[PC] Cutscene FPS drop

[nicola46bis]

Usual useless answers...a typical conversation with support months after game release...
it is not the first email I send them

On 20 July 2015 at 11:34, en.cdprojektred.com <no_reply@en.cdprojektred.com> wrote:

Product: The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
Platform: Windows
OS version: Windows 7 (64-bit)
Processor: I7 3770
Amount of RAM: 8 GB CORSAIR VENGEANCE DDR3
Graphic card: SLI ZOTAC GTX 970
Screen resolution: 1920x1080
Driver update-date: Latest

Product version: 1.06
Boxed or digital: digital
Vendor: GOG
Country: Italy
Game code: N/A

User email:
Problem description:
I have been waiting 1.07 patch with hope that the problems were resolved but incredibly was not changed anything. Cinematics are always stuck at 32 fps with much stuttering and the terrible animation stutter during the horse walking is unbelievable...no words.... Several people having the same problems and no answers from you!!!!! Several threads and videos, for example:http://forums.cdprojektred.com/threads/46184-The-(Un)Offical-HORSE-Stutter-Thread-Not-addressed-in-1-05-PC?goto=newpost http://forums.cdprojektred.com/threads/36654-PC-Cutscene-FPS-drop?goto=newpost I bought a new GTX 970 (350 €!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) only to have the promotion of the witcher gift and I can\'t get a refund!!!! IT\'S MY RIGHT TO HAVE AN ANSWER!!THESE PROBLEMS WILL BE FIX OR NOT???I DEMAND RESPONSE RIGHT NOW​

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica]
[/FONT]----Messaggio originale----
Da: pc_support@cdprojektred.com
Data: 22/07/2015 10.13
A:
Ogg: Re: The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Windows - [2015-07-20 11:34]
Hi,


Regarding cinematic stutter I'm not aware of any changes that will be intruduced to this, but you can change it yourself. Please locate the visuals.ini file in The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt\bin\config\base folder. Open the file with notepad and change MovieFramerate=30 to MovieFramerate=60. Keep in mind that cinematic experience was created for 30 FPS, so changing it may result in some visual glitches.


Regards,

Kuba Woźniakowski


My new answer:



[FONT=Arial, Helvetica]First of all are at least 1000000 times I answer you that with[/FONT] gog version changes to ini have no effect!!!!!Are you kidding me????Have you ever seen more videos on youtube or threads on YOUR forum??????

You also do not answer my second question!!!!!THE TERRIBLE ANIMATION STUTTER DURING THE HORSE WALKING WILL BE SOLVED OR NOT?????????


http://forums.cdprojektred.com/threads/46184-The-(Un)Offical-HORSE-Stutter-Thread-Not-addressed-in-1-05-PC?goto=newpost

 

[mrhUK]

Same problem here, 60fps without dips during combat but cut scenes are dropping me into the 40s, it's really ruining a certain quest later in the game that I'm doing now which is cut scene heavy.

 

[digitalray]

Same problem here, 60fps without dips during combat but cut scenes are dropping me into the 40s, it's really ruining a certain quest later in the game that I'm doing now which is cut scene heavy.

i just installed the witcher 3 again with a new pc, 980 Ti, 6700K, 16 GB DDR4 and used nvidia geforce experience settings in 1080p60 (all maxed out, all sliders to the right except texture sharpening on medium/low).

game runs perfect with 60 fps in-game, but cutscenes drop to 40 fps or something..

has this still not been fixed ??

i mean.. why would i get 40 fps with a 980 Ti even when using geforce experience optimal settings ?

i am not talking about the movies but normal cutscene gameplay graphics.

 

[Radee96]

How you found a fix to this? I'm still having this. Almost a year now. Changing movieframerate from 30 to 60 does nothing in the bin or documents folder.

 

[digitalray]

How you found a fix to this? I'm still having this. Almost a year now. Changing movieframerate from 30 to 60 does nothing in the bin or documents folder.

i stopped playing the game.
really.

i played a lot of other games and enjoyed my time.

i'm not someone who wastes his time with bugged games. and witcher 3 is bugged imo. 980ti, 6700k and stuttering 40 fps in cutscenes is not acceptable.

