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[MrRoflWaffles]

I haven't really tested with other games yet, but I will do so when I get home. It's just been driving me crazy.

Here are my NVCP settings:

http://i.imgur.com/8J4t2ds.png

http://i.imgur.com/M3aAf0b.png

Running with hairworks off, everything ultra in graphics apart from shadows high and foliage high.

Smooth as butter. i7 2600k 4.1 // Gig GTX 970 OC 120/225 // 8GB RAM // SSD

Off to reset my settings now and try and improve things even further.

 

[CHC]

This work perfectly as a temporary solution. Doesn't override any of the default pad controls and now my guide button is the map button.

Awww yeah, I got to get this hooked up, fantastic idea. Playing with minimap off so it's going to be great having easy access to the map for quick directions.

 

[aravuus]

Soo, have there been any possible fixes for the constant freezing? Other than "don't overclock your CPU/GPU". Any particular program causing the freezing? Steam overlay?

 

[Skyfireblaze]

Well I still have to wait till Friday till I get my game. Really curious to mess with the settings and see how far I can push it while sticking near 60fps. I'm running a 7970 OC'ed to 1100mhz GPU and 1500mhz memory, in theory it should run around 280x levels right?

 

[UnrealEck]

Soo, have there been any possible fixes for the constant freezing? Other than "don't overclock your CPU/GPU". Any particular program causing the freezing? Steam overlay?

If by freezing you mean complete graphical lockup, then people have said Fullscreen mode stops it as opposed to Borderless mode.
I can't say for sure myself though.

Well I still have to wait till Friday till I get my game. Really curious to mess with the settings and see how far I can push it while sticking near 60fps. I'm running a 7970 OC'ed to 1100mhz GPU and 1500mhz memory, in theory it should run around 280x levels right?

As far as I know the 280x is essentiall a rebranding of the 7970 GHz. That's only what I saw people here say.

 

[Latvian Hitman]

That chart is for all High settings, not Ultra, just FYI. If you're getting 30-40 with all High, fair enough.

The chart is also showing benches from a system with a $1,000 CPU running with a massive overclock on the latest HEDT platform. I realize the game is GPU bound, but still. Not exactly a good representation of an average gamer's system.

 

[matmanx1]

Update:

i5 2500k @3.7
4 GB DD3 1333MHz
Radeon 6970 2GB

Mostly medium settings with water and NPC's set to low. I have the FPS capped at 30 and out in the wild I seem to fluctuate between 28 and 30. In town though with NPC's I've dropped as low as 23 which to me feels pretty bad. I've got an 8GB RAM kit that should be here tomorrow and will update again once I have that installed. If I could maintain a fairly steady 30fps I would be happy with the level of visuals that I have going.

 

[CyanideFuse]

Will do them soon. Game is downloading right now. Once it's done I'll test with the latest drivers and then the older drivers and let you know the results. People on Nvidia thread are claiming improvements, so I'd do it regardless just in case. One guy said he could barely hit 35fps with the latest drivers, and when he reverted to the 350.12 drivers he was getting 45-55fps. Seems... Exaggerated... Which is why I'm dying to test this out.

My secondary PC has a 2GB GTX 670 with the GTA drivers installed. I am going to put the game on there to see what performance I get with that driver and with the new Witcher driver. It might take a day or two but I will put my findings up on here.

 

[Enduin]

Using Durante's recommendations of Borderless, No Vsync, Unlimited FPS with then RivaTuner Locked at 30fps. So far pretty satisfied with it, but I do notice a good deal of stutter still even when the frame rate is rock solid.

All post processing on except, Motion Blur, Blur, AA and Hairworks.

All other settings are High except for Shadow and Water Quality which are set to medium. Also now using HBAO+ instead of SSAO.

Pretty much locked in at 30 95% of the time but there are occasional random hickups that last for like a second and then return to a locked 30, even in combat. Might drop a couple frames to like 27 for a couple seconds but it goes back to 30 for the majority of the fighting which is great. About to enter my first city though so we'll see how that holds up.

The cutscene when you see the Wild Hunt in that frozen village was a bit choppy and fluctuated a good deal and dropped to 19fps for a second and went back to mid to high 20s. So I'm not sure a big city with a shit ton of buildings and NPCs will fair much better, but here's hoping.

i7 920 @ 3.6ghz OC
7950 3gb
16gb ram
500gb SSD
Win 7 Pro

Not a single crash or bug otherwise, unless you count being horrible at Gwent and not winning a single game out of like 20 I've played so far.

 

[aravuus]

If by freezing you mean complete graphical lockup, then people have said Fullscreen mode stops it as opposed to Borderless mode.
I can't say for sure myself though.

