Extremly bad performance on Next Gen Update!

[Hajii]

I'm on a 4090 and 13900k and sometimes it plays great and then other times it's crap. ALWAYS crap on a fresh boot up of the game. But it magically kicks in after 30-45 mins or reloading saves, running around, pulling my hair out.

Once it starts working, it's great (110-150 fps, gpu utilization 99%, all settings max and dlss on quality + frame generation). Makes zero sense to me. As long as I leave the game up and don't quit, it continues to work.

When it not working, I can turn frame generation off and it'll at least not stutter, but I'll max at around 55 FPS and gpu utilization is around 50-60%.

I know I could just use DX11 but the game has teased me with what it can do.

 

[sL3nd3rmAnn]

I'm on a 4090 and 13900k and sometimes it plays great and then other times it's crap. ALWAYS crap on a fresh boot up of the game. But it magically kicks in after 30-45 mins or reloading saves, running around, pulling my hair out.

Once it starts working, it's great (110-150 fps, gpu utilization 99%, all settings max and dlss on quality + frame generation). Makes zero sense to me. As long as I leave the game up and don't quit, it continues to work.

When it not working, I can turn frame generation off and it'll at least not stutter, but I'll max at around 55 FPS and gpu utilization is around 50-60%.

I know I could just use DX11 but the game has teased me with what it can do.

Imaging paying thousands of dollars on the best gear only to play on Dx11. The joke is real.

I could have used DLSS 3 and Frame Generation but NGreedia only made it available for the RTX 4000 series.
They really want people to upgrade their GPUs. Buy that 2500$ overpriced RTX 4090. These companies man.

Q: Who cares about the consumer?! Nobody I guess.

 

[exxxed]

I have personally had two different experiences with this release on my RTX 3080. First time I've installed the upgrade I've loaded an old save which was in Novigrad, the performance was atrocious, I was stunned how badly it ran and because it was crashing whilst changing graphics options as well.

Last night I've started a new playthrough and have been playing for more than 5 hours straight with literally no performance problems at all, no stuttering, no dips not a single issue I was having before.

Of course the Ray Tracing options are very heavy, with DLSS Auto on 4k and everything on Ultra Plus I've got anything from 60fps to 30fps (I believe 30 is the lower limit as I didn't perceive any egregious dips as I had before on my old save where it was in the 10s and massive stuttering) but it's generally playable all things considered.

Now without Ray Tracing I'm getting consistent 60 fps with no stutters of any kind so far and with the graphical improvements it's really amazing, Ultra+ 4k DLSS Auto and RT off.

So I'm unsure as to what the issue was, but my best guess is shader compiling in DX12 on old saves causes extreme stutters for a while, funny because I went back to the old save and it runs fine now as well. Maybe there's something more to this.

The only crashes I've experienced are related to changing the RT settings, generally I have experienced no bugs or graphical glitches that are related to this version except for the mouse cursor being stuck on the screen after exiting the inventory menu - which was ultimately fixed by reloading the game.

I'm curious if the issues are actually related to the shader compilation and old saves from version 1.32 that don't translate well after first launching version 4.0.

As I mentioned I was in the same boat with the issues everyone's been talking about but after starting a new game and/or running the game for a considerate amount of time all the issues were gone, except obviously the low performing RT settings on my setup.

 

[jj284b]

Enable Nvidia Reflex or Radeon Anti-Lag.. it makes game playable and stutter free...

 

[sL3nd3rmAnn]

I have personally had two different experiences with this release on my RTX 3080. First time I've installed the upgrade I've loaded an old save which was in Novigrad, the performance was atrocious, I was stunned how badly it ran and because it was crashing whilst changing graphics options as well.

Last night I've started a new playthrough and have been playing for more than 5 hours straight with literally no performance problems at all, no stuttering, no dips not a single issue I was having before.

Of course the Ray Tracing options are very heavy, with DLSS Auto on 4k and everything on Ultra Plus I've got anything from 60fps to 30fps (I believe 30 is the lower limit as I didn't perceive any egregious dips as I had before on my old save where it was in the 10s and massive stuttering) but it's generally playable all things considered.

