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Witcher 3 PC Performance Thread

Hmm I'm playing it right now by capping it to 30fps through RTSS and borderless window. Just the odd hiccup here and there which I guess is due to the game loading new area.

I'm using GTX780 which I overclocked by 6% and so far it is stable. Not sure if I want to move the PhysX calculation to CPU.

Try it, i literally didn't notice any difference at all with anything else other than it being smoother and more frames. Defo worth a few tests i would say :)
 

Dries

Member
Just checking to be sure. I just applied this fix:

The REDengine makes heavy use of occlusion culling to improve The Witcher 3's performance, but sometimes this might lead to visual bugs such as shadows popping in very close to Geralt, or sunlight streaming through windows that disappears altogether while moving in-doors.

To remedy these problems, navigate to "...\Documents\The Witcher 3", open your user.settings file with a text editor and tweak the following variables:

CascadeShadowDistanceScale0=2
CascadeShadowDistanceScale1=2
CascadeShadowDistanceScale2=2.5
CascadeShadowDistanceScale3=2.5

This will not only alleviate the missing lighting problem (before vs. after), but also increase the accuracy of shadow rendering (before vs. after)!

Is it correct that my in-game slider for Shadow Quality will be set back to low once I've done these changes in the .ini? And pushing the in-game slider back to Ultra will undo the manual changes in the .ini, right?
 

LilJoka

Member
Just checking to be sure. I just applied this fix:



Is it correct that my in-game slider for Shadow Quality will be set back to low once I've done these changes in the .ini? And pushing the in-game slider back to Ultra will undo the manual changes in the .ini, right?

Yeah i noticed this too. What i did was do all the changes, then set the user.settings file to read only. Then just not worry about it and play.
 

knitoe

Member
This game crashes so often for me. Haven't had a game be this problematic for many years. What gives?

First thing, if you video card is overclock, whether by user or factory, downclock and run it at the normal stock core / memory speeds for that GPU. If not, try older drivers.
 

Easy_D

never left the stone age
Hot. I can run a locked 30 with all Ultra settings, HBAO+ on and Hairworks on for everything with it set at Low Preset and 4x AA :). Some stutters in Novigrad and Oxenfurt when it loads stuff but that's my slow as fuck HDD's fault. I ought to defrag the Witcher 3 folder too.

Edit: Scratch that, had to turn Hairworks off and set Foliage and Grass to High. But it's worth it for the HBAO+

Edit #2: To give a better look, before the patch I couldn't use HBAO+ without dipping to 24-ish fps when in big towns or forests with HBAO+ on, now it's rock solid except when loading stuff.
 

j-wood

Member
Did anyone else notice that with the newest GeForce experience update, it now suggests ultra for everything, including hairworks on for everything on high for the 970?

Did 1.07 improve performance that much?
 

tauke

Member
Try it, i literally didn't notice any difference at all with anything else other than it being smoother and more frames. Defo worth a few tests i would say :)

Sadly I don't noticed anything lol. Although I did try 60fps cap with RTSS and it is pretty much 60fps locked save for the few odd hiccup when the world is streaming from my mechanical HDD.

Also I finally understood when others mentioned about the stuttering with Roach. It is very noticeable at 60fps as running around as Geralt is silky smooth while Roach feels like 30-40fps when the FPS counter says 60fps...

Still I'll be playing at 30fps as seeing my GTX 780 GPU usage at constant 100% when playing at 1080p 60fps at near Ultra (with Hairworks disabled, Shadow and Grass Medium) really worries me (due to the high temp of 80C).
 

mosdl

Member
Did anyone else notice that with the newest GeForce experience update, it now suggests ultra for everything, including hairworks on for everything on high for the 970?

Did 1.07 improve performance that much?

I just tried with my 970 and the Experience new optimal settings (including hairworks) - I was getting between 50-60 fps running around Novigrad.
 

mosdl

Member
Whoa. I thought it was a mistake. I'll turn it all back on then!

I did turn shadows down to high since there seems to be little difference visually.

