Nonstop crashing since 1.05 rendering game completely unplayable 
Hey everyone, so i'm basically at my wits end and looking for any advice that any could offer or looking to see if other people are having similar issues.
To start, I have an i7-4790k @ 4.0 Ghz (turbo to 4.4 Ghz), 16 GBs ram @ 2400 Mhz, EVGA GTX 980 (Driver 352.84), 850 Watt PSU, Asus Maximus VII Formula, Samsung 850 Evo SSD, Windows 10 build 10130.
Patch 1.04: For the most part the game ran incredibly well. Every once and a while I'd get a driver crash, then i'd restart my computer and play for a couple hours, maybe a whole day without issue and was able to log about 72 hours of gameplay in the first 5 days of owning the game. I would run the game at Ultra everything, frames unlimited, windowed fullscreen, v sync w/o issue for the most part.
Patch 1.05: From the very first time opening the game after the patch I've had nonstop issues. Game will lockup within seconds if I'm outside. If I manage to get into a city like Novigrad I can usually hide there and play gwent or something without issue till I leave the city and instantly get a driver crash. I've reinstalled the game twice. I've tried changing all the graphics settings to low, I still crash just as quickly and I get weird artifacting most noticeable in the upper left corner which does not show up when I'm on ultra settings. I've tried vsync on and off. I've tried unlimited, 30 and 60 frames. I've tried windowed, windowed fullscreen and fullscreen. I've turned hairworks on and off. I've switched 3D power management mode to 'prefer maximum performance'. I've made sure the game is using my GPU. I've tried the official windows 10 352.84 driver and older 350.12 driver and used DDU between installs. I've even underclocked my GPU to reference specs because it has a factory OC on it. (I have to do this to play heroes of the storm so thought it was worth a try here as well).
I even went as far as to install a fresh windows 7 partition and install only steam, witcher 3, GPU driver (350.12, 352.86, and 353.06) and eventually installed MSI afterburner to see if downclocking would help there as well. I had the exact same issues with the exact same types of crashes in 7 as I did in 10.
Other things I've done include not installing Geforce Experience when doing a fresh graphics driver install. DIsabling Nvidia HD audio drivers in device manager. I followed some of the tweak tips on the CDPR forums Tech support page without any improvement. I made a custom fan curve for my GPU and temps never rise above 75. Set the power limit to 110% even though I never see it go over 100. After I saw the artifacting a couple times in Witcher I started to get concerned about my GPU, but I went and played Heroes of the Storm, FFXIV, Arkham Origins and Bioshock Infinite all without any display abnormalities, artifiacting or crashing.
TLDR: Game won't stop crashing since patch 1.05, losing my mind. Looking for help or trying to see if others are having the same problems. Thanks in advance! I just wanted to play the game for my birthday weekend
Hey everyone, so i'm basically at my wits end and looking for any advice that any could offer or looking to see if other people are having similar issues.
To start, I have an i7-4790k @ 4.0 Ghz (turbo to 4.4 Ghz), 16 GBs ram @ 2400 Mhz, EVGA GTX 980 (Driver 352.84), 850 Watt PSU, Asus Maximus VII Formula, Samsung 850 Evo SSD, Windows 10 build 10130.
Patch 1.04: For the most part the game ran incredibly well. Every once and a while I'd get a driver crash, then i'd restart my computer and play for a couple hours, maybe a whole day without issue and was able to log about 72 hours of gameplay in the first 5 days of owning the game. I would run the game at Ultra everything, frames unlimited, windowed fullscreen, v sync w/o issue for the most part.
Patch 1.05: From the very first time opening the game after the patch I've had nonstop issues. Game will lockup within seconds if I'm outside. If I manage to get into a city like Novigrad I can usually hide there and play gwent or something without issue till I leave the city and instantly get a driver crash. I've reinstalled the game twice. I've tried changing all the graphics settings to low, I still crash just as quickly and I get weird artifacting most noticeable in the upper left corner which does not show up when I'm on ultra settings. I've tried vsync on and off. I've tried unlimited, 30 and 60 frames. I've tried windowed, windowed fullscreen and fullscreen. I've turned hairworks on and off. I've switched 3D power management mode to 'prefer maximum performance'. I've made sure the game is using my GPU. I've tried the official windows 10 352.84 driver and older 350.12 driver and used DDU between installs. I've even underclocked my GPU to reference specs because it has a factory OC on it. (I have to do this to play heroes of the storm so thought it was worth a try here as well).
I even went as far as to install a fresh windows 7 partition and install only steam, witcher 3, GPU driver (350.12, 352.86, and 353.06) and eventually installed MSI afterburner to see if downclocking would help there as well. I had the exact same issues with the exact same types of crashes in 7 as I did in 10.
Other things I've done include not installing Geforce Experience when doing a fresh graphics driver install. DIsabling Nvidia HD audio drivers in device manager. I followed some of the tweak tips on the CDPR forums Tech support page without any improvement. I made a custom fan curve for my GPU and temps never rise above 75. Set the power limit to 110% even though I never see it go over 100. After I saw the artifacting a couple times in Witcher I started to get concerned about my GPU, but I went and played Heroes of the Storm, FFXIV, Arkham Origins and Bioshock Infinite all without any display abnormalities, artifiacting or crashing.
TLDR: Game won't stop crashing since patch 1.05, losing my mind. Looking for help or trying to see if others are having the same problems. Thanks in advance! I just wanted to play the game for my birthday weekend