The Witcher - Patch 1.2

[imported_glacier]

After long and impatient awaiting, the time has come - Patch 1.2 fixes, among all, the issues of older versions that were most commented on, such as long loading and saving times, loading/saving mechanism, removes many possible random crashes, as well as several minor bugs. Patch 1.2 works with older versions of the game, starting from 1.0, and is available for download from:

http://www.thewitcher.com/community/en/news/367.html

 

[Crafty35a]

Awesome! Anyone able to test it yet? I'm wondering how much it really helps with loading times - that was my only problem with the game and the only reason I ever put it down. I can't wait to start playing again. Figures that I just got Zelda (wii) as an early Christmas present, so I won't be able to come back to the Witcher for a while yet.

 

[userman]

I am all over this!

 

[chizow]

I hit download on the way out the door, but haven't tried it yet. But ya, can't wait to test it out. I'm expecting some pretty big improvements honestly, as the load times are kinda hard to explain. There's nothing actually loading from disk, its almost as if the app itself is hanging and then recovering. There'll probably be some other enhancements in the way of save games, even though they weren't really a problem for me they'll probably be a bit faster with more detailed save info or the ability to name save games.

 

[raystorm]

Perfect timing. I bought the international version but haven't gotten the game in the mail yet (was shipped monday). Hopefully I'll get it today with the nice new patch waiting to be used.

 

[userman]

That sucks. witcher.exe stops responding after I start the game.

I rebooted the system and still no go. Hmmmmmmm. I will reinstall and patch.

 

[skace]

Thanks for beta testing this for me userman, let me know if you manage to get it working

 

[userman]

I have it installed and will try it out before i have to go to work.

 

[userman]

Starts fine and loads a saved game. Its a little fast on load. Ingame runs better. I will turn shadows on and see how it goes.

 

[reerun]

I've noticed a lot fewer crashes with the patch installed. But it hasn't made any difference for me in the load times. Worth downloading and installing just to get rid of some of the bugs.

 

[Crafty35a]

Originally posted by: reerun
But it hasn't made any difference for me in the load times.

That's too bad. The best I've seen anyone say about the patch on this issue is that they see "slightly better" load times. That really is the only thing that bothered me about the game, and it was enough for me to put the game down and play some others while hoping for a fix (HGL, SMG). I'll still finish it sooner than later, but it would be a MUCH more enjoyable experience if they could figure that issue out.

 

[WraithETC]

Game load times are faster overall but I still get crashes on 32bit vista.

 

[chizow]

Ok, just fired it up and did some FRAPs comparisons before and after. Load times are significantly faster after the patch than before for me. I'd say at least 3x faster from indoor to outdoor. Indoor to Outdoor is about the same as pre-patch Outdoor to Indoor was for me which is a huge improvement. Loading from save is also a good bit faster, although the clips themselves seem very choppy with low FPS, but thats mainly because my CPU is pegged at 100% (normally 70-80% with just Witcher) while FRAPs is recording. Haven't really played to see about the crashing issue but didn't have any problems on start-up.

Update:

Compared the load times from an auto-save outside of Triss' House:

Pre-Patch: 32 seconds
Post-Patch: 18 seconds

Margin of error is ~1s, from the frame I clicked OK to a frame within the second where the load screen fades into the loaded screen. Both loads were done after I had already zoned in and out of Triss' a few times.

Also compared load times from indoor to outdoor at Triss':

Pre-Patch: 11-12 seconds
Post-Patch: 1st load 10s, 6-7s on 2nd and 3rd loads.

Unfortunately I didn't record the first cold load pre-patch, but the first cold load was 25s post-patch. Also gonna keep an eye on RAM usage and see how high it goes.

 

[Chriscross3234]

Thanks for the heads up, downloading now.

 

[Bateluer]

Grabbing it now.

 

[ginfest]

thanx for the info, downloading now

 

[Ylurien]

Thanks to Chizow for going to the trouble of doing those timings.

I haven't timed it, but I can definitely agree with him in that load times are significantly improved. Remember that for those of you who don't see a reduction in time, you need to reload the area a second time to get it cached to memory. Loading any area for the first time is going to be relatively slow, and it doesn't seem that they have optimized anything in this way. But I do think they have optimized the way that the area data is cached, and thus makes retrieving recently loaded area data from memory (either virtual or non) much faster.

 

[ITPaladin]

warning:

I was friends with the Order in Vizima after helping the knight in the sewers pre-patch.

I patched, went to the Order armorer guys and now they don't know me as friends anymore.


BTW: Anyone unable to register on the official Witcher forums?

I tried twice on resending activation email to Gmail account, then switched to Mail.com account. I am not receiving any email to activate my forum account there.

 

[skace]

Originally posted by: ITPaladin
warning:

I was friends with the Order in Vizima after helping the knight in the sewers pre-patch.

I patched, went to the Order armorer guys and now they don't know me as friends anymore.

This happened to me pre-patch. I think all I had to do to break my friendship with the order was talk to the Dwarf blacksmith once or some nonsense. They haven't let me shop there since I originally entered the city after helping the knight.

 

[ITPaladin]

I would have been nice to have some notice that would happen. It was convenient being near the inn since I only pass through/by the nonhuman area on way to other places.

 

[reerun]

Ah, that explains the slow load times as I was moving from one area to another for the first time. Spent more time with this last night and indeed saw significant improvement in load times in various situations. Specifically you can save your game MUCH faster now and just entering and exiting a house doesn't take nearly as long as pre-patch.

 

[reerun]

I had the same experience but with the Dwarven armorer now no longer recognizing me as friendly anymore. Annoying but not a huge deal I guess.

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: reerun
Ah, that explains the slow load times as I was moving from one area to another for the first time. Spent more time with this last night and indeed saw significant improvement in load times in various situations. Specifically you can save your game MUCH faster now and just entering and exiting a house doesn't take nearly as long as pre-patch.

Ya there's a massive difference in save times for sure. There's still that slow down when I zone out from indoor to outdoor in the Trade Quarters...like everything gets all choppy then speeds back up but again I think that's a CPU/engine thing trying to load all the AI/non-static objects more than anything else. It doesn't happen at night, in the slums or swamp etc.

CPU usage is pretty intense in this game, anyone running it with a Quad-core? Typically I see 75-80% CPU utilization (100% core 1, 60-80% core 2), sometimes higher. With FRAPs recording both CPUs are pegged at 100%.

Overall much happier after the patch. Zoning often as the game forces you to do isn't nearly as tedious and the game also picked up a lot (end of Chapter 3) so I'll have a fun weekend playing through the rest. Oh ya, also found it very difficult to break 4GB Commit Charge (total system) which makes me wonder if Witcher is /largeaddressaware by default.

 

[Hauk]

Addressed screen blurring even after Blizzard potion wears off. Yes!