The Witcher 3 Discussion Thread!

figures. using the steam screenshot hotkey to take pics.

really need more AA options.

 

Run the game in a window and ALT+PrntScrn and if you want to grab a screenshot with FXAA intact

 

here's what's in one of the inis!

[PostProcess]
AllowBloom=true
AllowShafts=true
AllowAntialias=true
AllowMSAA=false
AllowBlur=true
AllowDOF=true
AllowVignette=true
AllowSharpen=true
AllowRain=true
AllowSSAO=true
AllowMotionBlur=true
AllowCutsceneDOF=true
AllowBillboards=true
AllowSoftLight=true
AllowFog=true
AllowUnderwater=true
AllowChromaticAberration=true
[Rendering]
MaxTextureSize=2048
MaxAtlasTextureSize=2048
MaxCubeShadowSize=512
MaxSpotShadowSize=512
TextureDownscale=0
DetailTextureDownscale=0
AtlasTextureDownscale=0
TextureMemoryBudget=500
TextureMemoryGUIBudget=80
TextureTimeBudget=10
TextureInFlightBudget=128
DecalsChance=1.0f
DecalsSpawnDistanceCutoff=10.0f
TextureStreamingDistanceLimit=40000.f
TextureStreamingCharacterDistanceLimit=50.f
TextureStreamingHeadsDistanceLimit=10.f
TextureStreamingReduceGameplayLOD=true
UberSampling=0
TextureMipBias=0
MsaaLevel=0
DynamicDecalsLimit=30
MeshRenderingDistanceScale=1.0f
MeshLODDistanceScale=1.0f
TerrainScreenSpaceErrorThreshold=2.0f
TerrainErrorMetricMultiplier=10
ForceInstantAdaptation=false
ForceInstantEnvProbeUpdate=false
EnableTemporalAA=true
CascadeShadowFadeTreshold=1.0f
CascadeShadowmapSize=1024
CascadeShadowQuality=0
MaxCascadeCount=4
MaxTerrainShadowAtlasCount=3
GlobalOceanTesselationFactor=10
UseDynamicWaterSimulation=true
UseHairWorks=false
HairWorksAALevel=8
TerrainReadAheadDistance=200.0f
ForcedDebugPreviewIndex=-1
HardwareCursor=false
[TextureStreaming]
MaxResidentMipMap=6
[LevelOfDetail]
MeshLodGameplayDownscale=0
CharacterLodGameplayDownscale=0
DecalsHideDistance=30
StripeHideDistance=60
SwarmHideDistance=200
DimmerHideDistance=60
[Budget]
DecalBudget=100

 

I think the newest driver performs worse than my previous driver (344.xx). Gonna do some testing.

 

Change this to 2 if you want a big performance boost when HairWorks is enabled. By default HairWorks uses 8x MSAA (!).

 

odd, i have that s*** off! saw there's an option for temporal AA so i set that to false.

 

For some reason, Witcher 3 only uses about 800 MB of my VRAM and stutters as it runs at 30-45 FPS. GTA V uses up to 1850 MB (although the in-game dialogue box says it uses 2388 MB - 348 MB more than my physical VRAM), and runs some 15 FPS faster.

This game is seriously badly optimised, and needs fixing...

 

I know you have it off. It was just an FYI for anyone else who might want to have HairWorks enabled.

 

the default memory budget is 500MB. i wonder if i can push that up to 1GB?

set temporal AA to false.
set the texture budget to 1gb.
set the movie ubersampling to false.

let's see if that does anything?!

 

oh crap, I totally forgot to update my video driver, that could gain me some much needed fps to turn on those settings....

 

Anyone playing Witcher 3 on a 2015 Razer Blade?

 

Yeah, didn't end well.

Spoiler: lol

 

going into surgery tomorrow to remove the shrapnel, unfortunately my home insurance doesn't cover fires so now I'm homeless

 

Duh? That's what "lots of allegations but no answers" means?

 

boo! game crashed after killing the griffin!

 

Played about 3 hours so far, and got to say, totally enjoying the experience! Running 1080p, mix of high and ultra, and using Nvidia Inspector to limit FPS to 45, and there aren't any stutters and the game looks great and runs smooth.

I will say, I played the first hour of the game twice, one with keyboard/mouse before work this morning and one with gamepad this evening, and enjoying the gamepad noticeably more... with the gamepad, everything is seamless, where as the keyboard/mouse simply doesn't feel the same having to reach for all the keys during combat or simple movement etc. I'm sure those more used to the mechanics would be fine, but I have zero complaints with the movement/combat controls using a gamepad (in my case a Logitech Wireless F710). By comparison, I absolutely won't play a first person shooter with a controller, but this feels better with one. I so far prefer W3 to both previous Witchers' combat or movement.

