FXAA is forcing MSAA by default, or something. =\

You manage to force any AO or not messing with that yet?

 

[Wallach]

Playing with vsync off is really annoying as the mouse Y axis gets super sensitive when your framerate gets high.

What kind of weirdness is there with vsync on? Or is it only messed up with vsync forced off in the .ini?

 

[eosos]

I WANT TO PLAY!

 

[TheExodu5]

What kind of weirdness is there with vsync on? Or is it only messed up with vsync forced off in the .ini?

The weirdness is there no matter what. When your framerate goes down, Y axis sensitivity goes down. When your framerate goes up, Y axis sensitivity goes up.

Anyways, in the process of getting MSAA/FXAA screenshots + performance comparison up.

 

[Aesius]

I also have a 4850 (but a worse CPU) and am wondering what it can pull off

One more for the 4850 crowd. Debating on running it at medium at 1080p or on high at a lower resolution.

 

[Lactose_Intolerant]

The weirdness is there no matter what. When your framerate goes down, Y axis sensitivity goes down. When your framerate goes up, Y axis sensitivity goes up.

Anyways, in the process of getting MSAA/FXAA screenshots + performance comparison up.

You should never buy a Bethesda game when it first comes out unless you can't wait. Its a single player game, you should be able to wait. Let them release a patch or 2 and have the community fix everything else that Bethesda manages to screw up/make asstastical.

 

[neoism]

Links for easy comparing (switch back and forth in between the tabs):
4x MSAA
4x MSAA + FXAA

awesome... will not be using FXAA

 

[Atilac]

Anyone try this game with an ATI 4890?

 

[TheExodu5]

Alright...not going to bother with MSAA/FXAA screenshots.

I'll just give you the summary.

No AA: 40fps
FXAA: 40fps
FXAA + 4x MSAA: 40fps

I checked task manager, and I'm not being CPU limited. Weird. Very weird.

I see no reason not to use MSAA/FXAA, as neither seems to incur a performance hit, at least not on my system (i5 2500k, GTX 570).

 

[Zeliard]

You should never buy a Bethesda game when it first comes out unless you can't wait. Its a single player game, you should be able to wait. Let them release a patch or 2 and have the community fix everything else that Bethesda manages to screw up/make asstastical.

Gotta take the good with the bad. It's just the way it is.

Anyway, someone should try forcing AO through Inspector or whatever and see if there's any effect.

 

[Wallach]

Alright...not going to bother with MSAA/FXAA screenshots.

I'll just give you the summary.

No AA: 40fps
FXAA: 40fps
FXAA + 4x MSAA: 40fps

I checked task manager, and I'm not being CPU limited. Weird. Very weird.

wut

 

[Durante]

Anyway, someone should try forcing AO through Inspector or whatever and see if there's any effect.

I'm on it.

 

[TheExodu5]

Ambient occlusion does work. I'm using the Fallout 3 compatibility profile.

I'll get some shots up soon.

 

[PigSpeakers]

Hey, so I know I meet the recommended specs, but I'm wondering what kind of performance specifics I'm looking at based on my computer:

i5 2400
4 gigs of ram
gtx 460 OC 1024mb
monitor is 1080p widescreen, too.

 

[Jijidasu]

Any word on some LOD/Foilage distance/density tweaks?

Loving this so far!

 

[Gareth Bale]

I turned on FXAA, land shadows, tree shadows, and turned off mouse acceleration. The game looks and feels so much better.

 

[Zeliard]

Ambient occlusion does work. I'm using the Fallout 3 compatibility profile.

I'll get some shots up soon.

Sweet. You messing with any custom config commands?

 

[-bakalhau-]

***Lower end users, this is for you***

GTX 285 Overclocked - bit better than a 4890, roughly equivalent to a GTX460, equivalent or a bit better than a 5850 I think.
i7 920 @2.8Ghz
6GB RAM
W7 x64
1680x1050

bTreesReceiveShadows=1
bDrawLandShadows=1
V-sync On
Forgot to put AF to 16x.

Much higher than High but not quite Ultra. FXAA does the job extremely well but you can apply 2xMSAA or 4x too. Edit: 4xMSAA seems to have no impact on framerate as show above. I tested myself too.


From the first time you're set in the the open world until the first village:

Frames=7096
Time (ms)=126122
Min=44
Max=63
Avg=56.263

Entering and running around the village:

Frames=3675
Time (ms)=68378
Min=34
Max=63
Avg=53.745

 

[Detox]

How do you use MSAA and FXAA?
nvm I found it

 

[Peterthumpa]

Something odd is going on with the game... I'm getting the same performance at 4x MSAA as I am with 8x MSAA... hmm.

Which means that your bottleneck is CPU.

 

[TheExodu5]

Which means that your bottleneck is CPU.

Nope. Like I said earlier, no MSAA and 4x MSAA give me the same performance, and I've verified that my CPU is not bottlenecking anything (no core is maxed out).

 

[SparkTR]

Anybody know how to make the game start with a custom fov by default? The original fov is barely tolerable with my resolution.

 

[Zeliard]

bTreesReceiveShadows=1
bDrawLandShadows=1

Any other useful config commands yet outside of those two?

 

[BoobPhysics101]

Yay BoobPhysics, glad it worked out for you.

Thanks so much! You and Indigo are swell fellows. I owe ya!

I won't even bother posting it. It looks the exact same as 4x MSAA + FXAA. The performance is untouched as well. I'm guessing this means that FXAA is forcing MSAA by default, or something. =\



Playing with vsync off is really annoying as the mouse Y axis gets super sensitive when your framerate gets high.

I'm using the 360 pad. After lowering the sensitivity, it works great.

