Patch 4.01 — list of changes

[PotykaPal0808]

Yeah, so i got a 4fps increase with peformance mode and more shadow popin when using it. Im running 9900k and RTX 3080. This "Peformance mode" is a joke.

I expected optimizations on the CPU side. I hope future updates can improve this otherwise playing this game with RT on anything that doesnt have frame generation ie 40 series gpus, is not possible at good fps.

You should buy a new CPU, because with my Ryzen 7 5800X3D + RTX 3080 12GB, I got about 15 fps increase with Performance mode. I am almost always above 60 fps in 1440p DLSS (2.5.1) Quality, everything Ultra+, Hairworks On.

Post automatically merged: Feb 2, 2023

Can you PLEASE figure out a fix for GPU and CPU utilization in DX12? I'm running a 3080 Ti and I'm getting 40 FPS because the GPU utilization refuses to go past 50%, and usually sits around 40%. Why can't the game use the hardware that we're giving it?

They can't, even though you can't find the D3D11on12.dll file, the game actually utilize that feature, so your CPU has to answer to those calls which the "translater" does. If you can't live with it, I can recommend DX11, it still looks amazing, got a lots of graphical update and on my Ryzen 7 5800X3D, RTX 3080 12GB machine it is almost locked 120 fps, so you have headroom to mod and very multithreaded!

 

[rhymenosceros]

“Thank the Maker!”
You guys rule. The game had become unplayable due to the too-many-saves console bug. Thanks for patching it!
Now…back to the Path.

 

[seiven]

• King's Gambit - Fixed an issue where it could be impossible to participate in the fistfight with the second Vildkaarl due to an invisible obstacle.

Just experienced this 2 days ago, you could find one place in the corner where you could be hit, but not hit him, lol...reloaded my save and it fixed. Glad to see these little QoS issues being fixed.

 

[Vollhorst1234]

Updating to version 4.01 was a performance breaker for me. Before the update, my game was running butter smooth. Now it stutters like hell.
I noticed it's GPU related somehow. Prior to the update GPU utilization was around 70 percent, now it's 99. Also, my GPU usually reaches a boost clock of about 1930 MHz, now it doesn't go beyond 1750 MHz. The game doesn't even reach 60 fps right now. Before, FPS was about 80-90. That's a performance drop of 20-30 fps. That's absolutely massive and unacceptable!
I can't play the game right now, because the performance is that bad. I wish I had never updated. It's not possible to roll back to hotfix 2 on steam.
I'm very disappointed. As long as this is not fixed, I'm not able to play the game!

 

[SkyHiRider]

Still can't start the "Old Pals" quest after finishing the main game, this is all Zoltan responds with instead of initiating dialogue:

 

[PotykaPal0808]

Updating to version 4.01 was a performance breaker for me. Before the update, my game was running butter smooth. Now it stutters like hell.
I noticed it's GPU related somehow. Prior to the update GPU utilization was around 70 percent, now it's 99. Also, my GPU usually reaches a boost clock of about 1930 MHz, now it doesn't go beyond 1750 MHz. It doesn't even reach 60 fps right now. Before, FPS was about 80-90. That's a performance drop of 20-30 fps. That's absolutely massive and unacceptable!
I can't play the game right now, because the performance is that bad. I wish I had never updated. It's not possible to roll back to hotfix 2 on steam.
I'm very disappointed. As long as this is not fixed, I'm not able to play the game!

Maybe something enabled or disabled after the update. I have an RTX 3080 12GB and for me with the latest driver, no problem, the game runs much better but I also asked my friends, one of them has an RX 6800 GPU and he experienced improvment and my other good friend with an older RTX 2070 also experience a positive uplift. Try to go through your settings or update your driver, maybe reinstall the whole game (it helped me in some cases).

 

[FYWY]

Terrible. After 4.01 update FPS drops more 2 times. From 43 FPS to 19-22. And CPU load drops from 20-30% to 10%. On DX11 working well.
Ho can I restore previous version?