 

[SigilFey]

I'm not sure what the latest posts are referring to, exactly, but I think I can respond to at least a few points.

1.) 30 FPS in cutscenes

This is relatively standard for many games, not just TW3. I can confirm the 60 FPS .INI tweak does work on my end. If it fails to work for others, it's likely a system dependent issue. More detailed info about hardware, OS, and settings would help here. There's a lot of detailed drawing going on, and it's possible the game is simply bogging down and unable to get much higher than 30 FPS during certain cutscenes. It's also possible that the wrong file has been edited.

Note: Stutter during cutscenes just happens here and there. I have a i7-4790K, GTX 980 ti with 6GB GDDR5 VRAM, and 16 GB DDR3 G.Skill gaming RAM. Everything is running on a Samsung EVO SSD. I still get occasional stutter. I doubt it will ever be completely gone.


2.) Horse walking animation

The glitch does not seem to be happening for all users. It was very noticeable in my game until ~1.07. Whatever changed, the skip is now so slight as to be virtually invisible unless I look for it. This certainly seems to be system specific as well, likely a timing issue.


3.) Blanket solutions

The game is very demanding in more areas than simply graphics. Remaining synced is probably the most important part of smooth gameplay.

+ Run at 60 FPS. Whether you use the in-game cap or a program like NVInspector, be sure you limit your FPS to 60 or LESS.
+ Set your monitor refresh rate to 60 Hz. Do not use 120 Hz, 144 Hz, or higher.
+ Try switching to Fullscreen / Borderless. Selecting the right option for your system can make a huge difference.
+ Lower your resolution. While it may make the gaming area a bit smaller, this will have the single most drastic impact on your overall performance.

- Do NOT use Geforce Experience, Game Booster, or other such "pre-configured" settings. They're almost always set too high or too low and can cause instability.
- Disable Nvidia Streamer Service in your Task Manager --> Services. This thing kills about 15 FPS and can cause a lot of stuttering.
- Disable all "Power Saver" features under Windows, your GPU, and your CPU. Be sure everything is set for "Maximum Performance". You cannot save the planet and enjoy smooth gameplay with The Witcher 3. It just can't be done. Sorry, trees.

 

[CrocPoulet]

1.) 30 FPS in cutscenes

This is relatively standard for many games, not just TW3. I can confirm the 60 FPS .INI tweak does work on my end. If it fails to work for others, it's likely a system dependent issue. More detailed info about hardware, OS, and settings would help here. There's a lot of detailed drawing going on, and it's possible the game is simply bogging down and unable to get much higher than 30 FPS during certain cutscenes. It's also possible that the wrong file has been edited.

30 fps for a cutscene or a movie is totaly ok if it's sync, but it's not the case at all.

Can you run the opening cinematic after laucnching a new game at 60 smooth fps (Yen with the crow on the battlefield)? If yes, I would be happy and thankful you let me know which .ini file to config.

However since no one of other games have any stuttering issues with cinematics (+ lot of users, even with more than good rigs, experiment this issue on Witcher 3), it's not an user's rig problem but the game problem.

Just see at the number of views on this thread, its' the 2nd one more viewed in this section after "The compedium of tweaks and fixes for the PC version" which is pined at the first place.

There are also tons of thread on reddit, steam and other places about this issue and still no fix after more than one year.

 

[SigilFey]

I do run the cinematics at a steady FPS. Occasionally, I'll notice a "hitch" for a split second, but definitely no stutter.

I think you may be over-generalizing the statement that no other games suffer from stutter. While TW3 runs silky-smooth for me (mostly...it's not perfect), I get noticeable stutter in Dragon Age: Inquisition, No Man's Sky, Crysis, and Mad Max. Fallout 4 and Skyrim...perfect! Planetside 2...stutter. That's PC. There is ALWAYS a way to sort it; it's just a matter of how much time and effort you really want to spend.