Popin in novigrad for NPCs seems worse maybe, hard to tell since its been a few weeks since I finished it.

My OC 970 crashes seem to be gone from the little testing I did, so maybe that got fixed as well?
 

KingV

Member
I did turn shadows down to high since there seems to be little difference visually.

Popin in novigrad for NPCs seems worse maybe, hard to tell since its been a few weeks since I finished it.

My OC 970 crashes seem to be gone from the little testing I did, so maybe that got fixed as well?

I still had them after 1.07, I played maybe the last 8 or 9 hours on the new patch. I tried abunch of things to try to stop them but never really figured it out. They are really sporadic though. Sometimes I would have one every 30-40 minutes, sometimes I could go 4+ hours and be fine.
 

julrik

Member
Which Nvidia driver is the best for TW3 now?

I'm on 353.06 right now. Should I update to 353.30? Which one has the better performance?

I've updated the game to 1.07, and I'm playing on a AW15 w/ 980M.
 
Which Nvidia driver is the best for TW3 now?

I'm on 353.06 right now. Should I update to 353.30? Which one has the better performance?

I've updated the game to 1.07, and I'm playing on a AW15 w/ 980M.

353.30 won't offer any difference unless you run SLI.
 
My overclocked GTX 760 doesn't crash every 5 minutes now thank god. I might actually get somewhere in the game now and I can enjoy all the improvements like the stash and sorting items from near the beginning of the game.
 

Easy_D

never left the stone age
So, to get good frametimes, is Riva Statistics Server the best alternative? Because I just compared between Dark Souls 1 and it feels much more smooth at 30 than TW3 does. I'm on a 280X if that makes any difference regarding what programs I want to use.
 

Fuz

Banned
I have a dumb question:
I'm using RivaTuner to limit my FPS to 60, as the tweak guide said. I'm not sure I see any benefit at all between letting the game do it, having unlimited and using RTSS.
Is there any benefit in locking them to 60 instead of having them unlimited? This both for Witcher 3 and generally speaking.
 

Renekton

Member
I have a dumb question:
I'm using RivaTuner to limit my FPS to 60, as the tweak guide said. I'm not sure I see any benefit at all between letting the game do it, having unlimited and using RTSS.
Is there any benefit in locking them to 60 instead of having them unlimited? This both for Witcher 3 and generally speaking.
AFAIK Witcher 3's internal limiter and vsync aren't (or weren't) as even as RTSS's, so it's best to leave them unlimited + off and let your driver control or RTSS handle it.
 

Fuz

Banned
AFAIK Witcher 3's internal limiter and vsync aren't (or weren't) as even as RTSS's, so it's best to leave them unlimited + off and let your driver control or RTSS handle it.

That's exactly what I'm doing, I just wanted to understand better the WHY and HOWs about it (and also about fps limiting in general. Google didn't help much).
 

daninthemix

Member
I have a dumb question:
I'm using RivaTuner to limit my FPS to 60, as the tweak guide said. I'm not sure I see any benefit at all between letting the game do it, having unlimited and using RTSS.
Is there any benefit in locking them to 60 instead of having them unlimited? This both for Witcher 3 and generally speaking.

Are you running fullscreen or borderless? You may get smoother results with the other. For me, I used Nvidia v-sync, fullscreen, disabled v-sync and the limiter in game and had the smoothest frame pacing. (note: if you can't sustain 60 then of course this won't be smooth)
 

Fuz

Banned
AFAIK Witcher 3's internal limiter and vsync aren't (or weren't) as even as RTSS's, so it's best to leave them unlimited + off and let your driver control or RTSS handle it.

Right, forgot to mention it: I'm fullscreen, got an i7, a gtx970 and a good monitor. But I really can't tell the difference.
 

ACE 1991

Member
Buying a 970 tonight, what are the best settings for keeping framerate high and as many bells and whistles on? Playing on 8gb of ram and an OC'd 2500k, so I shouldn't be bottlenecked here.
 

daninthemix

Member
Buying a 970 tonight, what are the best settings for keeping framerate high and as many bells and whistles on? Playing on 8gb of ram and an OC'd 2500k, so I shouldn't be bottlenecked here.

