What do you think the Witcher 3 will take to run ?

[bigbluefe]

Just wondering what you guys think. I think it will take more than whats avaiable today for GPUs to run the game smoothly maxed out.

I think it's unwise to build hardware for games that aren't out yet. Always wait until the software is on the shelf and tested. For all we know, the game might get delayed again.

 

[SPBHM]

Witcher 2 with max settings ("uber sampling") is still challenging for current hardware, if max settings for you is anything like that and smooth is 60FPS, specially with 4K monitors, good luck.

 

[Carfax83]

That's only 1/2 the story. CPUs are powerful enough to handle PhysX fine. Nvidia has single threaded PhsyX on the CPU resulting in poor performance. PhsyX 3.x fixed that but I don't know if anyone uses the new iteration yet. Witcher 3 might be one of the first users but given Nvidia's recent patch notes and recent revelations it might have problems running on non 800 series cards (it'll probably be fixed quickly if it's a problem though).

Witcher 3 will likely use PhysX 3.3 (which is multithreaded) for the updated cloth solver and other performance benefits, so PhysX will run fast on the CPU....but not when maxed out.

Most developers reserve the highest level of PhysX quality for hardware acceleration. Physics, just like graphics, is scalable and since GPUs are so much more powerful than CPUs, it makes sense to run the most impressive PhysX effects with no compromises on the GPU..

 

[Erenhardt]

To some people it's not all about money LOL. CDPR seem to have developers that are in it for the love of the creation of art they are developing and in turn the market will respond and reward them accordingly.

That is one way to call the Polish half-payed students working for CDPR for the equivalent of an average spare change US kid gets for snacks/ice cream.

I don't understand why people are enthusiastic about high system requirements and think that higher requirements make the game better. Actually, its opposite. Graphics fidelity doesn't need to go in line with system req's. The better graphics with lowest possible requirements, the better. Not the other way around.

 

[I/O]

Witcher 3 will likely use PhysX 3.3 (which is multithreaded) for the updated cloth solver and other performance benefits, so PhysX will run fast on the CPU....but not when maxed out.

Most developers reserve the highest level of PhysX quality for hardware acceleration. Physics, just like graphics, is scalable and since GPUs are so much more powerful than CPUs, it makes sense to run the most impressive PhysX effects with no compromises on the GPU..

TW3 will have GPU Physx not CPU.

 

[I/O]

That is one way to call the Polish half-payed students working for CDPR for the equivalent of an average spare change US kid gets for snacks/ice cream.

Half payed students .... spare change ? this is news to me . Cite your sources or you know were to go .... get outta town.

I don't understand why people are enthusiastic about high system requirements and think that higher requirements make the game better. Actually, its opposite. Graphics fidelity doesn't need to go in line with system req's. The better graphics with lowest possible requirements, the better. Not the other way around.

Allot of us PC gamers have good hardware and naturally we would want to use it and have games to play that actually push the hardware to the limits as well as being optimized and nice to look at.

 

[NTMBK]

I would recommend at least an Ati 3D Rage Pro.

 

[chimaxi83]

Allot of us PC gamers have good hardware and naturally we would want to use it and have games to play that actually push the hardware to the limits as well as being optimized and nice to look at.

Do you still have that 560SE you reviewed here? :sneaky:

For all we know, the game might get delayed again.

You shut your filthy mouth! D:

Hybrid PhysX doesn't make much sense long term though.

EVGA Classified 780 = $550, assume 50% resale value in 2 years => $275 cost of ownership
Sapphire Tri-X 290 = $410, assume 50% resale value in 2 years => $205 cost of ownership
But any budget PhysX card costs $70-90 (GTX 750).

For dual cards, it hardly changes:

Classy 780s => $1100 --> $550 cost over 2 years
Tri-X 290s => $820 --> $410 cost of ownership over 2 years after resale
Add $70-90 PhysX card = $410+$80= $490

Overall for anyone who values PhysX, it is less headache to just get NV than to save some $, buy AMD and a separate NV card for PhysX. Unfortunately, developers are reluctant to take advantage of PhysX to a larger extent. They really need to focus on realism rather than 1 million fire particles and 1 million pieces of glass shattering on the screen.

Hopefully CDPR does something cool with PhysX for once.

