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Witcher 3 PC Performance Thread

slash3584

Member
Don't know if this was posted and I can't try it right now but this seems to lower the FPS impact of HairWorks:

For Nvidia users.
Hairworks is automatically set to 8msaa, this is probably why a 980 and even a Titan get ridiculous fps dips.
Go to your game install folder
Find Bin>Config>Base>Rendering.ini
Change it to 4,2 or 0. Zero is a bit too jaggy and 2 is perfect Fps when in White Orchard Village in the Griffon trophy went from 40-45 to 55-60
if 2aa is still jaggy, go to Nvidia control app and force FXAA.
Bin>Config>Base>visuals.ini
Uber is automatically on during cutscenes and fps is locked to 30 just change it to whatever.

http://www.reddit.com/r/witcher/comments/36h1nt/the_witcher_3_tips_tricks/cresjfx

Credits to reddit user bolt_vanderhuuge
 

mdzapeer

Member
OK i'm pretty impressed with my 960.

30FPS lock with high/ultra settings with all post processing turned on.

My TV is 50hz so can't get 60 anyway, which I just found out now using fraps.

Does this mean all this time 60fps games on the Xbox were only displaying at 50?

EDIT: Found I could pick 60hz in my monitor settings on the TV. Clicking this now it displays up to 60 in fraps everything seems sweet.

All modern HDTV support 60hz, if yours is only 50hz, Means most likely the TV is from the PAL region and is telling the Video card its best resolution is 1080i50 or 1080p50. If you force the resolution from your card to be 60hz it will happily accept it.

I am also in the PAL region and my old HD Ready 720p set gives 1080i50 as its best resolution and the card defaults to it.

EDIT: Seems you fixed it before my post :p
 
So I am really pleased so far with my rig.


I7 3770k
SLI 970 FTWs
16GB Ram
256GB Intel SSD
W8.1

Running at 4k all settings Ultra, AA On, AF Forced, and Hairworks on.

I get a constant 30 FPS in gameplay, though it does drop to 28 or so during some conversations, and it's not enough to distract from anything .


0 crashes yet on my setup.

Been playing for like 10 hours. Haven't left the prologue area yet. Amazing game.

I haven't tried 4K with my SLI GTX 970's yet,I hope it isn't a burden to you to check memory usage with your settings?

I'm currently same settings as you capped at 30FPS but at 1440P instead of 4K,everything is so smooth except the cutscenes,I even did the 60FPS ini tweak. (however only slight stutter in the cutscenes, perfectly watchable)
 
high preset, hairworks off

Got about 55FPS With this setting, dropped down shadow to medium and its a locked 60 with low post processing settin plus blur, AA and HBAO turned on

960 is really exceeding my expectations.

Is it worth knocking down a few graphics setting to get any of the post processing i'm missing?
 

Qassim

Member
Finally found some places where my fps drops to about 45-48fps on my two 780s, but it's still a smooth experience on G-Sync, of course I'd like to stay above that I can handle it, it's 60+ in most situations with generally nice low and consistent frame-times.
 

Genio88

Member
Fucking great, my gtx 970 has just died...getting crazy coloured blocks and missing textures all over the screen before it freezes.... :( tried other games, definitely the GPU :(

Sorry for you, how did that happen? You overclocked too much adding voltage? Or just a unfortunate issue?
 

Älg

Member
Currently playing on one 680 with everything maxed except for hairworks, getting a locked 30 FPS. Gotta say I'm very happy with that.

Lowering settings didn't increase performance as much I'd liked, but hey, what can you expect from a 3 yeard old card.
 

senahorse

Member
Finally found some places where my fps drops to about 45-48fps on my two 780s, but it's still a smooth experience on G-Sync, of course I'd like to stay above that I can handle it, it's 60+ in most situations with generally nice low and consistent frame-times.

Where was that? I have the same setup as you and haven't had any dips from 60 yet, about 15 hours in. I have everything on full except hairworks disabled, and foliage distance and shadows set to high.
 
So crazy hearing about all the crashes people are getting. Mine crashed like 3 times when I overclocked my card. Put it back to factory OC and I've had zero crashes since. barely any bugs either.