With 2D cinematics, it's all up to your CODEC library. This is something I'm only basically knowledgeable of. What I do is ensure that the most "popular" CODEC for my specific hardware (audio and video) is loaded as default. Usually works out fine.

30 fps for a cutscene or a movie is totaly ok if it's sync, but it's not the case at all.

Can you run the opening cinematic after laucnching a new game at 60 smooth fps (Yen with the crow on the battlefield)? If yes, I would be happy and thankful you let me know which .ini file to config.

However since no one of other games have any stuttering issues with cinematics (+ lot of users, even with more than good rigs, experiment this issue on Witcher 3), it's not an user's rig problem but the game problem.

Just see at the number of views on this thread, its' the 2nd one more viewed in this section after "The compedium of tweaks and fixes for the PC version" which is pined at the first place.

There are also tons of thread on reddit, steam and other places about this issue and still no fix after more than one year.

 

[CrocPoulet]

My rig is clean and with default drivers, nothing fancy. And I'm an 35 years old informatician if it's necessary to specify.

I spent days and weeks to invastigate and make this game playable, and completely lost my time to make proper report for the support. Never needed to do that before.

I usually don't buy game day one and don't buy until it's correctly optimized and not more in a beta state. I check forums, games which are still in such a state after 6 month or 1 year max, I pass my way. I don't guaranty this market crap. All users should do the same, maybe we would finally see a positive evolution in the game market.

I made an exception for Witcher 3 due to the past of CDPR, I was dramatically wrong.


Games that stutter with a good and clean rig are bad optimized and sell in a beta state, Witcher 3 is one of them, end of the story.

All the games with stuttering issues that you're talking about are known for a horrendous optimization. Money comes over quality these days, it's a fact.

Games which are properly optimized and not in a beta state work fine in a capable rig. That includes to handle lot of possible configurations for the game, it' needs to put a sufficient effort in developpement for PC gaming.

I don't get your point of view unless you work for the marketing departement.

 

[SigilFey]

My rig is clean and with default drivers, nothing fancy. And I'm an 35 years old informatician if it's necessary to specify.

I spent days and weeks to invastigate and make this game playable, and completely lost my time to make proper report for the support. Never needed to do that before.

I usually don't buy game day one and don't buy until it's correctly optimized and not more in a beta state. I check forums, games which are still in such a state after 6 month or 1 year max, I pass my way. I don't guaranty this market crap. All users should do the same, maybe we would finally see a positive evolution in the game market.

I made an exception for Witcher 3 due to the past of CDPR, I was dramatically wrong.


Games that stutter with a good and clean rig are bad optimized and sell in a beta state, Witcher 3 is one of them, end of the story.

All the games with stuttering issues that you're talking about are known for a horrendous optimization. Money comes over quality these days, it's a fact.

Games which are properly optimized and not in a beta state work fine in a capable rig. That includes to handle lot of possible configurations for the game, it' needs to put a sufficient effort in developpement for PC gaming.

I don't get your point of view unless you work for the marketing departement.

I'm a volunteer, like most of the moderation team. My point of view is based upon my experiences and belief, just like yours.

That being said, I'm sorry you're having a hard time with the game. The process of bringing a title the size of TW3 to the market is not anywhere near as direct as "do your job and get it done right". Especially when you're talking over one million lines of code written for 3 different platforms simultaneously. The problem is not the game -- I've run it almost flawlessly since release. I'm on my 4th playthrough now.

PC hardware is an absolute nightmare to configure. Even a good, clean rig does not guarantee software will cooperate with it -- look at the titles I have problems with above. Same rig that runs TW3 without issue.

If you'd like help troubleshooting, I'll be happy to help dig into your system config. Point-in-case, CODECs come from a lot of places other than driver suites. Individual programs often install them stealthily and auto-configure them to be the default. That's as good a place to start as any:

I used to use InstalledCodec, since Microsoft so conveniently made simply listing all installed CODECs through Windows impossible. I haven't had much trouble with this for years, but I build / configure my own systems. I assume it'll still work just fine.

