Crispy's (mostly technical) Witcher 2 Initial Impressions

[sea]

The game is highly CPU-limited, just like the first Witcher. The upside of this is an extremely consistent framerate (I always go in the range of 30-40 with no major drops or hitches to speak of), and at very high settings to boot, but the downside is that the game is never really going to run extremely smoothly unless you run it on a computer from The Future.

Quick tip about anti-aliasing in this game: it's not real AA, but MLAA, which is a shader effect that gives near 4xMSAA + transparency AA quality with absolutely zero (i.e. 1 fps or so) performance impact. Unless you are really struggling for performance, there is no reason to turn it off.

 

[Kraszu]

Quick tip about anti-aliasing in this game: it's not real AA, but MLAA, which is a shader effect that gives near 4xMSAA + transparency AA quality with absolutely zero (i.e. 1 fps or so) performance impact. Unless you are really struggling for performance, there is no reason to turn it off.

Doesn't it make everything blurry? MLAA didn't look good at all in SC2 screen shots.

 

[mikaelis]

Since we have technical topic: Is it even possible to run TWitcher 2 on some really crappy laptops in 18 - 20 fps (more or less constant)?
I have an old C2D 1.9 GHz, with 4 GB RAM and shitty for todays standards GeForce 8600M GT 512Mb. I am happy to downgrade to even 800x600 resolution and windowed mode and all settings to low as long as it works above, say, stable 18 fps.

Anyone tried with some really crappy computers?

 

[empi]

"Mostly technical", and then your post is actually entirely technical.
Could've given some impressions.
No, let's be a graphics whore instead.
Have fun fucking some e-girl, i'm sure it'll look so real you might be able to imagine yourself having sex!
Not sure if that is possible though.

Fuck you, sir.

 

[sea]

Doesn't it make everything blurry? MLAA didn't look good at all in SC2 screen shots.

I haven't seen any real evidence suggesting that MLAA makes things look blurry, though I suppose it can make scenes look slightly softer, and image quality undeniably isn't quite as good as current implementations of MSAA... but then, MLAA is also in its infancy, so I'm sure as time goes on it will improve, and it's absolutely preferable to jaggies. The main issue is that MLAA can't differentiate between, say, fonts and the 3D elements of the screen, so the HUD will end up having AA applied to it, but this really isn't an issue in The Witcher 2 given the style of the interface. Any issue with texture quality you have will likely depend far more on anisotropic filtering than it will on MLAA.

See here for more details: http://www.hardocp.com/article/2010/11/ ... q_review/9

Another advantage, I should note, is that MLAA also reduces aliasing that comes with shader techniques like HDR very, very well, again, at very low performance cost. This is something that only supersampling can handle, which is far, far more expensive than MLAA in terms of its rendering budget.

 

[a budda]

FUUUU...
in the dungeon (and temple before dragon qte) i have 5-7fps
WTF?

latest beta 275
w7
gtx460
x3 3ghz

gpu load shows 20-40%

no matter what settings or resolution or 3Don/off

what's going on?

 

[sea]

FUUUU...
in the dungeon (and temple before dragon qte) i have 5-7fps
WTF?

latest beta 275
w7
gtx460
x3 3ghz

gpu load shows 20-40%

no matter what settings or resolution or 3Don/off

what's going on?

Tried the latest beta drivers? They should fix the issue. Also, regarding the 3D Vision drivers, you'll need to fully uninstall them or avoid uninstalling them, rather than just making sure 3D effects are disabled.

 

[Kraszu]

What about difference between AMD, and Nvidia? Does Nvidia SRAA? Or does it SRAA on MLAA?

Or is there no difference because it is something else that is done by both nvidia, and amd in the same way?

 

[sea]

What about difference between AMD, and Nvidia? Does Nvidia SRAA? Or does it SRAA on MLAA?

Or is there no difference because it is something else that is done by both nvidia, and amd in the same way?

NVIDIA currently has no support for MLAA in their drivers, however it is possible for developers to implement it in their games regardless, since it is a shader post-processing effect. SRAA is exclusive to NVIDIA for now since I believe they developed it, and has both benefits and drawbacks compared to MLAA, but it has yet to appear in any drivers from them.

 

[a budda]

FUUUU...
in the dungeon (and temple before dragon qte) i have 5-7fps
WTF?

latest beta 275
w7
gtx460
x3 3ghz

gpu load shows 20-40%

no matter what settings or resolution or 3Don/off

what's going on?

