The witcher 3 or GTA V

[Lepton87]

I've just bought the GTA V and I've had the wither 3 since its debut but I deemed it too buggy to play just right after the release so I decided to wait so they can patch the game to a playable state.

How buggy are those games right now? Both developers had plenty of time to patch those games. What are the results? How much better and less buggy are those games right now compared to the release builds? Which one is more likely to get a new patch soon? I'm going to start playing the other game when I finish the first.

Those games at release seem more like beta build than final builds. I had Titan SLI when I first played the wither and it was a stutter fest now I've got overclocked 980Ti + Titan as PsyX accelelator and it works much better, still all the settings at maximum at 2560 is a bit to slow fore me to swallow so I still have to reduce IQ but the game looks barely noticeably worse and it doesn't affect the game-play.

 

[cmdrdredd]

I didn't find Witcher 3 that buggy but I dunno.

 

[iceranger]

both these games were fine when I played them why don't you try running witcher 3 on just one card.

 

[Lepton87]

both these games were fine when I played them why don't you try running witcher 3 on just one card.

It doesn't matter right now as I no longer use SLI. The second card acts as a PsyX accelerator but for the Wither 3 my CPU is fast enough for that task.

 

[Zenoth]

At release, The Witcher 3 must have been one of the most polished games I've ever had the pleasure to play.

It did have some issues, but nothing major or game-breaking. Since you do own the game anyway, you could just look at the patch notes? It's not like you didn't own the game and would ask about how the game is before buying it... you already have it. So launch it and play it to find out, it would be the best way for you to see if it's "worth it" as of now. As long as Witcher 3 is concerned it received 6 or 7 patches by now, it started with 1.03 I believe and it's now up to 1.08. If you own it on GoG there's a patch changelog showing everything you need to know (not sure if that changelog also exists for Steam owners).

For GTAV I wouldn't be able to tell how "buggy" (or not) it was at release (PC version). I've literally bought it only two days ago, so I'm not aware of how many patches it has received since its release, but from what I've seen so far it plays very smoothly and I didn't have a single crash, stutter or other types of instability or game-play related bugs. But I'm aware that GTAV is very big, complex and ambitious, it's open world and very dynamic so I will encounter bugs (in a game like that it's a given).

Suffice it to say that - ultimately - you own both games, so... launch them and find out?

 

[Nhirlathothep]

i say gta 5 because if u re going to buy it later, you ll lose part of the mp component.

tw3 is sp, so if u play it now or next year it s the same

 

[Carfax83]

How buggy are those games right now? Both developers had plenty of time to patch those games. What are the results? How much better and less buggy are those games right now compared to the release builds? Which one is more likely to get a new patch soon? I'm going to start playing the other game when I finish the first.

CDPR have done some very aggressive patching with the Witcher 3. Right now, it's up to patch 1.08.2, so there have been a TON of fixes since the release build. Performance has also been increased as well.

Those games at release seem more like beta build than final builds. I had Titan SLI when I first played the wither and it was a stutter fest now I've got overclocked 980Ti + Titan as PsyX accelelator and it works much better, still all the settings at maximum at 2560 is a bit to slow fore me to swallow so I still have to reduce IQ but the game looks barely noticeably worse and it doesn't affect the game-play.

Got to say, your Titan PhysX accelerator is practically useless in the Witcher 3, since the game doesn't use any hardware accelerated PhysX. It uses PhysX 3.3 which runs amazingly well on the CPU..

 

[PrincessFrosty]

Just personal preference but GTAV is way more fun singleplayer and it also has a lot of content for multiplayer which will keep you active for a long time. I had the same problem with TW3 that i had with both prior games, the moment to moment gameplay is very dull and boring - again that's just personal preference.

 

[RaistlinZ]

You should give TW3 a try.

We have similar setups and I haven't noticed it buggy at all. I've been playing since patch 1.07 though, I'm not sure how buggy it was before that.

I can play at 2560x1600 and keep fps above 60 most of the time with Hairworks off and foliage distance set to High instead of Ultra. Everything else is turned on to max.

 

[alcoholbob]

Witcher 3's god-like SLI scaling in action


1 Card: 35fps

2 Cards: 42fps

 

[escrow4]

^

That is because Nvidia killed Kepler.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Well, if he is running at 4k that is very good FPS IMO.

 

[Eric1987]

Doesn't scale well with CFX, either.

 

[alcoholbob]

^

That is because Nvidia killed Kepler.

Titan X ain't Kepler doe.

 

[Carfax83]

Witcher 3 SLI scaling is very good, but resolution is a big factor in this. Look at this benchmark at 1600p:

And now at 4K:

A big reduction in performance in scaling at 4K, which I believe is due to not having enough shading power for all of those extra pixels.

Make sure you have the latest 355.80 drivers which fix the VRAM bug for SLI if you're running Windows 10.

