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The Witcher 2: Performance Thread [Enhanced Edition Patch - New content & 100+ fixes]

Yurt

il capo silenzioso
I realize there's a thread about PC upgrades already so apologies in advance. But since you guys have the game already maybe it's best to ask for advice here.

That's what I have atm unfortunately so what should I upgrade first ? I have a modest budget.

-ASUS Rampage Formula X48 Core 2 Due 3.0 GHz
- 4 GB RAM
- This is my terrible card http://www.techbuy.com.au/p/83805/details.asp
- TR2 550w if it helps ?

I tried the game on high, I was getting 20-25 fps but in crowded fights later on it drops to 10-19. And yes I tried it on medium and low it's the same strangely lol.

edit Is it cheaper to just buy another card of the above and just SLI them together ? Or am I still gonna get the same crappy fps ?
 

RedSwirl

Junior Member
Holy Christ.

CPU: Q6600 Quad Core 2.4GHz
GPU: Radeon HD 6850 1GB
RAM: 3GB
Monitor: 1440 x 900

And this game runs perfectly smooth probably 80% of the time with everything turned up to Ultra except ubersampling (don't know if it's 60 but looks like it). I'm only in the prologue so far, but the framerate only starts to dip in really heavy action with more than 10 NPCs fighting.

I could probably get the game running pretty much perfect if I turn down a couple settings just a tiny bit, but I noticed you can only turn the AA on or off. Any way to bring that down to maybe 2x in the ini? Normally I really like Ambient Occlusion, but I'll agree that the implementation in this game is a bit much.

The DOF on the other hand is fucking amazing if you ask me. It looks like Bokeh DOF a lot of the time to me (is it?). When Roach entered the interrogation room I was freaking out over the post-processing on the door.

Be back with screenshots later.
 
Hawk269 said:
Ok SLI users, found another issue that I stumbled upon, but did not realize it until I got farther into the game. It looks like the issue from Witcher 1 where light sources are seen thru walls. For example in the prologue where you board that giant moving thing to the castle walls, there is glow in the corners as if the sun is shining into it, this is not normal. I also noticed it while in the under ground portion of the prologue where there are torches you light up. If you walk away from them and go behind a wall you can see the slight glow of the torches through the walls. I lit up all the torches, and behind a wall, it looks like glowing orbs.

In Witcher 1, this could be fixed by using a modified sli profile in nvidia inspector and the issue goes away, so not sure if the same would work with TW2.

Could other SLI users check on this as well. Like I said, it was hard to determine if it was a problem until I got to the underground area cause so far in the prologue there are not alot of areas that have lamposts/torches etc. I did think that in the beginning when you are on the moving tower thing to attack the castle wall looked weird with such a bright glow, but did not think much about it, but now that it is doing it in otehr areas, it is apparent that this is an issue.

Now switching my SLI to OFF it goes away and fortunately since this game is such a piece of shit with SLI, I can still play it at Ultra without any loss of IQ or Framerate because the game does not scale or really use SLI properly.
Yeah I have resorted to the default sli profile because of this :/
 

Amir0x

Banned
Man I can't seem to get certain keypad controls reassigned. Like if I want to switch W,A,S,D to UP,LEFT,DOWN, RIGHT, it says "INVALID KEY.' And then for shits and giggs I tried the 360 controller, and it lets me select and load the save, and then when I get into the game I can't do anything but highlight dialogue choices ... not even press A to select one or X to back out. Analog movement is completely no go. Again, try to adjust defaults and it allows me (except the movement is greyed out to analog stick), but still when I go into the game it won't work properly.

Only game I've ever had this happen
 
Amir0x said:
Man I can't seem to get certain keypad controls reassigned. Like if I want to switch W,A,S,D to UP,LEFT,DOWN, RIGHT, it says "INVALID KEY.' And then for shits and giggs I tried the 360 controller, and it lets me select and load the save, and then when I get into the game I can't do anything but highlight dialogue choices ... not even press A to select one or X to back out. Analog movement is completely no go. Again, try to adjust defaults and it allows me (except the movement is greyed out to analog stick), but still when I go into the game it won't work properly.