Let me know what your default is set to. Also post your sound card make/model.

 

[Pawel1995]

It might sound weird to you, but if you have a GTX 970, a rig that should handle TW3 well and you have tried everything, you probably should probably try to do a full PC clean and re-install windows and all the drivers Also, do you know how to fully DEinstal a gpu driver, before re-installing it? Just asking.

About the cutscene I noticed that some people mixed 2 things up here:

"Cinematic cutscenes": Like "Leaving Novigrad, to Skellige" , "Riding to Wizima with Yen" or "Fight at Kaer Morhen while Triss is shooting Fireballs" are all pre-rendered 30 fps cinematics. If you play on a 60 or 100 fps PC rig, this drop obviously seem really weird, but there is nothing you can do, only to ask cdpr to release a 60 fps version of these "films".

What the guy who started the topic means, are obviously the "Dialogue cutscenes" that are rendered IN REAL TIME. Now like I said at the start, a GTX 970 should have no problems on medium to high settings on 1080p.

I haven't read through the whole topic, can you take screenshots of your settings in game? A GTX 970 might cost "350€!!!!!!!!!!!" but The Witcher 3 is a really demanding game.
Also, do you use recording programs like Nvidias Shadowplay? Can you capture the dialogues with a FPS counter in a corner ?

EDIT: Just read that "I'm an 35 years old informatician if it's necessary to specify." ,so I guess it should be no problem to set up such a small recording for you. Just record a clip with 1-2 min. length with a fps counter.

 

[CrocPoulet]

I'm a volunteer, like most of the moderation team. My point of view is based upon my experiences and belief, just like yours.

That being said, I'm sorry you're having a hard time with the game. The process of bringing a title the size of TW3 to the market is not anywhere near as direct as "do your job and get it done right". Especially when you're talking over one million lines of code written for 3 different platforms simultaneously. The problem is not the game -- I've run it almost flawlessly since release. I'm on my 4th playthrough now.

PC hardware is an absolute nightmare to configure. Even a good, clean rig does not guarantee software will cooperate with it -- look at the titles I have problems with above. Same rig that runs TW3 without issue.

If you'd like help troubleshooting, I'll be happy to help dig into your system config. Point-in-case, CODECs come from a lot of places other than driver suites. Individual programs often install them stealthily and auto-configure them to be the default. That's as good a place to start as any:

I used to use InstalledCodec, since Microsoft so conveniently made simply listing all installed CODECs through Windows impossible. I haven't had much trouble with this for years, but I build / configure my own systems. I assume it'll still work just fine.

Let me know what your default is set to. Also post your sound card make/model.

Thank for your reply and your help. Just before investigate with you, just a few details :

I'm totally aware about the difficulty of developpement cause I'm a former developper (not in video game but I know what it involves to developpe properly an application in terms of time, investissement and difficulty), it's why I said you :

Games which are properly optimized and not in a beta state work fine in a capable rig. That includes to handle lot of possible configurations for the game, it' needs to put a sufficient effort in developpement for PC gaming.

Money comes over quality these days, it's a fact.

(And it sadly works for everething in this world nowadays, it's an another debate but still strongly linked to "our" problem)

Another point, when all the other games work perfectly fine and flawlessly on a clean rig but not only ONE game, please don't incriminate the rig but the game itself.
It means that not enough effort is put in developpement for this game to handle the whole configurations for capable PCs.

All my games work like a charm, current like ancient including Witcher 1 & 2. Video, sound, gameplay, ... everything is fine.

Witcher 3 was obviously launched too soon and in a beta state, the issues that I experiment are not isolated on my rig but for MANY and MANY people, it's a 2nd very important point.

So like I said, not enough effort put in developpement, and not enough effort for bugs fix after the launch too (this game is regardeless more than 1 year old now!)

Final point and what made me upper angry is that CDPR's support didn't care after so much complains and for the time that users (and buyers of their game) spend to make proper reports! We give them many info, took the time to make videos, etc... and what we get? Deny and 0 help or any statement that they will work on this, just take a look of the previous pages, it's insane! (For my case I purshased an expensive GTX 970 just for this game to have a great experience with and close perfectly the saga, big fail).