Now without Ray Tracing I'm getting consistent 60 fps with no stutters of any kind so far and with the graphical improvements it's really amazing, Ultra+ 4k DLSS Auto and RT off.

So I'm unsure as to what the issue was, but my best guess is shader compiling in DX12 on old saves causes extreme stutters for a while, funny because I went back to the old save and it runs fine now as well. Maybe there's something more to this.

The only crashes I've experienced are related to changing the RT settings, generally I have experienced no bugs or graphical glitches that are related to this version except for the mouse cursor being stuck on the screen after exiting the inventory menu - which was ultimately fixed by reloading the game.

I'm curious if the issues are actually related to the shader compilation and old saves from version 1.32 that don't translate well after first launching version 4.0.

As I mentioned I was in the same boat with the issues everyone's been talking about but after starting a new game and/or running the game for a considerate amount of time all the issues were gone, except obviously the low performing RT settings on my setup.

Q: Are u on Intel CPU or AMD?
Don't remember your config.
I am curious.

I'll start a new playthrough now to see.

 

[exxxed]

Q: Are u on Intel CPU or AMD?
Don't remember your config.
I am curious.

I'll start a new playthrough now to see.

Full spec - RTX 3080 GPU 10GB, Intel Core i7 9700k @ 4200MHz, 32GB DDR4 and the game is installed on a Samsung EVO 980 NVMe M.2 .

Also I should mention I'm on the latest windows 10 update and the latest Nvidia Driver.

Try this and see if you need to update your OS:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us...ssistant-3550dfb2-a015-7765-12ea-fba2ac36fb3f

I don't think there's any more relevant information.

I've started the game two times, once with ''Simulate Witcher 2 Saves'' and one by importing my actual Witcher 2 saves, both times no issues what so ever.

I've installed the game a day before the patch, it was The Witcher 3 GOTY Edition version 1.32 and I had all the saves from before, more than 100 saves actually and I've tested a few of them.

I'm still playing issue free after 12 hours of play time, it's amazing and quite frankly I feel bad that I can't use any of the RT features with a consistent 60fps but what's there with HDR enabled and updated textures, lighting and some models it still looks drop dead gorgeous and I'm still in awe at how good this game is.

All the new features breathe in some much needed new life to it for someone who didn't bother with modding.

 

[sL3nd3rmAnn]

Full spec - RTX 3080 GPU 10GB, Intel Core i7 9700k @ 4200MHz, 32GB DDR4 and the game is installed on a Samsung EVO 980 NVMe M.2 .

Also I should mention I'm on the latest windows 10 update and the latest Nvidia Driver.

Try this and see if you need to update your OS:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us...ssistant-3550dfb2-a015-7765-12ea-fba2ac36fb3f

I don't think there's any more relevant information.

I've started the game two times, once with ''Simulate Witcher 2 Saves'' and one by importing my actual Witcher 2 saves, both times no issues what so ever.

I've installed the game a day before the patch, it was The Witcher 3 GOTY Edition version 1.32 and I had all the saves from before, more than 100 saves actually and I've tested a few of them.

I'm still playing issue free after 12 hours of play time, it's amazing and quite frankly I feel bad that I can't use any of the RT features with a consistent 60fps but what's there with HDR enabled and updated textures, lighting and some models it still looks drop dead gorgeous and I'm still in awe at how good this game is.

All the new features breathe in some much needed new life to it for someone who didn't bother with modding.

I agree the game looks very good, mostly with RT enabled.
Unfortunately the game runs the same for me. Game crashed few times with error.
Started a new campaign and played for 30 min.

Made a recording again. Finally made MSI Afterburner work.
Windows is up to date. Windows 11x64. GPU drivers up to date.

Even lowered some settings:
Number of background characters on Medium.
Shadow quality on High.
Foliage Visibility Rage to Medium.
The rest on Ultra. Nothing on Ultra+.
Hairworks off.

Maybe it does not like AMD processors. Don't know.

 

[Vietrak]

I have big troubles with performace after next gen update when RayTracing - ON and 1440p resolution.