Tried the latest beta drivers? They should fix the issue. Also, regarding the 3D Vision drivers, you'll need to fully uninstall them or avoid uninstalling them, rather than just making sure 3D effects are disabled.

except i have 3d monitor and glasses...
also, outside buildings it's ok

 

[AlaCarcuss]

Yeah, it's obviously heavily dependent on what you're running it on.

I'm getting 45-80 FPS @ 1920x1080 on Ultra with just ubersampling & motion blur off.

Specs:

i7 @ 4.0Ghz
6GB DDR3
2 x GTX460 1GB SLI

Ubersampling's a fucking killer - drops down to 10-20 with it on.

Not too sure what all the complaints about performance are about. Game is fucking gorgeous even on low settings and it's obviously built for current->future rigs. I'm glad they didn't try to scale it back too far at the expense of quality.

I mean, we complain when devs make compromises when porting from console - look at Crysis 2 as an example of that - so we shouldn't complain when they don't. If you want to play a modern game like this, you should have a reasonably modern gaming rig.

Personally, I'm now looking forward to the time when I can run this beauty maxed out with US on @ 120FPS.

EDIT: Ok, just read some more posts in this thread. Didn't realize some people are getting much less performance out of similar specced rigs (Crispy). Don't know what that could be.

I'm running the nVidia 270.61 drivers and havn't have to uninstall the 3D vision driver. I did however do a full system rebuild just a few days ago so that might have helped. SLI is scaling the game beautifully here, FPS cut's almost in half if I turn it off.

 

[sea]

You really might want to. I had no issues once I uninstalled the 3D drivers, but even so I still got a good 5+ fps boost from them.

 

[AlaCarcuss]

You really might want to. I had no issues once I uninstalled the 3D drivers, but even so I still got a good 5+ fps boost from them.

Ok thanks, I'll give it a try.

Haha, after my last post I went and check my bank ballance.... hmmm... anyone want a pair of GTX460's going cheap??

 

[Jaesun]

By chance anyone playing this with a NON Widescreen Monitor (Mine is native 1280 x 1024)? Does it horribly proportion the game at such a setting?

 

[Twinkle]

By chance anyone playing this with a NON Widescreen Monitor (Mine is native 1280 x 1024)? Does it horribly proportion the game at such a setting?

It's anamorphic 16:9. Prepare for huge black bars.

Doesn't it make everything blurry? MLAA didn't look good at all in SC2 screen shots.

MLAA in tWitcher is well implemented. It blurs the image somewhat but the improvement in IQ makes it a worthy addition.

 

[King Crispy]

Just what I thought would happen. Completely disable SLI in my system and I get exactly the same results.

I'm going to try reinstalling the latest beta Forceware and a reinstallation of the game.

 

[MetalCraze]

What's wrong, Crispy? Didn't you hear that TW2 is "beautifully polished"?

 

[King Crispy]

Oh, it's Polished alright.

 

[Serious_Business]

Yeah funny

This is all a bunch of women whining. If you can run the game, then you shouldn't complain

 

[AlaCarcuss]

Just what I thought would happen. Completely disable SLI in my system and I get exactly the same results.

I'm going to try reinstalling the latest beta Forceware and a reinstallation of the game.

Hmm, yeah there's definately something wrong there Crispy. SLI is scaling the game well on my 460's.

Also, just for the hell of it, I installed it on my media box which is an older conroe C2D @ 3ghz with a 4870. Gets about 40-60FPS @ 1920x1080 on medium and still looks fucking great.

 

[Jaesun]

By chance anyone playing this with a NON Widescreen Monitor (Mine is native 1280 x 1024)? Does it horribly proportion the game at such a setting?

It's anamorphic 16:9. Prepare for huge black bars.

That's not a big deal to me. Thanks!

 

[King Crispy]

SLI is scaling the game well on my 460's.

Just curious, how are you measuring this? Also, how do you measure fps?

 

[Overweight Manatee]

So, how well is this game expected to run on my pristine Q6600 (20%ish overclock) and 8800GT?

 

[a budda]

So, how well is this game expected to run on my pristine Q6600 (20%ish overclock) and 8800GT?

playable to not-bad
even on low (wth textures max though - it's not gpu consuming after all) it looks awesome
and switching on some additional options doesnt hit you badly so... i'd definitely go for it
NAOW

 

[Hegel]

Playing it on ultra with ubersampling active on a 2011 MacBook Pro with Win7 installed (the top line one, Solid disk and 8GBs of RAM). The game runs smoothly, but the resolution is pretty low (it's a 15" display).
If you're having trouble I say it's because of the lack of optimization for SLI cards.