Yeah, the game just stops, audio keeps playing in the background though. Sometimes I can alt-tab out, sometimes I can't.

 

[Barzul]

Here are my NVCP settings:

http://i.imgur.com/8J4t2ds.png

http://i.imgur.com/M3aAf0b.png

Running with hairworks off, everything ultra in graphics apart from shadows high and foliage high.

Smooth as butter. i7 2600k 4.1 // Gig GTX 970 OC 120/225 // 8GB RAM // SSD

Off to reset my settings now and try and improve things even further.

Thank you very much!

 

[Xyber]

I haven't found anything that suggests Maxwell is better at tesselation than Kepler either, but I have seen people citing it as the reason for the differences between the architectures in Witcher 3's performance.

We should mention GM204's upgraded tessellation performance, too. The company's PolyMorph engine 2.0 design was leveraged across Kepler and even the Maxwell-based GM107. But that changes with the GM204's upgraded third-gen PolyMorph engine design. Nvidia representatives claim up to a 50% increase in performance at high tessellation factors per engine due to architectural improvements.

How much better it actually is in games I don't think I've ever seen any numbers for.

 

[JohngPR]

I've come to realize those benchmarks are bullshit. I am NOT getting close to 60fps on a 280X. It hovers between 30 and 40 the vast majority of the time.

What settings do you have on? I have a 7970 GHZ Edition which I hear is comparable to the 280x and have only dipped to the 30's like twice the 7-8 hours I've played. It usually fluctuates between mid 40's and mid 50's in town and stays in the high 50's and at 60 in the open world.

EDIT: Forgot to add that my settings are a mix between high and Ultra.

 

[billmcdougal]

I have vsync forced on radeonpro.
i want 30fps cap. I usually generate 33-44 fps.
should it be double vsync?
should it be triple buffering?
Should it be dynamic frame control?

 

[Skyfireblaze]

As far as I know the 280x is essentiall a rebranding of the 7970 GHz. That's only what I saw people here say.

Yeah that's what I heard too, originally my 7970 wasn't a Ghz edition but with my clockspeeds it should perform similar if not a slightly better I hope.

 

[UnrealEck]

The chart is also showing benches from a system with a $1,000 CPU running with a massive overclock on the latest HEDT platform. I realize the game is GPU bound, but still. Not exactly a good representation of an average gamer's system.

True but its purpose is likely to completely (or at least as much as possible) eliminate everything but the GPU for comparison purposes between graphics cards.

We should mention GM204's upgraded tessellation performance, too. The company's PolyMorph engine 2.0 design was leveraged across Kepler and even the Maxwell-based GM107. But that changes with the GM204's upgraded third-gen PolyMorph engine design. Nvidia representatives claim up to a 50% increase in performance at high tessellation factors per engine due to architectural improvements.

How much better it actually is in games I don't think I've ever seen any numbers for.

Cool. I've never compared or researched the features of the two really until lately. I knew Maxwell has some cool compression techniques.
A good way of testing would be something like Heaven benchmark I guess. Crank the tessellation to the max.
I'd do it if I had two similar cards on both core architectures.

so far I've found this
and this
also this
If these are anything to go by, even under heavy tessellation tests, the Kepler and Maxwell GPUs don't seem very different.

 

[kencey]

Shit, i got so used to 1440p when i switch to 1080p i laugh

 

[Iceternal]

Locking at 30 fps on a TV screen looks TERRIBLE

So I HAVE to get that 60fps lock.

 

[Skyfireblaze]

Locking at 30 fps on a TV screen looks TERRIBLE

So I HAVE to get that 60fps lock.

Does your TV have any motion interpolation enabled? o.o

 

[kinggroin]

Will do them soon. Game is downloading right now. Once it's done I'll test with the latest drivers and then the older drivers and let you know the results. People on Nvidia thread are claiming improvements, so I'd do it regardless just in case. One guy said he could barely hit 35fps with the latest drivers, and when he reverted to the 350.12 drivers he was getting 45-55fps. Seems... Exaggerated... Which is why I'm dying to test this out.

Hmmmmm

 

[patientx]

And here my card is locking up if I use it at default clocks If you say card is faulty, I am playing for more than 1 year with this card and I 've never experienced this kind of lockups even with heavy benchmark stress testing. Sure I got very high temps before but not this kind of instant lock up. There is something wrong here and I am usre it is not my card. (People with nvidias are experiencing this too.I have a 280x.)

