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

If I can run it on this, what's the best optimization? If not, any recommendations on things worth buying to upgrade this, or is it a bottleneck scenario?
I don't think you can run TW2 on that machine. The GFX is way too weak for this game. Try it and see what you have. But if it's <30fps, give it up, IMHO.
 

SJRB

Gold Member
Okay, I bought this game off the Steam sale yesterday, and even though I know this game requires a beast of a pc I put my faith in the system requirements on the steam page.


..which was a big mistake, appearantly. I cannot get this game to run smoothly for the life of me, even on low settings. The game auto-detects and recommends high settings, but regardless of which settings I chose I don't get more than 5 frames per seconds. As of yet it is completely unplayable.

I have an i5, 6gb RAM and a GeForce 530 GT with 2gb RAM, which is well beyond the "Recommended" requirements on the Steam page. Am I missing something here?


Can anyone shed some light on either what I'm doing wrong or if I'm just fucked with my specs. Either way is fine, as long as I know what the deal is.


[also - forcing me to quit the game to toggle graphical settings fucking SUCKS]


edit - maybe I should've browsed this thread BEFORE purchasing this game..
 
Um...something is wrong with your current build (hardware and/or software).
I played the game on fairly high settings on the following specs:

Core 2 Duo E6600 2.4 OCed to 3.2GHz
8 GB DDR2 RAM
Radeon 6950 2GB GDDR5
Win 7 x64

I played the game on "High-ish" settings meaning I followed the advice in this thread and I had 45-60fps (with occasional dips below that) and I had a blast.
 

SJRB

Gold Member
Um...something is wrong with your current build (hardware and/or software).
I played the game on fairly high settings on the following specs:

Core 2 Duo E6600 2.4 OCed to 3.2GHz
8 GB DDR2 RAM
Radeon 6950 2GB GDDR5
Win 7 x64

I played the game on "High-ish" settings meaning I followed the advice in this thread and I had 45-60fps (with occasional dips below that) and I had a blast.

Thanks for the quick reply. Browsing this thread a bit more I'm quite puzzled as to why I'm getting such a poor peformance.

Not sure where to go from here though, not much I can do at this point.
 
SJRB, I'm not sure if they have changed the default, but check your graphics settings when you're first booting up the game.

If I recall correctly, "uber sampling" should be turned on by default, and that's going to be a huge blow to your system. If it's on, simply check it off, and you should likely be good to go now.


If that wasn't the problem, then I'm not entirely sure. What aspect ratio are you running the game at? I was trying to run the game at 2560x1440 when I first got it, but I had to drop it down to 1920x1080 to get the performance I wanted/needed. Maybe that is an issue?
 

SJRB

Gold Member
SJRB, I'm not sure if they have changed the default, but check your graphics settings when you're first booting up the game.

If I recall correctly, "uber sampling" should be turned on by default, and that's going to be a huge blow to your system. If it's on, simply check it off, and you should likely be good to go now.


If that wasn't the problem, then I'm not entirely sure. What aspect ratio are you running the game at? I was trying to run the game at 2560x1440 when I first got it, but I had to drop it down to 1920x1080 to get the performance I wanted/needed. Maybe that is an issue?

Thanks for the advice. I switched from 1920 x 1080 to 1366 x 768 and it improved performance. But still, it's kind of choppy and to be honest the game looks beyond ugly with everything on "low".

I'll just give it a rest for now. Tried looking into a PS3 version because the intro cinematic has me intrigued but lol and behold for some reason this game is 360 only. GREAT.
 

Vitor711

Member
So, what's the maximum that you can set the foliage LOD? I have it at 1.6 right now with mesh at 2.2 but the pop in is still a little distracting. It runs fine maxed out on my 680m, so I know I can push the card further easily.

Is it worth increasing those figures further or will it not change a thing?
 
So I bought this game via Steam on my iMac and I'm having some serious performance issues. The imac is a new machine, bought in 2012. As far as the specs of the machine I think they're nearly exactly what's listed under the recommended specs.

3.4Ghz Intel Core i7 with 8 GB DDR
AMD Radeon HD 6970M (2 GB)

I would think I should have no problem running the game, however it is completely unplayable. Using low spec's with literally every graphic option turned off I get sub 10fps and game crashes. I was hoping someone might be able to help me out or have some experience with this. I really want to play this game. If I'm unable to run it, does anyone know if Steam is likely to refund my money?
 

