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[wanderingprostheyltite]

Hmm anyone else not having their ini changes show up in game? I've set it to read only and before using vivek's file I was able to see changes like grass density but now that's not being reflected when I try and bump the value up, so I'm wondering if I'm getting any of his changes at all :/

The ini shows all the right values yet it doesn't seem to correspond in game. I noticed there's a regular user.ini that seems to show the same things as user.settings, thought I'd try and copy the same values into that file, but all it seemed to do was make Geralt hop like a bunny sporadically without my controlling him lol.

Any suggestions? I am using regular notepad to edit so maybe I need notepad++?

 

[laxu]

Is SweetFX SMAA better than Nvidia control panel FXAA?

I tried to compare them but wasn't able to tell them apart TBH.

FXAA is more blurry in general. SMAA doesn't really introduce blur but it depends on the game how well it performs. For example GTA V doesn't do all that well with SweetFX SMAA. Haven't tried it in W3, the ingame AA is just fine for me.

 

[laxu]

Hmm anyone else not having their ini changes show up in game?
Any suggestions? I am using regular notepad to edit so maybe I need notepad++?

The editor doesn't matter. That said, I would never use regular notepad for anything. It is truly an awful piece of software. Install Notepad++.

 

[lightchris]

Gonna give this baby a runthrough tonight and then work on finishing Witcher 2.

My specs:

FX6300 3.5Ghz (4.1 turbo)
XFX R9 280x DD 3gB
1333Mhz 4gB DDR3 RAM

Will it run like shit until I get 8gB of ram? Or will I just experience small stutters as it shuffles things in and out of the RAM?

I think it could be okay if you try to run as little other processes in the background as possible. The game itself takes about 2.5 GB to 3 GB of RAM.

 

[Seanspeed]

Gonna give this baby a runthrough tonight and then work on finishing Witcher 2.

My specs:

FX6300 3.5Ghz (4.1 turbo)
XFX R9 280x DD 3gB
1333Mhz 4gB DDR3 RAM

Will it run like shit until I get 8gB of ram? Or will I just experience small stutters as it shuffles things in and out of the RAM?

I don't know why you don't just buy a $25 4GB stick? You can afford Witcher 3 and you've got a mostly capable rig otherwise. What's the deal with the 4GB?

 

[daninthemix]

Another thing to try for those with crashing is to disable all gameworks features (I think that's just HBAO+ and Hairworks). Been playing Far Cry 4 and if any gameworks features are enabled, the game randomly crashes within an hour or two, but on standard Ultra settings I haven't had a crash in 30 hours (on a GTX970).

 

[tuxfool]

No I think that's not true. I run a heavily overclocked 970 SLI with a heavily overclocked CPU using the latest drivers and so far the game has not crashed a single time. Runs like a dream.

Borderless window mode causes a huge performance drop in this game at least on my system (seems to pretty much halve my framerate) so run it in fullscreen.

Sure, it is hard to tell how widespread this issue is but the only people that are reporting issues with overclocks are nvidia users.

 

[knerl]

970 user here. Stock clocks and 352.86 has crashed three times for me now. Two times while using a web browser. Firefox or Chrome. Something is definitely wrong with the latest driver. Don't have this issue with 350.12. Temperatures are fine and dandy even during absolute full load, but 352.86 runs ~5 degrees hotter for me. Running Win 8.1 x64 btw.

 

[j0hnny_385]

970 user here. Stock clocks and 352.86 has crashed three times for me now. Two times while using a web browser. Firefox or Chrome. Something is definitely wrong with the latest driver. Don't have this issue with 350.12. Temperatures are fine and dandy even during absolute full load, but 352.86 runs ~5 degrees hotter for me. Running Win 8.1 x64 btw.

352.86 drivers
Gigabyte GTX 970 G1 (factory OC)
Win 8.1
SSD
1080p TV

I have 0 issues with the game. Not a single crash. Running in GOG Galaxy, fullscreen.
Everything on Ultra except grass, foliage and char. count. (all set to High)
Hairworks off of course.
HBAO+ ON

¯\_(&#12484_/¯

 

[lordfuzzybutt]

970 user here. Stock clocks and 352.86 has crashed three times for me now. Two times while using a web browser. Firefox or Chrome. Something is definitely wrong with the latest driver. Don't have this issue with 350.12. Temperatures are fine and dandy even during absolute full load, but 352.86 runs ~5 degrees hotter for me. Running Win 8.1 x64 btw.

