Got very busy with work so I haven't had much time to put into the game yet, but here are some early thoughts:
I'm disappointed. It's not that the game looks bad, it's actually quite gorgeous. The problem, as seems to be a continuing pattern with new games in the past year or so, is with its performance. And please remember, this is intended to be mostly a technical mini-review so looks and performance are all I'm going to concentrate on much and are all that I have to go on for my initial comments so far.
The Witcher 2, just like with Fallout New Vegas and quite a few other titles that've been released relatively recently, is running like shit, insert obligatory "at least on my rig" qualifier here. Even running at the Low detail preset, my system (specs below for the curious) only manages around 35fps average with it. This is with SLI enabled and being reported as working. Granted, I'm running at 1920x1200 but antialiasing at that detail level is completely off, draw distances are choked way back, and most of the "advanced" graphical features are disabled. You would think one could start there and build back up to discover the performance-kliling culprit, but when you only gain 3-4 fps by dropping from High or Medium down to Low, it's pretty clear something's going on. Tried latest WHQL Forceware and new Beta, no difference, BTW, different compatibility bits suggestions, etc.
Some online investigation points out that many other people are complaining about the same no SLI scaling/support issue, so it looks like more waiting until CDProjekt Red patches their new engine to properly support it, or Nvidia does their thing in Forceware. Sigh. It seems like this same kind of thing is happening more and more -- NFS Shift 2 Unleashed had exactly the same problem as did quite a few other supposedly A titles. They either get fixed or they don't.
So I don't have a lot to comment on other than the potential once the performance problem is worked out, and I have to say that I'm excited about just that. While I personally don't like Geralt's new appearance much, from his very different voice to his walking/running animations and so forth, overall, the game is very attractive. There is still some cleanup work to do, such as floating water textures above the ground and various other nitpicky items, but it's clear that this is the most attractive RPG to hit the shelves in quite a while, from a next gen 3D perspective. I love all the effects that are going on, the audio is great so far, and Triss's tits are modeled exquisitely.
Once I can enjoy all this at something resembling a decent framerate, I'll be able to actually dig into the game itself. Until then, and rage at this as hard as you want, I'll probably wait. After all, with this much work going into the game's visuals, I've got to do it justice. Right?
Oh, and before I forget: the black bars when running a 16:10 LCD?
What's wrong, Pollacks? Not enough potato to afford better monitors?
----
Core 2 Quad Q6600 @ 3.4GHz
2 x EVGA GTX460 1GB SLI
8GB PC2-6400 DDR2 5-5-5-15
2 x WD Raptor RAID0
Win7 Home Premium 64-bit
I'm disappointed. It's not that the game looks bad, it's actually quite gorgeous. The problem, as seems to be a continuing pattern with new games in the past year or so, is with its performance. And please remember, this is intended to be mostly a technical mini-review so looks and performance are all I'm going to concentrate on much and are all that I have to go on for my initial comments so far.
The Witcher 2, just like with Fallout New Vegas and quite a few other titles that've been released relatively recently, is running like shit, insert obligatory "at least on my rig" qualifier here. Even running at the Low detail preset, my system (specs below for the curious) only manages around 35fps average with it. This is with SLI enabled and being reported as working. Granted, I'm running at 1920x1200 but antialiasing at that detail level is completely off, draw distances are choked way back, and most of the "advanced" graphical features are disabled. You would think one could start there and build back up to discover the performance-kliling culprit, but when you only gain 3-4 fps by dropping from High or Medium down to Low, it's pretty clear something's going on. Tried latest WHQL Forceware and new Beta, no difference, BTW, different compatibility bits suggestions, etc.
Some online investigation points out that many other people are complaining about the same no SLI scaling/support issue, so it looks like more waiting until CDProjekt Red patches their new engine to properly support it, or Nvidia does their thing in Forceware. Sigh. It seems like this same kind of thing is happening more and more -- NFS Shift 2 Unleashed had exactly the same problem as did quite a few other supposedly A titles. They either get fixed or they don't.
So I don't have a lot to comment on other than the potential once the performance problem is worked out, and I have to say that I'm excited about just that. While I personally don't like Geralt's new appearance much, from his very different voice to his walking/running animations and so forth, overall, the game is very attractive. There is still some cleanup work to do, such as floating water textures above the ground and various other nitpicky items, but it's clear that this is the most attractive RPG to hit the shelves in quite a while, from a next gen 3D perspective. I love all the effects that are going on, the audio is great so far, and Triss's tits are modeled exquisitely.
Once I can enjoy all this at something resembling a decent framerate, I'll be able to actually dig into the game itself. Until then, and rage at this as hard as you want, I'll probably wait. After all, with this much work going into the game's visuals, I've got to do it justice. Right?
Oh, and before I forget: the black bars when running a 16:10 LCD?
What's wrong, Pollacks? Not enough potato to afford better monitors?----
Core 2 Quad Q6600 @ 3.4GHz
2 x EVGA GTX460 1GB SLI
8GB PC2-6400 DDR2 5-5-5-15
2 x WD Raptor RAID0
Win7 Home Premium 64-bit
