The Witcher 2 Performance Issues SOLVED

NBR users that have had performance issues with Witcher 2, listen up!

Mod edit 5/27/11 : The Witcher 2 Becomes DRM-Free: Patch 1.1 Released
http://en.thewitcher.com/community/entry/35/

Edit: I removed all of the old info pertaining to DRM performance fixes, CDP Red has removed DRM entirely so the previous performance tips are unnecessary. I'm going to instead post custom configurations with the User.ini file + relevant info to making custom configurations work.

From my posts at NeoGAF:

Ok, there seems to be a lot of confusion about custom user.ini settings so I'm going to do my best to help clear it all up.

The problem with the Witcher 2 custom user.ini's is twofold: first, the configurator is bugged so that it doesn't always set custom settings correctly, retaining old settings (like the max shadow size etc) or even forgetting to completely put in whole variables (it loves to leave the FoliageDistance variable out, which means your grass/foliage distance is at some unknown level.)

When editing your user.ini, it needs to have ALL of these variables in it. If your user.ini doesn't have these in it, you're not adjusting all of the settings!

The premade configs have all of these, but the idiotic configurator loves to leae them out. Keep all of this in mind and make sure your User.ini has all of those variables in it!

Next, if you want to make sure the Configurator doesn't your custom made settings, you MUST right click on your user.ini, go to Properties, and set it to Read-Only. Otherwise the game will muck everything up.

Here's some of my suggested configs for different PC's: Medium/High (Performance Focused), High Settings with Balanced IQ/Performance, and Ultra+ for those of you who max out Ultra and want more detail.

GeForce 260M GTX/360M GTS/GTX 280M/Radeon 6770M recommended

5870M/GTX 460M/GTX 480M recommended

For those of you with beefier GPU's and that have at least 1.5GB of VRAM (Radeon 6970M and GTX 485M recommended), try this:

Feel free to play with MeshDistanceScale and FoliageDistanceScale to acquire your ideal image quality/performance balance on object LOD and foliage LOD/pop-in.

YMMV with these configs, but a couple of users with higher end PC's have reported increased image quality, FPS, and smoothness with the first config I posted (which was a more tame Ultra+ config). I personally believe CDProjekt Red erred on the side of caution with the stock Ultra config; other than the boneheaded move of enabling Ubersampling, everything is set too low to really take advantage of the increased horsepower the higher end GPU's offer.

I originally posted this HERE: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=28106991&postcount=2825

Please see the last few pages of THIS thread for additional help: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=430456 My username @ GAF is "Boobphysics101".

If you have any questions, feel free to ask them in this thread. All of this is my OWN work and may not necessarily have positive results on your machine; your mileage may vary, but I'm fairly certain that almost anyone can benefit from these settings. If you're going to post this work elsewhere, please link back to this thread or the thread @ NeoGAF giving due credit.

 

I can confirm this. I bought the retail version and tried swapping the GOG.com's DRM-less files and I've seen a bump of 5-10 fps.

System:
Gateway P-7801u
2.26 Ghz Core 2 Duo
9800m GTS 1GB
4GB DDR3 Ram

Read: I have tried the latest beta drivers without any results (including removing 3D drivers) without any result. The lack of DRM does seem to make a big difference.

 

Not working for me.
meh, whatcha gonna do.

 

Updated first post. If you don't have the Steam or GOG version, DRM is causing performance issues. So that means if you bought the game from retail or D2D, you need to swap exes.

Also uploaded more proof (a comparison video I made and comparison screenshots). I was using the Direct2Drive version of the game.

 

Another example of how DRM only hurts the consumer...

 

Yup confirmed to work, 10-20 FPS increase on same settings. I might be able to crank it 1920x1200 now.

 

I can confirm this too, gives me an FPS boost and launches significantly faster, thanks for this great find.

 

Confirmed.. Retail edition with audio soundtrack and guide. FPS difference is 10-17fps. Flotsam started at 28fps, degraded to 21-24 fps.

Post GOG update, lowest is 29 at higher settings than before and averages around 34 fps.

Great post!

+rep to Disgust

 

Not noticing any frame rate difference so far from my few tests. I will definitely do more in depth testing later.

The game is now launching in 5-8 seconds now as opposed to 45 seconds before though!

 

Nice thread. ;D
Luckily i got the GoG version so this DRM issue is new to me.

 

This is great. I notice 10-15 FPS difference from last time.