My PC spec is:

i7 11700k
NZXT Kraken X63
32gb RAM G-Skill TridentZ - 3200mhz
Gigabyte RTX 3080 Gaming OC - 10gb
Gigabyte AORUS Z590 PRO AX
M.2 Nvme SSD Samsung 980 Pro - 1Tb
Seasonic Focus Gold PLUS - 850W

When is RT - ON I have around 30-45 fps. DLSS quality or DLSS ultra performance is different only 3 FPS.

When I completly turn off RT and all other setngs keep I ged 120+ fps.

I thought CD Projekt learned from fault with Cyberpunk but this case is absolutly same. It looks how nobody testing PC version of this update. How it is possible? I very looking forvard for this update and I ged only disapointing. RAY TRACING - that was the enticement. No any netflix something.

One good thing is - the game looks absolutly amazing with RT - but trouble is... is it unplayable lol

So what now? Any tips how to get stable 60fps? I no want nothing more. Only stable 60 fps with RT please.

 

[moonknightgog]

They simply didn't test the PC version. If they did, whty would've noticed obvious issues, like hairworks being black in shadowed areas.

PC players at always are treated as worthless. I overpaid a 3060ti and a R5 5600x to not only have 40ish fps at 1080p with DLSS (so actually 720p), but also these disgusting graphical bugs.
I'm done with CDPR.

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

vkd3d-proton developers commented that it's not really using a wrapper, but:

it's cpu-bound because they just derped all their d3d12 code into one thread

So may be there is a chance they'll fix it, but don't hold your breath for it. I think CDPR outsourced this version.

 

[Hajii]

So I'm unsure as to what the issue was, but my best guess is shader compiling in DX12 on old saves causes extreme stutters for a while, funny because I went back to the old save and it runs fine now as well. Maybe there's something more to this.

This was my suspicion as well, shader cache/compiling, but I really don't know. Mainly because changing settings doesn't resolve anything. Only time and/or loading saves seems to do the trick.

 

[exxxed]

This was my suspicion as well, shader cache/compiling, but I really don't know. Mainly because changing settings doesn't resolve anything. Only time and/or loading saves seems to do the trick.

Yup, I'm 15 hours in and have not yet had any performance problems except the huge fps hit from RT.

Post automatically merged: Dec 15, 2022

snip

RT or not the game shouldn't be running that badly, that's horrendous.

My suspicion is that it's not utilizing your hardware to the best of it's ability, it looks like there's some sort of software limitation, I'm not sure if it's your specific setup (software/hardware) or the game itself not liking AMD CPU's.

Have you looked at any benchmarks for AMD CPUs running The Witcher 3 Next-Gen?

Also how is it running with RT completely off and on the same settings?

 

[Wet-N00dles]

Hello everyone! I to am having horrible performance with DX12 on a beefy machine (specs below) with update 4.0 so I am coming over from Reddit with a full detailed post on my test/theories/full breakdown so here we go.

TLDR: The games DX12 implementation is 100% broken and causing awful performance/scaling along with stutters and graphical bugs. The game also seems to only utilize 2 CPU cores which is causing every GPU to be starved (with the exception of 40 series cards DLSS 3.0 and some 4k setups) no matter what you do. DX11 implementation works much better but you lose DLSS/FSR/RTX the selling points of the update. Lastly Alex from Digital Foundry is going to do a video and has already tweeted the patch defiantly has issues/CPU being a problem.
I also linked some tweets/articles/videos at the bottom confirming issues and proving it is not just ranting or a handful of people.

My original Reddit post here

The Witcher 3 Next Gen Patch Running On A Ryzen 9 5900X/RTX 3080 32GB 3200mhz Ram and A Samsung 970 NVME. CPU Usage 5% (Usually 1-2%) GPU Usage 68% (Can Be As Low As 45% and As High As 85% Based On Settings Never 99-100% Unless DX11.) 34fps Maxed 1440p DLSS Quality. Even All Low 1440p Only 90FPS.... from Witcher3

So to begin I believe I have narrowed down what the two biggest issues are.

