Witcher 3 Patch 1.07 includes hairworks sliders

[Azix]

They've got the sliders in now. Lucky nvidia users. Not sure what the hairworks presets are in terms of tessellation factor if it even affects that. There's only low and High so I think the out of game modifications might still be better for some. Guessing nvidia gave them updated hairworks code

 

[ShintaiDK]

Guessing nvidia gave them updated hairworks code

Because it cant possible be the developer, right?

 

[Azix]

Because it cant possible be the developer, right?

I guess its possible. If they could have it would be strange why they hadn't already. I am basing this on the assumption they cannot change the default settings of the libraries they get unless that is available in the api anyway.


Anyway, prelim results I see over 50fps just by changing the AA level to 4. Everything else maxed on hairworks. At 8x AA performance is still good. I have to make sure the change I made before the patch is definitely off but looks good.

If my modifications before the patch are really off then this is significant. Hairworks completely on and getting decent FPS (40-60 capped at 60) on an underclocked 290x 1680x1050 resolution (Max clock 890 MHz). Tess factor has likely been reduced by default obviously. All my settings on ultra (except foliage at high and sharpening off, hardware cursor) and using HBAO+.

 

[monstercameron]

Any one care to bench this and post iq comparisons?

 

[Azix]

Safe to say hairworks is no longer the problem with this game, but yes would like to see some comparisons. Especially comment about how smooth the game is, though subjective, in comparison to before.

Saw more tearing, saw more stutter I think. How does vsync work in this game? didn't seem to do the usual 30 or 60. Also the foliage setting seems to have less effect, guessing because they stream harder now. Further away vegetation looks less there.

Mixed about this, but the hairworks change is good. Much less loss in performance with all in game settings maxed. Need to see what others get though since I never turned off the modifications to it before updating.

 

[x3sphere]

It is running well even with Hairworks on after this patch. On my 980 Ti at 3440x1440 I'm getting 45-47 FPS. HW would drop me down to the mid 30s before.

2x AA on Hairworks seems good enough at this res, I don't see a difference in PQ at 8x. I'm using the Low preset for Hairworks too, not much of a difference from High.

 

[Azix]

The AA just makes it look smoother and it does show. Not sure about the presets. I've set both max for now since my resolution is meh.

actually I take it back this is not good. patching it to work well this late, if nvidia did, is not nice at all. Damage done

 

[tviceman]

8X MSAA on the air was performance killing. Like what x3sphere said, 2X is probably good enough and will allow all that fancy free flowing hair.

 

[Azix]

Check the image below out. This is not what it was like before right? Seems we have something else to use a mod to change. Not so excited about the performance improvements now

 

[futurefields]

How are you guys liking the new mvoement mode? Does it feel more like a traditional 3rd person game now in terms of how Geralt moves around?

 

[Azix]

Seems to use less VRAM. I think I'd rather they never touched anything with graphics at this point. Why have a 4GB card if they are building for 2GB cards. Max foliage setting now seems to little effect when before it was a decent performance loss.

 

[x3sphere]

Check the image below out. This is not what it was like before right? Seems we have something else to use a mod to change. Not so excited about the performance improvements now

Here is a shot I just took:

Not too sure if it's worse than before, I'll need to play some more.

 

[Azix]

can use the below for comparisons. I'd say ultra is high now.

http://www.geforce.com/whats-new/gu...-witcher-3-wild-hunt-foliage-visibility-range

http://international.download.nvidi...y-interactive-comparison-1-ultra-vs-high.html

 

[x3sphere]

Not exactly the same spot + TOD, but here...

The detail in the distance looks about the same, I'd say. Btw, I disabled Depth of Field, noticed that was re-enabled after the patch and I prefer it off.

 

[Silverforce11]

PRed are great devs, they go above & beyond. Imagine if it was Ubisoft and even if NV gave them an updated GW library but it required them to patch their game with optional sliders, they probably wouldn't be bothered, not worth the man hours since the team would already moved onto a new project a few months after release.

As for my testing I don't notice any difference in HairWorks performance, cos I already did the .ini MSAA tweak to 2x and force tessellation to x16.

 

[RussianSensation]

PRed are great devs, they go above & beyond. Imagine if it was Ubisoft and even if NV gave them an updated GW library but it required them to patch their game with optional sliders, they probably wouldn't be bothered, not worth the man hours since the team would already moved onto a new project a few months after release.

As for my testing I don't notice any difference in HairWorks performance, cos I already did the .ini MSAA tweak to 2x and force tessellation to x16.