But my god they need to sort out controller lag. Controlling Geralt is such a pain in the ass. Other than that, I'm loving the performance on my 770.
 
High settings with no post processing apart from Bloo and AA

Or

Medium Settings with post processing cranked up?

How important is post processing?
 

tioslash

Member
So, I see a lot of videos on youtube with the MSI Afterburner overlay and reports of people with a way less powerful CPU than mine and a GTX 750 ti running the game at 1080p resolution with a combination of High (even with some sliders on Ultra), one or two dropped to medium (Shadows and Grass density) and are keeping the game between 30-35 FPS at all times, including during batlles out in the open, and even saw some running on Medium Preset hiting almost 45-50fps constantly with this same card, and still my GTX 760 can barely stay at 30fps with a lot of options on medium and cannot achieve 45fps even with ALL settings down to the lowest possible, including all PP effects off?

Isn´t the 760 supposed to be way better than a 750 ti?
 

JimmyRustler

Gold Member
Just entered the tutorial area yesterday to see how it runs. Everything on Ultra gave me a fluctuation framerate between 50 and 60. Switched to high with AA and Vsynch on and put hairworks on off = rock solid 60 fps.

The 970 is a beast. I'm pretty happy. The game looks amazing on these settings. Will probably tweak a bit more if possible and set more stuff on Ultra but even if that doesn't work I wouldn't mind.
 

M.D

Member
I figured this would be a good place to ask

Currently playing The Witcher 2 and using MSI Afterburner, it shows me the GPU temp is 65, but the GPU usage is 90%+ most of the time. Is that a reason to be concerned?
 

varkuriru

Member
I put textures and details on medium and used rivatuner to cap to 30fps. And it is running well at 1080p with HBAO and vsync. Thanks to all in the thread for the tweaking tips! Will see happens when I get to the more populated cities.

560ti
2500k @ 4.3
8GB Ram

I can now wait till summer before upgrading gpu :D
 

Qassim

Member
Where was that? I have the same setup as you and haven't had any dips from 60 yet, about 15 hours in. I have everything on full except hairworks disabled, and foliage distance and shadows set to high.

I have everything on max with hairworks off, but it was in some smaller village at night, I'll have to go back to see if I can determine what is dropping my frame-rate.
 
Aight, my stuttering is definitely performance related, probably something to do with the tweaks I've applied. Stock ultra stutters much less, but still a little. Low doesn't stutter at all.

I'm not dropping below 30fps though, so I wonder what exactly is causing the stuttering, what part of my hardware is bottlenecking, or what in the engine is choking that maybe could be fixed. Draw distance might be the culprit, which makes me wonder if it's my i5.
Do you have an SSD? Digital foundry noticed stutters on the PS4 due to streaming issues.
 

senahorse

Member
I have everything on max with hairworks off, but it was in some smaller village at night, I'll have to go back to see if I can determine what is dropping my frame-rate but.

I was getting drops to low 50's when hairworks was on. Also I have found sometimes alt+tabbing puts the game into borderless windowed mode which then is only using one card, during those times I saw it go to ~45 for obvious reasons.
 

Derp

Member
Are game-debate legit ?
No idea, so here's another one.
Yet regardless, my point still stands. Kepler has been purposely crippled by Nvidia. Anyone who thinks Kepler is performing normally in comparison to the other cards is completely delusional, period. A 960 beating a 780? Makes sense, for sure. A Titan beating a 960 by only 2fps? Makes sense, for sure. A 780 Ti losing to an R9 290? Makes sense for sure.

And why is it that people rolling back to older drivers are getting significant performance improvements? Oh wait I guess that's normal too, isn't it?
 

vakarian32

Member
Found the settings I'm happy with for my 2500k & GTX 680 2GB

- 1080p locked at 40fps
- Post-Processing all on except CA and AA, forced FXAA via Nvidia CP
- Ultra preset with Hairworks off, Shadows on High, Foliage on Medium

Foliage was the real fps killer for me, once I dropped that to medium I could run at a nice 40fps with no drops (yet).
 