Only game I've ever had this happen

As far as the Xbox controller.

Did you go to the options menu in game and switch it from "Keyboard" to "Gamepad?"
 

Corky

Nine out of ten orphans can't tell the difference.
L0st Id3ntity said:
Yeah I have resorted to the default sli profile because of this :/

Same tried the alternate bits -> crazy lightsources -> switch back in a flash
 

ManeKast

Member
Removing Nvidia 3D Drivers; does a clean install of the beta drivers do this or do they need to be manually removed, and if so, how?
 

Minsc

Gold Member
Amir0x said:
*smacks forehead*

I hate you.

I had the same problem for a good five minutes, it's not very intuitive that you can control the stuff with the d-pad / analog stick, but not the buttons.

Patch notes for the first couple non-hotfix patches should be rather revealing. I expect to read about all sorts of bugs and issues I completely missed.
 

Bisnic

Really Really Exciting Member!
How good is the cooling of the N560GTX-TI Twin Frozr II? I'm scared that such a card might overheat too fast, because when i look at the temperature of my 9800gt while its running WoW, i see 165-185 fahrenheit. Who knows what i might get with a N560GTX-TI Twin Frozr II and Witcher 2!!

I understand that my case only have 1 fan on the back, the one that came with it, regular size, but is that why my card is so hot? I'm not sure if just adding one big fan on the side will fix anything. Maybe i also need a bigger case, sigh...
 
BoobPhysics101 said:
Might be a mobile only thing. Make sure antialiasing is disabled in the CCC, and set Anisotropic to 8x. Set Catalyst AI Texture Filtering to 'Quality'.

Also, try forcing Vsync Off in CCC ---> 'Wait for Vertical Refresh' ---> Always Off. Also disable it in the game's config.

Disable 'Depth of Field - Gameplay' as well and see if that helps. Some people are reporting big increases with that off.

Install RadeonPro as well and make a custom profile for Witcher 2. Very odd that your performance is so low, you should be doing much better at High/Ultra settings. I am having a similar problem though, I can't hit over 40 FPS on High settings (even indoors with SSAO and Depth of Field off), but you may have something else creating a problem for you. Those Witcher 2 hotfix AMD drivers can't come soon enough.

Not a chance.

Again, my specs.

C2Q Q6600 @ 3.6 GHz
4 GB RAM
6970 2GB (well, unlocked and overclocked 6950, but that shouldn't matter)
Catalyst 11.5
Windows 7 64-Bit

Game and CCC settings:
1920x1200

tw2settingsy77c.jpg
JPZ6n.jpg


(VSync is definitely disabled)

My FPS:

btlrag6gzs8k8h9oj.jpg


5 MB screenshot: http://www.abload.de/img/witcher2.exe_2011-05-1b7yc.png

The IQ in-game is higher, but the FPS still seem too low, compared to similar systems in the OP.
 

Corky

Nine out of ten orphans can't tell the difference.
hmm sometimes when I use Aard the framerate plummets. almost certain this has to be a bug or something
 

TheExodu5

Banned
Bisnic said:
How good is the cooling of the N560GTX-TI Twin Frozr II? I'm scared that such a card might overheat too fast, because when i look at the temperature of my 9800gt while its running WoW, i see 165-185 fahrenheit. Who knows what i might get with a N560GTX-TI Twin Frozr II and Witcher 2!!

I understand that my case only have 1 fan on the back, the one that came with it, regular size, but is that why my card is so hot? I'm not sure if just adding one big fan on the side will fix anything. Maybe i also need a bigger case, sigh...

The 9800GT is so hot because it's a single slot card.
 

Bisnic

Really Really Exciting Member!
TheExodu5 said:
The 9800GT is so hot because it's a single slot card.

Sorry i'm kind of a noob in video cards, but what do you mean single slot? The N560GTX-TI Twin Frozr II takes the main PCIe slot and a 2nd PCI one?
 

Hawk269

Member
L0st Id3ntity said:
Yeah I have resorted to the default sli profile because of this :/

Problem fixed fellow SLI users!