It is a known issue. Nvidia says they are investigating.

 

[Kezen]

352.86 drivers
Gigabyte GTX 970 G1 (factory OC)
Win 8.1
SSD
1080p TV

I have 0 issues with the game. Not a single crash. Running in GOG Galaxy, fullscreen.
Everything on Ultra except grass, foliage and char. count.
Hairworks off of course.
HBAO+ ON

¯\_(&#12484_/¯

Same here, no crashes, but noticeable stutter here and here. Background assets streaming seems to be the issue even though I'm running the game off an SSD.

 

[j0hnny_385]

Same here, no crashes, but noticeable stutter here and here. Background assets streaming seems to be the issue even though I'm running the game off an SSD.

Are your textures set to Ultra?

 

[Kezen]

Are your textures set to Ultra?

Yes. But 3.5gb of VRAM should be enough, the game does not seem to go above 2.

 

[j0hnny_385]

Yes. But 3.5gb of VRAM should be enough, the game does not seem to go above 2.

Hmm...strange. I don't have any asset loading issues and I've read that setting the Texture quality to Ultra eliminates pop-in/asset/texture issues because high VRAM allows them to load everything on the GPU instead of HDD/SSD streaming.

 

[Seanspeed]

It is a known issue. Nvidia says they are investigating.

I've had crashes both with and without the new driver, also with and without an overclock. I did stop getting crashes with the 1.03 patch, but I also know others have still had crashes with it.

I don't know that there's any one 'known' issue here.

 

[Xyber]

I've had crashes both with and without the new driver, also with and without an overclock. I did stop getting crashes with the 1.03 patch, but I also know others have still had crashes with it.

I don't know that there's any one 'known' issue here.

The issue is the one where the driver crashes at random on the desktop and not related to the game itself.

I've had it happen about 4 times since I updated and it has never happened before.

 

[Genio88]

I've had crashes both with and without the new driver, also with and without an overclock. I did stop getting crashes with the 1.03 patch, but I also know others have still had crashes with it.

I don't know that there's any one 'known' issue here.

For me with overclock it crashes almost 100% of the time, after about 1 hour or less, especially after patch 1.0.3, instead without it the game doesn't crash even after 4 hours straight, even if yesterday it happend to crash during a dialogue after about 30 minutes of gameplay without overclock, but after that it ran with no problems for hours.

 

[Darkone]

i7 - 4790K
GTX970 Gigabyte OC 4GB
7200rpm HDD
8GB Memory DDR3

Playing on 1080p ALL maxed with Hairworks on, game runs smoothly at 30fps locked.
Sadly i get crashes here and there, hoping for a patch soon.

 

[knerl]

I've had crashes both with and without the new driver, also with and without an overclock. I did stop getting crashes with the 1.03 patch, but I also know others have still had crashes with it.

I don't know that there's any one 'known' issue here.

The driver is reported bad by 50+ pages over at nvidia's driver forum. I haven't had the game crash on me since 1.03 though. Forgot to mention that before. This is purely down to the driver in question.

 

[Seanspeed]

The driver is reported bad by 50+ pages over at nvidia's driver forum. I haven't had the game crash on me since 1.03 though. Forgot to mention that before. This is purely down to the driver in question.

There is an issue being caused with the driver, but we don't know that issues are caused *by* the driver, ya know? I was having the same 'driver failures' with the old driver.

 

[lordfuzzybutt]

The driver is reported bad by 50+ pages over at nvidia's driver forum. I haven't had the game crash on me since 1.03 though. Forgot to mention that before. This is purely down to the driver in question.

The exact opposite happens to me. Before 1.03 the game never crashed, with 1.03 it crashes left and right. That plus the random crashes when browsing on Chrome makes it a really annoying issue.

 

[lordfuzzybutt]

There is an issue being caused with the driver, but we don't know that issues are caused *by* the driver, ya know? I was having the same 'driver failures' with the old driver.