EasyMode

Member
Posted this question in the game OT, but that's a ghost town. Does anyone know if you can enable some proper AF without turning on Ubersampling? I took some comparison shots with the same settings except for Ubersampling, and with 16X AF forced in Nvidia Control panel. Forcing it seems to have no effect, and Nvidia Inspector makes no difference either. It's strange, I've never had this issue with any other game.

Ubersampling on:


Ubersampling off:
 
Posted this question in the game OT, but that's a ghost town. Does anyone know if you can enable some proper AF without turning on Ubersampling? I took some comparison shots with the same settings except for Ubersampling, and with 16X AF forced in Nvidia Control panel. Forcing it seems to have no effect, and Nvidia Inspector makes no difference either. It's strange, I've never had this issue with any other game.

Ubersampling on:


Ubersampling off:

AF in Inspector works fine on my end. Here are my settings and a comparison:

texturefiltermbikv.jpg


0xAF
witcher20xafxxien.jpg


16xAF
witcher216xaf2ld0m.jpg


Definitely working, check your settings and give it another go.
 

EasyMode

Member
AF in Inspector works fine on my end. Here are my settings and a comparison:

Definitely working, check your settings and give it another go.

I can see the difference in your shots, what kinda AA are you using? I tried again using the exact same Inspector settings and the textures look the same (blurry at a distance/angle) whether I set AF to 0x or 16x.
 
I can see the difference in your shots, what kinda AA are you using? I tried again using the exact same Inspector settings and the textures look the same (blurry at a distance/angle) whether I set AF to 0x or 16x.

I'm afraid I can't help you as far as the AF goes, it's a mystery to me as to why it's not working.

But for AA I'm just using this FXAA injector with the in-game AA off.
 

UltimaKilo

Gold Member
I just finished this game on 360 a few days ago and it severely suffers on the platform. Pop-ins, frame rate and lower quality textures detracts a lot from the game. Still impressive, but the 360 doesn't do it justice...
 

54-46!

Member
I will be finishing my playthrough of the TW1 this week, hope to start TW2 soon, what kind of performance should I expect from my rig?

Phenom II X4 955 @ 3,2Ghz
7950 3GB
8GB RAM
 

Dave_6

Member
I hate to ask the same question but I just got my rig up and running a couple weeks ago.

3570K @ 3.4 (not overclocked yet)
8GB RAM
7970 3GB (non GHZ version)

Gaming on a 1080p 60" plasma. How well could I run this game?
 

Minsc

Gold Member
Unless you're unlucky (some config/systems just seem to have bad luck with little reason), I'd say 54-46! would be 45-60fps (cpu being the wild card) and Dave_6 would be 60+ fps.

The good thing about recently playing TW1, is TW2 generally runs at a better framerate than it lol.
 

54-46!

Member
Hmm, the UI seem pretty terrible for a PC setup, looks like it's catered toward comfy couch? everything is way too big.

Is it possible to exit menus in any other way than Esc? When I press B for inventory I want to exit it with B as well.

Is there a mod that lets you run and use the medallion at the same time?
 

Torraz

Member
Only played the prologue and a bit of chapter 1 due to performance problems. There were none in the prologue, but it felt like the game started running "choppily" in chapter 1 (in the town not so much, but especially outside).

This is what my settings look like. These are the result of "autodetect".

yFPtrZb.jpg


What should I tone down to up my FPS? I don't know where/how I can see how much FPS I am running at, but it doesn't feel very fluid at all; and I am a person who can usually forgive drops in framerate quite readily.

My rig isn't the newest anymore:

- i920 quad
- amd ati 5770
- 6gb ram
 

EasyMode

Member
What should I tone down to up my FPS? I don't know where/how I can see how much FPS I am running at, but it doesn't feel very fluid at all; and I am a person who can usually forgive drops in framerate quite readily.

My rig isn't the newest anymore:

- i920 quad
- amd ati 5770
- 6gb ram

Shadow Quality: Medium
LOD Distance: Far (just give it a try)
Bloom: Disabled (it's ugly anyways)
Light Shafts: Disabled
Anti-aliasing: Disabled (perhaps FXAA or SMAA instead)
Blur Effects: Disabled
Depth of Field - Gameplay: Disabled
Vignette: Disabled (enabled makes things harder to see anyways)
Web surfaces rain effect: Disabled
SSAO: Disabled (It can be distracting and poorly implemented anyways)
Motion Blur: Disabled
Leave the rest.

You can enable Cinematic DoF since you only have DoF enabled in cutscenes and framerate is less crucial there. Also you may be able to increase texture memory size. Perhaps after you get the other settings to your liking, you can try bumping up that setting one at a time.
 