I was able to fix the light source issue when using SLI. It does not happen when SLI is not used, only when SLI is in use. But if you go to the program settings and change the SLI rendering mode to "Force alternate frame rendering 2" the light source bleeding through walls disapears. There is also no other issues introduced by using this mode.

Withcer 1 had the same issue and some people suggested to use the alt. 2 rendering, but for me it did not work. Light sources did stop, but it introduced a bunch of other graphical issues and low framerate. I had to use Nvidia Inspector and a custome SLI bit to make it stop having light sources bleed through walls, but with Witcher 2 it does work and in my testing it has not had any issues with performance or any graphical anomolies.

For those not sure what this is, basically light sources like lamps, torches, the sun etc can bleed through walls/enviroment. When it is small light sources suchs as torches, it looks like orbs floating in the walls etc. In other areas like when you are in that giant moving thing that is used to attack the castle walls, the sun's light source is shining into it, which looks like crap. I really did not notice it at first cause I thought it was just a weird light source issue, but when I got farther in the prologue where you are underground and there are torches, I noticed them visible through walls and they look like orbs. When there are alot of them it looks horrible. However this fixes that problem.

So, if you have SLI just do the following:

1. Go to Nvidia Control Panel.
2. Manage 3D Settings
3. Program Settings --> The Witcher 2
4. Go down to SLI Rendering Mode, Select-> Force alternate frame rendering 2
5. Apply Settings
6. Launch Game
7. Enjoy Witcher 2 without light source bleeding through walls!!!

Now, Nvidia needs to fix this themselves so we dont have to do this or newer gamers dont have this issue along with proper SLI support. Sad thing is, this game has Nvidia's name plastered all over it you would thought they would of had proper support for the game.
 

wwm0nkey

Member
Yeah for Nvidia useres, go to control panel and uninstall 3D vision, MASSIVE FPS increase and you dont need to uninstall your current driver :D

(really needs to be bolded in the OP)
 

ManeKast

Member
Corky said:
hmm sometimes when I use Aard the framerate plummets. almost certain this has to be a bug or something
This has been happening to me as well, will have rock solid 45fps (@720p G73sw Laptop) and whenever I cast Aard I get spikes (for about 2-3 seconds) down to 28fps.
 

Wallach

Member
Bisnic said:
Sorry i'm kind of a noob in video cards, but what do you mean single slot? The N560GTX-TI Twin Frozr II takes the main PCIe slot and a 2nd PCI one?

Right, the Twin Frozr (and a lot of other mid-range and up card) are two slots "thick" even though they only actually slot into one PCI-E port.
 

Bisnic

Really Really Exciting Member!
Wallach said:
Right, the Twin Frozr (and a lot of other mid-range and up card) are two slots "thick" even though they only actually slot into one PCI-E port.

And cards such as these overheat less than a single slot card like a 9800gt?

Again, sorry for the noob questions :p
 

ukas

Member
wwm0nkey said:
Yeah for Nvidia useres, go to control panel and uninstall 3D vision, MASSIVE FPS increase and you dont need to uninstall your current driver :D

(really needs to be bolded in the OP)
For some reason this doesn't do anything for my 460m.
 

dgenx

Made an agreement with another GAF member, refused to honor it because he was broke, but then had no problem continuing to buy video games.
ok so I got

i5 @2.8Ghz
8Gigas Ram
and 9600GT

so to get a stable framerate of 34 or so I have to live with this disgrace

http://i53.tinypic.com/2qbstix.jpg

:( any way to pump it up, playing it at 20 just wont do, battles require good flow
 

~Kinggi~

Banned
Alright, this be bullshit. My purchased retail copy is worthless, for me and a ton of other people apparently. Directly trying to copy files to my desktop still fails halfway through.

I got this from Amazon and i hear replacing the game disc actually doesnt fix anything since someone over at cdprojekt and atari made a really fucked up file system on the disc.

So, i want my damn game. CdProjekt took down their forums saying it wont be back till maybe Thursday. Way to avoid the problem.

No way in hell am i paying for a freaking digital version.
 

