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Witcher 3 PC Performance Thread

KaiserAlucard

Neo Member
I've tackled all my crahsing problems by going back at the GTA V drivers. No crashes or anything since I've done that. You might want to try this out.
But it will lower performance in Witcher 3 a bit no? Also I'd lost my SLI profile for Witcher, not sure it'd be a good thing to revert to that old driver...

Maybe I'll try.
 

b0uncyfr0

Member
How do i activate the newest dlc after its been installed without jumping into Gog Galaxy?

There are settings in user.settings under dlc, but what are the dlc numbers for the latest ones?
 
Done some more testing and it seems that half-refresh v-sync alone is enough to get a smooth, even 30fps. No need for frame-limiters and whatnot.

In-game settings: v-sync off, frame limit off, full-screen

Also, it feels better with motion blur off (and the other blur option off - what does that do exactly?).

Alright, I've tested this and can confirm that fullscreen + half v-sync is much smoother than the RTSS method. There is a touch more input lag but it's no big deal.

It's weird though, with RTSS the overlay shows perfect frame times but the stutter/jitter is obvious. When using half v-sync the frame times jump around from 32.0 to 34.0 and yet it feels and looks perfectly smooth.

Edit: Dammit, I just noticed that TW3 totally ignores my monitor's colour profile when I play in fullscreen :( I guess I'm going back to the RTSS method then.
 

Hellcrow

Member
I have a 1440p monitor, but want to run the game with 1080p borderless window mode. However, borderless window mode does not stretch to fullscreen, and I get a little window in the middle of the screen where the game runs.

Can I force borderless window to run with full screen?
 

Dries

Member
I have a 1440p monitor, but want to run the game with 1080p borderless window mode. However, borderless window mode does not stretch to fullscreen, and I get a little window in the middle of the screen where the game runs.

Can I force borderless window to run with full screen?

You can try setting your desktop resolution to 1920 x 1080 and then boot the game up.
 

lmbotiva

Junior Member
when i change the settings for the grass from 2400 to 2600 it resets my textures and foliage and grass settings on the game menu, is this normal? what should i do?
 

Zakalwe

Banned
But it will lower performance in Witcher 3 a bit no? Also I'd lost my SLI profile for Witcher, not sure it'd be a good thing to revert to that old driver...

Maybe I'll try.

New drivers (both sets) did nothing for performance aside from installing more constant crashes.
 
Made a 60fps video of my performance, overall its been solid. GTX 970, 16GB ram, i74770k.
Recorded at 1080p, ultra (shadows on high), hairworks on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RxaTW-oVTY

Right now tho, I turned off hairworks and can get about 50fps downsampling from 2880x1620, so im playing like that for now as its a much nicer IQ

edit

Spoilers if you haven't done the witches of crookback bog mission
 

Moss

Member
My performance really tanked after the last patch. Used to run at 1440p very smoothly, now it feels much worse.

980 sli
32gb ram
i7 3820
 

s_mirage

Member
when i change the settings for the grass from 2400 to 2600 it resets my textures and foliage and grass settings on the game menu, is this normal? what should i do?

Ignore it. What I think happens is that if your settings don't match the presets, the menu will say that you're using low settings for any affected options. As long as you don't change those options in the menu after you've customized them, the game will be using your custom settings
 

Zakalwe

Banned
Made a 60fps video of my performance, overall its been solid. GTX 970, 16GB ram, i74770k.
Recorded at 1080p, ultra (shadows on high), hairworks on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RxaTW-oVTY

Right now tho, I turned off hairworks and can get about 50fps downsampling from 2880x1620, so im playing like that for now as its a much nicer IQ

edit

Spoilers if you haven't done the witches of crookback bog mission

No fps counter, this isn't very helpful.

Also you're going to get frequent drops at those settings on a 970 in towns, certain story areas, and whenever more than a couple of Hairworks enemies are on screen.

Open world is much more lenient.
 
No fps counter, this isn't very helpful.