 

[Kinthalis]

Sorry guys I looked through the last few pages, but I can't find the details on the MSAA tweak for Hairworks, would really like to give it a shot, 'cause right now it runs really bad on my 780ti.

Can someone link me?

 

[JohngPR]

Well I still have to wait till Friday till I get my game. Really curious to mess with the settings and see how far I can push it while sticking near 60fps. I'm running a 7970 OC'ed to 1100mhz GPU and 1500mhz memory, in theory it should run around 280x levels right?

I have that same card at about the same OC.

 

[GavinGT]

Every 5 minutes or so, the game will lock up for a few seconds. Any fix for this?

EDIT: I think it's my i5-2500k (with stock cooler) getting too hot. It's nearly hitting 100 degrees Celsius. I'll get an aftermarket cooler tomorrow and see if that fixes it.

DOUBLE EDIT: It was my thermal paste. Shit was old and cracked.

 

[ACE 1991]

Any fix for the stuttering? If I limit the frame rate to 30 or reduce settings to achieve a locked 60 fps it goes away. I'm getting 45-60 on average and anything below 60 is rather stuttery. On an r9 290 and 2500K BTW.

Just bumping for visibility.

 

[Dictator93]

Sorry guys I looked through the last few pages, but I can't find the details on the MSAA tweak for Hairworks, would really like to give it a shot, 'cause right now it runs really bad on my 780ti.

Can someone link me?

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=164517084&postcount=3341

Idk if this has been posted yet, but in case someone doesn't know you can reduce/remove the AA from hairworks to get better performance if you can deal with aliasing (It defaults to 8x MSAA).

you can find the setting in:

\The Witcher 3\bin\config\base\rendering.ini

HairWorksAALevel

Not sure if you change it to 1 or 0 though.

 

[Xyber]

Sorry guys I looked through the last few pages, but I can't find the details on the MSAA tweak for Hairworks, would really like to give it a shot, 'cause right now it runs really bad on my 780ti.

Can someone link me?

Go to the game folder. Bin > config > base > open rendering.ini

Close to the bottom you find HairWorksAALevel=8, change it to what you want. 2 looks good enough to me.

 

[Kinthalis]

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=164517084&postcount=3341

Not sure if you change it to 1 or 0 though.

Go to the game folder. Bin > config > base > open rendering.ini

Close to the bottom you find HairWorksAALevel=8, change it to what you want. 2 looks good enough to me.

Woot! Thank you!

Hopefully this will le tme run with hairworks on.

 

[Spirited]

Yeah, the game just stops, audio keeps playing in the background though. Sometimes I can alt-tab out, sometimes I can't.

Try to launch the game from witcher3.exe in your /witcher3/bin/x64 as an administrator and set the framerate to unlimited.
It worked for me.

 

[Skyfireblaze]

I have that same card at about the same OC.

Oh, how is it running?

 

[Derp]

Okay so regarding rolling back with the drivers, I've just tried going back to 305.12 (GTA 5 drivers) and there's no difference in performance. I'm on a 780 Ti, had all settings maxed except HairWorks at 1080p, used the balcony at the beginning as a benchmark. Most intensive place to look gave me 42 fps. Did the same but with the 350.12 drivers. Exact same framerate.

Going to test 347.88 and if there's no difference I'm giving up. I'd simply take the claims over in the forum with a grain of salt until Nvidia responds about the Kepler issue (they said they were looking into it over in reddit and the Nvidia forums). There's still something up with the performance though, but all this concludes is that rolling back does nothing.

One more test.

 

[Tankshell]

Is it just me, or when walking on the horse (slowest speed), does the screen/animation freeze/hitch everytime you take a few steps? Galloping on the horse seems fine.... kind of annoying.

 

[H4r4kiri]

So I Set the Hairworks AA to 4 instead of 8 and Tessalation to 8x in the CCC.

Now I reach 45-60 fps with Hairworks on with my 290

 

[SoraanTribal]

Saw this in the i3/750ti thread, thought it'd be worth posting in here to give people an idea of what to expect.

Seems to match up with other benchmarks and what we've seen from people ITT.

hmm, so I have a 7870 HD and can expect an average of 37 FPS on High? Not too bad, I guess. Do you think the PS4 version is considered to be running on "high" settings?

 

[Angel_DvA]

I don't understand how il works, I have modified the ini file but when I launch the game, It's like nothing have change...

cutscene are still 30 FPS, I still have the controller notification change ans the hairworks us still crushing my rig...

I have an I7 4790k, 16GO ram and GTX980

 

[JBourne]

What's the fps cost when you do the tweaked hairworks rather than the standard in-game menus one?
I have a 970 too and currently have my config set up to play at 55-60 with no hairworks so I'm wondering how much stuff I'm going to need to cut to fit it in.