Slo

Member
Posted this in the other thread, but this one might be more appropriate.

Hi guys, two questions:

1) I want to register my game so I can download the DLC, and it tells me to look on the back of the box. I got it through Steam, where should I look?

2) Where should I place my Witcher 1 saves to get them picked up? When I select New Game now it says Witcher 1 saves are unavailable.
 

RedSwirl

Junior Member
RedSwirl said:
Holy Christ.

CPU: Q6600 Quad Core 2.4GHz
GPU: Radeon HD 6850 1GB
RAM: 3GB
Monitor: 1440 x 900

And this game runs perfectly smooth probably 80% of the time with everything turned up to Ultra except ubersampling (don't know if it's 60 but looks like it). I'm only in the prologue so far, but the framerate only starts to dip in really heavy action with more than 10 NPCs fighting.

I could probably get the game running pretty much perfect if I turn down a couple settings just a tiny bit, but I noticed you can only turn the AA on or off. Any way to bring that down to maybe 2x in the ini? Normally I really like Ambient Occlusion, but I'll agree that the implementation in this game is a bit much.

The DOF on the other hand is fucking amazing if you ask me. It looks like Bokeh DOF a lot of the time to me (is it?). When Roach entered the interrogation room I was freaking out over the post-processing on the door.

Be back with screenshots later.

1624nbc.jpg


59tyio.jpg


That.

Fucking.

Door.
 

Vestal

Junior Member
A side note for Xfire users.. Its just not worth the hassle. I spent along time trying to get it to run perfect with it, but even when I thought it was running good, I switched to 1 card and it felt crisper and more responsive.

Its just absolutely not scaling.. Ive fallen back and just OCed 1 of my 5770s and Im running 40-60 in flotsam with everything maxed for the exeption of. DoF(the 3 of em) SSOA Uber sampling and Shadows(medium on em)
 

Wallach

Member
Bisnic said:
And cards such as these overheat less than a single slot card like a 9800gt?

Again, sorry for the noob questions :p

It can. For cards that are enclosed in plastic shrouds, it allows them to use larger/thicker heatsinks over the GPU die, and gives them more surface area to dissipate heat.
 

Hawk269

Member
Hawk269 said:
Problem fixed fellow SLI users!

I was able to fix the light source issue when using SLI. It does not happen when SLI is not used, only when SLI is in use. But if you go to the program settings and change the SLI rendering mode to "Force alternate frame rendering 2" the light source bleeding through walls disapears. There is also no other issues introduced by using this mode.

Withcer 1 had the same issue and some people suggested to use the alt. 2 rendering, but for me it did not work. Light sources did stop, but it introduced a bunch of other graphical issues and low framerate. I had to use Nvidia Inspector and a custome SLI bit to make it stop having light sources bleed through walls, but with Witcher 2 it does work and in my testing it has not had any issues with performance or any graphical anomolies.

For those not sure what this is, basically light sources like lamps, torches, the sun etc can bleed through walls/enviroment. When it is small light sources suchs as torches, it looks like orbs floating in the walls etc. In other areas like when you are in that giant moving thing that is used to attack the castle walls, the sun's light source is shining into it, which looks like crap. I really did not notice it at first cause I thought it was just a weird light source issue, but when I got farther in the prologue where you are underground and there are torches, I noticed them visible through walls and they look like orbs. When there are alot of them it looks horrible. However this fixes that problem.

So, if you have SLI just do the following:

1. Go to Nvidia Control Panel.
2. Manage 3D Settings
3. Program Settings --> The Witcher 2
4. Go down to SLI Rendering Mode, Select-> Force alternate frame rendering 2
5. Apply Settings
6. Launch Game
7. Enjoy Witcher 2 without light source bleeding through walls!!!

Now, Nvidia needs to fix this themselves so we dont have to do this or newer gamers dont have this issue along with proper SLI support. Sad thing is, this game has Nvidia's name plastered all over it you would thought they would of had proper support for the game.

Just an Update. A guy at the Nvidia forums tried this with is 3-Way SLI and it did not work, so if you have 3way it might not work. I can confirm 2-SLI it does work.
 