+ All the CDPR's marketing lies before and after the launch made me really sick, what a treason after all the support by the community!


So, for our case

My sound card is included in my motherboard with the default Windows driver for it : Asus P7P55D-LE for the mobo.

I don't know your tool for the codecs, I'll check if it's virus free and let you know when I'll have a little time for.

I loose lot of my time with this game + the CDPR attitude, that made me very tired of it. So I can take one more of my time if you have a connection with CDPR to make them their work, and if it helps other users. Cause I'm done with this game and CDPR for a while.

---------- Updated at 07:32 PM ----------

It might sound weird to you, but if you have a GTX 970, a rig that should handle TW3 well and you have tried everything, you probably should probably try to do a full PC clean and re-install windows and all the drivers Also, do you know how to fully DEinstal a gpu driver, before re-installing it? Just asking.

About the cutscene I noticed that some people mixed 2 things up here:

"Cinematic cutscenes": Like "Leaving Novigrad, to Skellige" , "Riding to Wizima with Yen" or "Fight at Kaer Morhen while Triss is shooting Fireballs" are all pre-rendered 30 fps cinematics. If you play on a 60 or 100 fps PC rig, this drop obviously seem really weird, but there is nothing you can do, only to ask cdpr to release a 60 fps version of these "films".

What the guy who started the topic means, are obviously the "Dialogue cutscenes" that are rendered IN REAL TIME. Now like I said at the start, a GTX 970 should have no problems on medium to high settings on 1080p.

I haven't read through the whole topic, can you take screenshots of your settings in game? A GTX 970 might cost "350€!!!!!!!!!!!" but The Witcher 3 is a really demanding game.
Also, do you use recording programs like Nvidias Shadowplay? Can you capture the dialogues with a FPS counter in a corner ?

EDIT: Just read that "I'm an 35 years old informatician if it's necessary to specify." ,so I guess it should be no problem to set up such a small recording for you. Just record a clip with 1-2 min. length with a fps counter.

The author of this thread talks about the intro cinematic, so I guess it's about pre rendered cinematics and not real time cinematics (which work fine for me), but no one saw again the author after his post.

However I suited and was active for the whole thread like others and the point is for pre rendered cinematics for sure.
Theses cinematics runed between ~19 to 28 fps for the users with this issue with horrendous stuttering (even with very good rig) at the launch of the game. After a few patches and still now these cinematic run at a perfect 32 fps but still with stuttering (even if the state is better now than at the launch)

For a good experience, these cinematics should run at 30 smooth fps sync or even better at 60 smooth fps sync (we're on PC, not consoles...)

I even made a fresh Windows intsall on a new ssd and a new HDD for game's stoarge when I upgraded my rig, so no need to cleen old drivers (whereas I know how clean drivers, it's not the problem).
I just left Windows update itself and check there was no more update, install the last Nvidia driver without GeForce experience, install the game fully updated, no one application added for still exactly the same bugs, so the problem is the game.

No one single problem with my other games.


A video I made and sent to their support at the time :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOWDmZLpu8w

I don't have the courage to make a new right now, consider that the pre rendred cutscene run now at 32 fps out of sync and with less but still stuttering.


In game, I've a perfect 60 fps sync in any situation, the only way to have a smooth gameplay, the game don't accept to run without stutter even at 50 stable fps or even more at 75 stable fps, it's crazy.

For exemple I could play Crysis 3 around 40 - 45 fps without any stutter or problem with the same rig with my proco at stock clock and only a GTS 450 OC!... (I'd got a GTX 660 OC between my GTS 450 and my GTX 970 for the little story) .


My set up in Witcher 3 :

Post process : everything max and on (include HBAO +)
Graphical options : 1920 x 1080
vsync on
framelimiter 60
windowded borderless (it eats less proco and the sync run better)
everything max out except shadows and distance foliage on High
Hairworks off