Stuttering and overall disapointment

[VickerC]

Take a look at this, it helped me a lot: http://www.pcgamer.com/durantes-witcher-3-analysis-the-alchemy-of-smoothness/

Helped. GTX 680 SLI. Locked at 50, no more stuttering. The stutter happened when the framerate dropped below the in-game setting. Not anymore.
Cheers

 

[skywalker991]

No. But you're not the first i5 user that complains about stuttering..

still can't get what your point is... are you saying we should all get i7 because it solves all problems in games

---------- Updated at 10:20 PM ----------

Well, if your rig can handle beyond 50 fps (min), then of course you can lock it on 100 fps, just make sure it's the minimum you get in the game.

I don't know if that's the case, but following that article above, I also enabled Vsync and Triple-Buffering on Nvidia Control Panel and set the game to borderless window mode, maybe this helped RivaTuner to stabilize frametime and eliminate stutterings for me.

mate, W3 fps fluctuates like crazy going anything from 60fps (which is ridiculously low for my rig) to 30fps. Are you telling me I should set min. fps to 30? ...because I'm not going to do that.
As I said limiting fps does NOT resolve the problem it's just masking it. I tried it.

---------- Updated at 10:32 PM ----------

I don't understand how people with rigs almost two times better than mine get so much stuttering. FFS, I have an i7 920 OC at 3 ghz, 6 GB or RAM and a R9 280 and in Novigrad I have no stutter at all. The only moment I stutter is the first 4-5 minutes after loading a save for the first time. After that, no stutter at all if not when traveling a new map in the very beginning (usually it does sort of a huge stutter in the very beginning and after it goes smooth from then on).

How can you people with 16 GB or RAM, SLI and a CPU a generation above mine stutter so much is beyond me. I'm sorry but I find it really hard to believe that this has nothing to do with the configuration of your system at all. The only way I can have constant stutter is if I load programs in the background, then yes, I will get the game to stutter myself all the time; but if I had a system like yours? Probably neither then!

P.S: For the guy that said that there's difference between 60 and 100 fps: sure, you are right and optical measurements are a lie. I'm sorry to say it to you but it's all placebo. If the frame rate is smooth (i.e. no spikes) your eyes will never register a difference between 60 fixed FPS and 100. If they do is because you have spikes (that lowers the fluidity). So, it is actually better to have constant 50 FPS than 100 FPS in spikes going up and down. "Average" FPS is an overrated factor to really understand how smooth your gaming experience is. If I had to choose between 30 FPS constant and 60 average FPS (the "average" obtained with great variance in spikes) I would choose the former in a blink of an eye.

it's simple, the game is badly polished / optimized. Well optimised / polished game needs to handle all sort of configurations (not just different gpus).

In regards to 60/100fps argument. Have you actually properly played a fast paced game on 144hz monitor & 100fps+ - I bet you didn't. You've just read a lot of articles / comments. And why are you bringing spikes to the "table"..I've never mentioned spikes. constant 100fps on 100hz montior beats 60fps on 60hz monitor - full stop.

---------- Updated at 10:37 PM ----------

Helped. GTX 680 SLI. Locked at 50, no more stuttering. The stutter happened when the framerate dropped below the in-game setting. Not anymore.
Cheers

As I said before, it does NOT resolve the problem. There is still stuttering (at least on my screen), a bit less but still there, not to mention that locking to a min. fps isn't a greatest of ideas anyway - especially considering that the game's fps fluctuates like hell. I may as well get an xbox one and play in 30fps or whatever console guys playing

 

[eskiMoe]

still can't get what your point is... are you saying we should all get i7 because it solves all problems in games

Nope. Much depends on your graphics settings and resolution and whether you use vsync to lock frame rates etc. Hyperthreading is pretty much useless in the majority of games right now. Although, in The Witcher 3, the difference between the min FPS between 4690K and 4790k is over 20fps at times.

And I don't really recall FX 8350 beating 4690K before. The game seems to love multiple cores/threads. Having an i7 definitely helps in this game.

 

[skywalker991]

Nope. Much depends on your graphics settings and resolution and whether you use vsync to lock frame rates etc. Hyperthreading is pretty much useless in the majority of games right now. Although, in The Witcher 3, the difference between the min FPS between 4690K and 4790k is over 20fps at times.

And I don't really recall FX 8350 beating 4690K before. The game seems to love multiple cores/threads. Having an i7 definitely helps in this game.

Not saying it doesn't. What I do say is that the game should run more than fine on i5 and that I'm not going to run to the shop to get i7 just because devs didn't bother to optimise the game.

 

[sonycman]

between 4690K and 4790k is over 20fps at times

There is a 500 MHz difference in frequency between them.

 

[eskiMoe]

Not saying it doesn't. What I do say is that the game should run more than fine on i5 and that I'm not going to run to the shop to get i7 just because devs didn't bother to optimise the game.

The game scales up to 12 threads. And I'm seeing 80-90% usage on my 8 threads in Novigrad. I don't really see this as bad optimization. Quite the contrary.

There is a 500 MHz difference in frequency between them.