Also you're going to get frequent drops at those settings on a 970 in towns, certain story areas, and whenever more than a couple of Hairworks enemies are on screen.

Open world is much more lenient.

really, cause I just walked around novigrad without any issue at all. 40-50 fps there at 2880x1620, with hairworks off
 
I'm getting loads of stuttering in Novigrad. Also pretty sure it's not a stable 60fps. maybe drop to 50-55 I'd guess. Up until I arrived the game has been pretty damn smooth except the odd drop during fights.

specs: i5-4590, 8GB, 290 (11% OC). 1.05. latest AMD beta drivers.
 
I'm getting loads of stuttering in Novigrad. Also pretty sure it's not a stable 60fps. maybe drop to 50-55 I'd guess. Up until I arrived the game has been pretty damn smooth except the odd drop during fights.

specs: i5-4590, 8GB, 290 (11% OC). 1.05. latest AMD beta drivers.

Yup Novigrad will do that, you can try turning down the background characters setting and maybe one of the modded drivers on guru3d could help too.
 

Zakalwe

Banned
really, cause I just walked around novigrad without any issue at all. 40-50 fps there at 2880x1620, with hairworks off

40-50 is experiencing drops of 10fps. Same at 1080, you'll flit between 50-60 (possibly lows of 45 or so) with that gpu, which is drops of 10 (possibly 15) fps.

60fps is almost rock solid in the open world.
 

Freshmaker

I am Korean.
Has anyone gotten the game to lock at a smooth 30 fps?

Even when using Rivatuner to cap it, the game feels incredibly jittery. Dark Souls runs with its built-in fps cap but feels incredibly smooth by comparison even at 30 fps. I did a frame time test to compare them and it's pretty clear something is wrong

I wonder if capping at 30 is worth the effort. I've been letting it run at around 45fps + vsync and I haven't noticed any issues.
 

Wag

Member
Hell. I am also getting tons of crashes since 1.05 patch installed. I even had my computer shut down once (probably more because my room was warm more than anything else). They really need to fix the stability of the game.
 

Varna

Member
So what settings should I be turning off with hit a consistent 60 FPS on 980GTX? Set everything on ultra to start and yeah, this ain't gonna work.
 
So what settings should I be turning off with hit a consistent 60 FPS on 980GTX? Set everything on ultra to start and yeah, this ain't gonna work.

Start with foliage distance to high. Then shadows to high. That'll do the trick for your 980, for sure.

Oh yeah, Hairworks kills FPS too, so turn that off.
 

mm04

Member
40-50 is experiencing drops of 10fps. Same at 1080, you'll flit between 50-60 (possibly lows of 45 or so) with that gpu, which is drops of 10 (possibly 15) fps.

60fps is almost rock solid in the open world.

And I think the big thing is everyone wants to know what performance is with HairWorks on. Novigrad is really the test for framerate performance in general. Nobody is getting a constant 60fps in Novigrad with almost everything on Ultra and HairWorks on with a single 970. If you have 2 you can.
 

Wag

Member
Holy shit. The game was rock solid for me on patches 1.04 and before, now with 1.05 it's totally unplayable. Every few minutes it's either a lockup or a crash to desktop. WTF?!?! Nvidia on latest drivers, 3 OG Titans. Damn depressing. 😡
 

anothertech

Member
Strange. I'm running r290x ( watercooled and oc'd to hell and back) and I'm not experiencing most of the crash problems. Def not getting smooth 60 after patch though
 

EatChildren

Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
As much as I adore this game the engine is still a hilariously/depressingly inconsistent sack of shit from time to time. I still get constant stuttering problems on random boots of the game, solvable only by exiting and launching again, sometimes restarting. LOD transitions I swear get worse or at least more bizarre with each patch. I can stand looking at two buildings side by side, walk backwards and watch the one on the right have its shadows transition between various quality tiers, while the one on the left seems to only have two; full shadow or horrible dithered transition to nothing. I can walk towards an NPC and see his gutter quality texture until the HQ version pops in at the last minute, and then walk backwards and see that HQ version stay for longer.