Torraz

Member
Shadow Quality: Medium
LOD Distance: Far (just give it a try)
Bloom: Disabled (it's ugly anyways)
Light Shafts: Disabled
Anti-aliasing: Disabled (perhaps FXAA or SMAA instead)
Blur Effects: Disabled
Depth of Field - Gameplay: Disabled
Vignette: Disabled (enabled makes things harder to see anyways)
Web surfaces rain effect: Disabled
SSAO: Disabled (It can be distracting and poorly implemented anyways)
Motion Blur: Disabled
Leave the rest.

You can enable Cinematic DoF since you only have DoF enabled in cutscenes and framerate is less crucial there. Also you may be able to increase texture memory size. Perhaps after you get the other settings to your liking, you can try bumping up that setting one at a time.

Thank you. I'll give it a try later.
 

Daante

Member
Im getting a wierd graphic glicth whenever i move the camera around. It looks like some parts of the ground, lake or the wood is flashing/missing their textures in the beginning of the tutorial?


My rig:

3570k @ 3,4 ghz
Radeon 7850 2GB , with catalyst 13.4
8g ram
128 GB SSD
Playing the game on my 50" tv in 768p resolution

Im running the game trough STEAM, and have tried to disable everything option-graphic-wise, aswell as disabling everything in Catalyst. Framerate is solid but still these wierd glitches shows up.

Help?
 

EasyMode

Member
Im getting a wierd graphic glicth whenever i move the camera around. It looks like some parts of the ground, lake or the wood is flashing/missing their textures in the beginning of the tutorial?


My rig:

3570k @ 3,4 ghz
Radeon 7850 2GB , with catalyst 13.4
8g ram
128 GB SSD
Playing the game on my 50" tv in 768p resolution

Im running the game trough STEAM, and have tried to disable everything option-graphic-wise, aswell as disabling everything in Catalyst. Framerate is solid but still these wierd glitches shows up.

Help?

Do you mean some parts are showing no texture at all, or are they just very blurry and low res? Like when UE3 games stream in textures? If it's the latter then try setting Texture Downscaling to None and Texture Memory Size to Very High (or whatever is maximum.)

There's an occasional glitch where geometry would go missing and white areas would show up instead, but it shouldn't happen every time you move the camera.
 

Daante

Member
Do you mean some parts are showing no texture at all, or are they just very blurry and low res? Like when UE3 games stream in textures? If it's the latter then try setting Texture Downscaling to None and Texture Memory Size to Very High (or whatever is maximum.)

There's an occasional glitch where geometry would go missing and white areas would show up instead, but it shouldn't happen every time you move the camera.


Thank you for taking your time and trying to help me!

Hmm didnt work though =S .
Im no expert at things like this but i think i mean that instead of showing the textures its like a flashing "hole" there. In the tutorial on the brigde where you start, if i move the camera around i get these "holes" that looks like "white" instead of dark across the lake on some small parts on the mountain.

Its weird cause the glitch dosent seem to be present when i skipped the tutorial, and then started the game and moved the camera around after all the dialogue.
 

EasyMode

Member
Thank you for taking your time and trying to help me!

Hmm didnt work though =S .
Im no expert at things like this but i think i mean that instead of showing the textures its like a flashing "hole" there. In the tutorial on the brigde where you start, if i move the camera around i get these "holes" that looks like "white" instead of dark across the lake on some small parts on the mountain.

Its weird cause the glitch dosent seem to be present when i skipped the tutorial, and then started the game and moved the camera around after all the dialogue.

Too bad that didn't help.

If it only happens in the tutorial then is skipping it an option? It doesn't effect the game if you do. If you just wanna familiarize yourself, you could youtube the tutorial or force yourself to play through it with the glitches.

Aside from that, I'm out of ideas.
 

EasyMode

Member
Guy I'm tired of waiting for the patch for the combat mod, should I just play the game with the default combat?

Go for it. I'd recommend using D3DOverrider to enable Triple Buffering, which will help a bit with the input lag.