Bandito

Neo Member
No idea, so here's another one.
Yet regardless, my point still stands. Kepler has been purposely crippled by Nvidia. Anyone who thinks Kepler is performing normally in comparison to the other cards is completely delusional, period. A 960 beating a 780? Makes sense, for sure. A Titan beating a 960 by only 2fps? Makes sense, for sure. A 780 Ti losing to an R9 290? Makes sense for sure.

And why is it that people rolling back to older drivers are getting significant performance improvements? Oh wait I guess that's normal too, isn't it?
Definitely and it's an absolute joke. I paid big money for my GTX780 only a year ago. The performance drop off in the last few months has been insane but yet the R9 290 has only gotten better with driver updates.

Disgraceful from Nvidia and I'm a bit shocked and frustrated that more hasn't been made of it. They've basically abandoned the 700 series and left everyone of us hang out to dry
 
Anyone know what file contains the Gamepad config on the PC? Or at least how to assign the home button to be the map button?
I would also like to know this. I'd like to set quick save as the middle button on the Xbox 360 controller.

under Windows 7 it's <UserName>\Documents\The Witcher 3\input.settings

example:
Code:
 IK_M=(Action=PanelMap)
Quicksave seems to be hardcoded, I can't find IK_F5 anywhere, and some of the settings can't be remapped like WASD.
Base, BASE_PanelsShortcuts, Combat, Boat and BoatPassenger, Combat_Replacer_Ciri, Swimming, Diving and Exploration, Exploration_Replacer_Ciri, Horse, Horse_Replacer_Ciri, Scene, ScriptedAction and can have different keybindings
So you need to find and replace them all if you manually edit them I guess.
 
do movies run like crap for anyone else? The real time cutscenes seem ok after the ini fiz. But FMV videos still stutter a fairbit

Same here. No idea why. It's installed to an ssd as well.

I tried the ini file edit but the movies still stutter like mad. The opening movie sits at 60fps and is a lot smoother but the in-game movies are stuttery and stuck at 28fps.


Definitely and it's an absolute joke. I paid big money for my GTX780 only a year ago. The performance drop off in the last few months has been insane but yet the R9 290 has only gotten better with driver updates.

Disgraceful from Nvidia and I'm a bit shocked and frustrated that more hasn't been made of it. They've basically abandoned the 700 series and left everyone of us hang out to dry

It is this sort of *@#! that bothers me about any generation of card I buy into. How long before the 900 series is 'abandoned'?


So I got a GTX 970, I'm getting mostly 60fps on 1080p right now.

But sometimes (like very rarely) I suddenly get fps drop if I either spin the camera or take a step in any direction. Its so weird. Like it would go from 60 to 5fps real fast and then bounce back up.
-----
Is there any settings that you can turn down from Ultra to High or Medium that doesn't really make that big of a difference that will give you more fps?

As always I found shadows to have a pretty big impact (5fps) from high to ultra so that has been cut down to high in my settings.

I am running with a GTX 970 @1516MHz / I5-3570k @4.3GHz / 8GB RAM / MX100 SSD / 1080p/60fps with the following:

Motion Blur = Off
Blur = On
Antialiasing = Off
Bloom = On
Sharpening = On
Ambient Occlusion = HBAO+
Chromatic Aberration = Off
Depth of Field = On
Vignetting = On
Light Shafts = On
Vsync = Off
Maximum Frames = Unlimited
Resolution = 1920x1080
Display mode = Fullscreen
Hairworks = Off :(
Background Characters = Ultra
Shadows = High
Terrain Quality = Ultra
Water = Ultra
Grass Density = High
Texture Quality = Ultra
Foliage Visibility = Ultra
Detail Level = Ultra

I have set a Witcher 3-specific profile in nVidia control panel with the following pertinent settings:

Anisotropic filtering = 16x
Antialiasing - FXAA = On
Antialiasing - Transparency = Off (I have a feeling it was causing some odd meshing issues on certain objects)
Maximum Pre-rendered frames = 1
Power Management = Prefer maximum performance
Texture Filtering - Negative LOD bias = Allow
Vertical Sync = Adaptive

nVidia Inspector
Texture Filtering - LOD Bias (DX) = -0.5000

I am not using any framerate capping software in conjunction with this game.