There are certain games that still look great on High such as Metro, Crysis 3, Witcher 2. In a lot of games moving from High to Very High/Ultra has very little impact on IQ but a major hit in performance. In those cases, it is often better to go High, pick Very High textures and then pick and choose. In most games shadows produce a large hit but often the difference between H and VH shadows is not perceptible in motion.

Yeah I've never felt like bothering with hybrid PhysX. The hassle just never made it worth it. If CDPR does something awesome with it though, I'd switch back to Nvidia

 

[Spjut]

Hybrid PhysX doesn't make much sense long term though.

Overall for anyone who values PhysX, it is less headache to just get NV than to save some $, buy AMD and a separate NV card for PhysX. Unfortunately, developers are reluctant to take advantage of PhysX to a larger extent. They really need to focus on realism rather than 1 million fire particles and 1 million pieces of glass shattering on the screen.

Before Nvidia blocked it in their drivers though, it was quite neat. I upgraded from my 8800GT to the HD 5770 and could re-use the 8800GT for dedicated PhysX.

I agree that it's not worth it to go for hybrid PhysX for a new build.
But for people that have for example a GTX 560 Ti and want to upgrade, it'd be very nice to be able to use that card for PhysX, and get much better performance than running it on the CPU.

 

[I/O]

But for people that have for example a GTX 560 Ti and want to upgrade, it'd be very nice to be able to use that card for PhysX, and get much better performance than running it on the CPU.

You can't run a Physx card and an AMD card together anymore because nvidia blocked that out so it is not longer possible. Physx that runs on the GPU which is called Advanced hardware accelerated Physx cannot run on the CPU it's wither run on the GPU or not at all.

 

[toyota]

You can't run a Physx card and an AMD card together anymore because nvidia blocked that out so it is not longer possible. Physx that runs on the GPU which is called Advanced hardware accelerated Physx cannot run on the CPU it's wither run on the GPU or not at all.

that is not true. You can run hardware physx on the CPU it's just that it's too slow to really be playable in most cases.

 

[tollingalong]

TW3 will have GPU Physx not CPU.

It'll be both. It can run on CPU on AMD cards but the effects will be lower quality. TW3 devs has said Nvidia has blocked them from running the effects on AMD cards.

 

[I/O]

that is not true. You can run hardware physx on the CPU it's just that it's too slow to really be playable in most cases.

You can run Physx on the CPU in some games but it is not the same as advanced Physx on the nvidia GPU. Take BL2 the advanced hardware Physx option is blacked out if an AMD GPU is detected.

 

[SPBHM]

You can run Physx on the CPU in some games but it is not the same as advanced Physx on the nvidia GPU. Take BL2 the advanced hardware Physx option is blacked out if an AMD GPU is detected.

normally you just need to a edit a .cfg or something and it will work on the CPU, but it's extremely slow.

 

[I/O]

normally you just need to a edit a .cfg or something and it will work on the CPU, but it's extremely slow.

It's still not the same effects as present on the GPU. I never heard of a hack to run hardware accelerated Physx on the CPU in BL2.

 

[SPBHM]

It's still not the same effects as present on the GPU. I never heard of a hack to run hardware accelerated Physx on the CPU in BL2.

I've used it on BL2 and other games, 100% the same effects, just very slow (unplayable)

 

[I/O]

I've used it on BL2 and other games, 100% the same effects, just very slow (unplayable)

I think in BL2 the high Physx option was blocked out on my Ati GPU. I tried Med but the extra effects were "a distraction" ... "just some extra goo and flying garbage"and performance went from 60fps min to the single digits and the performance was very choppy.

 

[toyota]

It's still not the same effects as present on the GPU. I never heard of a hack to run hardware accelerated Physx on the CPU in BL2.

if you never heard of that then you don't keep up with games at all because that was very well known and well taledk about. most games you can simply select hardware physx and yes you can run hardware physx on the CPU. Borderlands 2 was the first game I've ever seen where you couldn't select that if you had the CPU handling it. any other game I can select it even if I have the CPU assigned to run it from the control panel and yes it will be the same exact effects it would just be slower than having the GPU handle it. If you want to keep up this argument then I can easily show you when I get home this afternoon because I've tested it a plenty of times over the years.

 

[Carfax83]

It'll be both. It can run on CPU on AMD cards but the effects will be lower quality. TW3 devs has said Nvidia has blocked them from running the effects on AMD cards.