What settings are you running? I can't maintain 60 with hairworks on even at 2x tweak. It sits at 50-55, reaches 60 sometimes but not consistently.

My game is crashing so frequently now I've stopped opening it, so I'm going to remember best I can.

SSAO instead of HBAO+ (this was what finally made the framerate stay above 55)
Shadows set to low, but the following tweaks in the .ini:

cascadeshadowdistancescale0=4
cascadeshadowdistancescale2=3
cascadeshadowquality=4

Foliage distance at high
Maximum people (I think that's what it was called) at high
Grass density set to low in the game settings, but with grassdensity=3600 in the .ini file. The in-game set itself to low after I messed with the .ini, but the grass is very obviously full when I'm playing.
AA on
Bloom off
Motion blur off
Blur on
Vsync off
1080p borderless windowed

Everything else is either on or set to ultra. I'm using the Gigabyte Windforce 970.

I haven't been able to mess with AA through NCP because of the crashing, though. I'm at a sidequest where I'm looking at corpses in a battlefield, and it always dies as soon as I get to the first pile of bodies.

 

[V1LÆM]

My PC:

CPU: i5-4590 3.3
RAM: 8GB 1600
GPU: MSI R9 290 4GB (977/1250)

Everything on high, hairworks off completely (it's cool but not worth the hit for me), SSAO instead of HBAO. Everything else is pretty much up full. All post processing effects are on. I'm getting, so far, a pretty stable 60fps at 1080p. Although I won't be surprised if it drops below that during fights/heavy areas because with vsync off/unlimited fps it was going as low as 62/63.

With everything down to Medium except for Textures I was getting about 80-90fps. The game still looks amazing at these settings so I would be more than happy to drop down to that if frame drops become an issue on High. I guess I could also turn off some of the Post FX. At the start I had everything maxed out and lowest I got was 14fps. Turned off hairworks/lowered AO and got a pretty decent 30fps.

Also, I haven't yet enabled my GPU OC. I have it set to overclock to 1140/1500. I'm running on the driver that was released for GTA V (not sure the number)

Just wanted to share my experience.

 

[Derp]

Alright no difference again. Don't bother rolling back drivers.

 

[ACE 1991]

I have the exact same problem. But i did not do it on the main menu. I was ingame already.
And it seems Witcher 3 can overheat my system and i DON'T KNOW WHY!

My rig: all hardware just 5 weeks old.
- Intel i7 4790k (4Ghz) + Scythe Mugen 4 Cooler
- Gigabyte GA-Z97X-Gaming 3 (BIOS up to date)
- Gigabyte GTX 970 G1 Gaming (BIOS up to date)
- 16 GB RAM
- Corsair Graphite 600T (2x 200m cooler + 1x 120mm cooler) Airflow should be fine(!)

Witcher 3 settings:
- 1080p fullscreen, Ultra preset
- Frame limiter to 60
- Hairworks OFF
- All postprocessing effects OFF, except Light shafts

--> Result: 55-60 fps <- i was happy with that!

But...

TEMPERATURE (taken by hwmonitor):
CPU: Idle ~24° C -> Max. 72° C
GPU: Idle ~27° C -> Max. 78° C

Both CPU and GPU are way too high imho.
I can also confirm a 99% GPU load while i was alt+tab'd.

I even got 2 BSOD (!) while i was alt+tab'd on the desktop and the game still running in the background. I did not analyze the crashdump files yet, so i cannot tell if its related to overheat. But so far i never had any bluescreens in other games yet.

Still don't know what the problem is... 60 fps, no stuttering, no frame drops, rare crashes-to-desktop... but i can't find a solution for the high temperature (which is way higher than its supposed to be)

GTA 5 @ Ultra settings (no MSAA) is running perfectly fine and the system does not seem to generate any noticeable heat. Its cool.

Would be grateful for any suggestions how to approach this problem.

There is no way the BSOD is related to overheating, those temps are totally fine for both the CPU and GPU. The BSOD could be related to unstable overclock, although 4.0ghz is pretty minor.

This game really pushes GPUs though, mine has been creeping up to 80C, though my GPU (r9 290) is notorious for running hot as shit.

 

[MrRoflWaffles]

Woot! Thank you!

Hopefully this will le tme run with hairworks on.

Try 4, if it's still too much of an fps hit then lower it to 2. If, at 2, it still is too intensive, you're better with it off.

 

[UnrealEck]

Yeah, the game just stops, audio keeps playing in the background though. Sometimes I can alt-tab out, sometimes I can't.

