Bad FPS and stutter on high-end system on anything but "auto-detect" settings

[RealNC]

Bad FPS and stutter on high-end system on anything but "auto-detect" settings

Hello.

I have a problem with Witcher 2 (Enhanced Edition). The game runs badly if I change the settings in the launcher to anything else than what the "auto detect" button has configured. If I keep these settings, everything is fine. I get 60FPS with vsync, and 80FPS if I disable vsync in the nvidia control panel.

But if I change anything in the settings, then the game drops to 47FPS and it stutters. It doesn't matter what I change. I can even decrease a setting, like lowering shadow quality or disabling motion blur, or simply disable vsync. Whatever I change, it stutters. Even if I click on "auto detect", then change a setting and then change it back, it will stutter! Even though all settings are exactly the same as the ones the "auto detect" button configured.

For example, if I click "auto detect", then change vsync to "disabled" and then back to "enabled", the game will run at 47FPS.

This has to be a bug, and I'm not able to find any workaround I really want to disable the depth of field during gameplay and the motion blur and also enable ubersampling, but if I touch the settings, the game stutters and performance drops badly.

My system:
Windows 8.1 64-bit
Core i5 2500K@4.2GHz
GTX 980 Ti
16GB RAM

 

[mcmanaman46]

hey my friend,
try this mod out:
http://www.moddb.com/games/the-witcher-2-assassins-of-kings/downloads/witcher-2-stuttering-fix

 

[RealNC]

hey my friend,
try this mod out:
http://www.moddb.com/games/the-witcher-2-assassins-of-kings/downloads/witcher-2-stuttering-fix

I just tried that. It doesn't do anything to fix the issue. I still get only 47FPS. Although a "magic DLL" that boosts your FPS from 47 to 60 doesn't sound realistic if you ask me

But I was able to fix the issue. I had to edit the ini files in the "profiles" directory. If I change the settings in PCUber.ini, then they get applied and the bug doesn't happen. I get 60FPS now and got the annoying motion blur and depth of field effects disabled.

I don't expect this bug to be ever fixed (it seems the developers abandon their previous games), but in case they do want to fix it, the problem occurs when:

CustomRenderingSettings=1

exists in User.ini. If that is =1, then the performance drops heavily, regardless of what settings are used. I set:

PerformancePlatform=3
CustomRenderingSettings=0

and then modify "profiles\PCUber.ini", then there is no problem and performance is high.

 

[alexitq]

Thank you for that sollution!

It gave me a good performance boost, although I still think my fps is too low for an overclocked 970GTX. I've disabled ubersampling and motion blur in the PCUber.ini. I think I get an avarage fps om 40-45 in Flotsham now, with some heave fps drops. It's playable, but just barely.

Could you share your settings in the nVidia control panel? Maybe there are some tweaks to be made there as well.

 

[RealNC]

In nvidia control panel I have anisotropic set to 16, vsync to on and pre-rendered frames to 1. In the ini, i have disabled vsync.

Here are the relevant sections ("Engine" and "Rendering") of my User.ini:

Spoiler

[Engine]
CustomRenderingSettings=0
PerformancePlatform=3

[Rendering]
AllowAntialias=1
AllowBloom=1
AllowBlur=1
AllowCutsceneDOF=1
AllowDOF=0
AllowDecals=1.0
AllowMotionBlur=0
AllowRain=1
AllowSSAO=1
AllowScatterDOF=0
AllowShafts=1
AllowSharpen=0
AllowVignette=0
AspectRatio=0
AtlasTextureDownscale=0
CharacterLodGameplayDownscale=0
DanglesLimiter=0
DetailTextureDownscale=0
FoliageDistanceScale=2
Fullscreen=1
MaxAtlasTextureSize=4096
MaxCubeShadowCount=1
MaxCubeShadowSize=256
MaxSpotShadowCount=3
MaxSpotShadowSize=512
MaxTextureSize=2048
MeshDistanceScale=1.0
ShadowQuality=3
ShadowedLights=3
TextureDownscale=0
TextureMemoryBudget=600
TextureTimeBudget=10
UberSampling=0
VSync=0

And here is my profiles/PCUber.ini:

Spoiler

[Rendering]
TextureDownscale=0
AtlasTextureDownscale=0
DetailTextureDownscale=0
MaxTextureSize=2048
MaxAtlasTextureSize=4096
TextureMemoryBudget=600
TextureTimeBudget=10
MaxCubeShadowSize=2048
MaxCubeShadowCount=3
MaxSpotShadowSize=2048
MaxSpotShadowCount=3
FoliageDistanceScale=1.0
MeshDistanceScale=1.0
CharacterLodGameplayDownscale=0
AllowBloom=1
AllowShafts=1
AllowAntialias=1
AllowBlur=1
AllowDOF=0
AllowDecals=1.0
AllowVignette=0
AllowSharpen=0
AllowRain=1
AllowSSAO=1
AllowMotionBlur=0
AllowScatterDOF=0
AllowCutsceneDOF=1
DanglesLimiter=0
ShadowQuality=3
ShadowedLights=3
Fullscreen=1
VSync=0
UberSampling=0

I also use RTSS with the frame limiter set to 60. Disabling the in-game vsync, enabling nvidia's vsync and using RTSS to limit framerate to 60 results in much smoother animation (no micro-stuttering.)

With these, I was always at constant 60FPS, playing at 1920x1080.

However, even though this is an older game now, it's still very heavy. It's not well optimized, it seems.

 

[alexitq]

Thanks!

I tried those settings but they don't seem to make a difference for me. Doesn't seem to matter what graphics settings I use, unless I try the lowest or highest settings (witch ubersampling).
CustomRenderSettings=0 gave a boost, but I can't squeeze out any more fps after that. Very strange.

One thing that did make it a little smoother, though the framerate is the same, is changing TextureMemoryBudget in the ini-files. I set it to VRAM - 500 (in megabytes, so 3072 for me (not counting the full 4Gb of VRAM). The game will never use that much memory, but it allows the graphics card to preload a lot of textures.