First: the game seems to only use two of my 5900X's 12 CPU cores (Cyberpunk also originally had this issue but to a lesser degree.) I’ve never seen the games CPU usage above 6% and I commonly see it at 1-2% usage. What the underutilized CPU means is that the game is starving our GPUs causing them to also be underutilized. For GPU I’ve seen as low as 45% I’ve seen as high as 85% , but nothing ever close to 100% unless playing on DX11. So in other words the games poor CPU optimizations is causing our beefy GPUs to not be fully used killing our performance while we have headroom left on our hardware.

This is not just a me issue several reports now claiming the same thing and I’ve done the testing and posted the screenshot in prior linked Reddit post above so I believe this is what’s likely happening.

Secondly: the games DX12 implementation is straight borked on PC and I’m even reading reports of the same thing for next gen Xbox as it also uses DX12. What this is doing is causing horrible scaling of settings, lower than expected performance, stutters, and possibly the graphical glitches/crashing.

How did I come to this theoretical conclusion?

To start my rig: Asus Crosshair VIII X570 (latest BIOS 4201) with a Ryzen 9 5900x slight OC to 4.95ghz, 360 AIO cooler, Asus Strix Rog RTX 3080 with slight factory OC, 32gb 3200mhz ram, and game installed to a 1TB Samsung 970 Evo NVME also latest Nvidia drivers (527.56) and latest version of Windows 11 (Windows 11 Home Version 22H2 Installed on 10/‎19/‎2022 OS build 22621.963 Windows Feature Experience Pack 1000.22638.1000.0) Note this install of Windows 11 is less than 2 months old and was a full fresh install not an upgrade from previous Windows 10 install and game is fresh installed not priorly modded due to my recent wipe moving to Windows 11. Also hardware accelerated GPU scheduling is on.

Now background info I run all my games more than fine (to include reasonable RTX) and could not complain but for the sake of keeping it short we’ll do OG 1.32 Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077 this same rig did 1440p Max at 140+fps in Witcher 3 we are talking hair works and everything.
Cyberpunk 2077 all settings maxed minus the two psycho options and all RTX on at 1440p DLSS balanced locked 60 from day one to most recent patch.

Ok next gen Witcher 3 so to break this one down if I do all lowest settings possible on DX12 1440p DLSS performance I get 80-100ishfps or less. Again going back to my background info this same machine could do 1440p maxed at 140+ fps easy with 1.32 but now all lowest settings 1440p DLSS performance or TAAU with resolution scaling I get 80-100fps.....

I CANNOT make this up I am seriously somehow getting ALOT less fps at all low with DX12 compared to OG maxed 1.32 with the same rig....
If I turn on all RTX with all other settings low DLSS Ultra Performance I get 35-50FPS!
Turn it to all lowest settings 1440p DLSS Ultra performance with only RTGI I get around 42-55fps!
MAX game out with 1440p DLSS quality 32-40fps! Try to do anything to gain 60fps on anything RTX I can’t get it to.
Try to get 60fps on no RTX but ultra-ultra+ can’t get it to basically its all medium to low now no RTX and DLSS performance to net 60-75fps with less than 60fps 1% lows and insane input delay anything else I try gets me under 60 to as low as 32 when running maxed on my MONSTER (only 1.78% of 30+ million steam users have a RTX 3080) rig the same rig that runs Cyberpunk 2077 Ultra with RTX 1440p DLSS balanced and gets locked 60fps make it make sense please!

Now we can prove it’s bad DX12 by switching to DX11 and max it out obviously there is no DLSS or RTX but max so new ultra+ and TAAU no scaling at native 1440p I am now getting 100-110sh fps still not as much as maxed 1.32 but remember ultra+ settings and new screen space reflections and TAAU UHD texture etc.

This FPS on DX11 makes more sense than all low no RTX DX12 getting only up to 100fps but hovering around 80-90........ If you match the games settings as close as possible to OG 1.32 on DX11 you get almost the same performance (probably around a 10-15% loss) despite the higher quality graphics settings that cant be matched. I was getting around 110-135ishfps so not as much as OG 1.32 but close enough and the scaling is working and this all makes sense.