I think you're misinterpreting what the dev said.

Referring to turbulence, he said the effect was exclusively GPU accelerated and as such, only ran on NVidia cards. NVidia hasn't blocked anyone from running turbulence on other GPUs, it's just that as a PhysX feature, it uses no other API other than CUDA at this time.

This is in sharp contrast to NVidia's hair and fur tech, which uses DirectCompute because it runs faster than using CUDA since hair and fur simulation don't require much simulation (it's more about rendering) and DirectCompute is integrated in DX11..

Could turbulence run on AMD GPUs? Yes it could, but it would use DirectCompute instead of CUDA, and DirectCompute isn't as powerful as CUDA for computationally heavy scripts.. DirectCompute is used mostly for graphics calculations rather than physics simulation in games whereas CUDA is used expressly for physics simulation..

 

[f1sherman]

PhysX will work on non-Nvidia systems on CPU only but on single thread

Incorrect.
Even pre 3.0 PhysX has multithreading, ie excellently multithreaded Metro 2033. Newer versions have "automatic mt"

It's still not the same effects as present on the GPU. I never heard of a hack to run hardware accelerated Physx on the CPU in BL2.

Omg this is so basic... you never were much into PhysX then.
Despite your claims of running hybrid setup for what...whole 3-4 months?

What PhysX games have you tried during that period anyway? Remember you claim Nvidia put the end to hybrid 09/28/2009.

• GeForce GTX 275 released April 9, 2009
• Nvidia disables PhysX when ATI card is present by Hilbert Hagedoorn on: 09/28/2009

 

[I/O]

What PhysX games have you tried during that period anyway? Remember you claim Nvidia put the end to hybrid 09/28/2009.

• GeForce GTX 275 released April 9, 2009
• Nvidia disables PhysX when ATI card is present by Hilbert Hagedoorn on: 09/28/2009

"Can I use an NVIDIA GPU as a PhysX processor and a non-NVIDIA GPU for regular display graphics?
No. There are multiple technical connections between PhysX processing and graphics that require tight collaboration between the two technologies. To deliver a good experience for users, NVIDIA PhysX technology has been fully verified and enabled using only NVIDIA GPUs for graphics"

http://www.nvidia.com/object/physx_faq.html

I tried to configure hybrid Physx and tried many old drivers and current but to no avail. nvidia does not allow "hybrid Physx" it just does not work.

 

[f1sherman]

[/LIST]
I tried to configure hybrid Physx and tried many old drivers and current but to no avail. nvidia does not allow "hybrid Physx" it just does not work.

But in that other thread you are giving advices/reviewing hybrid physx.
(extra heat not worth the hassle)

Yet you've never managed to get it working???

...


I'm speechless

 

[I/O]

But in that other thread you are giving "I DID NOT REVIEW OR GIVE ADVICE" advices/reviewing hybrid physx.
(extra heat not worth the hassle)

Yet you've never managed to get it working???

...


I'm speechless

Even if you could get it to work the heat heat and noise is not positive. I stated that Hybrid Physx does not work and this is absolutely 100% true fact suppoted by nvidia themselves.
"Can I use an NVIDIA GPU as a PhysX processor and a non-NVIDIA GPU for regular display graphics?
No. There are multiple technical connections between PhysX processing and graphics that require tight collaboration between the two technologies. To deliver a good experience for users, NVIDIA PhysX technology has been fully verified and enabled using only NVIDIA GPUs for graphics"

Apparently the driver hack to run Hybrid Physx worked at one point but nvidia quickly put the kibosh on it.

 

[f1sherman]

Extra heat and noise not positive? really........
Then you'll be happy to know that dedi physx cards runs nowhere near TDP limit.

I apologize if I'm giving you a hard time, but you are all over the place.
Literally and figuratively speaking.

 

[Subyman]

Witcher 2 with max settings ("uber sampling") is still challenging for current hardware, if max settings for you is anything like that and smooth is 60FPS, specially with 4K monitors, good luck.

Yup, maxed out is kind of pointless. If you truly ran maxed out with 8xFSAA, ubersampling, and the highest supported resolution then nothing could run it smoothly. If you mean run it at a setting that is "very high" then you open up a lot of options. 1080p, 4xAA, and everything else on high (no ubersampling) then you'd probably need a 770+.