1.07 - Some setting tweaks no longer work, performance drop on 290x, Hairworks downgrade.

[CyklonDX]

1.07 - Some setting tweaks no longer work, performance drop on 290x, Hairworks downgrade.

First let me state specs.

i7 3770k @ 4.2GHz
16GB DDR3 1600 CL9
MSI 290x LE (1150@1600)

I see massive decrease of performance outside in woods, and my settings haven't changed much at all.

Now please note Hairworks (1.06) - they looked much fuller than with 1.07 ultra
(on 1.07 hairworks look like geralt is going bald or something)

http://i.imgur.com/RRhUzMy.png
http://i.imgur.com/V41tXYj.png

Overriding Tessellation in catalysts does not bring any changes (64x, 32x, 16x) as if its force locked to x16... and hairworks performance is even poorer if we compare hair quality over with what we had before...

Here are settings that are being forced to specific settings
(this pissed me off the most - that they forced me back)
SpawnedLimit=150 -- If I change it to 200, as i had in 1.06; it changes it back to 150...
MaxVisibilityDepth=24 -- forced back, if i change to 32 or 35 which i had before on 1.06

Here are settings that are forcibly being added, if I want or not.

HairWorksGlobalWidthLimit=5
HairWorksGlobalStrandSmoothness=3
HairWorksGlobalDensityQuality=1
HairWorkstGlobalDensityLimit=2
HairWorksGlobalDetailLODFactor=1

(Doesn't allow me to simply keep HairWorksLevel=2; without those settings - I was able to use it like that once, and some of my old performance was back but...
after restarting game again it forced me to recreate new configs -- simply it would not let me use mines whatever I wouldn't do - WTF)

[I know about ConfigVersion=2 -- it was not the issue]
[ also I believe I know how the configs work -- something really nasty is going on here -- https://forum.teksyndicate.com/t/witcher-3-tips-tricks-performance/80663/79 -- here's my topic on witcher, i am currently at loss on what the hell is wrong...

i once even tested by disabling hairworks and i'm not even gaining 10FPS because of that for some strange reason...]

Also in attempt of forcing my settings I changed The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt\bin\config\r4game\user_config_matrix\pc\rendering.xml for settings, my settings were still reverted... looks like they are hard locked from exe.

Is this some kind of shenanigans from NV or CDPR on AMD users?
[changes were made to GFSDK_HairWorks.win64.dll]

It already was great... we had 40-70FPS on single 290x... but after this patch we're back to point of 26-36FPS
(on heavy gpu areas, in skelige it looks ok... kinda but i believe graphics are crappier because my tweaks don't work...) ... + Hairworks look shitty even on ultra default settings... messing around with its new settings doesn't really bring anything...Obviously my settings are going further beyond ultra...

What the hell...Please explain some of those to me...
I am also not sure if all my settings work... at this point ~ game doesn't look better ~ in some points even worse.

---------- Updated at 06:59 PM ----------

bumping thread.

 

[SoloCreep]

Have you even looked at the new Hairworks options in the menu? You can tune the settings a bit more now. I am getting better performance and it looks better than before. Also you need to realize that AMD GPU's are behind "slower" when it comes to tessellation compared to NVidia. Even the new NVidia Maxwell GPU's are 3 times faster than their previous cards "fermi/kepler" at tessellation which I believe now makes them at least 7 times faster at tessellation over AMD. So don't blame CDPR for AMD being so far behind when it comes to processing tessellation. I get you're getting worse performance now but you probably just need to keeping testing out the new settings.

NOTE: A lot of people are under the impression that hairworks is nothing but physX and like to blame the poor AMD performance on that but it not. Its tessellation and DirectCompute.

 

[CyklonDX]

Nah I am completely aware how Hairworks work, and I messed enough with options for hairworks
(spent about 4hours - attempting to get back lost performance from 1.06).

I am blaming them for this update, not previous versions
[ It seems they were aware of performance hit, and locked down tessellation to x16 ~ and I am not even able to override that with catalysts];

I was able to run hairworks without any issues in past and was getting quite nice FPS with them
(sometimes beating down even GTX980 itself with my tweaks)
(I am aware that NV has better tessellation engine than AMD)

Lets not turn this into brand d*ck fighting thread...

I have no idea whats inside those gamework dll's and what kind of changes were made to GFSDK_HairWorks.win64.dll with 1.07, all I can tell is that performance dropped by a lot, tessellation on hair is locked down to x16.x8, and some other settings are locked down ~ and i'm unable to get same performance I had with 1.06.and I state this again,

I was getting around ~60FPS [with Hairworks on] on beyond ultra settings on 1080p on single 290xOC, now i'm getting half of that - and now hairworks looks ugly as if they were locked down to x16 or x8 (and those settings are locked down, i'm unable to tweak those settings)