Graphics may have been "downgraded", but you can tell a lot of love went into this game, and honestly, they look fantastic while playing. For example, while a simple concept, the swaying trees are awesome for immersion.

 

I set the AA to 4x this time in the NCP and set it to override the game's AA.

 

Dude check your eyes LOL. There's no AA there. I told you Control Panel AA doesn't work.

 

Proof that they didn't care much for PC. The new KB/mouse controls are very complicated and ridiculously far apart - L Shift + L click for power attack? What happened to right-click? Oh, that became Witcher Sense, which was the Z key in Witcher 2. I'm probably going to change all the key bindings to fit TW2. The only change that made some sense was changing the meditate key from L Ctrl to Tab.

 

This game looks terrible...

 

that's why i am asking to be sure. so now i know not to bother.

 

Yeah it looks worse than number two.

Double entendre intended.

 

I don't get how something that looks like such garbage could actually perform worse than Watch Dogs...

 

Vegetation. Lots and lots of it.

 

Yeah I get that but what's the point of so much vegetation when it makes such a sacrifice over all?

I say we go back to the Halflife 2 and UT2K4 days

 

Yes I agree. Less vegetation, better everything else.

What I also noticed is the vegetation is not realistic at all. It clips through everything that touches it. And is poorly lit. Always seems to glow unnaturally.

 

Well in a game like this I guess it could be argued veg is important since its red dead redemption style

 

I think hair works is the biggest performance hit

 

+1. The grass doesn't cast shadows - it looks more like wool than grass. Textures are really bad compared to even GTA V. I'll perennially be comparing this to GTA, because this game looks and performs worse than that. The former is supposed to be a modern, almost-PC-exclusive game that is well-optimised, and the latter is a three-year-old console port. But the latter looks, feels and performs better. Rockstar did a pretty decent job of stabilising the game and making it extremely scalable.

 

They need to release a patch, asap. And NVIDIA needs to stop clockblocking everyone.

 

finally found the official Geforce guide!

http://www.geforce.com/whats-new/gu...-hunt-graphics-performance-and-tweaking-guide

 

Rockstar has experience in multiplatform titles too though just to be fair

 

So does CDPR

 

Admittedly I'm not on top of their other projects but the witcher series I only know of the 360 port and of course the Linux wrapper which was not done by them

 

Rockstar admitted that GTA V was not a port and that they developed the game for PC from the start, having learned from their past mistakes. It looks like CDPR is pulling the same garbage Ubisoft does, optimizing for consoles. Let's face it, console games earn devs the most cash. Once they've gotten enough console owners snagged and the charts fall, they'll mark down the PC version and release patches to fix the performance issues.

 

Witcher is one series where I'm pretty certain PC outsells consoles, and that makes it even more disappointing

 

This video gem is for all the graphically disappointed, like yourself. I was in stitches myself: Dat laughter - video link

 

Curious, those so vocally hating on this game, have you actually bothered to try the story, with a good set of headphones or speakers, and just play and enjoy? It's a damn good game, worth more investment than just the prologue or judging screenshots/youtube videos.....

It's always easier to tear something apart, but while playing in the woods with trees swaying and in the environment, this silly screenshot pissing contest seems secondary. I'm absolutely enjoying playing on a "POS BGA 970m with the 'end of the world POS 4710HQ cause OMG I CAN'T UPGRADE AND I GOTTA RUN 4+GHZ 24/7 NO THROTTLE '", and it's a damn good game ha... not the end of times as all the recent threads on this forum suggest that I used to enjoy. Now, all I read is whining these past years.

Sorry for the rant, sometimes though, actual games matter, even despite the graphical shortcomings real or perceived.

By no means do I support CDPR for misleading us, and I even lost all faith in them after the bogus GMG BS claims, but, when the dust settled, I'm really enjoying their game, and that's the main thing IMHO. Of course, YMMV

 

Does the third game have the quick time events like the last one?

 

Wow. It doesn't look good. I think GTA V on my lappy looks better than this...

Anyway, performance and looks put aside, I heard that you can import TW2 saves into TW3. Is there any benefit in it. What if you don't have TW2 saves, will TW3 story change much, and how?

