The Witcher 3 To Look Same on All 3 Platforms

[tential]

From Reddit:http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/2trb9b/adam_badowski_cd_projekt_red_managing_director_in/

I couldn't really find the translation on the western sites so here it is, news from the first hand. Here is the link to the interview in polish language http://www.gry-online.pl/S018.asp?ID=1132 and below I'll try to include short summary:
Currently there are 230 people working on The Witcher 3
Prologue and tutorial aimed for casual players will be skippable
Having recommended specs will allow for playing in 30 frames per second.
PC specs aren't exaggerated, although the team is still working on the optimization
PC players will be able to import saved state from previous game OR decide themself about their character's past. Consoles will stick with just the second option
PC, PS4 and Xbox One use the same build, textures and models. Game will look almost identical on all platforms, although Xbox's version will be showed in 900p, scaled up to 1080p.
The probably most controversial part about FPS straight from the interview:
Na polecanych wymaganiach dla PC osiągniemy 30 czy 60 klatek?
Myślę, że będziemy wyświetlać 30 klatek. Do samego końca zamierzamy pracować nad wydajnością, to niezwykle istotne, maszyny są bardzo zróżnicowane. Programiści niezwykle zabiegali o to, abyśmy nie uprawiali demagogii i nikogo nie oszukiwali, podciągali ogłoszone wymagania pod niższe specyfikacje. Jest jak napisaliśmy, może być tylko lepiej.
Translation:
PC recommended specs will be able to run the game on 30 or 60 frames per second?
I think, we'll stick with 30 FPS. We're not going to stop working on performance until the very end, it's crucial matter to us, there are different PCs with different specs. Programmers insisted on avoiding tricking the players by lowering predicted specs. As I mentioned before, It can only get better.
Pardon me for any mistakes, fellow poles, feel free to bash me and suggest some fixes. And don't kill the courier please D:

Well, that sucks...

 

[StinkyPinky]

Well it says they use the same textures which is obvious. It doesn't say anything about the quality of these textures, or draw distances etc.

 

[gradoman]

Nope, it will not look the same. You'll have the potential for higher FPS, higher resolution and the rest of what was mentioned in the previous post.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Well it says they use the same textures which is obvious. It doesn't say anything about the quality of these textures, or draw distances etc.

This and it says "almost identical"

 

[escrow4]

3770 and a 290 can only hit 30FPS and no quality difference for PC. What did I spend $900 on a 780 Ti GHz for again? Games are in the toilet now, if the Witcher really did sell out (and it so looks like they did) I'm going to seriously consider a console. I'd rather put up with 30FPS and sub 1080p then these shonky ports and wonky patches from lazy ass devs.

 

[RussianSensation]

This article has a lot more useful info summarized comparing all 3 versions.
http://www.gamepur.com/news/17793-w...pecs-will-run-it-30fps-not-60fps-details.html

2 big takeaways
- i7 4790K and 980 to run PC on High, not Ultra.
- They are contemplating locking the PC to 30 fps.

Might be a 10/10 game, but I am starting to question if it's truly a well-optimized next gen PC game. If the PS4 and PC version will look very close at 1080p @ 30 fps but the PC needs an i7 4790K and a 980, those are some wild requirements vs. PS4. It also kinda tells me this is a 90% console port with focus on consoles first because:

- M+K controls not even finished yet, but gamepad controls are
- They haven't even figured out what PC hardware they need to hit 60 FPS on Ultra, and Ultra settings are currently disabled on the PC.

^ With the game launching in 4 months, whaaat?!

3770 and a 290 can only hit 30FPS and no quality difference for PC. What did I spend $900 on a 780 Ti GHz for again? Games are in the toilet now, if the Witcher really did sell out (and it so looks like they did) I'm going to seriously consider a console. I'd rather put up with 30FPS and sub 1080p then these shonky ports and wonky patches from lazy ass devs.

It's worse. See the article I linked. The guy says it was locked to 30 fps on a 4790K and a 980! Maybe without the lock it could run 53-55 but was stuttering? It sure has me worried right now as far as PC optimizations go, unless there is some poor translation happening.

 

[Black Octagon]

Ominous...

