Performance Issue - Severe Stuttering & Low GPU Utilization in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

[Wa1co4o]

System Specifications:

CPU: Intel Core i9-14900K

GPU: NVIDIA RTX 5090D

RAM: 48GB

Storage: Game installed on SSD

OS: Windows 11 24H2 (latest updates installed)

Issue Description:
After launching The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, the game runs smoothly initially but begins to stutter and drop frames severely after approximately 10-15 minutes of gameplay. During these stutters, the GPU utilization drops abnormally to 0-10% (as observed by MSI Afterburner, and it fails to recover unless the game is forcibly closed and relaunched. This cycle repeats even after restarting the game.

Troubleshooting Steps Attempted:

Hardware/BIOS:

Reset CPU, RAM, and motherboard to default settings.

Disabled/Enabled SAM Resizable BAR.

GPU Drivers:

Tested multiple driver versions: 572.83, 572.70, 572.60, 572.47 (Clean install via DDU).

Game/System Settings:

Adjusted in-game graphics settings (Low to Ultra presets, Fullscreen/Windowed modes).

Disabled/Enabled Hardware-Accelerated GPU Scheduling.

Toggled Windows "Game Mode" ON/OFF.

Modified NVIDIA Control Panel 3D settings (Power Management = Prefer Maximum Performance, V-Sync adjustments, etc.).

Adjusted Witcher3.exe compatibility settings (Run as Admin, Disable Fullscreen Optimizations).

Verified game files on Steam

Request for Support:
The issue persists across all tested configurations. Could the development team advise on:

Potential workarounds or fixes?

Specific diagnostic logs/tools to collect for further analysis (e.g., DXDiag, GPU driver logs, in-game metrics)?

Whether this is a known issue being investigated?

Thank you for your assistance!

 

[SigilFey]

TW3 is doing a lot under the hood almost constantly. Generally, hitching and stuttering will be "invisible" game functions being quite out of sync with FPS.

To start, try limiting FPS to something that is a multiple of 8. For example if you're capable of 120 FPS consistently, limit FPS to 72. The idea is to leave a good performance overhead at all times, allowing the game to pace all of its functions with key frames without having to struggle to draw those frames. This will also prevent the CPU from bottlenecking the GPU, though I doubt that's the issue in your case.

 

[Skridur]

I have the same problem. I use DX11 because DX12 has much worse performance
On my end i fixed most of the stutters by going into Windows Device Manager and disabling NVIDIA High Definition Audio, Virtual Audio Device. and AMD Audio Device, High Definition Audio and Streaming Audio. All in the Sound, Video and game controllers tab

Stuttering still occurs frequently, mostly when new things happen because of Shader Cache or whatever. There isn't a Pre-Compilation step before playing unfortunately (Doubt one will ever be added in an update)

 

[marcellobuddy]

Really unfortunate, my 9070xt has similar shader compilation stutters, at least that’s what I assume them to be. I’ve got a 9800X3D too, but apparently knocking background characters to ultra plus is too much for the best CPU money can buy… the optimization is just terrible.