So DX12 is borked. If you scale all the way to low you get a lot less fps than max DX11 and max OG 1.32 but max out DX12 and game is unplayable getting half the FPS as Cyberpunk 2077 maxed.....

Lastly on performance game refuses to utilize the GPU and CPU in full. Maxed DX12 with DLSS quality I see 80-85% usage, maxed DX12 with DLSS ultra performance 50-55ish% usage, maxed DX12 with TAAU 45-50ish% usage, lowest settings DX12 40-45% usage. All meanwhile performance was at its worst 30ish fps and at its best 100fps but I still had hardware left to use....?

DX11 no issues 99-100% usage game scales fps scales just DX12.

At this point I am just waiting for Alex from Digital Foundry’s full tech review to highlight and confirm or elaborate on my findings. I’ve learned most of what I know from him over the years and he’s the wizard when it comes to stuff like this.
The devs already tweeted they are investigating the issues so the game will be shelved for me until a patch is released.

For clarification I’m not mad I’m just sad. I was really looking forward to this, it’s my favorite game of all time and I have a beefy enough machine that I should be able to do mostly maxed 1440p DLSS balanced 60 like Cyberpunk…..

Thank you all for the read and for those that aren’t having issues and enjoying the game good luck on the path!
Sources and good reads:
Alex’s tweet (From Digital Foundry):
https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1603041215221534721
John’s tweet (From Digital Foundry):
https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1603085310522527748
CDPR tweet:
https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1603046409619513345
Marcin’s tweet (CDPR Global Community manager):
https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1603046848742187008

Videos and 3rd party benchmarks show exactly what I am saying here:

The Witcher 3 Next Gen Update | Ultra+ Setting With RTX Ultra | 3080Ti Benchmark! 1080p ​

The Witcher 3:Wild Hunt Next-Gen is Still Performance issues and Optimization.● SETUP● ● CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 5900X 3.7GH● GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti 12GB● ...

youtu.be

RTX 3080 | THE WITCHER 3 Next Gen Update | Ray Tracing | DLSS | Ultra+ ​

If you like this RTX 3080 | THE WITCHER 3 Next Gen Update Benchmark / gameplay content, make sure to like and subscribe Full Specs: https://linktr.ee/specsga...

youtu.be

The Witcher 3’s next-gen PC update is disappointing ​

The Witcher 3’s long awaited next-gen update has arrived for PC and its effect on the game is pretty disappointing. Not only does the addition of ray tracing...

youtu.be




Reports of issues:
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/th...update-is-borked-so-heres-how-to-roll-it-back
https://www.gamesradar.com/witcher-3-next-gen-update-pc-players-say-it-runs-terribly/
https://kotaku.com/witcher-3-next-gen-update-pc-gaming-ps5-xbox-series-1849893251/amp
https://www.pastemagazine.com/games/witcher-3-update-pc-issues/
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/the-...-another-cyberpunk-2077-buggy-mess-at-launch/

 

[John_Russell]

Yup, I'm 15 hours in and have not yet had any performance problems except the huge fps hit from RT.

Post automatically merged: Dec 15, 2022

RT or not the game shouldn't be running that badly, that's horrendous.

My suspicion is that it's not utilizing your hardware to the best of it's ability, it looks like there's some sort of software limitation, I'm not sure if it's your specific setup (software/hardware) or the game itself not liking AMD CPU's.

Have you looked at any benchmarks for AMD CPUs running The Witcher 3 Next-Gen?

Also how is it running with RT completely off and on the same settings?

For me with RT off, TAAU, everything else maxxed out to Ultra+ and DLDSR enabled in the Nvidia control panel I get 115 FPS average with dips to about 93 at 1440p. If I turn off DLDSR and turn on RTSSGI and DLSS to Balanced it drops to 56 FPS average with dips to 40 FPS. However if I turn RT back off, turn DLDSR back on and enable the RTSSGI Freestyle Filter which doesn't even use the RT cores I get 75 FPS average with dips down to 63 so I just ended up limiting the FPS to 60 and the game is smooth as silk and still looks good and I'm not get the hair artifacts I was getting with the in-game RTSSGI so I'm doing a recorded playthrough with those settings and 24 mods with 5 of the graphical .... 4 from Humans of the Continent mod and Yen Lore Hair Always. The game is stable and locked to 60 FPS everywhere in White Orchard but I did run into a couple of other minor bugs that were non-graphical.