Laptop with Ryzen 5 3550H and Radeon 560X, Windows 10, last updates. 19.20.36.04 radeon software from ASUS website (vendor)

UPD. Oh, I found way to restore previous version.

 

[fogfire]

Enjoying the complaints about CPU dreams of magic.
When this game was coded and released. CPUS had 2 to 4 cores. Also the OS scheduling was less than stellar. This is why AMD was a gammer's chip years back because it could win the single core benchmarks while Intel won the multi-threaded. Most games were written on systems using 1-2 cores. And unless your cores are running at 80%, adding cores would probably not help as the game has timing constraints. Process B can not start before Process A completes or Process C crashes. etc etc.

A) Its not simple fix in something like a game to add threads. Parallel timing etc can be complex. It's not a PATCH it would be a serious change that would include lots of formal QA and lots of US finding bugs the hard way. CPU core count does not compensate for GPUS. never will. Cores help when running multiple independent apps and services so each can run faster.

READ the NAME This is Witcher 3 - NEXT GEN not Current Gen. So those of us using RTX 3XXX or even coming lower end 4XXX level GPUs and the equivalent on AMD side are not going to see 100 FPS with all the upgraded graphic detail turned on. If you want more FPS, turn down the eye candy, its NEXT GEN eye candy, so current Gen GPUS will be pushed hard when you turn up everything. And no the pitiful CPU 20 core CPU will not cover for a taxed massively parallel and specialized GPU. Your CPU is not being maxed out because the parts of the game run on the CPU don't need to use lots of CPU at this point. Its all about the graphics and the GPU. Example, AI proccess codded for massive parallel computing can take 5 seconds on a better GPU and minutes if using only the CPU. If you GPU is loaded and they figured out how to take you CPU to 100 on all cores, it would add 5% improvment probably.

The only fix to get more FPS, is spend more money, or turn it down to 1080 and off max settings.

No magic patch will use your CPU cores to replace missing GPU power.

I am glad to see they are still doing bug fixes. But I have also found that my RTX 3080 12GB overclocked a bit that is stable on everything else will crash on this game, it is being pushed ,so I dialed back the overclocking to factory overclocking and the game become very stable.

Its an amazing update.. Thanks !! CD Projekt RED

 

[PotykaPal0808]

Still can't start the "Old Pals" quest after finishing the main game, this is all Zoltan responds with instead of initiating dialogue:View attachment 11343946

If you played through the game, I think you will not able to finish that questline. I could start the Old Pal's quest after (or during, I don't recall) when Zoltan gave me A Dangerous Game quest.

 

[PotykaPal0808]

Enjoying the complaints about CPU dreams of magic.
When this game was coded and released. CPUS had 2 to 4 cores. Also the OS scheduling was less than stellar. This is why AMD was a gammer's chip years back because it could win the single core benchmarks while Intel won the multi-threaded. Most games were written on systems using 1-2 cores. And unless your cores are running at 80%, adding cores would probably not help as the game has timing constraints. Process B can not start before Process A completes or Process C crashes. etc etc.

A) Its not simple fix in something like a game to add threads. Parallel timing etc can be complex. It's not a PATCH it would be a serious change that would include lots of formal QA and lots of US finding bugs the hard way. CPU core count does not compensate for GPUS. never will. Cores help when running multiple independent apps and services so each can run faster.

READ the NAME This is Witcher 3 - NEXT GEN not Current Gen. So those of us using RTX 3XXX or even coming lower end 4XXX level GPUs and the equivalent on AMD side are not going to see 100 FPS with all the upgraded graphic detail turned on. If you want more FPS, turn down the eye candy, its NEXT GEN eye candy, so current Gen GPUS will be pushed hard when you turn up everything. And no the pitiful CPU 20 core CPU will not cover for a taxed massively parallel and specialized GPU. Your CPU is not being maxed out because the parts of the game run on the CPU don't need to use lots of CPU at this point. Its all about the graphics and the GPU. Example, AI proccess codded for massive parallel computing can take 5 seconds on a better GPU and minutes if using only the CPU. If you GPU is loaded and they figured out how to take you CPU to 100 on all cores, it would add 5% improvment probably.