That's happened to me. In fact that's the only crashes I've had. Three of them and I've not really even played the game much. Maybe 2-3 hours.

 

[Xeroblade]

PC:
i7-2600K
8GB 1600 Ram
GTX 670
SSD

My settings are a mix between Ultra and High, with aliasing on, bloom on, ssao on and vsync on locked to 30 fps. I am getting a buttery smooth 30fps at 1080p. Good enough for me. Also is there a way to get out of borderless window mode? every time I change it to fullscreen it switches back to borderless.

 

[JBourne]

Try 4, if it's still too much of an fps hit then lower it to 2. If, at 2, it still is too intensive, you're better with it off.

I tried 4 and it was too much of a hit. Once I put it on 2 it was great. Geralt's hair took a hit, but Roach's mane is still pretty glorious.

Unfortunately, I can't keep playing with all the crashing right now. I'm at a point where I don't even get a minute in before it's dead. Think I'm going to wait for a patch and try to finish GTA V in the meantime.

 

[FakeWayne]

Man can you screenshot your Nvidia Control panel settings for the game, you seem to have a very similar rig to mine bar the additional 8gb of RAM and more powerful CPU and your performance sounds like a dream compared to what I'm getting. Is FXAA all you forced on there?

Here you go.

 

[UnrealEck]

Going to test 347.88 and if there's no difference I'm giving up. I'd simply take the claims over in the forum with a grain of salt until Nvidia responds about the Kepler issue (they said they were looking into it over in reddit and the Nvidia forums). There's still something up with the performance though, but all this concludes is that rolling back does nothing.

One more test.

I've tested several drivers and it makes no difference. I've found no truth yet in the claims (by users) that old drivers work better than the new ones for Kepler.

buttery smooth 30fps

This is almost like an oxymoron.

 

[Xyber]

PC:
i7-2600K
8GB 1600 Ram
GTX 670
SSD

My settings are a mix between Ultra and High, with aliasing on, bloom on, ssao on and vsync on locked to 30 fps. I am getting a buttery smooth 30fps at 1080p. Good enough for me. Also is there a way to get out of borderless window mode? every time I change it to fullscreen it switches back to borderless.

Have you tweaked the settings files anything and set it to read only? The changes will not stick if you have done that.

 

[ACE 1991]

Has anyone tried to force triple-buffering instead of vsync?

 

[Cannon Goose]

Just chiming in to say that the game has only crashed once for me in 5 hours of play. i5-4960K (stock), MSI GTX 970 Gaming (Factory OC'd) and 16GB of RAM.

 

[H4r4kiri]

My PC:

CPU: i5-4590 3.3
RAM: 8GB 1600
GPU: MSI R9 290 4GB (977/1250)

Everything on high, hairworks off completely (it's cool but not worth the hit for me), SSAO instead of HBAO. Everything else is pretty much up full. All post processing effects are on. I'm getting, so far, a pretty stable 60fps at 1080p. Although I won't be surprised if it drops below that during fights/heavy areas because with vsync off/unlimited fps it was going as low as 62/63.

With everything down to Medium except for Textures I was getting about 80-90fps. The game still looks amazing at these settings so I would be more than happy to drop down to that if frame drops become an issue on High. I guess I could also turn off some of the Post FX. At the start I had everything maxed out and lowest I got was 14fps. Turned off hairworks/lowered AO and got a pretty decent 30fps.

Also, I haven't yet enabled my GPU OC. I have it set to overclock to 1140/1500. I'm running on the driver that was released for GTA V (not sure the number)

Just wanted to share my experience.

YOu can go much higher. Got the same rig. Playing almost everything on Ultra exepect Foliage Distance and People Density. I got HBAO+ enabled and HAirworks ALL ( ini file AA 4x, CCC Tessalation 8x). I get 45-60 fps.

 

[JohngPR]

Oh, how is it running?

I'm quoting myself here:

i7 4770k OC'd to 4.5 ghz
HD 7970 Ghz Edition OC'd (1125/1575)
8GB RAM
Vsync, Triple buffering, luma sharpening, and SMAA injected via Radeon Pro/SweetFX

I'm generally getting mid 40's to mid 50's in town and a constant 60fps in the open world in the first few hours of the game.

Framerate dipping below 60 usually bothers me in games but feels smooth to me for some reason, even with motion blur turned off.

I only had one crash and it was when I turned HBAO+ on to try it out so that's staying off since I could use the few extra frames anyway. Other than that I have Textures, detail, and terrain set to ultra and everything else set to high. Enjoying the game so far!

This is all in White Orchard...haven't played any other part yet.