Bisnic

Really Really Exciting Member!
Wallach said:
It can. For cards that are enclosed in plastic shrouds, it allows them to use larger/thicker heatsinks over the GPU die, and gives them more surface area to dissipate heat.

Still, should i get a 2nd fan case just to be sure? Only one fan in the back seems like it wont be enough for a big card like this, but i could be wrong.
 

Minsc

Gold Member
RedSwirl said:
[]http://i54.tinypic.com/1624nbc.jpg[/IMG]

[]http://i52.tinypic.com/59tyio.jpg[/IMG]

That.

Fucking.

Door.

Nice. Door. Feels weird, I dunno. Ok, it is nice and shiny.


Slo said:
1) I want to register my game so I can download the DLC, and it tells me to look on the back of the box. I got it through Steam, where should I look?

2) Where should I place my Witcher 1 saves to get them picked up? When I select New Game now it says Witcher 1 saves are unavailable.

1) You don't need to look anywhere, Steam will enter it for you, just register an account through the launcer, hit next, and the code enters automatically.

2) My Documents\The Witcher\saves\

~Kinggi~ said:
Alright, this be bullshit. My purchased retail copy is worthless, for me and a ton of other people apparently. Directly trying to copy files to my desktop still fails halfway through.

I got this from Amazon and i hear replacing the game disc actually doesnt fix anything since someone over at cdprojekt and atari made a really fucked up file system on the disc.

So, i want my damn game. CdProjekt took down their forums saying it wont be back till maybe Thursday. Way to avoid the problem.

No way in hell am i paying for a freaking digital version.

If I were you, I'd just find a computer store and buy an external USB DVD drive then return the drive - no disc needed after installing, though I'd make an .iso image of the disc to be safe.
 

Wallach

Member
Bisnic said:
Still, should i get a 2nd fan case just to be sure? Only one fan in the back seems like it wont be enough for a big card like this, but i could be wrong.

85c is fairly hot, but a 9800GT is also just a hot running chip. You'd notice if it were actually having thermal problems, because it would manifest as graphic artifacts during gameplay. I'd just check your fan speed and make sure the card's fan enclosure is clean, and otherwise don't worry about it unless you start to encounter artifacting problems.
 

Slo

Member
Minsc said:
1) You don't need to look anywhere, Steam will enter it for you, just register an account through the launcer, hit next, and the code enters automatically.

That part's not happening for me. :\

Edit: Restarted steam and this worked now! Thanks!

2) My Documents\The Witcher\saves\

I'll try that.
 

Minsc

Gold Member
Slo said:
That part's not happening for me. :\

The OT gets much more traffic, I actually think you'd have better luck there.... I've no clue why it's not doing it automatically... just mention that there, otherwise you'll get 3 people all saying it happens automatically.
 

~Kinggi~

Banned
Minsc said:
If I were you, I'd just find a computer store and buy an external USB DVD drive then return the drive - no disc needed after installing, though I'd make an .iso image of the disc to be safe.
I think a better idea is to torrent the fucker. They deserve it for screwing me like this.
 
Finally, 30fps.

Now if I can just keep myself from dying.

Also, I cant seem to register my copy. The website doesnt let me and the launcher doesnt let me type to register.
 

syoaran

Member
RedSwirl said:
Holy Christ.

CPU: Q6600 Quad Core 2.4GHz
GPU: Radeon HD 6850 1GB
RAM: 3GB
Monitor: 1440 x 900

And this game runs perfectly smooth probably 80% of the time with everything turned up to Ultra except ubersampling (don't know if it's 60 but looks like it). I'm only in the prologue so far, but the framerate only starts to dip in really heavy action with more than 10 NPCs fighting.

I could probably get the game running pretty much perfect if I turn down a couple settings just a tiny bit, but I noticed you can only turn the AA on or off. Any way to bring that down to maybe 2x in the ini? Normally I really like Ambient Occlusion, but I'll agree that the implementation in this game is a bit much.

The DOF on the other hand is fucking amazing if you ask me. It looks like Bokeh DOF a lot of the time to me (is it?). When Roach entered the interrogation room I was freaking out over the post-processing on the door.

