Hairworks, yay or nay?

[mriviecc]

I run HW on. The mounted Griffon trophy on Roach is justification enough.

My rig: i7920@3.88Ghz, 12GB DDR31600, GTX970FTW; All settings at Ultra except Shadows, Foliage Distance, and Grass Density at High; I run at Monitors native res. of 1900x1200; Average 55-60 frames and running it with Vsync on.

 

[ttchip]

While I can say that it looks pretty darn good, I don't think it is worth the performance loss.

 

[Dread_Reaper]

With the recent Nvidia patch I've been running the game with SSAO, no sharpening, high foliage distance, shadows and grass density along with HW and have a steady 49-60fps. The framerate does dip to like, 40 or below when the camera is to close to Geralt's head, doesn't bother me though. Beware though HW is currently glitched in that it skips beard phases, so you can go from clean shaven to full beard after a cut scene or fast travelling, which is quite annoying.

Specs: GTX 780 3gb(not overclocked), i7-2600k @ 4.4ghz and 8gb ram

 

[glesson]

IMO hairworks doesn't look good enough for the performance hit it causes.Also I don't lke how Geralt's hair looks with it turned on. I would love if they add an option to enable it for monsters only. Currently I just keep it off.

 

[web-head91]

meh... always felt it was a gimmick more than anything else and it takes too much resources for a barely different result (but not on wolves XD). i'd rather have things that are more important, like choosing the LOD, the draw distance, tessalation on walls and buildings, and better lightning.

 

[braindancer12]

got a PS4 ............ thanks for nothing.....

 

[soot00]

meh... always felt it was a gimmick more than anything else and it takes too much resources for a barely different result (but not on wolves XD). i'd rather have things that are more important, like choosing the LOD, the draw distance, tessalation on walls and buildings, and better lightning.

While I don't like the Hairworks option as I think Geralt's hair is foogly. The performance hit with least a 970 Nvidia card is not an issue any longer. The newest Nvidia drivers and the recent Witcher 3 patches to optimize hairworks did wonders with performance compared to what gamers experienced during launch day.

 

[May17th]

While I don't like the Hairworks option as I think Geralt's hair is foogly. The performance hit with least a 970 Nvidia card is not an issue any longer. The newest Nvidia drivers and the recent Witcher 3 patches to optimize hairworks did wonders with performance compared to what gamers experienced during launch day.

What is your frame rate against a pack of wolves with everything on Ultra plus HairWorks On?

 

[Exentryk]

Yes, I'm using Hairworks for everything. Looks awesome.

GTX 980 (medium oc)
1080p 60fps +
Everything Ultra (except High Foliage Distance).

Runs extremely smoothly, and always above 60 fps. When you're indoors and sometimes the camera gets too close to Geralt's hair, the fps may drop, but since the camera is so close, you can't notice much anyway.

 

[soot00]

What is your frame rate against a pack of wolves with everything on Ultra plus HairWorks On?

Have everything on Max but have AA OFF. With Hairworks on fighting packs of wolves, never dips below 50. Am at constant 50-60. Hairworks on monsters do look gorgeous.

 

[Rai_Hikari]

Nay, not because it's good or bad but because it's closed technology of one manufacturer. This always leads to unfair fight and at the end the consumer is always the side who pays, same goes for AMD technologies like TressFX

TressFX is open. The only assymetry was Nvidia needed a couple of months to optimize it, but it was open and they were able to optimize because of it. Hairworks isn't, and it makes it impossible for AMD to optimize for it effectively.

 

[krakuus]

TressFX is open. The only assymetry was Nvidia needed a couple of months to optimize it, but it was open and they were able to optimize because of it. Hairworks isn't, and it makes it impossible for AMD to optimize for it effectively.

Didn't know that, thanks for correction

 

[Sainur]

Nay, I wont enable it until they release an option that enables hairworks for monsters, trophies and Roach only. It looks awful on Geralt, it makes his hair look way too clean, shiny and unrealistic.

I've got a GTX970, overclocked it, and running everything on ultra, shadows on high, and some .ini tweaks. I get 45-60 fps but with hairworks enabled and whenever I enter an interior, fps drops a bit too much for my liking. It's not worth the fps loss.