ManuelG Are you guys working on this?

I have The Witcher 3 sitting on my desktop waiting to play.. but I can't because of this driver.

Any updates on progress or whether there is a fix coming soon..? would really love to play.

Yes, I can confirm that the issues reported in this thread, particularly with Chrome and The Witcher 3, are active high-priority investigations. Will share more details as soon as possible.

This is what Nvidia (NVGareth) said.

 

[Vintage]

Crash related: I haven't had a single crash neither on my old 660ti nor on new MSI 970. Latest drivers.

Crash unrelated: Do you also sometimes get very aggressive character pop-in? Some characters (in the same scene) can be seen from very far away, but some just pop in just a few meters away from the camera. Doesn't happen often, but still annoying.

 

[Seanspeed]

This is what Nvidia (NVGareth) said.

Same deal - we don't know the cause of the issue. Just because they are investigating it doesn't mean they or their driver is automatically the cause.

I don't know the deal with the Chrome thing, I don't really use it.

 

[j0hnny_385]

I don't know the deal with the Chrome thing, I don't really use it.

Chrome being a huge memory hog certainly has something to do with it... :/

 

[Truant]

Started getting a couple of crashes yesterday. I suspect it's controller/input related. If I back out of the menus too fast it locks up. Sound keeps playing but the game freezes.

I also got a crash while mashing the B button (X1 controller on PC) while running.

 

[Kinthalis]

Chrome being a huge memory hog certainly has something to do with it... :/

Chrome seprates each ta into it's own process in order to increase stability, but that's always going to cost more RAM.

 

[lordfuzzybutt]

Same deal - we don't know the cause of the issue. Just because they are investigating it doesn't mean they or their driver is automatically the cause.

I don't know the deal with the Chrome thing, I don't really use it.

Well, I am not saying with 100% certainty that their driver is the issue. Just basing on the fact that my chrome had been absolutely fine right before the new driver came and then crashed left and right after, I would say that the most likely culprit is the driver.

There, of course, is the possibility that Chrome, like TW3, may have updated after the new driver came.

Also, my original post said 'known issue' does not mean it was Nvidia's issue alone you know.

 

[Arkanius]

Changed the res from 1920x1080 to 1600x900 on my 7970GHz 3GB, i7 3770k@4.4, 16GB RAM playing at 40" TV and now running at nearly all the time 60fps with occasional drops.

Looking forward to a CDPR patch that may up the performace and WAITING for AMD drivers....

I'm playing at 1080p with a 280X (Same as yours), i5 3570k, every setting on High except for textures which are on Ultra and Shadows on Medium. Hairworks off.

I get a pretty constant 60fps.

Using Windows 10 btw

 

[knerl]

There is an issue being caused with the driver, but we don't know that issues are caused *by* the driver, ya know? I was having the same 'driver failures' with the old driver.

We can probably twist this to an argument favouring both sides as many times we want, but if it crashes because of something else the driver has an issue in the sense that it's not fully compatible with whatever it is that's causing it. I.E. the driver can't handle the event that in my case triggers the crash. Something triggers the crash. Something that the previous driver can handle just fine. I've never had a single crash with 350.12. So something in 352.86 isn't working as intended. You used Win 7 right? I'm using Win 8.1.
So if 350.12 haven't crashed for me at all, but does for you there's another issue with them or at least one of them.

 

[Easy_D]

I don't know why you don't just buy a $25 4GB stick? You can afford Witcher 3 and you've got a mostly capable rig otherwise. What's the deal with the 4GB?

I'm a cheapskate is why . I already went and got advice from the PC thread, I'll get an additional 8gB for a total of 12 .

 

[mm04]

No I think that's not true. I run a heavily overclocked 970 SLI with a heavily overclocked CPU using the latest drivers and so far the game has not crashed a single time. Runs like a dream.

Borderless window mode causes a huge performance drop in this game at least on my system (seems to pretty much halve my framerate) so run it in fullscreen.

Same setup for me. OC'd both i5 and SLI 970s experiencing the same positive and negative behavior you are. I'm happy.

