The Witcher 3 GOTY Edition

[gerey]

According to steamdb, they added a beta branch of 1.32 version, called "classic." However, it's not public yet, they'll probably make it available when the update is released.
https://steamdb.info/app/292030/depots/?branch=classic

Good to hear they at least did something right - it will probably still break some mods, but at least more will remain functional.

 

[Arthandas]

Neither of those covers is better than the original. I'd rather see them on onlyfans than youtube...

 

[HumanTotemPole]

I know you peeps hate nice things, but I found these comparisons really.. nice. RTX on/off. Looking forward til to tomorrow!

https://twitter.com/shinobi602/status/1602362301868380179

Honestly the ray-traced stuff looks like someone cranked up the DoF and then ran the screenshots through a rustic-style instagram filter.

Maybe it comes across better in game but I wasn't impressed by the Digital Foundry comparison posted earlier either.

 

[Average Manatee]

Everything ultimately depends on how it looks in motion. Tons of modern graphical effects look good to great in still image shots but look awful in motion when you're actually trying to play the game

 

[Perkel]

it's up. 49GB. Instead of "check for updates" in GOG i had to verify for it to catch that there is update.

And yeah there is BETA channel called classic which leaves game at 1.32. That being said if you fire up old saves they will go to current version without ability to go back to old version.

I see GOG upgraded their servers. Previously i couldn't get more than 30mb/s

 

[racofer]

Good news:

Original 1.32 version is available for download in the extras.

 

[Gargaune]

Original 1.32 version is available for download in the extras.

Good move from CDPR. Gives people what they want and preempts criticism at basically bugger all cost to themselves. Also a tentative confirmation that whining works!

 

[Perkel]

yishh...

Everything on ultra+ with full raytracing @ 4k on my 3080 gives me 30-35 FPS and that's with DLSS on AUTO which probably means performance.

I thought that it was mostly raytracing that nuked performance from 90-100fps in 1.32 but i switched off RT and my FPS went to... 45-50fps.
ULTRA+ is super taxing on GPU much more so than RT.

-------------

Also i noticed things...

MSI afterburner doesn't work which probably means they ported it from DX11 to Vulcan.
constant LOD popin'
graphical glitches here and there
they reworked UI completely, it looks similar to old one but behaves a bit different
Hair works with RT looks most of the time good but at times very wrong.


Need to fiddle with Settings. Probably foliage draw distance like in vanilla is nuking everything.

Speaking of grass. Now it has actual shadows and it looks nice. Previously it was just green paste without shadows.

 

[racofer]

Stutter-fest in Novigrad. CPU usage also at least twice that of the previous version.

Interestingly, Cyberpunk also has absurd CPU usage for no good reason. I guess that's the CDPR magic at work.

 

[Perkel]

Stutter-fest in Novigrad. CPU usage also at least twice that of the previous version.

Interestingly, Cyberpunk also has absurd CPU usage for no good reason. I guess that's the CDPR magic at work.

Switch to "Ultra" it seems to be exact setting previous version used as ultra. By switching to it i went to 90-100FPS at 4k which is where my FPS was in "classik" version.

edit above: Scratch that. I had DLSS on. At Ultra game is doing 60-70fps so about 30fps less than vanilla. They did change some assets so maybe this is the hit from it, more assets in view less FPS.

switching game settings seems to be very unstable. I now tried to switch on RT and game crashed second time. First time it was when i tried switching foliage from ultra+ to lower.

I think my 3080 10GBVRAM is chocking here but i can't measure it due to no MSI afterburner and game not having any VRAM meter.

IT definitely feels "rough".

 

[Justicar]

Bad game is bad what else is new?

 

[KörangarTheMighty]

The lighting doesn't match the sky in the slightest.

So what's the scoop with this update? I don't even have a PC that could take advantage of these bells and whistles. I built this machine in 2015 specifically to play Witcher 3 vanilla, which I still haven't gotten around to yet.

 

[Perkel]

lol.

loaded game after crash set everything on rt ultra+ and now grass doesn't want to spawn

Game super CPU unoptimized. Game is completely stopped, runs in background and yet:

4 first threads are hammered often reaching 100% utilization in each.