Nope. Like I said earlier, no MSAA and 4x MSAA give me the same performance, and I've verified that my CPU is not bottlenecking anything (no core is maxed out).

Agreed x100. There is absolutely no CPU bottleneck on this game at all. There is no game in the world that comes even close to CPU bottlenecking a 2500k overclocked anyways.

Try 8x MSAA. You will get the same FPS as 4x MSAA. At 8x MSAA, I'm seeing max usage of 950MB in VRAM so far.

I'm going to play around with Ambient Occlusion and see how it works out. Also, I think enabling Multisampled Transparency AA or 1x Supersampling shouldn't have a big performance hit.

P.S. The optimization in this game sucks. It has goofy FPS drops indoors for no reason. Patch please.


Edit: Ambient Occlusion Quality and High Quality settings give a BIG FPS drop. Will test with 'Performance'.

 

[TheExodu5]

Screenshots incoming. FPS numbers are on the bottom right of each screenshot.

Ambient Occlusion On:

Ambient Occlusion Off:

Ambient Occlusion On:

Ambient Occlusion Off:

The performance hit varies. In the first shot, the performance hit is massive. I was capped at 60fps with vsync on with ambient occlusion off, and the framerate was cut in half (maybe even more) with it on. In the second shot, there is almost no performance difference.

Ambient occlusion has a pretty large impact on the image, though it may not be entirely noticeable unless you switch in between the two shots to compare. Unless you have the hardware to support it, you'll probably want to leave it off.

 

[Veins]

Yeah I just got out into the world and it and I'm not getting the little drops I was getting when I was in the cave at the start. Very odd.

 

[Zeliard]

That AO is Quality, right, not Performance?

 

[TheExodu5]

That AO is Quality, right, not Performance?

High Quality, actually. Haven't tried lower yet.

To be honest, I find the effect a little too pronounced...especially in the trees. Might look better with tree shadows off.

 

[DoctorZ]

GTX 480
phenon x4 3.2ghz
4gb ram

maxed everything out. 4xAA Getting 60 fps with occasional drops as low as 45fps.

What setting(s) can I turn down to maximize framerate while no noticing visual degradation?

 

[Wallach]

Looks like FXAA is still on in those shots. Might check that forced AO + FXAA isn't an inordinately demanding combination.

 

[BoobPhysics101]

High Quality, actually. Haven't tried lower yet.

To be honest, I find the effect a little too pronounced...especially in the trees. Might look better with tree shadows off.

Quality has less of a hit. Performance should be much lower. Testing now.

 

[TheExodu5]

Looks like FXAA is still on in those shots. Might check that forced AO + FXAA isn't an inordinately demanding combination.

I think it's just the fact that I'm using High Quality. Just tested Performance and the performance hit is much, much smaller. Looks terrible though.

Testing Quality now.

 

[teh_pwn]

Nice. Modding Skyrim into Witcher 2, one step at a time. Could we compile settings for jacked PCs in the OP? Optimizations for mid range and low end may be nice too.

 

[TheExodu5]

With AO set to Quality, the performance hit is much lower. In the first shot above, I would get about 45fps instead of 30fps. Looks similar as well.

I'll still say this should be an SLI/Crossfire only setting, unless you're locking your framerate to 30.

And still, like I said, the AO in the trees is just way too strong. It might look better with tree shadows off. Otherwise, I'll be leaving AO off entirely.

 

[BoobPhysics101]

With AO set to Quality, the performance hit is much lower. In the first shot above, I would get about 45fps instead of 30fps. Looks similar as well.

I'll still say this should be an SLI/Crossfire only setting, unless you're locking your framerate to 30.

And still, like I said, the AO in the trees is just way too strong. It might look better with tree shadows off. Otherwise, I'll be leaving AO off entirely.

Performance AO gets 5-10 FPS more than quality, and 20~ more than High Quality.

Also, Y axis sensitivity IS tied into FPS on 360 controller as well. I was getting 250 FPS in an indoor scene and the sensitivity went NUTS! So weird.

 

[Teknoman]

***Lower end users, this is for you***

GTX 285 Overclocked - bit better than a 4890, roughly equivalent to a GTX460, equivalent or a bit better than a 5850 I think.
i7 920 @2.8Ghz
6GB RAM
W7 x64
1680x1050

bTreesReceiveShadows=1
bDrawLandShadows=1
V-sync On
Forgot to put AF to 16x.

Much higher than High but not quite Ultra. FXAA does the job extremely well but you can apply 2xMSAA or 4x too. Edit: 4xMSAA seems to have no impact on framerate as show above. I tested myself too.


From the first time you're set in the the open world until the first village:

Frames=7096
Time (ms)=126122
Min=44
Max=63
Avg=56.263

Entering and running around the village:

Frames=3675
Time (ms)=68378
Min=34
Max=63
Avg=53.745

Cool i've got a 4870, i'll probably run at 1440x900 and dial back on the AF to like 2 or 4.

 

[goodfella]

Screenshots incoming. FPS numbers are on the bottom right of each screenshot.

(AO pics)

The performance hit varies. In the first shot, the performance hit is massive. I was capped at 60fps with vsync on with ambient occlusion off, and the framerate was cut in half (maybe even more) with it on. In the second shot, there is almost no performance difference.

Ambient occlusion has a pretty large impact on the image, though it may not be entirely noticeable unless you switch in between the two shots to compare. Unless you have the hardware to support it, you'll probably want to leave it off.

Driver level AO is never well optimised or of that good quality anyway.

 

[LegoArmo]

Every time I set the resolution and turn windowed mode off, it doesn't save and I can't get the game to play in anything but a 800x600 window. Am I doing something wrong?

 

[Shaheed79]

I think I'm going to have to buy this game just to get the bitter taste of bugs out of my mouth from playing Witcher 2.