The Witcher 3

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DAPUNISHER

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Later today I will load it up on the old FX system, or the 3200G. Both are win10 pro. With win11 it looks like it is smartly utilizing more and more ram to load faster. The longer I play, the more cutscenes and loads, the more it takes. As the game first loads, it starts off with 6.5GB which steadily climbs to 8.5GB by the time it is through the first load. Every time it loads again, I can watch the ram usage grow. Here is a screenshot of right before I bailed a moment ago.

The Witcher 3 5_14_2022 2_55_19 AM.png

The Schroedinger joke was unexpected.

Paraphrasing -
"What happened to Schroedinger?"
"I have no idea. I don't know if he's alive or dead."

The thug insulting me while we are fighting, by hitting me with Monty Python was perfect, absolutely perfect.
"Your father smells of elderberries!"
I feel like the trout buyer bit was an homage too.

This is one of those games, that every time I think it has shown me its best, it ups the ante again. I didn't think I'd find another game as addictive as the Red Dead games, Skyrim, and Fallout 3, NV, and 4. I will have to do more than one playthrough because there have been several decisions where I wonder what would have happened if I made a different one. Don't ruin it for me, but I am especially curious if letting the other Witcher live, that massacred the villagers, instead of killing him, has any impact or not. I surmise I take the directions to his stash off his corpse anyways, but the way it is written, is so well done, I am left wondering.

The weekend is here, so you working stiffs that have not completed it, need to pick it back up.
 
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CP5670

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I killed that guy, but don't think it has any other impact. I did let Letho go free in Witcher 2, and he returns for a side quest in Witcher 3 if you do that.

One quest with unexpected consequences is the one with the Crones and that heart spirit thing, which ultimately affects whether the Baron lives later on. I let the spirit free but might have kept it there if I knew what would happen.
 
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DAPUNISHER

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I tried playing it on win10 pro FX 8350 4.5GHz with 16GB of 2133MHz and a 1650 Super. But surprisingly, the 1650Super couldn't handle 1080p Max settings. I did not expect it to be the bottleneck in a 8yr old game with a 10yr old CPU. Swapped for a 3060ti, which never broke high 30s percentage use for the same settings with locked 60fps.

The ram usage peaked at a bit under 8GB. Still a lot for such an old game, but lends itself to the hypothesis that win11 is better at using ram to cache game data.

Next up is win11 pro with Ryzen 3 3200g with 16GB and the 3060ti. The FX hit full 100% usage running around the city. A few small drops to 58fps with a little microstutter. And once during a hectic fight, it hitched for a 1/2 second right as it started, but it happened as Geralt is doing a 360 degree jump cut so didn't cause a problem. A VRR monitor would cure most of that. It also took a good 10-15 seconds to get all the assets loaded and run smoothly when starting the game, where as the 5700G was flawless at all times. Going to see if this more modern 4GHz boost quad core encounters frame pacing issues in the same situation. And how much ram the game grabs.
 
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DAPUNISHER

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The win11 memory management hypothesis didn't pan out. The 3200g used the same amount as the FX. Next guess is it's storage interface. Both the 3200g and FX were SATA, the 5700g was USB 5Gbps since that is all the Starlink is capable of. I will try the 3200g with USB next, and see if that supports my hypothesis. I am going to discuss its performance v. the FX in the FX thread. Mildly surprising results.

Loving this game; Skellige has some beautiful vistas. LoTR reference, finally! I was thinking the voice actor was straight up doing his best Gimli impression, then he hits me with - You have my Axe! :D Too good.

2 more days until it's 8th birthday, if you will. Hopefully at least one of you reading this, will be playing it to celebrate.
 
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DAPUNISHER

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Both storage and windows hypothesis have proved wrong. 5800X-32GB ram-3060ti-NVME running the game. Same ram usage as the 5700X. Maybe it's using more ram because of Zen 3/its memory controller and how windows handles it?

8yrs tomorrow. I know for most of you it feels that long, but it's brand new to me.
 

DAPUNISHER

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My drain bamage is showing. I need to learn to read and do the maths better. It is 7 years old today, not 8.

Almost 60hrs in, and still haven't finished the wild hunt story. Still impressed with how good this game looks. The next game is going to use Unreal Engine 5, and will probably have some serious recommended system requirements.

Some serious super fans out there -

 

DAPUNISHER

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Playing on my main system with some odd 21xx X 15XX DSR. So far, blood and wine is *chef's kiss*

Taking 'shrooms and hanging out with Roach; this game rules.
 

KentState

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After reading this thread I fired up the game and wow does it look dated. Amazing how far graphics have come in the last dozen years. Still mechanically a fun game which is a very good reason to play the game.
 
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DAPUNISHER

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After reading this thread I fired up the game and wow does it look dated. Amazing how far graphics have come in the last dozen years.
LOL what?

Anyways, finished the Wild Hunt storyline, very satisfying. Toussaint having new monsters to fight really helps keep things fresh. Playing at 2715 x1527 uses 4GB of vram, 11GB of ram, and hit more than 4 cores, pretty demanding for a 2015 single player game. Some here were still arguing 8GB was enough for gaming at that point. tsk tsk.
 
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Stuka87

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After reading this thread I fired up the game and wow does it look dated. Amazing how far graphics have come in the last dozen years. Still mechanically a fun game which is a very good reason to play the game.

Not sure if trolling or not. There are some games that have come out that look better, but not drastically so. Witcher 3 at max settings on a high res display still looks very good.
 

Stg-Flame

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Not sure if trolling or not. There are some games that have come out that look better, but not drastically so. Witcher 3 at max settings on a high res display still looks very good.
Yeah, I'm with you. Then again, I don't have a machine capable of maxing any current game in 4K, but the last time I played Witcher 3, I ran it maxed at 2K resolution and the game still looks incredible. I can't imagine what someone has to be playing in order to think W3 looks dated.
 
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DAPUNISHER

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Don't call me fancy yet. I haven't taken the loan against my 401k to buy an R8 to go pick up my 3090 Ti so I can test a 7 year old game.
All the flavors and you chose salt.
 

DAPUNISHER

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When this game came out, most were still using FX, i3&i5, 8GB of ram, and 9 series Nvidia was the hotness.

There are things that could use a mod to improve the looks - some character animations, textures, and stuff like dust kicking up, or tracks being left in soft ground. But it seems most of us still think it looks really good for its age.
 

Artorias

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The game looks fantastic even in 2022. I honestly do not see how it is dated at all, for me it was the most beautiful game I've ever played until Red Dead Redemption 2 released which has taken that crown.

In 2015 I was running this game with a R9280X at 1080P, the graphical scaling was incredible and it looked great even on lower end hardware. Later on I upgraded to a 1080TI when Blood and Wine released and just further cemented how artistically beautiful it was.
 

aigomorla

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I remember it was a tie for best support between Ciri and Elizabeth from bioshock.

Personally i lean a bit more on Elizabeth as she feels more fluid then Ciri did, but Ciri is better looking then Elizabeth.
 

nakedfrog

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I just played through it in 2020 on an RX 580 @1440p and I thought it looked quite good ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
 

Zenoth

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Still looks good by default today. There's mods to make it look better (HD textures, etc).

And CDPR is supposed to upgrade it for next-gen at some point.
 
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