[Bug Report] Grass Distance Causes Stutter

[TheAManOW]

Hey there, quick bug report regarding the .ini files of the Witcher 3. When increasing GrassDistanceScale to increase the distance at which grass renders, values over 1.5 (ultra setting) causes system stutter even in areas where there is NOT much grass, such as Novigrad. Whether this is an engine limitation or not I am not sure, but it is worth looking at because it could be that lower values cause smaller stutters, and the grass rendering in this game could be a performance/frame time bottleneck.

 

[devivre]

Without knowing anything at all about your system it‘s impossible to say much about it. However, at this point, it‘s best to wait for the next gen update of TW3. It probably will be optimized for higher end PC‘s. There won‘t be an update before that release.

 

[TheAManOW]

I don't think I am the only person who has seen this - I made a reddit post and someone with a 2080 saw similar results. It seems to be an issue notable at frame rates above 60 since the length of the stutters below 60 seems to match the frametiming, but I could be wrong.

 

[devivre]

Well, it‘s hard to say if it‘s caused by the mod you are using or a different issue. But since the game isn‘t going to change before the next gen update, we can only wait and see (keep in mind though that when the update is released it might not be compatible with a lot of mods out there...).

 

[TheAManOW]

When was the last hotfix? Right around release of B and W?
I may do some testing in vanilla, not sure though. I'll ask the redditor if their problem was on vanilla.

 

[devivre]

The last patch was around 2 years ago, but that brought minor changes. I think the last big update on PC was 4 years ago. For a 5 year old game that‘s not that surprising though.

 

[TheAManOW]

From another user:

vanilla or modded didn't make a difference.
Stick to 1.5 grass distancr
To avoid microstutters
To this day I haven't yet eealized why this happens
Ssd bottleneck, ram bandwidth or cram bandwidth are the only I can think about
Vram*
With a 2080super only 1.5 is where I can have locked frame times without hitches

 

[devivre]

Well, if you disable a mod it could still affect the game, as mods often leave traces behind and can affect your save games.

It‘s also possible that the gpu driver version has an impact as Nvidia often makes some changes that may not be ideal for TW3 on some computers.

But in general, if you find a setting that works well enough for you I‘d stick with that.

 

[TheAManOW]

I may test it on a friend/sibling's computer - if I do I will report here.