*shrug* It's like the engine just fucking chokes constantly and has no idea how to utilise hardware.
 

Anteater

Member
alright I dropped my resolution to 1360x768 on my 760gtx since 1920x800 (21:9) isn't giving me a consistent framerate even at low

and I actually think it still looks fine, the 60fps feels good man

the screenshots do look like ass though hahaha, since removing the hud is a pain in the ass and I don't want to do it through typing it out in the console I wasn't going to take much shots anyway, although it's a bummer, on to playing the game!
 
alright I dropped my resolution to 1360x768 on my 760gtx since 1920x800 (21:9) isn't giving me a consistent framerate even at low

and I actually think it still looks fine, the 60fps feels good man

the screenshots do look like ass though hahaha, since removing the hud is a pain in the ass and I don't want to do it through typing it out in the console I wasn't going to take much shots anyway, although it's a bummer, on to playing the game!

Yeah, I really hope there'll be a mod that can easily toggle HUD on/off in one button.
I ended up hiding all of the elements but the minimap and side quest. So far so good..
 

Anteater

Member
Yeah, I really hope there'll be a mod that can easily toggle HUD on/off in one button.
I ended up hiding all of the elements but the minimap and side quest. So far so good..

yeah I wish it's a feature in all games, gedosato is a godsend but don't work with dx10+, but man I used it so much with the dx9 games for hudless screenshots
 
On my 970 and 2500k I set everything to ultra at 1080p and just turned off hairworks and set foliage distance to high and I've been running locked 60fps happily ever since. I had lots of crashing issues the week of launch buy only a few odd crashes since.

I'm now in Novigrad and I can tell it's no longer a locked 60, but it doesn't really bother me. I imagine it's dropping maybe down to 50 fps or so in spots but I haven't card enough to turn msi afterburner on to verify. Game is too good to worry about that!
 

leng jai

Member
The amount of random pop in and stuttering in this game is horrendous. I'm convinced it the pop in and random object fading gets worse with every patch.
 
I am playing Ultra 30FPS capped on 970 and while the Steam counter claims buttery smooth 30fps, it most certainly doesn't feel like it. The game does look beautiful at points.

Also I have gotten more crashes than with any recent game combined, including one BSOD and one corrupted save (entered a portal in the
cave where you were after Wild Hunt soldiers
, the game got stuck in the white loading screen that was supposed to last less than a second. Loading the save also froze, but luckily I am F5'ing every other second because of that first BSOD). 1.05
 

Thrakier

Member
On my 970 and 2500k I set everything to ultra at 1080p and just turned off hairworks and set foliage distance to high and I've been running locked 60fps happily ever since. I had lots of crashing issues the week of launch buy only a few odd crashes since.

I'm now in Novigrad and I can tell it's no longer a locked 60, but it doesn't really bother me. I imagine it's dropping maybe down to 50 fps or so in spots but I haven't card enough to turn msi afterburner on to verify. Game is too good to worry about that!

Drop the shadows, I'm locked 60FPS almost everywhere, also in Novigrad. My 970 is almost running at 980 leves though and my 2500k is at 4.2ghz.
 

leng jai

Member
Drop the shadows, I'm locked 60FPS almost everywhere, also in Novigrad. My 970 is almost running at 980 leves though and my 2500k is at 4.2ghz.

I'm running the exact same setup as you with shadows at medium and there's no way Novigrad keeps a constant 60fps - it stutters all over the place at random intervals.
 

StarVigil

Member
I am playing Ultra 30FPS capped on 970 and while the Steam counter claims buttery smooth 30fps, it most certainly doesn't feel like it. The game does look beautiful at points.

Also I have gotten more crashes than with any recent game combined, including one BSOD and one corrupted save (entered a portal in the
cave where you were after Wild Hunt soldiers
, the game got stuck in the white loading screen that was supposed to last less than a second. Loading the save also froze, but luckily I am F5'ing every other second because of that first BSOD). 1.05

Try using downsampling. I had a much smoother 30fps experience than at 1080p.
Are you overclocking? If so, it might help to tone it down a little.
 

