Getting beyond frustrated with crashing.

+
Getting beyond frustrated with crashing.

I have been plagued by crashing since Witcher 3's release. I've researched this topic plenty, I've tried all the supposed solutions and can't fix my problem. I have a factory overclocked GTX 970 that I have never had any issues with in any other game I have played. I have removed the overclock, clean install drivers, rolled back to old drivers, and I've done all the little graphical tweaks that have supposedly stopped the crashing for others. What happens is, the screen freezes and/or goes black...I can still hear the game sound. I notice my gtx 970's clock speeds drop to 540 mhz and will stay at this speed until I reboot my PC. When the clocks speeds are this low, it's the only time I can play the game without crashing. Obviously, trying to play the game with such low clock speeds isn't an ideal experience, but it's still better than crashing every ten minutes. I'm reluctant to believe this is something on my end, I hear A LOT of people with 970's are having problems with crashing in this game. Is there anything I can do? Has someone had a similar problem? I'm getting really sick of playing this game with my GPU running at literally half its clock speeds...but it's the only way I've found to get the crashing to stop.
 
Um maybe give us your full specs? Sounds like it's not you gpu but something else or you're pushing the gpu too hard.
 
i7 3770 processor, 8 GB raam-- I meet and surpass all the recommended requirements for this game. I've ran graphically intensive titles like Shadow of Mordor and Total War: Attila with no issues at all. I realize Witcher 3 is probably more graphically intensive than both of those games, but I'm not even running the game on max settings. I have everything set to High with Nvidia Hairworks on.
 
Just out of curiosity are you running the game on an SSD or a mechanical harddrive?

Also this problem isnt isolated to you. I have a 680 SLI setup and sometimes i can play 10 hours with no crashes and other times i crash every 5 minutes

whats interesting is lately ive been noticing these hard stutters where the game goes blurry and everything stops (also my GPU's clock speeds plummet) but the game ultimately recovers. These stutters last about 2-3 seconds. However most of the time the game just crashes.
 
What brand is your 970?
I'm just curious because like 9 of 10 times someone posts GFX trouble on these forums, an EVGA card is involved. XD

I'm using 2x MSI Gaming 4G GTX 970 in SLI. Apart from the screen-freeze-audio-goes-on issue wich was fixed in the early patches i had no problems at all with crashing. People are quick to point fingers at the 970 cards these days but my own experience with the SLI setup has been nothing but brilliant so far.

If you want serious help you gotta post your complete and detailed system specs.
Just saying "I dont need to post specs because game XYZ runs good too" is utterly useless.
 
What brand is your 970?
I'm just curious because like 9 of 10 times someone posts GFX trouble on these forums, an EVGA card is involved. XD

I'm using 2x MSI Gaming 4G GTX 970 in SLI. Apart from the screen-freeze-audio-goes-on issue wich was fixed in the early patches i had no problems at all with crashing. People are quick to point fingers at the 970 cards these days but my own experience with the SLI setup has been nothing but brilliant so far.

If you want serious help you gotta post your complete and detailed system specs.
Just saying "I dont need to post specs because game XYZ runs good too" is utterly useless.

is your game installed on an SSD?
 
If you want serious help you gotta post your complete and detailed specs. Just saying "I dont need to post specs because game XYZ runs good too" is utterly useless.

Um, those weren't even close to my words. I was simply responding to someone that suggested I may be overworking my GPU, which I don't believe is the case since I've ran plenty of other demanding games without issue. However, I see what you're trying to say. Regardless, I may have solved my issue...I've been free of crashes for a whole day, a first since I've purchased this game.
 
Last edited:
At times I also get frustrated. I had several crashes of the bloody Nvidia drivers tonight. They should really get their act together and provide us with a working driver after all those buggy ones.
For me it usually crashes during cutscenes and so far I got past on the second or third attempt. Then it'll be fine for a couple of days without incidents.
 
4 weeks with a game that just can't get past the cutscene after the bedroom at the very start. Tried almost everything i've found on the web but nothing.
Display driver has stopped working and has recovered etc.
Fresh windows install, clean amd driver install, underclock the gpu (worked for witcher 2) but still nothing.
The game runs great when i'm walking about in the bedroom and balcony. Left the game running there for 30 min with no problem but if i talked to Yennefer the game freezes
 
I'll join this thread instead of joining another, I get the exact same issue on an ASUS Geforce GTX 970, 32 Gb RAM on a "normal! 1 Tb HDD (no SSD) running on an i7/3.5 GhZ CPU.

I had *zero* issues with the game on my old ASUS Geforce GTX 750 Ti, which I had set to a mix of high/Ultra and no hairworks, and on which I finished my first playthrough. I was actually impressed with how smoothly everything ran even on that card.
I swapped to the 970 Thursday, June 11th, and I cranked everything to the max, bar crowds, which were set to high
For me the fun started with installing patch 1.06 - I am having the exact same issue as GAR1234 - random, complete freezes which can't be solved other than with a hard boot. I turned off HairFX, and that gave me a while of stability, until the fun started again just now when I Fast Traveled to go get Uma in my second playthrough, and the same crap again.
Loading from a manual save after the crash did not help either, it crashed three minutes of motion (riding roach through Oxenfurt) and I rebooted again.
What gave me the mentioned while of stability was this:
Load the game,
Go to options.
Set everything to Low
Exit game
Start game
Load a manual save
In my case it took a while for the file to load, but it did load
Play one or two small quests on low,
Save manually and go to options - crank everything back up and disable harifx..
Works a while and then *BAM!* crashfest.

I am currently uninstalling, and will reinstall up to patch 1.05 and only load the Missing Miners, Temerian Armour, Crossbows, Nilfgaardian armour, beard and hair, and wolf school armour - see if that helps

// to add that I also turned off GoG when running those settings, starting from the game folder's executable itself, and that I had tons more crashes than what the text seems to infer, for me most of my sessions on Thursday weren't anything but a crashfest, which is why I started with the low settings in the first place. Also gave it admin rights and set compatibility to win 7 (w7/64 is my OS)

//and oh, crap, the patches arent backward compatible, so I rolled back to a gamesave from June 8th.. oops ;-)
Runs OK thus far, on standard install settings.

/A
 
Last edited:
Really?
When I swapped the GFX-cards. Don't know ab GAR1234 but if he's on a 970, can't be all that long ago?
Also - rolled back to 1.05 and no hairfx, and seem to have way less freeze issues. (none, thus far, touch wood)
Turing on hairfx tomorrow, andd let it run a few days - I had no issues on 1.05 w harfx on but want to test without a few levels first.
/A

// to add screenshot. The crashfest started, so I rolled back from everything Ultra minus hairfx to these lower settings:
View attachment 17404

// to add: The settings in the screenshot gave me no freezes. The *second* I cranked everything up (bar hairfx) on 60 FPS it started to freeze and crash.
I read on NeoGaf and Tom's HW that this is a combination of something introduced in patch 1.04 and Nvidia's driver (not sure ab the latter as I am not using Nvidia HD audio, dont even have it installed), so hopefuly someone, somewhere is working on a fix.
@Gar1234 - Maybe you could test the settings I posted as well, see how they work for you?
 

Attachments

  • witcher3_lower_settings_cby.jpg
    witcher3_lower_settings_cby.jpg
    101.3 KB · Views: 37
Last edited:
Top Bottom