 

[sxr7171]

They make these games on PC also for marginal revenue. That is until PC gamers just simply decide to not buy the game. I can live without this game and I won't buy it console because they gimped the PC version. Come correctly if you want a sale.

 

[sweenish]

Only the highest of high end could run Witcher 2 on Ultra when it launched. And even then it was sub 60 fps.

A lot of overreacting here.

You wonder why devs don't give the PC love? It's pretty obvious.

 

[StinkyPinky]

Nope, it will not look the same. You'll have the potential for higher FPS, higher resolution and the rest of what was mentioned in the previous post.

Sounds like marketing speak to me. It's not in their interest to say "PC version looks better" so they carefully use words like "almost" . If you look at the uncompressed video I linked to in the other thread there's no way a console can run that.

 

[RussianSensation]

@ sweenish,

You are suggesting a 5960X @ 4.5Ghz and Quad-980s should still be locked to 30 fps? How in the world have they not finalized the mouse and keyboard controls 4 months before launch? 30 fps lock with Ultra PC settings locked out -- wow they will need to work some insane overtime. Might as well delay the PC version 6 more months, but make it the best version and well-optimized!

 

[Midwayman]

Either their engine is the worst optimized pile of shit ever released, they are pulling an unisoft and locking PC setting down, or they are lying about it looking the same.

We'll see I guess. However if it really only looks as good as a console and has those hardware requirements, I'll probably give the game a pass.

30FPS on the PC probably means they're pulling off some half-assed things that are locked to the timing and won't handle a variable FPS.

 

[Spjut]

One way to interpret this is that the console versions are damn optimized:awe:

I expect the Ultra settings to just be Nvidia's features.
It's really bad if they do lock the PC version to 30 FPS however.

 

[StinkyPinky]

It doesn't say locked to 30fps? It says their recommended specs are for running the game at 30 fps. Unless I'm reading it incorrectly.

 

[gradoman]

So I bothered to look at the link and:

PC has better shaders, textures, more colorful and better AA compared to consoles.
Grass and similar detail pops in ~5m on consoles. Double that on PC.
PS4>X1. PS4 textures blurrier than PC high.
PS4 runs at 1080p/30FPS
XB1 runs at 900p/30FPS, slightly blurrier than PS4.
Still looks great on any platform.

I mean from the moment I saw before 900p on XO and upscaled, there's just no way it's the same, lol.

 

[JumBie]

When the game comes out they are going to get exposed, the pc community is going to dissect every single thing in this game. So wait till then, I am looking forward to whats going to happen.

 

[Dankk]

This article has a lot more useful info summarized comparing all 3 versions.
http://www.gamepur.com/news/17793-w...pecs-will-run-it-30fps-not-60fps-details.html

2 big takeaways
- i7 4790K and 980 to run PC on High, not Ultra.
- They are contemplating locking the PC to 30 fps.

Might be a 10/10 game, but I am starting to question if it's truly a well-optimized next gen PC game. If the PS4 and PC version will look very close at 1080p @ 30 fps but the PC needs an i7 4790K and a 980, those are some wild requirements vs. PS4.

Dang.

Then again, Witcher 2 was quite the beast when it came out in 2011 (ubersampling anyone?). But maybe not this beastly. Hopefully they do optimize things. Reportedly they haven't even allowed anyone to use Ultra settings yet in public demos because they say those settings are still not working properly.

It also kinda tells me this is a 90% console port with focus on consoles first because:

- M+K controls not even finished yet, but gamepad controls are
- They haven't even figured out what PC hardware they need to hit 60 FPS on Ultra, and Ultra settings are currently disabled on the PC.

^ With the game launching in 4 months, whaaat?!

Welcome to modern AAA game development. "Crunch mode" for a major project in any other kind of industry is 1-2 weeks. In the games industry, it's more like 3-4 months. Pure hell. You bet your butt the devs are going to squeeze the rest of those things in within the next few months.

 

[StinkyPinky]

I'd rather they just delay it by another month. I'd rather not have people slaving away for 15 hours a day.

 

[artemicion]

Meh. Graphics look good enough to me.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Only the highest of high end could run Witcher 2 on Ultra when it launched. And even then it was sub 60 fps.

A lot of overreacting here.

You wonder why devs don't give the PC love? It's pretty obvious.