Be back with screenshots later.

I havent seen an example of bokeh DOF in this game. It's just out of focus DOF so far (I think the only game to do bokeh justice is Crysis2, even then its very low resolution light sources).

But yes, I've got the game running on maxed everything except for ubersambling on my i5 3ghz 470gtx rig and its a smooth 40fps. I think the only slow down I had is when the first help tutorial occured.
 

Erudite

Member
AMD Phenom 9650 @ 2.3ghz
8gb Ram
460 GTX @ Stock Settings
Latest drivers (w/o 3D Drivers)
twxzi.png


Game is running great for me. Although I haven't turned on FRAPS to see specific numbers I'm pretty surprised, I thought my CPU would bottleneck me, but I'm a little bit into Chapter 1 now without any major framerate issues.
 

Solo

Member
Is the game any good with the 360 pad? My one complaint so far is that I'm not loving the keyboard controls (using the default scheme).
 

Slo

Member
Awesome, game is registered and the Witcher 1 saves are found. I downloaded Troll Trouble but it's complaining about not having Administrator privledges so it won't install. I'm running Steam as the Admin, any ideas? I'm using Window 7 64 bit.
 

Minsc

Gold Member
Solo said:
Is the game any good with the 360 pad? My one complaint so far is that I'm not loving the keyboard controls (using the default scheme).

Excellent. I was KB+M w/ OTS on TW1 all the way, and I feel more comfortable on a pad with TW2. Some stuff is a little more awkward, but moving around fighting seems great.

Gully State said:
With my 5850 1GB, should I set texture memory size to very large or keep it at large?

I haven't seen any one have problems at the highest with 1GB cards yet, I have mine set to the max.
 

Wallach

Member
Solo said:
Is the game any good with the 360 pad? My one complaint so far is that I'm not loving the keyboard controls (using the default scheme).

From everything I've heard people really like using the controller. The most common complaints I've seen are that the left analog basically only moves between two speeds (walk or full run) and with the lack of keys you have to use the radial for all in-combat Sign links. But the radial nearly pauses the game so it's more of a flow thing. Think ME/ME2 console vs PC regarding power hotkeys.
 
Gamepad is better ergonomically but you lose a fair bit of precision and input options due to lack of mouse and lack of button...That and analog movement issue. It's not too bad once you get used to it..
 

Bisnic

Really Really Exciting Member!
Wallach said:
85c is fairly hot, but a 9800GT is also just a hot running chip. You'd notice if it were actually having thermal problems, because it would manifest as graphic artifacts during gameplay. I'd just check your fan speed and make sure the card's fan enclosure is clean, and otherwise don't worry about it unless you start to encounter artifacting problems.

Yeah i dont have artifact problems, the fan is just incredibly noisy. But i guess that's normal when the GPU is so damn hot, the fan has a lot of work to do.

When i check with SpeedFan, i've got different fan speeds, but its hard to know which one is which, they're just numbered Fan1 or Fan2. But i see 3200 RPM for Fan1 and 1800 RPM for Fan2... whichever is the case fan i dunno, the other is probably the CPU.
 

Varna

Member
Interesting. Seems even the cutscenes can be pretty dynamic. First time starting chapter 1 it was raining.. second time it was clear.
 

Yurt

il capo silenzioso
I realize there's a thread about PC upgrades already so apologies in advance. But since you guys have the game already maybe it's best to ask for advice here.

That's what I have atm unfortunately so what should I upgrade first ? I have a modest budget.

-ASUS Rampage Formula X48 Core 2 Due 3.0 GHz
- 4 GB RAM
- This is my terrible card http://www.techbuy.com.au/p/83805/details.asp
- TR2 550w if it helps ?

I tried the game on high, I was getting 20-25 fps but in crowded fights later on it drops to 10-19. And yes I tried it on medium and low it's the same strangely lol.

edit Is it cheaper to just buy another card of the above and just SLI them together ? Or am I still gonna get the same crappy fps ?

anyone ? because I'm going tomorrow and I'm pretty clueless about this stuff heh.
 
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