 

Yep 10 fps more when i replaced the .exe
6770m 925/1050 everything enabled/ultra except ubersampling.With that config i am getting an avg of 35 fps @ 1366x768
Great fix thnx!

 

Other games use DRM without this performance hit. This has me thinking the new .exe has some other reason for the higher fps like some of the graphical settings are different or another harder to see launch configuration.

Not saying its not true that the DRM is causing the performance hit, just that it does not seem logical to me and I would question it first before assuming it true.

 

amazing numbers for this card.

Did you really say you got everything on ultra and getting an avg of 35 fps?! assuming SSAO, ubersampling and BLUR are off.

 

AMAZING! Can't wait to get home and try this! May finally be able to play on my M11XR2 now!

 

Everything about this game doesnt make much sense to me —
before overclocking my GPU hardcore — 20 fps, after — 23 fps.
before putting my cpu into turboboost mode with throttlestop — 20 fps, after — 35fps.

Seriously? CPU modding doubles my fps?

 

Cpu limited then, check and see if its using more than one core on the cpu, if not then its even easier to get bottlenecked.

 

Well.. my gpu is midrange even for notebook market while my cpu seems to be on the higher edge. How is it possible to get bottlenecked by cpu in this case. And ye i know quad core might not be the best for gaming, but bottlenecking to 20 fps on low? >< That doesnt make much sense.

 

Hmm i really need to get this game to try it out for performance. Actually does anyone know if theres a stand alone benchmark for this?

 

Either way I am glad you got such a large increase! I am not surprised at by it though. I get lower frame rates in Dragon Age II than many others who use the same video card as me but have higher clocked CPUs and I suspect that is the culprit in my case.

 

OK...........So I bought a retail version, personally like having a physical copy and I'm a member of GOG. Where do I get GOG's exe. and how do I replace my current exe. ?

 

Hi guys, same here, I have the retail version; so, how do I exactly change from the retail exe. to the GOG exe? Many thanks in advance.

 

Just copy these into the bin folder
Witcher 2 GoG .exe and paul.dll.rar

 

Or just use the patch that was released recently...
Community - The Witcher 2 Becomes DRM-Free: Patch 1.1 Released - thewitcher.com

 

The official 1.1 patch removes DRM on all versions as well as providing fixes for many other issues.

 

Yeah, the patch makes the D2d version run better than even replacing with the exe and paul.dll

nice work, CDPR

 

Ok guys, now that my thread is re-opened (and CDP Red proved me right by removing DRM completely due to its performance hit), this thread will be about maximizing your performance on Witcher 2 while still getting great image quality.

Over on NeoGAF I've made a lot of posts helping people with Witcher 2 performance, so I'll start posting up my custom configurations which have gotten a lot of praise over there in an attempt to help the users of NotebookReview as well.

Please check the OP for custom config settings. I'll also provide them in this post.

FROM MY POST AT NEOGAF

Ok, there seems to be a lot of confusion about custom user.ini settings so I'm going to do my best to help clear it all up.

The problem with the Witcher 2 custom user.ini's is twofold: first, the configurator is bugged so that it doesn't always set custom settings correctly, retaining old settings (like the max shadow size etc) or even forgetting to completely put in whole variables (it loves to leave the FoliageDistance variable out, which means your grass/foliage distance is at some unknown level.)

When editing your user.ini, it needs to have ALL of these variables in it. If your user.ini doesn't have these in it, you're not adjusting all of the settings!

The premade configs have all of these, but the idiotic configurator loves to leave them out. Keep all of this in mind and make sure your User.ini has all of those variables in it!

Next, if you want to make sure the Configurator doesn't your custom made settings, you MUST right click on your user.ini, go to Properties, and set it to Read-Only. Otherwise the game will muck everything up.

Here's some of my suggested configs for different PC's: Medium/High (Performance Focused), High Settings with Balanced IQ/Performance, and Ultra+ for those of you who max out Ultra and want more detail.

GTX 260M/360M GTS/Radeon 6770M recommended

5870M/GTX 460M recommended

Radeon 6970M/GTX 485M recommended
For those of you with beefier GPU's and that have at least 1.5GB of VRAM, try this:

Feel free to play with MeshDistanceScale and FoliageDistanceScale to acquire your ideal image quality/performance balance on object LOD and foliage LOD/pop-in.

YMMV with these configs, but a couple of users with higher end PC's have reported increased image quality, FPS, and smoothness with the first config I posted (which was a more tame Ultra+ config). I personally believe CDProjekt Red erred on the side of caution with the stock Ultra config; other than the boneheaded move of enabling Ubersampling, everything is set too low to really take advantage of the increased horsepower the higher end GPU's offer.