I've been waiting over a year to do a recorded playthrough so even if they do fix it I sticking with these settings and pushing on. It still look pretty damned good and any further improvement to Ray Tracing over the Freestyle RTSSGI isn't going to make all that much better recordings anyway.

 

[sL3nd3rmAnn]

Yup, I'm 15 hours in and have not yet had any performance problems except the huge fps hit from RT.

Post automatically merged: Dec 15, 2022

RT or not the game shouldn't be running that badly, that's horrendous.

My suspicion is that it's not utilizing your hardware to the best of it's ability, it looks like there's some sort of software limitation, I'm not sure if it's your specific setup (software/hardware) or the game itself not liking AMD CPU's.

Have you looked at any benchmarks for AMD CPUs running The Witcher 3 Next-Gen?

Also how is it running with RT completely off and on the same settings?

With RT off I get like 35 FPS. But I wanted to play with RT. That was the whole point.

 

[Malautomedontolo]

Time for a new meme...

Anyway, for those who don't own a 4080-4090 and want better framerates and higher GPU usage, try to DISABLE nvidia Reflex. On certain conditions I got even 11 fps more (on a 10700k+3080+32GB RAM 4GHz). But don't expect miracles, in denser forests or cities the fps will plummet anyway.

Reflex off:

Reflex on:

 

[exxxed]

With RT off I get like 35 FPS. But I wanted to play with RT. That was the whole point.

I've been looking at this video and it seems like the same story:

All I can suggest at the moment is to forget about RT and either play at 1440p with hairworks disabled or use the DX11 version.

I know I want to use RTGI myself, it looks so good but I'd rather have smooth performance.

And to be fair with the HDR and updated models it looks vastly superior to the original Witcher 3 so I can live without RTGI for now.

 

[sL3nd3rmAnn]

I've been looking at this video and it seems like the same story:

All I can suggest at the moment is to forget about RT and either play at 1440p with hairworks disabled or use the DX11 version.

I know I want to use RTGI myself, it looks so good but I'd rather have smooth performance.

And to be fair with the HDR and updated models it looks vastly superior to the original Witcher 3 so I can live without RTGI for now.

I managed to figure the issue.
For some reason the game does not like alt tabbing and changing settings(RT I think mostly).
I managed to get better performance by not alt tabbing and not changing the settings but just entering the game and playing.
As soon I alt tab or change the RT settings the performance goes down significantly.
CDPR rushed the release. The game needed more work.

The stutters and the crashes are still there unfortunately.

 

[tommalmm]

I managed to figure the issue.
For some reason the game does not like alt tabbing and changing settings(RT I think mostly).
I managed to get better performance by not alt tabbing and not changing the settings but just entering the game and playing.
As soon I alt tab or change the RT settings the performance goes down significantly.

The stutters and the crashes are still there unfortunately.
View attachment 11334688
View attachment 11334691
View attachment 11334700

I started a new game yesterday, no alt tabbing, no settings changes, the game worked fine until the first fight with ghouls, when it dropped to 20 fps and stayed like that until I restarted the game and loaded the save (everything started to have a purple hue, there were textures and geometry missing, water had weird gray lines that looked like shadows). Are you sure it wasn't pure luck? (I did skip a lot of things, though). For me it seems the moment the issues start is very random. Sometimes it works for extended periods of time, then the issue starts immediately after loading a save or a few seconds after that. But as I wrote before: usually some kind of graphical glitches come first and then it's followed by a huge performance drop.

We've got pretty different setups, so it might not even be the same issue, just manifesting itself in a similar way.

 

[kureman44]

I rarely use GFE to optimize my games but here even Nvidia gave up on recommending using RT on RTX 3070. This is so frustrating.

The Witcher 3

Cyberpunk 2077