I've had a good old wander around White Orchard and my framerate is staying at 60fps with only occasional drops; no stutters or hitches. I anticipate some issues to arise as I progress (if areas are more detailed and demanding) but it is a good base to work from if this happens.
 

DPB

Member
Is there any hidden setting somewhere to turn off the plant icons on the minimap? You can filter them out on the world map but it doesn't seem to apply to the minimap.

I find it difficult to resist chasing after every plant when they're all marked.
 

Derp

Member
Definitely and it's an absolute joke. I paid big money for my GTX780 only a year ago. The performance drop off in the last few months has been insane but yet the R9 290 has only gotten better with driver updates.

Disgraceful from Nvidia and I'm a bit shocked and frustrated that more hasn't been made of it. They've basically abandoned the 700 series and left everyone of us hang out to dry
Yup. And people were saying this before TW3 or even GTA 5 came out. I remember them saying those of us with a 780 / 780 Ti were screwed, and never understood what they meant. Turns out they were right. We payed big money for something that's getting destroyed by it's own maker. That's just disgusting practice.
 
So crazy hearing about all the crashes people are getting. Mine crashed like 3 times when I overclocked my card. Put it back to factory OC and I've had zero crashes since. barely any bugs either.

But my god they need to sort out controller lag. Controlling Geralt is such a pain in the ass. Other than that, I'm loving the performance on my 770.

I play on a controller too (XB1) and thought it was just me that was noticing lag when moving Geralt around. it really is a pain in the ass!

Aligning him in front of boxes to loot is a pain. It's annoying in combat too.
 
under Windows 7 it's <UserName>\Documents\The Witcher 3\input.settings

example:
Code:
 IK_M=(Action=PanelMap)
Quicksave seems to be hardcoded, I can't find IK_F5 anywhere, and some of the settings can't be remapped like WASD.
Base, BASE_PanelsShortcuts, Combat, Boat and BoatPassenger, Combat_Replacer_Ciri, Swimming, Diving and Exploration, Exploration_Replacer_Ciri, Horse, Horse_Replacer_Ciri, Scene, ScriptedAction and can have different keybindings
So you need to find and replace them all if you manually edit them I guess.

I found that file after digging around in the install. Still have no idea what the Guide button is called, so couldn't add a line a IK_Pad_GuideButton=(Action=PanelMap), It didn't work.

Maybe I have to use an external software.

I play on a controller too (XB1) and thought it was just me that was noticing lag when moving Geralt around. it really is a pain in the ass!

Aligning him in front of boxes to loot is a pain. It's annoying in combat too.

Have you updated the Xbox One controller? I've been playing since installation with a Xbone Pad and haven't noticed any issues.
 
Yup. And people were saying this before TW3 or even GTA 5 came out. I remember them saying those of us with a 780 / 780 Ti were screwed, and never understood what they meant. Turns out they were right. We payed big money for something that's getting destroyed by it's own maker. That's just disgusting practice.

Do older generation AMD cards have this sort of problem?

Is there any hidden setting somewhere to turn off the plant icons on the minimap? You can filter them out on the world map but it doesn't seem to apply to the minimap.

I find it difficult to resist chasing after every plant when they're all marked.

I thought it was just me! Every time a plant appears I go after it. I am a herbalist on speed.
 
I found that file after digging around in the install. Still have no idea what the Guide button is called, so couldn't add a line a IK_Pad_GuideButton=(Action=PanelMap), It didn't work.

Have you updated the Xbox One controller? I've been playing since installation with a Xbone Pad and haven't noticed any issues.

Oh you mean connecting the XB1 pad to the XB1 and updating it? Is it possible to do that on the PC somehow too?

I've actually never connected that pad to my XB1, I just bought it for use on PC.

I never even thought about that. I forget the firmware is stored on the controller.
 

Phased

Member
Extremely happy with my R9 290 in this game. Actually pretty damn happy with how this card is aging in general. I'm not really pushing the card, and letting it sit on high settings, and my fps is pretty solid 60/1080 most of the time. I may start turning some stuff up and seeing exactly what I can do but even if I just sit at High from here on out I'm happy because it looks gorgeous.

On a side-note, the freezes are getting annoying. Apologies if this is somewhere in the thread but has CDPR acknowledged it at all? I froze a couple of times using my inventory in the starting area, and then froze when I entered the main world after the introduction.
 