Overclocking to similar clock speeds might gain you a few frames, But +20? Nope.

 

[skywalker991]

The game scales up to 12 threads. And I'm seeing 80-90% usage on my 8 threads in Novigrad. I don't really see this as bad optimization. Quite the contrary.

Overclocking to similar clock speeds might gain you a few frames, But +20? Nope.

I (as many others) have 100% of cpu use when I play "dust an elysian tale" 2d platformer - but it doesn't mean it's well optimised.
I stand by my point i- the game should play extremely well on i5 (since it's still high end cpu) - as it stands it does not. for many at least.

 

[eskiMoe]

Then you should probably try locking your frame rate and possibly reduce the number of background characters and see if there's any difference. And make sure you have the game on high priority in task manager.

 

[skywalker991]

Then you should probably try locking your frame rate and possibly reduce the number of background characters and see if there's any difference. And make sure you have the game on high priority in task manager.

Tried all these tricks...no difference.
Running the game on "low" makes no difference either. Still stuttering feast. Not to mention subpar graphics even on "high" but I can live with that as long as it's smooth.

---------- Updated at 11:42 PM ----------

tbh, if it was any other game I would uninstall it after 5 min and never come back to it. Daylight robbery if you paid full price btw - like buying a broken gpu at full price at the release date, not able to play it for 6months+ and get it repaired after that just to realise that a) you wasted a lot of your time to get it fixed b) your gpu costs half the price you paid. Anyway, but because it's the Witcher I will give it another chance...as in I'll wait 6 months before I re-install to check again if it's playable. And I'm not going to play with options for hours...because why should I!? On my rig it should be buttery smooth, 70fps+ experience on ultra (well maybe hairworks off ).
CDPR has seriously damaged my hopes with devs and games in general. I've been a gamer for a while but I'm really fed up with these broken games these days. It's just waste of my time - I just want to know when a game is ready to play. Certainly not at the release date. Absolute shambles. Shame on you CDPR.

 

[eskiMoe]

See, fucking 3 FPS difference

Graphics = medium. That also means that there are far less background characters vs maximum setting, which means far less workload for the CPU. And no, even overclocking to the same clock speed won't close that gap. Also, which area was that benchmark sheet taken from? We all know that areas beyond cities won't tax your CPU that much so the differences are minimal there. Cities are the exact opposite.

For the most part, The Witcher 3 is extremely well optimised and runs well with virtually any decent CPU. The first section of the video demonstrates how the same CPU can still drive the Titan X to almost the same degree.

But once we hit 01:12 - a tour of Novigrad City on horseback... well, then we see some big changes. This area can hit 80% utilisation across all eight threads on a Core i7 4790K! The less powerful the CPU here, the more CPU stutter you encounter. The G3258 - overclocked to 4.5GHz - doesn't work out too well.

Also, check out the performance of the FX-6300 and FX-8350 starting from 01:26. In the initial cut-scenes they fall a little short of the Core i3 and i5, but once we hit the heavy Novigrad area, they compete very nicely - the FX 6300 moves ahead of the i3, while the FX 8350 is very close to the 4690K.

So, is this CPU stutter found in the Novigrad stress test a cause for concern? Well, not really. Most in-game stutter is caused when the CPU - not the GPU - is the bottleneck (and that's what we are testing here). As long as you pair your more budget-orientated CPU with an appropriate GPU, you'll hit the GPU limit first - and typically that doesn't cause stutter. And in the case of The Witcher 3, most of the game is GPU-limited (as seen in the first couple of cut-scenes tested here). With that final stress test scene, you'll note that the 4790K is well-matched with the Titan X, the CPU isn't really the bottleneck and thus the latencies are much more consistent.

Across all three scenes, the benchmarks work out as follows (low/avg) but do check out the CPU stress test scene to get a better idea of latency and performance under load. A benchmark sums up performance with a single number, but real-life can be a bit more complicated than that:

So basically, if you are encountering stutter in the game, it's most likely due to CPU bottleneck. i5 & GTX 970 sli are ill matched in this game. Or so it seems.

Also, I tested this myself and having those 4 extra CPU threads do make a difference.

 

[ViniciusBorges]

mate, W3 fps fluctuates like crazy going anything from 60fps (which is ridiculously low for my rig) to 30fps. Are you telling me I should set min. fps to 30? ...because I'm not going to do that.
As I said limiting fps does NOT resolve the problem it's just masking it. I tried it.

I disagree, it doesn't oscillates that much for me. In fact, I found this game to be stable in terms of performance considering it's open world.

But, if that's your case, then indeed locking on 30 would be a bad idea.

 

[PrincessMassacre]

who runs i3 with a titan x? nobody... cpu bottleneck was relevant with DX9, not so much with DX11.

 

[Galandil]

I can confirm too that TW3 in certain areas is more CPU-bound than other games. My rig is an i7 4790k, 16GB ram (Gskill Ares@2400MHz), GTX970 (Gigabyte G1) and with everything set at Ultra (except Shadows at High, since I can't see any real diff between High and Ultra, and no hairworks) I have constant 60fps with no stuttering at all in all of Novigrad.