The only fix to get more FPS, is spend more money, or turn it down to 1080 and off max settings.

No magic patch will use your CPU cores to replace missing GPU power.

I am glad to see they are still doing bug fixes. But I have also found that my RTX 3080 12GB overclocked a bit that is stable on everything else will crash on this game, it is being pushed ,so I dialed back the overclocking to factory overclocking and the game become very stable.

Its an amazing update.. Thanks !! CD Projekt RED

When I first played this game I had a Core i5 6600k and a GTX 1070 and in 1080p the game maxed out all 4 cores 100%, so it should at least manage 4 cores, but in DX12 it reduced to 2 cores, in 2015. there were 4 core/8 threaded Core i7 CPUs and The Witcher 3 could benefit from it. Even if you check the CPU usage in DX11 and in DX12 you will see that in DX11 mode the game heavily multithreaded. So something with the D3D11oD12.dll which makes the game worse.

 

[R4zen_Hose_Tony]

The biggest W3 NG Memory Leak Issue when VRAM is loaded over 95% isn't Fixed .... what a shame:

Witcher 3 NG Ray Tracing - GPU PCI-E Bus / VRAM Overload cause of FPS drop/stuttering issue - FIX'ed!

But i don't think this issue is related to dx11 mode and without RT there is no other reason and benefits from using DX12 Mode (even u got decress preformance from much lower cpu core/thread usage), especially for older cards like gtx series without rt support. So they released a Next Gen...

forums.cdprojektred.com

Even very low CPU Usage in DX12 hasn't ben fixed.... still one Core is on 100% and others just in half or lower....

Even Optimized RT Mod can give higher performance than Performance RT mode option...

CDRP, is there any competent people to do the right job? Because I'm afraid no....

 

[pritster5]

Still getting crashes randomly with a 4080 and 5800X3D. How do you guys manage to fuck up an update to a finished game this bad? Even the RTGI performance mode is just a bandaid if it doesn't address the underlying implementation.

 

[DemonEmperor0]

I need ng+2!!!!!

 

[Lare111]

Overall, RT Global Illumination Performance mode improved my framerate by 20-30% and now I get stable 60-80FPS. FPS drops in cities are also history. However, there is still micro stuttering when riding or moving camera. Also, after playing and fast traveling for a while, my FPS dropped down to 4 and I had to restart the game. These two issues still make the game unplayable for me. Disappointing. Been waiting to play this game for a while now.

Intel i5-13600KF
32GB DDR5 6400Mhz CL32
RTX 3070 Ti
2 x 1TB NVME

Settings:
1440p, DLSS Quality
Ultra - Ultra+
RT Global Illumination Performance, RT AO on

 

[AngelusLeonhart]

Did they happen to fix the insanely annoying bug that makes every dialogue option in one area of Novigrad take 10+s to load unless you have both DLCs installed?

 

[SkyHiRider]

I tried Axii on Death March and its still terrible.

 

[hicham1234]

The Witcher 3: Wild Lagfest

So. Long anticipated patch for the broken 4.0 which took over 1 month to deliver broke the game even more in dx12.
Tested in a few locations and fps went down roughly by 40% (from ~80 to ~50.
This is getting more and more hilarious but entertaining at the same time. Curious to see what will they break next.

 

[ReticentRobot]

Does anyone know if the draw distance on Series X has been increased to match it on PS5?

 

[RayofLight]

I wish they'd give us an option to use Geralt's cloak from the Killing Monsters trailer without using mods

Something tells me the clipping involved with the swords is why they never did it.

 

[Saudumm]

• Battle Preparations - Fixed an issue where it could be impossible to interact with Avallac'h during the objective "Let Avallac'h know everything's ready."
  
  YES!!! Thanks CDPR

Doesn't work for me. I can talk to him now, but there's no option to continue the quest. I can only do small talk with him.

Four weeks of waiting and... nothing.