Nachtmaer

Member
Yup. And people were saying this before TW3 or even GTA 5 came out. I remember them saying those of us with a 780 / 780 Ti were screwed, and never understood what they meant. Turns out they were right. We payed big money for something that's getting destroyed by it's own maker. That's just disgusting practice.

Yeah, I've seen a lot of rumblings about Kepler not doing so great in the latest games (or with the latest drivers). This is an interesting read about 780 Ti vs The Witcher 3: http://techbuyersguru.com/hotdealsblog/?p=4119.
 
Oh you mean connecting the XB1 pad to the XB1 and updating it? Is it possible to do that on the PC somehow too?

I've actually never connected that pad to my XB1, I just bought it for use on PC.

I never even thought about that. I forget the firmware is stored on the controller.

I'm unsure if you can update it through your PC, I have an Xbox One and I'm pretty sure there has been 2 updates released for the controller since launch.
 

Sil

Banned
I am running with a GTX 970 @1516MHz / I5-3570k @4.3GHz / 8GB RAM / MX100 SSD / 1080p/60fps with the following:

Motion Blur = Off
Blur = On
Antialiasing = Off
Bloom = On
Sharpening = On
Ambient Occlusion = HBAO+
Chromatic Aberration = Off
Depth of Field = On
Vignetting = On
Light Shafts = On
Vsync = Off
Maximum Frames = Unlimited
Resolution = 1920x1080
Display mode = Fullscreen
Hairworks = Off :(
Background Characters = Ultra
Shadows = High
Terrain Quality = Ultra
Water = Ultra
Grass Density = High
Texture Quality = Ultra
Foliage Visibility = Ultra
Detail Level = Ultra

I have set a Witcher 3-specific profile in nVidia control panel with the following pertinent settings:

Anisotropic filtering = 16x
Antialiasing - FXAA = On
Antialiasing - Transparency = Off (I have a feeling it was causing some odd meshing issues on certain objects)
Maximum Pre-rendered frames = 1
Power Management = Prefer maximum performance
Texture Filtering - Negative LOD bias = Allow
Vertical Sync = Adaptive

nVidia Inspector
Texture Filtering - LOD Bias (DX) = -0.5000

I am not using any framerate capping software in conjunction with this game.

I've had a good old wander around White Orchard and my framerate is staying at 60fps with only occasional drops; no stutters or hitches. I anticipate some issues to arise as I progress (if areas are more detailed and demanding) but it is a good base to work from if this happens.

Is driver forced FXAA noticeably better than RED's own AA? I'm having a similar setup and haven't tried any manual settings with Nvidia control yet.
 

kinggroin

Banned
No idea, so here's another one.
Yet regardless, my point still stands. Kepler has been purposely crippled by Nvidia. Anyone who thinks Kepler is performing normally in comparison to the other cards is completely delusional, period. A 960 beating a 780? Makes sense, for sure. A Titan beating a 960 by only 2fps? Makes sense, for sure. A 780 Ti losing to an R9 290? Makes sense for sure.

And why is it that people rolling back to older drivers are getting significant performance improvements? Oh wait I guess that's normal too, isn't it?


Would you provide proof of the crippling? Maybe showing the difference between non crippling drivers and crippling ones? Also, which are the best set for this game. I'm on a 670 myself, so a Kepler brother.
 

aravuus

Member
How much heat can the MSI GTX970 generally withstand? Seems to be reaching around 75 celsius at times with TW3 (hovers around 50 to 70 usually). I wouldn't ask normally since it doesn't sound too high, but the fans are making quite a lot of noise.
 
Is driver forced FXAA noticeably better than RED's own AA? I'm having a similar setup and haven't tried any manual settings with Nvidia control yet.

The edges of foliage are a lot smoother than in-game AA plus disabling the in-game AA, I think, spares a few fps if you are on the limit. I am not sure if other objects take a hit but I am happy enough with the quality now coupled with the other settings like in-game sharpening and nVidia control panel/inspector LOD bias.

Edit: I found that having both AA on the go made it too blurry so preferred the control panel one because of foliage.
 
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