Some tips:
  • Roll, and then roll some more
  • When you get the chance, upgrade your roll
  • Your sword damage is effected by how much vigor you have, so try not to use all your vigor if you plan on using your sword alot
 

SmartBase

Member
Hate bumping this thread with a stupid question, but is cinematic DOF broken in the Enhanced Edition, or what? I play at 2560x1440 resolution and cutscenes slow down to 30FPS or less when the depth of field kicks in, specs are:

i7 2700k @ 4.8Ghz
GTX 670 OC
16GB DDR3
Game is installed on 120GB SSD

When AllowScatterDOF=0, I get a smooth 60FPS throughout the game. Any tips besides disabling that option?
 

sdijoseph

Member
Can someone tell me the name of this graphic that is caused by a full adrenaline bar? I am not sure if this is supposed to happen or not, but I get a blue-whiteish blur across my screen when the adrenaline bar fills up. It also drops my framerate from 40 to around 13. Here is what it looks like. If it matters, I have the combat re-balance mod installed.
 

molnizzle

Member
So... is there any possible way to get some decent AA in this game? Besides ubersampling. Using the default AA settings I get absolutely horrible IQ. Dithering all over the place, Geralt's hair looks like a damn light show. When I try forcing MSAA through nVidia Inspector it doesn't seem to work. What can I do here?

(Sorry for the necro bump, but it seemed like a better idea than making a new thread.)
 
So... is there any possible way to get some decent AA in this game? Besides ubersampling. Using the default AA settings I get absolutely horrible IQ. Dithering all over the place, Geralt's hair looks like a damn light show. When I try forcing MSAA through nVidia Inspector it doesn't seem to work. What can I do here?

(Sorry for the necro bump, but it seemed like a better idea than making a new thread.)

Good timing actually, I just went through the same thing. Try using Inject SMAA ( http://mrhaandi.blogspot.ca/p/injectsmaa.html ), take all the files from the d3d9 folder and drop them into the wticher 2/ bin folder in your install directory. Then change it to ultra by modifying the injector.ini ( preset = SMAA_PRESET_ULTRA ). I had to then disable Anti Aliasing and VSYNC via the game's launcher/configuration and force VSYNC through inspector. That should give you pretty solid image quality and it doesn't really effect performance.
 

molnizzle

Member
Good timing actually, I just went through the same thing. Try using Inject SMAA ( http://mrhaandi.blogspot.ca/p/injectsmaa.html ), take all the files from the d3d9 folder and drop them into the wticher 2/ bin folder in your install directory. Then change it to ultra by modifying the injector.ini ( preset = SMAA_PRESET_ULTRA ). I had to then disable Anti Aliasing and VSYNC via the game's launcher/configuration and force VSYNC through inspector. That should give you pretty solid image quality and it doesn't really effect performance.

BEST THING EVER

1,000 THX

OMG
 

BraXzy

Member
Good timing actually, I just went through the same thing. Try using Inject SMAA ( http://mrhaandi.blogspot.ca/p/injectsmaa.html ), take all the files from the d3d9 folder and drop them into the wticher 2/ bin folder in your install directory. Then change it to ultra by modifying the injector.ini ( preset = SMAA_PRESET_ULTRA ). I had to then disable Anti Aliasing and VSYNC via the game's launcher/configuration and force VSYNC through inspector. That should give you pretty solid image quality and it doesn't really effect performance.

This didn't seem to do much for me. I either go with in-game AA, nasty shadow dithering but sharper textures, or alternate AA and washed out textures :/
 

megatonante

Neo Member
Hello, I hope there is still someone in this thread. I have a LOD (I think) problem: certain things just pop up in front of me. The same goes for certain shadows.

Example taken from another user on the net since the problem is identical: http://i1102.photobucket.com/albums/g451/sgrrsh26/crrrap/2011-09-13_00001.jpg
http://i1102.photobucket.com/albums/g451/sgrrsh26/crrrap/2011-09-13_00004.jpg

See how the vases in the shop just pop in. The same happens for certain specific objects in the game, like certain rocks, shadows or skeleton remains. They pop in quite near Geralt.

This is similar to the infamous grass LOD problem, which I am fixing with a mod. Maybe they are related? Is there a way to fix this popping up?
I have MeshDistanceScale on 4,8 or something, and the distance at which they pop in is the same every time.

I have read in the OP about the bugged user.ini, but even if I am not putting it in read-only, when I close it, play the game, quit and re-open it, it still has the same configuration and nothing is changed. Is it ok?

EDIT: I have reached Act 3 and while walking in the mountains it is more noticable because rubble and little rocks keep spawning around me like some magic circle. Seems like the particular rock texture is set to very low while everything else is different.

EDIT2: is it just me or night is almost equal to daylight? There is just a weaker illumination. Still the moon shines like a little but bright sun, is this normal? I'd like darker nights, they are cool. The witcher 1 had a better feeling in that regard.
 

