I have a GTX980 and maxed out everything (including Hairworks), but I locked my FPS to 45 because it often dips to that rate in dense areas. I don't think a 970 is supposed to run this game at ultra and expect 60 FPS, looking at comparison video's I would suggest locking it at 30 so you can have a stable framerate to work with.
what cpu and ram do you have? i have a gtx 970 and the game runs everything ultra with hairworks 60 fps no poblems
I've an EVGA GTX970 SC, 16gb ram, and an i5 4690K. I let GeForce Experience choose the optimum settings for me, fantastic looking, no fps drops worth talking about. I'm running the latest available nvidia driver.
rough settings: most at ultra where possible, the rest at high. Depth of Field off, Hairworks off, Ambient Occlusion set to HBAO+
Might be worth you trying to let GeForce Experience set things for you too? I've never had a problem with it. Hope that helps.
rough settings: most at ultra where possible, the rest at high. Depth of Field off, Hairworks off, Ambient Occlusion set to HBAO+
Might be worth you trying to let GeForce Experience set things for you too? I've never had a problem with it. Hope that helps.
I have two 970 in SLI running everything maxed out (including hairworks) and the framerate is excellent (around 80 on average) for the most parts accept when there's many NPCs at ones where it can go below 55. For me it's my CPU (i5 3570k) there's the bottleneck I strongly assume. Maybe it's the same for you? 
I'm running ultra settings mostly, but with lower grass density, low shadow detail, high water. HBAO+ and HW on. Unsure what FR I get or how stable it is, but with a GSync monitor it doesn't matter as much as with a conventional monitor... no tearing or stutters from Vsync restrains.
Seems 'smooth' if not very high frame-rates. Works for me.
Seems 'smooth' if not very high frame-rates. Works for me.
I have a GTX 970 G1, i7 4790K, 32GB RAM and Samsung 512GB 850 SSD and run everything on Ultra, hairworks enabled at around 50 - 60FPS at 1080p. Must be your CPU I think.
the latest patch with my GTX 970 G1 Gaming, the FPS boost is huge reaching 100 hundred FPS but mini stuttering are now present. I set the shadows to lowest since there are no noticeable difference between Ultra and Low and sometimes lower my Foilage visibility to High. turning the HW on to geralt also improved my FPS from last update from 40ish to almost stable 60 in the wilderness i don't know in Novigrad never been there
If you still have the stuttering caused by frame rate fluctuation, set frames to render ahead by the CPU to 1 in your nvidia control panel, that totally solved the stuttering for me and many others.
Now i dont need locked FPS to have a smooth experience, and i can play with on MSI 970 at 1350p with DSR, everything on Ultra except Hairworks off and foliage distance to high.
my FPS in the wilderness is usually around 55 (48 with SweetFX), and when in a town or during storm or pre-storms with a lot of wind, it gets to a minimum of 30, but still very smooth.
With the stuttering even 40 fps was unacceptable, now 30 feels even better than 50 before.
Now i dont need locked FPS to have a smooth experience, and i can play with on MSI 970 at 1350p with DSR, everything on Ultra except Hairworks off and foliage distance to high.
my FPS in the wilderness is usually around 55 (48 with SweetFX), and when in a town or during storm or pre-storms with a lot of wind, it gets to a minimum of 30, but still very smooth.
With the stuttering even 40 fps was unacceptable, now 30 feels even better than 50 before.