The only times in the game that I dip under 60fps (but always more than 50) is in particularly foliage heavy zones, due to the GPU.

So OP, I guess it's time to upgrade to an i7.

 

[PrincessMassacre]

I have I5 3570k overclocked to 4.7

really? you say you have issues... anyways, it's your nvidia card/drivers most likely. runs fine on stock 3570k.

 

[RedBehrend]

Modern CPU's have a bottleneck in video games? News to me....

 

[lordwarpgun]

a strange decision from cpr, i5 is the most popular cpu for gamers why not optimize for it?
i7 is more common setup for productive/video editing/3D pc-machines
it does not matter u can run with 4 titans with low settings and still get shitty performance in novigrad.
we can only pray for a patch.

 

[skywalker991]

I disagree, it doesn't oscillates that much for me. In fact, I found this game to be stable in terms of performance considering it's open world.

But, if that's your case, then indeed locking on 30 would be a bad idea.

I think it's fair to say that the game is all over the place from a technical point of view. It's fine for you it's broken for me. That should not be the case when you release a quality product to the market. Isolated issues will always be the case but looking at forums issues with W3 are very common.

---------- Updated at 08:28 AM ----------

really? you say you have issues... anyways, it's your nvidia card/drivers most likely. runs fine on stock 3570k.

what do you mean? I have the latest ones installed

I reckon the game is sensitive to "something" - and it shouldn't be for goodness sake. Otherwise it should have been released as a console exclusive if it doesn't like too many software / hardware variables

 

[eskiMoe]

a strange decision from cpr, i5 is the most popular cpu for gamers why not optimize for it?

Multiplatform development. Unlike the majority of gaming PCs out there that have fewer, faster cores, it's the opposite on PS4/X1 and their 8 core AMD CPUs. Actually on the PC side, the people with 6-8 core AMD CPUs are the real winners here. 4690K costs roughly 100€ more than the FX8350 yet both offer very similar performance in the game.

Otherwise it should have been released as a console exclusive if it doesn't like too many software / hardware variables

Well that's just silly.

 

[skywalker991]

a strange decision from cpr, i5 is the most popular cpu for gamers why not optimize for it?
i7 is more common setup for productive/video editing/3D pc-machines
it does not matter u can run with 4 titans with low settings and still get shitty performance in novigrad.
we can only pray for a patch.

I absolutely do not believe that the technical issues in the W3 (stuttering, poor framerate) should be blamed on CPU (unless you have something less than i3 and want to run ultra). Poor coding and lack of optimisation from devs (not necessarily cpu optimisation) - yes but not CPU
When I was building my gaming PC last year, spending money on i7 was a) a sign of madness b) a sign of having more money than a brain. Now after a year I still think the same. I spent a lot of money on my PC but one thing I promised myself not to do is to spend money to make up devs incompetence. If devs can't be bothered to release a polished game free of technical issues why should I bother to invest my time / money in the game. I won't. It's a competitive market and there are plenty of others.
Let's be clear here: i5 and gtx970 sli, 8gb ram, ssd SHOULD BE enough to run W3 smoothly 60fps+ . It should really run the game at around 100fps min judging by the quality of graphics - which let's be honest isn't anything special.

---------- Updated at 08:56 AM ----------

Multiplatform development. Unlike the majority of gaming PCs out there that have fewer, faster cores, it's the opposite on PS4/X1 and their 8 core AMD CPUs. Actually on the PC side, the people with 6-8 core AMD CPUs are the real winners here. 4690K costs roughly 100€ more than the FX8350 yet both offer very similar performance in the game.


Well that's just silly.

what's is silly? the fact that so many people have issues dealing with this broken at the release game? The game has been just released and we already have a few patches (including day 1 which is complete bonkers to me - the fact that a game needs to be patched at day 1 isn't a good sign). and more coming because patches are done quickly, fixing one thing and braking other things. If they (devs) can't pull they weight and release a quality product for PC they should stick to consoles - apparently it's easier to develop a game.

 

[mcpartyson]

This is just more evidence that CDPR did a poor job porting the game. Come on? Not optimizing for a 4 core processor. Just lazy. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out the majority of systems are 4 cores these days. The consoles are just a glorified laptop and they run 20-30 fps.

And what about the lack of VRAM consumption? Is that normal? I don't think so. There's VRAM there, use it, damn it. I don't have crappy laptop hardware, I got a real machine.

Now, take a look at GTA V. Compare how that game runs on a x1/ps4 vs a lower-mid-range-PC.

PS4/X1 runs GTA V at 30fps with reported framerate stuttering/frame drops

Let's take my rig. i5-3570k @ 4.5 8g ram gtx 670 - runs at constant 60fps at high settings, no stutters, no drops, perfect. The game uses my machine, it uses my vram, it's a great port.

My rig runs Witcher 3 @ 30fps with high settings and a mix of post-processing. It could go a little higher sometimes, but I keep it locked at 30 because it just looks awful otherwise. Camera stutter is still present at 30fps for me.

This game is not optimized. It's been the opinion of many reputable gaming publications that it's not optimized