You're happy with a 30fps lock? Screw that...honestly I will refuse to buy it if this is the case. If the game launches and it runs like crap I can wait until it's $10 like I did for witcher 2 before I finally played it.

 

[tential]

This article has a lot more useful info summarized comparing all 3 versions.
http://www.gamepur.com/news/17793-w...pecs-will-run-it-30fps-not-60fps-details.html

2 big takeaways
- i7 4790K and 980 to run PC on High, not Ultra.
- They are contemplating locking the PC to 30 fps.

Might be a 10/10 game, but I am starting to question if it's truly a well-optimized next gen PC game. If the PS4 and PC version will look very close at 1080p @ 30 fps but the PC needs an i7 4790K and a 980, those are some wild requirements vs. PS4. It also kinda tells me this is a 90% console port with focus on consoles first because:

- M+K controls not even finished yet, but gamepad controls are
- They haven't even figured out what PC hardware they need to hit 60 FPS on Ultra, and Ultra settings are currently disabled on the PC.

^ With the game launching in 4 months, whaaat?!



It's worse. See the article I linked. The guy says it was locked to 30 fps on a 4790K and a 980! Maybe without the lock it could run 53-55 but was stuttering? It sure has me worried right now as far as PC optimizations go, unless there is some poor translation happening.

I thought this information was included in the OP my bad.

Ya basically there was more mostly I found on neogaf/reddit.
Good CPU+GTX980 was struggling on High with Hairworks off and some other major feature off. It was around 30-40 FPS or something like that.

So either this isn't a great optimized PC port (maybe the reason we had that delay and why they say they're still working on optimizations).
Or the PC version adds a lot more effects that need more processing power and has the option for a lot more.

I don't think anyone has to worry about a 30 fps lock by the way. I don't think they meant it as a lock as much as that's the frame rate "cap" you'd use to get a steady frame rate game. I doubt the witcher series would have a 30 fps lock on a PC entry.

 

[ImpulsE69]

Nah this is all planned. Game devs have been tasked with driving down internet rage. The idea is if everyones version looks identical they can't call each other out on facebook then go on a stabbing spree because MY VERSION > YOUR VERSION!

They are doing the good of the world.

 

[Grooveriding]

I worry this will be another title that has horrible performance because of using nvidia's gameworks libraries. Every game released with those features as yet has been a disaster to one degree or another with varying degrees of optimization issues. Extremes like the complete trainwreck that was AC: Unity and Watch Dogs to milder issues like shadow bugs in FC4 or stuttering issues in Mordor.

Dying Light released today and is another gameworks game. It's a complete disaster. Stuttering and FPS drops everywhere.

This does not sound good for Witcher 3. I'd rather they dropped gameworks as it adds nothing we can't get from them in house, but it's likely too late for that. My guess is this game is a stutterfest at launch and we see numerous reports of terrible optimization with the suggestion it's 'next-gen' to cover it. The most recent 1080p 60fps gameplay from PC was not bad looking by any stretch, but it was nothing I have not seen before in other games.

 

[ImpulsE69]

Eh its ok, game devs can continue to spew out trash, and I'll continue to pay bottom dollar for it once the 'patches' and community fixes have taken care of the most annoying aspects. If companies want people to support them, they should act like it. We shall wait and see if CDRED jumped the shark or not.

 

[tential]

I worry this will be another title that has horrible performance because of using nvidia's gameworks libraries. Every game released with those features as yet has been a disaster to one degree or another with varying degrees of optimization issues. Extremes like the complete trainwreck that was AC: Unity and Watch Dogs to milder issues like shadow bugs in FC4 or stuttering issues in Mordor.

Dying Light released today and is another gameworks game. It's a complete disaster. Stuttering and FPS drops everywhere.

This does not sound good for Witcher 3. I'd rather they dropped gameworks as it adds nothing we can't get from them in house, but it's likely too late for that. My guess is this game is a stutterfest at launch and we see numerous reports of terrible optimization with the suggestion it's 'next-gen' to cover it. The most recent 1080p 60fps gameplay from PC was not bad looking by any stretch, but it was nothing I have not seen before in other games.

I didn't know Dying Light was a Gameworks game too...

The ONLY reason I didn't preorder The Witcher 3 was that it's a gameworks game.