 

[Seanspeed]

Well, I am not saying with 100% certainty that their driver is the issue. Just basing on the fact that my chrome had been absolutely fine right before the new driver came and then crashed left and right after, I would say that the most likely culprit is the driver.

There, of course, is the possibility that Chrome, like TW3, may have updated after the new driver came.

Also, my original post said 'known issue' does not mean it was Nvidia's issue alone you know.

Gotcha. Was just kind of saying that the issue may be more complicated and something that might not necessarily be on Nvidia to fix.

We can probably twist this to an argument favouring both sides as many times we want, but if it crashes because of something else the driver has an issue in the sense that it's not fully compatible with whatever it is that's causing it. I.E. the driver can't handle the event that in my case triggers the crash. Something triggers the crash. Something that the previous driver can handle just fine. I've never had a single crash with 350.12. So something in 352.86 isn't working as intended. You used Win 7 right? I'm using Win 8.1.
So if 350.12 haven't crashed for me at all, but does for you there's another issue with them or at least one of them.

If the game is crashing for people regardless of driver, with the same Event Log message about driver failure, my immediate assumption would be that it's not about what the drivers can 'handle', but about how the game is communicating with the drivers in general. AMD users are having these crashes, too.

 

[Xyber]

If the game is crashing for people regardless of driver, with the same Event Log message about driver failure, my immediate assumption would be that it's not about what the drivers can 'handle', but about how the game is communicating with the drivers in general. AMD users are having these crashes, too.

Again, it's not the game crashes we are talking about here. It's the completely random display driver crashes that happens when using Chrome that started happening for a lot of people after the latest driver. That's the real problem with the latest drivers and if they also happen to cause the game to crash then let's hope they can fix that.

That problem has never happened to me before and started right away after I installed the latest drivers, so it's very likely that there is some problem with the drivers itself.

 

[CHC]

Seems like they rushed the drivers out the door to meet the Witcher 3 release date. The poor Kepler performance and Chrome crashes are definitely things that wouldn't have been noticed in a hurry.

 

[lordfuzzybutt]

Seems like they rushed the drivers out the door to meet the Witcher 3 release date. The poor Kepler performance and Chrome crashes are definitely things that wouldn't have been noticed in a hurry.

Well in any case, at least they confirmed that they are working on all the issues and that is good at least, regardless of the fact if they indeed can/will fix or improve anything.

 

[ecosse_011172]

I have the following on my 3570K/SSD/8GB RAM/Overclocked MSI 970 Gaming (1475MHz Core, 3985MHz - Memory)

SMAA injected using Sweetfx
FXAA, Tripe Buffering, Vertical Sync and 16xAF set in Nvidia Control Panel

Motion Blur, Blur, AA, Sharpening, DoF - Off
Bloom, Vignetting, light shafts - On
AO - HBAO+

Borderless Window
Hairworks - On
Background Characters - High
Shadow Quality - Medium
Grass Density - High
Foliage - Medum
Everything else - Ultra

I haven't played that much but I seem to get a steady 60fps, I'm playing on a 65" Plasma.

Any tips/comments?

I was thinking of trying rendering at 1440p, downsampling at 30fps. Hw do I go about this?
I've only done it with Dark Souls 2 using GeDoSaTo...

 

[knerl]

Gotcha. Was just kind of saying that the issue may be more complicated and something that might not necessarily be on Nvidia to fix.


If the game is crashing for people regardless of driver, with the same Event Log message about driver failure, my immediate assumption would be that it's not about what the drivers can 'handle', but about how the game is communicating with the drivers in general. AMD users are having these crashes, too.

Like I wrote. The game isn't crashing for me. The driver is. When using Firefox or Chrome. If the driver didn't crash for me before while using 350.12, but it is crashing while using 352.86 clearly something is up with the driver. Using 350.12 the game doesn't crash for me. Neither is the driver crashing while browsing the internet. A tip that might help some.
I'm not saying that there aren't several issues that causes or could cause the game to crash or the driver to stop responding, but if one driver for me stops responding outside of the game and the other doesn't that's a strong indication of a driver related issue.
If the driver stops responding it's because of an event that the driver can't resolve.

 

[jourdy]

Hi all,
kept reading about people complaining about Witcher 3, how it is inefficient for Nvidia 7XX series.