I respect CDPR for actually doing something about it but still it's not acceptable to have such dramatic optimizations being made months after the game was launched since many people probably spent $$$ upgrading to newer GPUs just to play this game.

x64 tessellation factor + 8xMSAA was cripple-fest level of optimization. I think CDPR just didn't have time to work with NV to optimize these aspects but I bet NV loved every minute of it since this only provided more incentive for AMD/NV users on older cards to upgrade. :hmm:

I don't know how developers think that a 7.3GB patch with sooooooo many fixes is acceptable for a $60 game. Why not delay the game 3-6 months and release a well-optimized ready game? Before Patch 1.07 even came out, the PC version already went on sale < $30. When will game developers ever learn? I am guessing never as the new trend is release an unoptimized game and then spend 3-6 months fixing it as evidence that you care. That's all find and dandy but they can't expect people to shell out $60+ for AAA PC games when we know 99% of them are broken like this.

http://www.vg247.com/2015/07/10/the-witcher-3-update-1-07/

 

[Silverforce11]

Witcher 3 on release was great, ran really well (once you tweak it), I encountered no bugs, very polished. Certainly nothing like other AAA titles, especially Ubisoft ones or Batman: AK..

A game that was very well received still getting major patches months later is a good sign RS. It means the devs care.

 

[2is]

Seems to use less VRAM. I think I'd rather they never touched anything with graphics at this point. Why have a 4GB card if they are building for 2GB cards. Max foliage setting now seems to little effect when before it was a decent performance loss.

There is a such thing as optimization. Just because they made it use less resources doesn't mean it looks any worse.

 

[Azix]

There is a such thing as optimization. Just because they made it use less resources doesn't mean it looks any worse.

If I thought it looked worse because of the Vram there would be a problem. but I noticed the VRAM difference after noticing missing foliage.

For the hairworks I really doubt the origin of the change was cdpr. They clearly already looked into making it run better and unless they missed something in the documentation, they weren't able to do it themselves.

Lets just hope the more optimized hairworks makes it into other games later on, but I would bet we'll end up with the same situation and people saying its hairworks 1.1 so it makes sense it goes back to killing PCs.

I did the AA and Tess change as well but I say its improved because I got similar results without changing those things outside of the game's options. That's something.

 

[Red Hawk]

So basically, an option that should have been in the game from the start? Not even CDPR are perfect, it seems, but good on them for putting in this option...eventually.

 

[ocre]

Geez ....

Does anyone remember gta4? After patches there were several new sliders that didn't exist when it launched. It has something to do with developers listening to feedback, that's my guess

 

[Azix]

I'm going to go ahead and assume the difference I see is just due to not paying much attention while playing. Till some analysis shows different anyway.

Geez ....

Does anyone remember gta4? After patches there were several new sliders that didn't exist when it launched. It has something to do with developers listening to feedback, that's my guess

It's not just sliders. Unless I still have the modifications on somehow, overall it runs better. I before with a normal clock GPU I was around 30 fps with just in game settings on. Now I set those new sliders to max and its still running much better. The hairworks preset setting might be low - 8x high - 16x so that max tess has been reduced.

 

[railven]

They've got the sliders in now. Lucky nvidia users. Not sure what the hairworks presets are in terms of tessellation factor if it even affects that. There's only low and High so I think the out of game modifications might still be better for some. Guessing nvidia gave them updated hairworks code

And there it is. Nothing like putting a UI menu to access ini CVARs.

Kudos Project Red, I might just go back to Witcher 3 (I really need to stop with this gaming ADHD).

 

[alcoholbob]

Edit: double post.

 

[alcoholbob]

I played at 40fps for a couple hours totally confused since I was running 60fps before 1.0.7 patch.

Then I figured it out.

Pre Patch-1.0.7: Borderless Windowed Mode would break SLI framepacing so it said 70fps but was a stuttery mess. If you turned on in-game vsync on borderless windowed mode however, you were locked at 40fps for whatever reason.

In full screen mode with SLI had screen tearing without in-game vsync but was smooth. With in-game vsync on it showed 60fps but was a stuttery mess.

So if you had a SLI setup, you ran full-screen mode with Vsync enabled in the Nvidia control panel. This was the only way to get smooth gameplay with no screen tearing.

Patch 1.0.7: Borderless Windowed is still a stuttery mess in SLI showing 70 fps. If you turn on Vsync on borderless windowed mode it now shows 60fps but is still a stuttery mess with broken frame pacing.

In fullscreen mode with Vsync enabled in the Nvidia control panel, you now are locked at 40fps. In fullscreen mode with in-game vsync it also shows 40fps. Both of these behave the same as pre-1.0.7's borderless windowed mode with in-game vsync.

You now must turn off in-game vsync, turn-off Nvidia control panel vsync, and run with a 60fps cap to get proper SLI frame pacing at a 60fps range of performance. I haven't checked to see if there is screen tearing below 50fps, but if there is, it looks like this patch basically broke SLI completely. You would no longer be able to have screen-tear free 60fps gameplay with SLI. Bleh. Gonna test some more tomorrow with higher settings to see if that is the case. If it is...I'm gonna try to find some way to roll-back to 1.0.6.