Moreover i can reproduce crash constantly 100% of time. Just set game to ultra (non ultra+, non RT) load game and then try to switch on RT Global Illumination. Game crashes 100% of time.

 

[Perkel]

The lighting doesn't match the sky in the slightest.

So what's the scoop with this update? I don't even have a PC that could take advantage of these bells and whistles. I built this machine in 2015 specifically to play Witcher 3 vanilla, which I still haven't gotten around to yet.

IF you don't have RT hardware there is barely anything there. Upgraded textures draw distance and foliage but at cost of FPS.

 

[Arthandas]

Are you using the W3 optimized game-ready drivers released a few days ago?

 

[racofer]

lol.

loaded game after crash set everything on rt ultra+ and now grass doesn't want to spawn

Game is right now BADLY CPU optimized. Game is completely stopped and runs in background and yet:

4 first threads are hammered.

Moreover i can reproduce crash constantly 100% of time. Just set game to ultra (non ultra+, non RT) load game and then try to switch on RT Global Illumination. Game crashed 100% of time.

Running on a 9700k.
Before: in-game CPU usage 20~30% at all times
Now: alt-tabbing out of the game and CPU getting hammered at ~80% usage. In-game spikes of up to 95% usage, and it seems to go higher the longer the game is running

This is Cyberpunk levels of bad.

Also, if you check the install folder, you have under /bin two folders:

• x64
• x64_dx12

The new version, by default, uses the dx12 version. You scan still run the dx11 version which is under the x64 folder. Not DLSS/FSR nor RT available there, and it performs a bit better. Still, the CPU usage is still abysmally bad.

 

[Average Manatee]

Looks like they definitely put their cyberpunk coders to work on this.

 

[Perkel]

Looks like they definitely put their cyberpunk coders to work on this.

I think it is done by russian outside studio.


There is huge difference between RT and non RT when it comes to shadows:

RT

Non-RT

Are you using the W3 optimized game-ready drivers released a few days ago?

yes, i double checked because i thought this might be the cause.

 

[Wunderbar]

Looks like they definitely put their cyberpunk coders to work on this.

It was i think done by russian outside studio.

Saber was originally hired to handle the remaster (they did a pretty decent Switch port before), but CDPR have cancelled the contract back in April and made this update by themselves.

 

[razvedchiki]

do you re-download another 50gb if you revert back to 1.32 classic?

 

[racofer]

Looks like they definitely put their cyberpunk coders to work on this.

It was i think done by russian outside studio.

Saber was originally hired to handle the remaster, but CDPR have cancelled the contract back in April and made this update by themselves.

They wanted to ensure it would be as good as Cyberpunk it seems.

do you re-download another 50gb if you revert back to 1.32 classic?

It's a 33GB download. I've just done that, this new version is dogshit unless they make some patches to fix CPU usage.

 

[Great Deceiver]

Wish there was a mute music button. There doesn't need to be music in the open world all the time. Would like to toggle it easily, like the HUD with the Home button (which I'm using to spare my OLED).

Really, don't sweat it. You watch a lot of movies, regular content cycling will avoid any burn-in whatsoever, along with the panel's built-in features, including pixel shift, smart logo brightness reduction, panel refresh every X hours on power cycle, etc. My own OLED (LG CX) has seen very heavy use since I got it a couple years ago (6681 hours according to the menu) as my single home display (heavy computer use mostly, a lot of games - mostly old ones through emulation - but lots of films too). I used to take greater care like running my browser fullscreen to hide the tabs, etc. but I haven't bothered with that shit for a long time.

Zero burn-in issues. Literally zero. For someone who used to have a plasma panel, all this hysteria about burn-in on OLEDs is completely incomprehensible now. It's a non-issue.

 

[razvedchiki]

this is retarded as usual, 50 gigs for newversion and another 33 to go back to what you had!

 

[racofer]

Guess what: the links for the classic offline installers are broken and unavailable.

 

[Great Deceiver]

It would be grand if they charged for this shit update. *chef's kiss* Opportunity lost!