 

[cmdrdredd]

If he is at 4k his performance is where it should be. SLI Titan x is slightly behind SLI 980ti. After all he is running a 4k monitor.

 

[Carfax83]

Titan X should be a little faster I think. Only aftermarket 980 Tis are faster.

Anyway, you're right that he's close to where he should be. Like I said earlier, 4K is very heavy in this game presumably because the Witcher 3 is shader heavy..

The only other advice to give him is to make sure he has the 355.80 hotfix drivers if he's on Windows 10.. Might want to try overclocking the GPUs a bit as well..

 

[Lepton87]

GPU is already running at 1500MHz the difference from stock clocks is very big like the jump from 980 to 980TI.

ps. I don't have SLI. 980TI OC + Titan

 

[alcoholbob]

Witcher 3 SLI scaling is very good, but resolution is a big factor in this. Look at this benchmark at 1600p:

And now at 4K:

A big reduction in performance in scaling at 4K, which I believe is due to not having enough shading power for all of those extra pixels.

Make sure you have the latest 355.80 drivers which fix the VRAM bug for SLI if you're running Windows 10.

I'm running Titan X Hybrids at 1450MHz. The problem isn't the cards. The problem is 99% Utilization with a single card, and then dropping to 60-70% utilization in SLI, which wasn't the case at launch or pre-1.07.

Also according to the 4K bench you listed there's 35% scaling in average fps and 42% scaling in minimums. But the bench you cited is pre-patch 1.07. We're now on 1.08.3 and SLI scaling is 18% at 4K.

 

[Carfax83]

GPU is already running at 1500MHz the difference from stock clocks is very big like the jump from 980 to 980TI.

ps. I don't have SLI. 980TI OC + Titan

We were talking about alcoholbob.

You're golden so you should have nothing to worry about, unless you're trying to run at above 1600p resolutions on a single GPU..

Plus like I said earlier, that Titan for Physx is useless in the Witcher 3 since all PhysX runs on the CPU regardless.

 

[Carfax83]

I'm running Titan X Hybrids at 1450MHz. The problem isn't the cards. The problem is 99% Utilization with a single card, and then dropping to 60-70% utilization in SLI, which wasn't the case at launch or pre-1.07.

Also according to the 4K bench you listed there's 35% scaling in average fps and 42% scaling in minimums. But the bench you cited is pre-patch 1.07. We're now on 1.08.3 and SLI scaling is 18% at 4K.

Here's some screenshots I just took. Everything is turned on at max including HBAO+ except hairworks which is turned off, plus some post processing effects which should have no impact on frame rate such as blur, vignette, chromatic aberration etcetera.

SLI scaling for me was 69%, which is fairly decent and much higher than what they were getting in that review you just posted from TBG.. This is with zero overclock on either GPU, but auto boost has them running at 1392MHz.

With SLI turned off:

With SLI turned on:

 

[alcoholbob]

Here's some screenshots I just took. Everything is turned on at max including HBAO+ except hairworks which is turned off, plus some post processing effects which should have no impact on frame rate such as blur, vignette, chromatic aberration etcetera.

SLI scaling for me was 69%, which is fairly decent and much higher than what they were getting in that review you just posted from TBG.. This is with zero overclock on either GPU, but auto boost has them running at 1392MHz.

With SLI turned off:

With SLI turned on:

That's fine and all but...that's actually 20% less than 1.06 since it was scaling at 88-100% during that patch at 1440P. You are actually validating my point--SLI performance has been degrading, at both 4K and lower resolutions since 1.06.

 

[Carfax83]

That's fine and all but...that's actually 20% less than 1.06 since it was scaling at 88-100% during that patch at 1440P. You are actually validating my point--SLI performance has been degrading, at both 4K and lower resolutions since 1.06.

I don't know if it has been degrading. My screenshots were taken on Windows 10, and SLI performance isn't as good as it is on Windows 7/8.1 due to immature drivers.

Also, the benchmark you just posted was with HW enabled I believe.. I had it disabled in my screenshots, but I'll try it with it enabled to see if the scaling improves and report back.

 

[Carfax83]

OK I quickly tested it in the same spot, and the new numbers with HW enabled but with MSAA set to 4x instead of 8x are 46 FPS in single card mode, and 83 FPS in SLI.

So as I thought, the increased GPU load due to HW increased the SLI scaling. With the MSAA at 8x instead of 4x the scaling would probably have been greater..

 

[Eric1987]

OK I quickly tested it in the same spot, and the new numbers with HW enabled but with MSAA set to 4x instead of 8x are 46 FPS in single card mode, and 83 FPS in SLI.

So as I thought, the increased GPU load due to HW increased the SLI scaling. With the MSAA at 8x instead of 4x the scaling would probably have been greater..

HW Enabled? Should I put it on at 4k?