Foliage, shadows and hairworks. That said I chose to leave everything on max and lock at 30fps.
 

ChawlieTheFair

pip pip cheerio you slags!
Just in case I can save anyone the headache:

Basically, as of posting this with all the latest drivers and latest patches, the game still freezes up (at least for me) if you have any sort of framerate limiter on, regardless of in game or 3rd party. This took me a while to figure out, tried all the available fix options, the reinstalling, the power management, the screen size, graphics settings, underclocking, all of it. It's the framerate limiter. Basically, set it to unlimited, fixed all my freezing issues.

Specs in case it helps:
Win 8.1 64 bit
GTX 780
i5 3570k @ 4.4
8GB Ram
Steam version of game
144hz monitor.
 

Carlius

Banned
why am i getting a you cannot load save because DLC files are missing? i got it from gog and now i cant play it all of the sudden. i downloaded all the dlc. wtf
 

ChawlieTheFair

pip pip cheerio you slags!
why am i getting a you cannot load save because DLC files are missing? i got it from gog and now i cant play it all of the sudden. i downloaded all the dlc. wtf

had that as well, but when I checked steam I found I hadn't downloaded all the ones in the season pass. So all I can suggest is double check?
 

Van Owen

Banned
That's exactly what I'm doing, I just wanted to understand better the WHY and HOWs about it (and also about fps limiting in general. Google didn't help much).

Short answer: Use Nvidia CP Vsync, fullscreen and unlimited in game no vsync, and don't use RTSS.

RTSS will deliver even frames, but your monitor's refresh rate isn't going to exactly correlate to RTSS frame pacing. I tried Borderless + 60fps RTSS and got massive stutter even though the frames were perfectly paced at 16.67ms. I suspect this is because the Windows Desktop Compositor isn't exactly in line with what RTSS is outputting since monitors are generally 59.94444hz or whatever with slight variations.

I'm not sure what Durante was using in his article to measure frametimes, but unless it was FCAT I don't think it's accurate. RTSS and Fraps will only show you one part of the pipeline when it comes to frame-times and what they are showing isn't what the user will see on screen.

So even though Afterburner will show slight .25 or so variations in frametime when you're only using driver level vsync, the actual appearance on screen is perfectly smooth since the driver is in sync when delivering with the monitor .
 

Anteater

Member
I switched to reshade and i'm using the smaa there instead of the game's built-in AA, with some minor adjustments, the game looks really great now for me.

This is how it looks currently with my 760 gtx running at 30fps.

2015-07--26_00003ywswt.jpg
6csvp.jpg

2015-07--26_00002rgjko.jpg
ozsy0.jpg
 

Eyothrie

Member
The latest patch seems to have reset all of my video settings in-game. Also, the game isn't recognized in my Geforce Experience Panel anymore. No idea why not.

Microstutter is back, though turning down some effects reduces it somewhat.

GTX 970
8GB Ram
i5-4590 @ 3.3 GHz

Yep, microstutter is definitely back. Before the patch, panning the camera with a controller was a very smooth affair. I got a locked 60fps 99% of the time. Now, when I pan the camera in certain areas (town in White Orchard for instance), the microstutter is there. FPS counter still shows 60, but its not smooth looking. Very off putting.

GTX 970
16GB Ram
i7 3820 @ 4.3
 

ChawlieTheFair

pip pip cheerio you slags!
Just in case I can save anyone the headache:

Basically, as of posting this with all the latest drivers and latest patches, the game still freezes up (at least for me) if you have any sort of framerate limiter on, regardless of in game or 3rd party. This took me a while to figure out, tried all the available fix options, the reinstalling, the power management, the screen size, graphics settings, underclocking, all of it. It's the framerate limiter. Basically, set it to unlimited, fixed all my freezing issues.