Zakalwe

Banned
I'm running the exact same setup as you with shadows at medium and there's no way Novigrad keeps a constant 60fps - it stutters all over the place at random intervals.

Yep, exactly.

2500k @ 4.3ghz
MSI 970 +200/500

Drops to 50 in Novigrad quite often.

People are either talking up their hardware or I'm missing something.
 

daninthemix

Member
I am playing Ultra 30FPS capped on 970 and while the Steam counter claims buttery smooth 30fps, it most certainly doesn't feel like it. The game does look beautiful at points.

Also I have gotten more crashes than with any recent game combined, including one BSOD and one corrupted save (entered a portal in the
cave where you were after Wild Hunt soldiers
, the game got stuck in the white loading screen that was supposed to last less than a second. Loading the save also froze, but luckily I am F5'ing every other second because of that first BSOD). 1.05

Try half-refresh v-sync (Nvidia Inspector), then in-game change these settings:

full-screen, v-sync off, frame-rate unlimited, motion blur off

Myself and several others have found this to be the smoothest, most consistent 30fps possible with TW3. It's nice not having any frame drops, ever. Plus we get to run Hairworks.

EDIT: make sure max pre-rendered frames is set to 1 to reduce input latency
 

leng jai

Member
Try half-refresh v-sync (Nvidia Inspector), then in-game change these settings:

full-screen, v-sync off, frame-rate unlimited, motion blur off

Myself and several others have found this to be the smoothest, most consistent 30fps possible with TW3. It's nice not having any frame drops, ever. Plus we get to run Hairworks.

I tried this but it's impossible for me to stomach the controls in this game at 30fps. Literally gives me a headache.
 

daninthemix

Member
I tried this but it's impossible for me to stomach the controls in this game at 30fps. Literally gives me a headache.

What was your max pre-rendered frames set at?

Should be noted I play on a controller. I can imagine KB+M would be completely unplayable at 30.
 
Try half-refresh v-sync (Nvidia Inspector), then in-game change these settings:

full-screen, v-sync off, frame-rate unlimited, motion blur off

Myself and several others have found this to be the smoothest, most consistent 30fps possible with TW3. It's nice not having any frame drops, ever. Plus we get to run Hairworks.

EDIT: make sure max pre-rendered frames is set to 1 to reduce input latency

Holy crap, I already had motion blur off (and I was supposed to be on full screen but apparently it was reset to borderless at somepoint) and wow, that feels like night and day. From janky judder to butter smooth experience
 
i've turned down all the heavy hitters (shadows to high, hairworks off, foliage distance to high) and even tried turning off AA, grass density to high and npc draw distance to high - still can't lock 60 in towns.

i5 2500k, 970 - not many other ultra-to-high settings make a difference, so i might just deal as it's fairly close to locked in open world. unless the rain starts.
 

NIN90

Member
Anyone know how to fix the character pop-in? I get characters popping in right in my face all the time and that's with less than 10 characters on screen.
"Number of Background Characters" is set to Ultra.
 
40-50 is experiencing drops of 10fps. Same at 1080, you'll flit between 50-60 (possibly lows of 45 or so) with that gpu, which is drops of 10 (possibly 15) fps.

60fps is almost rock solid in the open world.

It doesn't seem to fluctuate much, I was doing Truss' quest in Novigrad today and it seemed to hover mostly, around 45fps at 2880x1620. I'll try and get some video up today with an FPS counter. Shadowplay got fucked up on me yesterday after a crash and wouldn't turn on anymore. Actually, that is one thing I've noticed, having shadowplay on does seem to make the game crash more often. With it turned off I've seen no crashes
 

daninthemix

Member
Huh, I think I had my first crash. Was during a cutscene whilst
interrogating Whoreson
. At least, I think it was a crash - game just closed and I was back at the Windows desktop. No GPU driver crash and nothing in the event logs. Weird.
 
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