The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

[amorenod]

13 minutes ago, cavalcade said:

Does anyone know - can the PS4 disk version have the next gen update applied but remain installed on an external USB drive (rather than on the SSD)?

 

The PS5 version is not an update, is a separate game, which keeps the PS4 version installed. Anyway, as a PS5 game, the usual rules apply, you can keep it on a external USB drive, but to play it, you have to copy it to an internal drive.

[Thor]

Well, it's not running the best on my 2080ti, but it looks fantastic. 

[Isaac]

3 hours ago, Benny said:

They also didn't really put two and two together about the fact that the game now has things like higher resolution textures and that added as standard, so those various upgrades could explain why performance has taken a bit of a hit compared to the benchmarks they said they ran on a 3070 on the game back when 3070s were out. They also didn't compare like for like, as the CPU in the old benchmark machine could well have been better, which would explain why the guy who said they had 5-10fps less on their 3070 than the old benchmark.

 

The whole video just came across really weird and shoddy, saying "this update is disappointing!" without actually either exploring why that might be the case, or actually listing the detailed specs of the machines they are comparing and using like for like examples. Otherwise it's kind of content poor and doesn't tell the viewer much. Just oddly clickbaity.

 

I'm not even defending CDPR, but it's frustrating that it doesn't seem to be trying to actually be useful like DF generally do. (Despite their other problems)

 

Apparently it runs badly because they have hacked it a bit:

 

 

They haven't recompiled the game to run on DX12, they are running it in a wrapper. Which is absolutely tanking performance.

 

Understandable for a free update but still, a proper port to DX12 would run significantly better. It's why it doesn't look that fantastic but rinses a 3080. It runs worse than Cyberpunk despite looking nowhere near as impressive.

 

[Benny]

 

Good job CDPR!

 

That explains why people are saying it's fine if you run it in DX11.

[Thor]

But in DX11 you don't get the RT stuff. 

[Colonel Panic]

You can still tell the D3D11On12 driver to do D3D12 stuff. 

[bumgut]

I have previously bought W3 and the 2 expansion packs separately years ago on a US PSN account.

 

I got the base W3 PS5 app  running, but it doesn't let me download the expansion packs or free extras?

 

Any advice?

[PikaStu]

It’s my first time playing this… the main character controls are a bit “clunky”. After getting accustomed to the lovely flowing combat in the LotR games, Batman Arkham series and then Sekiro and Elden Ring, controlling Geralt is like controlling the bloke in GTA4 after he’s been to the pub.

I do really like the world though, I lost a good few hours yesterday just wandering around and doing side missions. It’s beautiful, even without the RT bling.

[JoeK]

6 minutes ago, PikaStu said:

It’s my first time playing this… the main character controls are a bit “clunky”. After getting accustomed to the lovely flowing combat in the LotR games, Batman Arkham series and then Sekiro and Elden Ring, controlling Geralt is like controlling the bloke in GTA4 after he’s been to the pub.

I do really like the world though, I lost a good few hours yesterday just wandering around and doing side missions. It’s beautiful, even without the RT bling.

 

Think yourself lucky - they have actually improved the controls a little bit since release . There's a little bit more sensitivity in the transitions between walk and run now!

 

You get used to it...

[Luseth]

Just put this on to download, I also have only 1 trophy to platinum on the ps4 version so I am going to see if my old save is there and do that first, get a feel for the game and then play the PS5 version as hopefully the differences should be much more noticeable now than having not played it for years.

 

Quite looking forward to playing this again

[PikaStu]

9 minutes ago, JoeK said:

 

Think yourself lucky - they have actually improved the controls a little bit since release . There's a little bit more sensitivity in the transitions between walk and run now!

 

You get used to it...

It’s funny, when I started Elden Ring back at launch, it was my first From game and I found the controls kinda weird to adapt to.

These days I wonder why not everyone is using that layout!

[Chadruharazzeb]

Minor annoyance - holding the option button used to shortcut to the map, now it seems to bring up the inventory screen. 

[K]

So is this another Cyberpunk 2077-style disaster, or were the Metro just talking nonsense?

[Thor]

1 hour ago, K said:

or were the Metro just talking nonsense?

I find they're always talking nonsense. But this does appear to be the reverse situation of the CP launch, whereby this time it's the console versions that are fine (I think) and the PC version is having serious issues. Mind you, for me it looks great and plays well enough on my PC at 1440p and Performance mode. 

[Vulgar Monkey]

I'm curious to try DX11 now and see what the performance difference is, since I did notice the cpu was doing more of the lifting than usual (any other game I've played so far, in fact).

 

I wasnt using RT anyway, so am I right in thinking there arent many other benefits from DX12?

[Eighthours]

9 hours ago, Isaac said:

 

Apparently it runs badly because they have hacked it a bit:

 

 

They haven't recompiled the game to run on DX12, they are running it in a wrapper. Which is absolutely tanking performance.