 

Don't really understand this.

I've tried copying all the different profiles you specified into the user.ini, and none of them made any difference whatsoever.

On my m17x R2 the game is almost totally unplayable. Am I doing something wrong?

I copy the settings, and replace yours with what's in the user.ini.

 

make sure you have the latest driver for your GPU (dunno what you have) and the latest patch for The Witcher 2.

 

If you've not bought the game yet, Amazon has it on sale for $36.99. The discount applies to either the retail box or digital download versions.

 

G73JH-A1
ATI Radeon 5870 HD
Core i7 720QM
8 GB Ram

what setting is recommended ?

 

try setting the file to read-only after saving the new settings.. the config tool resets the options sometimes..

I'm using the following settings with the same config (except gpu is set to 800/1100), get 30+ in cities and 40+ in dungeons/forest


[Rendering]
AllowAntialias=0
AllowBloom=1
AllowBlur=1
AllowCutsceneDOF=1
AllowDOF=1
AllowDecals=1.0
AllowMotionBlur=0
AllowRain=1
AllowSSAO=0
AllowScatterDOF=1
AllowShafts=1
AllowSharpen=1
AllowVignette=1
AtlasTextureDownscale=0
CharacterLodGameplayDownscale=0
DanglesLimiter=0
DetailTextureDownscale=0
FoliageDistanceScale=1.0
Fullscreen=1
MaxAtlasTextureSize=4096
MaxCubeShadowCount=2
MaxCubeShadowSize=1024
MaxSpotShadowCount=2
MaxSpotShadowSize=1024
MaxTextureSize=2048
MeshDistanceScale=1.2
ShadowQuality=3
ShadowedLights=3
TextureDownscale=0
TextureMemoryBudget=800
TextureTimeBudget=10
UberSampling=0
VSync=0
[Viewport]
Height=1080
Width=1920

 

so I just installed the witcher 2 from steam, which apparently comes equipped with patch 1.2.

Do I still need to follow the instructions in this thread to overcome potential performance issues? or has this been fixed by the developers?

 

Hi

I read some opinions in this topic. I do not agree above ideal. We can find out some articles at about.com by using Google search.

If you want to get more materials that related to this topic, you can visit: 360 performance review

Best regards.

 

I know this is off topic but I my game keeps on crashing to desktop. I have turned off depth of field, changed my resolution and it still crashes to the desktop. I'm playing this game on my laptop but I am using my vidock 4 plus enclosure with a HD5770 1 GB card.

I have reinstalled it to see if that would fix it but it didn't.

 

Sorry if this has been asked, but I don't have time to read the entire thread and have been researching this for a while now. My issue is that my initial load times when I start the game last 5-10 minutes but after that everytime it loads it only takes about 2-5 seconds. How can I get my initial load time down to say 1 minute? I am using the retail copy of the game not the steam copy and it is up to date.

 

Load times should be fixed. Uninstall and reinstall the games with patched up to 1.35.

The patches removed the DRM from the retail, so there shouldn't be any difference between the retail and GoG copy now. So my suggestion, backup your saves and reinstall the game.

 

@ kenichols29

I think I heard that load times are longer if you have a huge number of saved games but I could be wrong. Check your Mydocuments Witcher 2 saved games folder size.

 

@laptopnut

Thanks but I already tried that had didnt have much luck. Can it be that my graphics driver is out of date?

 

I doubt it but I would still try updating them anyway. Your best bet is to ask on the developers forum on the Gog website. If that were me, I would have done a completely new install though.

 

Definitely validates why Steam is so successful. They want to provide good service to their customers. Their customers being people who pay $, not pirate. Punishing people with a 5-10fps decrease due to DRM is not fair to anyone who pays for the product.

 

Once the Devs realised the performance hit they did release a patch to fix the issue. However, they also commented that they expected the DRM to have a performance hit, just not as big as 10+ fps

 

So do you guys think the new Patch 2.0 (to be released next week) will affect this fix?

 

Hi, This game up while I was searching around for some help.

1920x1200/Q9300 6MB Cache, 2.53 GHz, 1333 MHz FSB/NVIDIA Quadro FX 3700M 1GB /4 GB DDR3 SDRAM /Blu Ray Read 8X DVDRW/120GB SSD.

If anyone could give me some tips on what settings to put it at it would be great appreciated.