 

Well i am going to give this game a chance i am very excited to play it and see it goes i have to have a better tolerance for these games they never kept my interests too much.

 

So dear expert users of NBR, is there any chance of running this game with my machine (specs on the sig) in 1080p?

Currently i'm debating wether to buy the game for Xbox or PC.

 

With the graphics settings you would have to use, you're better off with the Xbox at this point. Look up some Xbox review videos and see what you think. I might get some flak for this but when it comes to console games, at least you know that the performance you see in the video is the performance you will get in real life. You also don't have to worry about hardware compatibility, game crashes, and a bunch of other issues unless they are platform universal and everyone has them.

Here's a gameplay video... Looks choppy to me. I would be really surprised if there isn't high input lag.



That's also 900p, not 1080p

 

The game runs at 35-45 FPS on the 860M with a mixture of medium and high settings - I'm totally fine with 30+ FPS, I don't need the sweet spot of 60 FPS, unlike several others here.I referred to Nvidia's GeForce Configuration Guide when choosing which settings should be medium, and I'm still tweaking. Haven't started on the config file tweaks yet.

The GTX 860M is a small card that really packs a punch, so don't worry about lag, or sub-30 framerates. The game has never dipped below 30 FPS as of yet in an around White Orchard, and that is a ridiculously intense area - grass and trees everywhere.

Counting all of that, I recommend you get the PC version, because the Xbox version is locked to 30FPS @ 900p, and my framerates above are all at FHD resolution.

However, your dual-core CPU might be a bottleneck - I'm not sure how much it affects gameplay.

 

Ethrem & SRSR333, thanks for your replies. I previously found that same video, but I haven't found more other experiences of the game with similar specifications.

I guess i'll have to decide should i take the "easy" route with Xbox or do some tinkering with prefences while trying to get the game running with my laptop - this shouldn't cause problems since i have some experience in matters like these. I'm thinking the dual core (while running high cloks) might cause problems if the game development was lately more optimized more to the consoles since they still have more CPU power than GPU power, just like in the last console generation.

Last week i was content in purchasing the game for console but lately i've found some texts that it might be actually possible to run the game with my computer @ 1080p/30 with medium/high settings, hence the question in mind.

 

CPU usage with the game barely exceeds 40%. Also, the consoles' CPUs are extremely weak and their GPUs are much more powerful.

 

Have you tried changing the bolded part to true?

 

For what it's worth, CDPR already has a day one patch that dynamically upscales the resolution from 900p to 1080p whenever possible, especially if the Kinect is not hooked up to the Xbox using resources.

I think I have just gotten sick of fighting with these games. We should be way past the days of having to manually fine tune graphics settings for optimal performance, it should be automatic. There have already been reports of the game crashing which is something that is inexcusable at this point. I'm just sick of companies taking their beta or even alpha stage games, releasing them, and then having to roll out patches for the next 6 months before the game is reliably playable. At least on the console it's a consistent experience (whether it is consistently good or consistently bad, at least you know what to expect). Maybe I'm just getting too impatient to tweak 50 million things and just want to open the game and play...

And yes, the CPU cores in the consoles are actually horrendous. They're AMD custom APUs.....

 

That's an understatement. The game has crashed on me at least twenty times, and it becomes a lot slower (10 FPS drop) and much more unstable in windowed/borderless windowed mode. I can barely get through two minutes of the game in those modes without crashing.

But then in full screen mode I lose my colour calibration and as anyone with the W230SS knows, the default 1080p colour calibration had a very bad yellow tint.

To be fair, GTA crashed too, but it was a lot less often (i.e. once every few hours). It doesn't happen at all now, after a couple of fixes.

I went back to playing Witcher 2 while this got fixed. So much faster, smoother and I like the darker, closed atmosphere of Flotsam...

 

Well you kind of just made my point for me. Why would I want to put up with all of that when I have the PS4 and XB1 sitting right there where I don't have to do anything but start the game (and put on headphones when using the PS4 to drown out the fan)? Sure there's a graphical downgrade (although not that big with this game) but I haven't had a significant issue with console game crashes since the NES when you had to pull the cart and blow and stick it back in. There are one offs that cause a game to crash (Destiny did it to me once when it first launched) but twenty times? Watch Dogs didn't even crash that much, it was just a stuttering mess instead.

I actually liked the idea of the GeForce Experience. It was nice opening up a game, closing it, then setting recommended settings in GeForce Experience and playing it. It seems that nVidia has messed that up now as well though.

Its really sad that my 5k machine is used to run emulators more than any actual PC game.