I just so happen to have a setup of

SLI 780M (laptop)
i7-4900MQ @2.8Ghz
32 gb Ram

My laptop is about 2 years old, and Witcher 3 doesn't run smooth enough on my rig (40fps average) despite graphics being set only medium-high.

Is my laptop outdated already?

 

[knerl]

How much does the framerate drop while using hairworks and you have the camera really close to Geralts head?

 

[Seanspeed]

Again, it's not the game crashes we are talking about here. It's the completely random display driver crashes that happens when using Chrome that started happening for a lot of people after the latest driver.

Ah ok my bad. Was misunderstanding the problem.

 

[j0hnny_385]

I have the following on my 3570K/SSD/8GB RAM/Overclocked MSI 970 Gaming (1475MHz Core, 3985MHz - Memory)

SMAA injected using Sweetfx
FXAA, Tripe Buffering, Vertical Sync and 16xAF set in Nvidia Control Panel

Motion Blur, Blur, AA, Sharpening, DoF - Off
Bloom, Vignetting, light shafts - On
AO - HBAO+

Borderless Window
Hairworks - On
Background Characters - High
Shadow Quality - Medium
Grass Density - High
Foliage - Medum
Everything else - Ultra

I haven't played that much but I seem to get a steady 60fps, I'm playing on a 65" Plasma.

Any tips/comments?

I was thinking of trying rendering at 1440p, downsampling at 30fps. Hw do I go about this?
I've only done it with Dark Souls 2 using GeDoSaTo...

You're running Hairworks at 60fps on a GTX 970 with SweetFX SMAA?

IWannaSeeTheReceipts.gif

 

[CHC]

Is my laptop outdated already?

No, not at all. Fixes for Kepler (Nvidia 600 / 700 series) are coming on the driver side, and given CDProjekt's track record, there will probably be more performance / stuttering fixes in the next patch.

In the meantime try:

Running on a mix of high and medium...
...in borderless full screen....
...with a 30 FPS cap from Rivatuner.

You should be able to stay locked at 30 and have consistent performance and a smooth experience. As a desktop 780 user myself, I can tell you don't even bother trying to get 60 FPS right now. Solid 30 feels fine in this game, until performance can be patched up a bit.

 

[jourdy]

No, not at all. Fixes for Kepler (Nvidia 600 / 700 series) are coming on the driver side, and given CDProjekt's track record, there will probably be more performance / stuttering fixes in the next patch.

In the meantime try:

Running on a mix of high and medium...
...in borderless full screen....
...with a 30 FPS cap from Rivatuner.

You should be able to stay locked at 30 and have consistent performance and a smooth experience. As a desktop 780 user myself, I can tell you don't even bother trying to get 60 FPS right now. Solid 30 feels fine in this game, until performance can be patched up a bit.

Thanks for the quick reply.
Actually very disheartening to see FPSat around 40 considering I already set the shadows to the lowest detail.

Hair has been off, as well as sharpening.

 

[M.D]

Is there a program that records highest/lowest or average frame rate and gpu temperature?

 

[Naedtrax]

What would be the best area to actually test FPS?

 

[Prophet Steve]

Is there a program that records highest/lowest or average frame rate and gpu temperature?

I think MSI Afterburner + Rivatuner Statistics Server allows you to do that.

 

[M.D]

I think MSI Afterburner + Rivatuner Statistics Server allows you to do that.

I'm already using them, will look it up
Thankd!

 

[abracadaver]

Played for 4 hours yesterday (for the first time) and it ran great for me. 60fps with very few stutters if any. No crashes

I5 3550 (3,3ghz)
R9 290 (15.4 drivers)
Normal HDD
8GB RAM

Can't remember all the settings but I know these:

Textures ultra
Hairworks off
Population medium
CA off
MB on
HBAO+ on
Shadows medium
Anti aliasing on
I think I had some distance slider at 50%


Game looks awesome in motion.

 

[Lovely Salsa]

The only way to not get the game to freeze is to downclock the gpu -30

it came factory OC.

Gtx 680

Playing it on 1080p, everything maxed except shadows set to medium, water high, population high and foliage distance high

Hairworks off