Sajjaja

Member
Hello, I hope there is still someone in this thread. I have a LOD (I think) problem: certain things just pop up in front of me. The same goes for certain shadows.

Example taken from another user on the net since the problem is identical: http://i1102.photobucket.com/albums/g451/sgrrsh26/crrrap/2011-09-13_00001.jpg
http://i1102.photobucket.com/albums/g451/sgrrsh26/crrrap/2011-09-13_00004.jpg

See how the vases in the shop just pop in. The same happens for certain specific objects in the game, like certain rocks, shadows or skeleton remains. They pop in quite near Geralt.

This is similar to the infamous grass LOD problem, which I am fixing with a mod. Maybe they are related? Is there a way to fix this popping up?
I have MeshDistanceScale on 4,8 or something, and the distance at which they pop in is the same every time.

I have read in the OP about the bugged user.ini, but even if I am not putting it in read-only, when I close it, play the game, quit and re-open it, it still has the same configuration and nothing is changed. Is it ok?

EDIT: I have reached Act 3 and while walking in the mountains it is more noticable because rubble and little rocks keep spawning around me like some magic circle. Seems like the particular rock texture is set to very low while everything else is different.

EDIT2: is it just me or night is almost equal to daylight? There is just a weaker illumination. Still the moon shines like a little but bright sun, is this normal? I'd like darker nights, they are cool. The witcher 1 had a better feeling in that regard.

I'm afraid that it's how TW2 is designed. It was pretty annoying for me too, because once I started noticing it, I couldn't stop.
You could check this out
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=618991

But you better have a strong machine because it is quite demanding.
 

megatonante

Neo Member
I'm afraid that it's how TW2 is designed. It was pretty annoying for me too, because once I started noticing it, I couldn't stop.
You could check this out
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=618991

But you better have a strong machine because it is quite demanding.

Thank you.
It's pretty absurd because due to the lighting effect there is a cave in which you can see LIGHT at the end of a tunnel, only to see it disappear and return dark when you walk near, like every underground tunnel should be.
No sane person would have designed something like this. Maybe CD Project rushed the release date?

On a funny note: in chapter 3 there are soldiers with wings on their helms. You can see them from afar, but WITHOUT wings on their helms. Wings appear only when you walk near (let's say 10 meters?), like some divine transformation. It's ludicrous.

I tried that mod. It's cool but then my game doesn't run at 1080p60fps on ultra anymore, so I settled for the lighter version by the same author. Also, that mod covers only grass and trees far away from me, while magical rubble, rocks and shadows popping into existance in front of me are untouched.
I think someone could devise a mod for these object like they fixed the Vergen grass problem in act 2, but modders are not supposed to be fixers I guess.

On a side note, do you think that with an intel 3,5 Hz processor, GTX 970 and 8 RAM gb will I be able to play The Witcher 3 properly? I can't wait to see the reccomendations from CD Projects.
 

Sajjaja

Member
On a side note, do you think that with an intel 3,5 Hz processor, GTX 970 and 8 RAM gb will I be able to play The Witcher 3 properly? I can't wait to see the reccomendations from CD Projects.

I don't see why you should have any problems. I would imagine that RAM is something you could invest in, but 8GB should be fine imo.

And yeah, the pop in is pretty nasty. I hope they address it in TW3.
 

BigTnaples

Todd Howard's Secret GAF Account
So without reading the entirety of the thread, did CDPR ever address why Cinimatic DOF has such a hit to performance? I mean, I can be running 50-60+ at 4K during gameplay, but as soon as I get in a fist fight or certain Cinimatic, the framerate drops by more than half. Sometimes going into the 20's.

I've seen this is an issue all over the web but I can't see if it was ever addressed, and some people seem to not be affected by it?
 

ApharmdX

Banned
I'm trying to play through the Witcher 2 before starting 3, and with my 970 SLI configuration I get severe flickering and discoloration on the top edge of my screen. Has anyone else seen this?
 

MNC

Member
Someone must be able to help me.

I am currently trying to play Witcher 2 on a GTX970. Framerate's fine, but I cannot get the best look for the game and have tried countless ini tricks. I hope someone knows how I can solve the following issues:

1) The sharpness looks shit as fuck. It literally hurts my eye as I cannot properly focus while it is enabled. AllowSharpness = 0 solves it, but:

2) This makes the horrid SSAO and AA visible. The SSAO flickers madly and it looks as if I'm playing a YouTube video instead of a game.

3) I cannot get a proper AA going... Don't know how to fix this.

Any other visual improvements I can run are welcome.
 
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