Specs in case it helps:
Win 8.1 64 bit
GTX 780
i5 3570k @ 4.4
8GB Ram
Steam version of game
144hz monitor.

Scratch this, problem is back.

There are some others with my issue on the Red forums, so gonna try to figure it out there. Not sure whether to be pissed at Red or Nvidia, but this is frustrating. Literally haven't been able to properly play since launch.
 

ACE 1991

Member
Man, I did a sidegrade from a r9 290 to gtx 970 (wasn't happy with the noise and heat of my 290 and I got a good deal on the 970 which allowed me to sell the 290 and spend $20 on the difference for the 970) and stuttering is all but gone. Do AMD cards have weird frame pacing issues I guess?
 

comrade

Member
Yep, microstutter is definitely back. Before the patch, panning the camera with a controller was a very smooth affair. I got a locked 60fps 99% of the time. Now, when I pan the camera in certain areas (town in White Orchard for instance), the microstutter is there. FPS counter still shows 60, but its not smooth looking. Very off putting.

GTX 970
16GB Ram
i7 3820 @ 4.3

I didn't even know you could get microstutter on a single gpu. TIL.
 
Yep, microstutter is definitely back. Before the patch, panning the camera with a controller was a very smooth affair. I got a locked 60fps 99% of the time. Now, when I pan the camera in certain areas (town in White Orchard for instance), the microstutter is there. FPS counter still shows 60, but its not smooth looking. Very off putting.

GTX 970
16GB Ram
i7 3820 @ 4.3

Ya I'm also experiencing stuttering with 1.07. What a shitshow of a patch.

Have you guys cycled through all of the settings, like really dug deep? I haven't had any stuttering since 1.03, but it took a bit of tweaking and re-tweaking after every patch came out. I don't think 1.07 is a "shitshow" by any metric.

Or I could just be really lucky and in the minority.
 

ChawlieTheFair

pip pip cheerio you slags!
Scratch this, problem is back.

There are some others with my issue on the Red forums, so gonna try to figure it out there. Not sure whether to be pissed at Red or Nvidia, but this is frustrating. Literally haven't been able to properly play since launch.

Scratch this, fixed it again.

I have a factory overclocked v-card, tried underclocking it 50mhz in both the core and mem as per suggested by the Red forum, it worked.

So I don't know why this worked, stress testing didn't break the driver but Witcher 3 did? Max temp in Witcher 3 is like 80 degrees, so I assume it's just a code bug somewhere.
 

comrade

Member
Ya I'm also experiencing stuttering with 1.07. What a shitshow of a patch.

You have any edits to the config files before the patch? I was getting pretty shit performance with SLI 970s after the patch so I re-installed the game and then it was butter smooth.
 

SliChillax

Member
Anyone tried it at 1440p with a single 980 with hairworks?

I tried it at launch but I haven't played the game since because I'm on holiday so it should run better now. It ran pretty smooth with everything maxed on a Gsync monitor but I don't recall the exact framerate numbers. Horse riding was janky and stuttery though.
 

Dries

Member
Anyone tried it at 1440p with a single 980 with hairworks?

I think it's doable, but you'd have to cap your framerate at 30 fps or something. I have a single 980 and am playing at 1440p. I turn Hairworks off and cap my framerate at 45 (G-sync). I have yet to try that mod which disables Hairworks on Geralt's hair and only leaves it on for enemies though.

your framerate can vary wildly though, depending on time of day and area/locale.
 

Fuz

Banned
I have another dumb question about framerate (sorry guys, recently got a new PC and I'm kinda new at the whole 60fps thing).
Fraps gives me between 5x and 7x FPS, with my PC able to keep 60FPS almost anywhere, but the game still feels less smooth than 60fps videos of it that I see on youtube. Even when I record a video with Fraps, the video is smoother than my in-game experience. Is this just a personal perception thing? Or did I do something wrong with it? I have nVidia vsync on and game is fullscreen with disabled FPS limiter.
Even so, for comparison, MKX is fixed at 60fps feels way smoother and enjoyable.
 
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