 

Understandable for a free update but still, a proper port to DX12 would run significantly better. It's why it doesn't look that fantastic but rinses a 3080. It runs worse than Cyberpunk despite looking nowhere near as impressive.

 

 

Surely professional developers should know that hobbyists will find this stuff out in a nanosecond. Do they just hide it from the leadership team?

[Matt Defis]

It's really weird, I'm on a 3070ti and with everything set to ultra+ it runs fine at about 70FPS for an hour or so but then the FPS just tanks especially at night down to 10-20FPS, suggests a memory leak.

 

Anyone got any advice?

[Gabe]

9 minutes ago, Matt Defis said:

It's really weird, I'm on a 3070ti and with everything set to ultra+ it runs fine at about 70FPS for an hour or so but then the FPS just tanks especially at night down to 10-20FPS, suggests a memory leak.

 

Anyone got any advice?

Just play it during the day?

 

[Vulgar Monkey]

Huh, I hadnt gotten as far as nightfall yet. Sometimes nights are worse in games generally due to lighting differences, especially in populated areas with lots of fires/lamps etc (RDR2 being a good example of this).

 

That said, I did also see a random video yesterday suggesting the presence of what they called fps 'decay' - not sure what they meant by that exactly or if there's a distinction, but it does sound similar to ye ol memory leak.

[dataDave]

I’m only 10mins into restoring my 1.32/1.31 installation and it’s already looking 19x better than the update. 90-120FPS is nice to have back as well.

[Chadruharazzeb]

This thread is a fine cure for insomnia. 

[Vulgar Monkey]

Might end up being a 'recommended mods' list at this rate.

[Benny]

We need a mod for the update so that you can use your mods in a mod.

[Isaac]

I think on PC at least this is one to come back to after a few patches.

[Rob Rymond]

I'm a bit annoyed that the trophies don't transfer over as I wanted to continue my current list. Not sure I fancy another playthrough, I don't have the time. I suppose I could just run through the expansions on the PS5 version though.

[Matt Defis]

3 hours ago, Gabe said:

Just play it during the day?

 

 

Very clever. 

[Sumire]

7 hours ago, Matt Defis said:

It's really weird, I'm on a 3070ti and with everything set to ultra+ it runs fine at about 70FPS for an hour or so but then the FPS just tanks especially at night down to 10-20FPS, suggests a memory leak.

 

Anyone got any advice?

What resolution though, and obviously no raytracing

[Matt Defis]

1440 and turning off RT or lowering settings doesn't do anything to help, only thing seems to be rebooting every hour which isn't that bad. It just seems a bit odd that it runs smooth as silk and it's not as if it's a slow degradation, it just goes off a cliff from 70FPS down to 10 and out just stays there. 

 

All that stuff does point to a massive memory leak but i have 16Gb of fast RAM and 49Gb of virtual RAM on my game SSD so it really shouldn't be happening. 

[Sumire]

11 minutes ago, Matt Defis said:

1440 and turning off RT or lowering settings doesn't do anything to help, only thing seems to be rebooting every hour which isn't that bad. It just seems a bit odd that it runs smooth as silk and it's not as if it's a slow degradation, it just goes off a cliff from 70FPS down to 10 and out just stays there. 

 

All that stuff does point to a massive memory leak but i have 16Gb of fast RAM and 49Gb of virtual RAM on my game SSD so it really shouldn't be happening. 

 

Yeah thats odd. I initially had problems even turning raytracing on as it would crash the game completely. It seems to have revolved now after saving the game in a different location. I did notice even turning various raytracing options on and off made no difference to the framerate, ether every option on, or just one of the options, surely that cannot be right?

 

[Vulgar Monkey]

Hrmm, CDPR deliberately talking around the issue a bit if you ask me.

 

https://www.eurogamer.net/cd-projekt-aware-of-the-issues-plaguing-the-witcher-3s-long-awaited-update-on-pc

 

Might just be damage control while they get a handle on things, but I do hope it doesnt signal an intent to just ignore the wider performance issue re their dx12 implementation.

 

...

 

Anyway, I unlocked other areas yesterday so had a bit of a test ride around comparing dx11/12. I'm locked to 60 so assess things based more on power draw than max fps, but on balance dx12 with rt off and dlss on seems fairly similar to dx11 with TAAU on. Any savings from dlss seem to be offset by the cpu cost of running everything through the dx wrapper.

 

Otherwise, dx11 seems fine*....TAAU isnt quite as nice as DLSS but is close enough; FXAA really struggles with all the busy details, and I forget if I've tried 'off'. Might try off with MSAA forced via the nvidea control panel and see how that keeps up out of sheer curiosity.

 

(disclaimer - not been to the big cities yet - I forgot the old 'closed bridge' thing used to be common in these games)

 

Mainly though it just makes you wonder what potential savings have been left on the table.