 

[dusty-2011]

Have everything on Max but have AA OFF. With Hairworks on fighting packs of wolves, never dips below 50. Am at constant 50-60. Hairworks on monsters do look gorgeous.

You are basically reporting GTX 980 ti levels of performance, while using a GTX 970. That's "interesting" to say the least. I have a GTX 970 as well, and HairWorks is not nearly as optimized as you say. I just tested it out on my mix of high and ultra settings (shadows set to high, foliage visibility range set to high, AA off). With only Geralt in the picture, I already dropped below 50 fps very regularly. There were even occasional drops to the low 40's. When a pack of five wolves attacked me, I dropped to the low 40's. But there were occasional drops to 35 fps during this fight. With foliage visibility range set to ultra the picture will be even worse. This costs like 15 fps. The performance numbers you are reporting for these settings are impossible for a GTX 970.

 

[May17th]

Have everything on Max but have AA OFF. With Hairworks on fighting packs of wolves, never dips below 50. Am at constant 50-60. Hairworks on monsters do look gorgeous.

What kind of hardware do you have?

---------- Updated at 12:25 PM ----------

Gear

• Intel Core i5-4690 2.5GHz
• 16GB 1600MHz
• MSI GeForce GTX 970 4GB OC
• Samsung 850 EVO 250GB SSD

This is what I have and this is how it performs with everything on Ultra (except Shadow & Texture on High):

Streaming for a few min to show: http://www.twitch.tv/may17th

So I got 40 frame rate with horse and myself in this little town in White Orchard. (Shadow\Texture also Ultra)
And everything else Ultra.

Turning Off or On AA had no real impact either.

 

[coolbuddy594]

I say nay to hairworks, IF you have an old gpu.

I'm running constant 60 FPS with my settings. Using i5 4460 ; gtx 970 ; RAM:8GB

First of all, Hairworks isn't that much of an improvement for me. It looks nice, yes, but you won't notice the absense once you disable it. Geralt was designed with a lot of love for detail.
On a side note, I play with the short ponytail haircut from the dlc's, so if you don't use the standart long hair, Hairworks is useless.

I'll be running through my settings with short comments:

Ambient Occulsion: NVIDIA HBAO+ (if you're using an nvidia card)

Anti Aliasing (AA): ON (you could tweak the settings in the files if you want 2x, 4x or 8x, but I think 2x is enough)
Bloom: ON (looks nice, no FPS drop)

Depth of field: OFF (looks nice for screenshots, but not for combat. save some FPS with this off)

Detail Level: ULTRA (you want this to be on highest. essential)

Borderless Window Mode: ON (with patch 1.05 you can alt+tab now and W3 was designed to run best in borderless window)

Foliage visibility range: MEDIUM (NOTE!: setting this on ultra eats a lot of FPS Geforce experience sets this on high/ultra by default! DON'T set it that high, unless you got a high end GPU. Medium is enough for running around woods imo)

Grass density: MEDIUM (just like Foliage, you don't need that much grass, unless you want to make screenshots. medium is the best choice)

Light Shafts: ON (you won't loose any FPS by activating it, so if you like it, activate it)

Number of background characters: MEDIUM (IMPORTANT: Nvidia sets this to High, although they don't exactly know the impact. I experience a bit of FPS drop with high settings in big cities, so MEDIUM is recommended)

Texture: ULTRA

Shadows: ULTRA

Water: ULTRA

Terrain detail: ULTRA

These last 4 ones are the most important, so you gotta tweak the others to make them work correctly.

 

[soot00]

You are basically reporting GTX 980 ti levels of performance, while using a GTX 970. That's "interesting" to say the least. I have a GTX 970 as well, and HairWorks is not nearly as optimized as you say. I just tested it out on my mix of high and ultra settings (shadows set to high, foliage visibility range set to high, AA off). With only Geralt in the picture, I already dropped below 50 fps very regularly. There were even occasional drops to the low 40's. When a pack of five wolves attacked me, I dropped to the low 40's. But there were occasional drops to 35 fps during this fight. With foliage visibility range set to ultra the picture will be even worse. This costs like 15 fps. The performance numbers you are reporting for these settings are impossible for a GTX 970.

There is a setting in config file where you disable AA for Hairworks. AA is a huge system hog but at high resolutions you won't notice any type of jagged line less you zooom way in on it and actually look for it

Go to Witcher 3 Install directory on PC.
Navigate to The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt\bin\config\base → rendering.ini
Search for “HairWorksAALevel” and change it to what you prefer. I changed mine to zero

 

[dusty-2011]

I say nay to hairworks, IF you have an old gpu. I'm running constant 60 FPS with my settings. Using i5 4460 ; gtx 970 ; RAM:8GB First of all, Hairworks isn't that much of an improvement for me. It looks nice, yes, but you won't notice the absense once you disable it. Geralt was designed with a lot of love for detail. On a side note, I play with the short ponytail haircut from the dlc's, so if you don't use the standart long hair, Hairworks is useless. I'll be running through my settings with short comments: Ambient Occulsion: NVIDIA HBAO+ (if you're using an nvidia card) Anti Aliasing (AA): ON (you could tweak the settings in the files if you want 2x, 4x or 8x, but I think 2x is enough) Bloom: ON (looks nice, no FPS drop) Depth of field: OFF (looks nice for screenshots, but not for combat. save some FPS with this off) Detail Level: ULTRA (you want this to be on highest. essential) Borderless Window Mode: ON (with patch 1.05 you can alt+tab now and W3 was designed to run best in borderless window) Foliage visibility range: MEDIUM (NOTE!: setting this on ultra eats a lot of FPS Geforce experience sets this on high/ultra by default! DON'T set it that high, unless you got a high end GPU. Medium is enough for running around woods imo) Grass density: MEDIUM (just like Foliage, you don't need that much grass, unless you want to make screenshots. medium is the best choice) Light Shafts: ON (you won't loose any FPS by activating it, so if you like it, activate it) Number of background characters: MEDIUM (IMPORTANT: Nvidia sets this to High, although they don't exactly know the impact. I experience a bit of FPS drop with high settings in big cities, so MEDIUM is recommended) Texture: ULTRA Shadows: ULTRA Water: ULTRA Terrain detail: ULTRA These last 4 ones are the most important, so you gotta tweak the others to make them work correctly.

I have the game running at a constant 60 fps as well with a GTX 970. I have foliage visibility range on high, which is a big visual improvement from medium. I have to admit that ultra is a big visual improvement from high as well, but you need better hardware for that (or put up with lower fps). I have shadows on high, because ultra adds nothing but it does eat up fps. I have number of background characters on ultra, no problems so far (but haven't visited Novigrad yet). I have grass density on high. ---------- Updated at 01:13 PM ----------

There is a setting in config file where you disable AA for Hairworks. AA is a huge system hog but at high resolutions you won't notice any type of jagged line less you zooom way in on it and actually look for it Go to Witcher 3 Install directory on PC. Navigate to The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt\bin\config\base → rendering.ini Search for “HairWorksAALevel” and change it to what you prefer. I changed mine to zero

Yeah, I know about that. But it only gains you like 5 fps. AND 0xAA looks VERY ugly on the hair.

 

[May17th]

HairWorks does look amazing, I don't think I will play without it.
40 frame rate is enough for me, as long as it's over 30.

 

[Exentryk]

I don't care what you say but you are not always staying above 60fps with your settings, rig and hairworks on.

Period. I have an identical rig and the only way I can guarantee I will stay above 60fps (even fighting bears, Fiends etc) is by lowering shadows to medium and foliage to high.

With your settings I average 60fps but see regular dips below 60.

I turned on fraps, and I had a Fiend on the screen with Geralt. While running around the fps dropped to 54-55 at the lowest. But this drop is unnoticeable as there is no stuttering or anything. It's completely smooth on the TV. If I turn the foliage distance to ultra, then I start getting stuttering. But my current setting, the game is absolutely smooth, be it 60 fps or 55 fps.