The compendium of tweaks and fixes for the PC version

[Verrenus]

So it does seem to be a bug with the game. I deleted the settings files and cleaned out all 4 mods I use and re-verified cache(5 files failed). Rebooted game and the bug is still there.

If you want to reproduce it, go to the fast travel point of Fort Ussar in eastern Touissant. Run down the hill just behind the road sign and you'll see it. In-game time is 5.30 AM btw.

Thank you very much for taking the time to investigate this issue, my friend!

It is now clear that this is yet another bug introduced by the latest expansion and that the ball is now in CD Projekt RED's court to fix them all. :ermm:

 

[MovingTargetx]

Thank you very much for taking the time to investigate this issue, my friend!

It is now clear that this is yet another bug introduced by the latest expansion and that the ball is now in CD Projekt RED's court to fix them all. :ermm:

Well, here's the thing. I had a closer look at the new .ini files and they are exactly the same as my old ones, with one exception. Bloom was disabled.
Other than that they contained every tweak I had made to the game previously. So deleting them meant very little.
Any idea where the game would be storing another copy?

Edit:
Apparently it's pulling a new .ini from the cloud. Will try again by going offline.

Edit2: Ok, problem is still there with a fresh .ini.

 

[Verrenus]

Well, here's the thing. I had a closer look at the new .ini files and they are exactly the same as my old ones, with one exception. Bloom was disabled.
Other than that they contained every tweak I had made to the game previously. So deleting them meant very little.
Any idea where the game would be storing another copy?

Edit:
Apparently it's pulling a new .ini from the cloud. Will try again by going offline.

Edit2: Ok, problem is still there with a fresh .ini.

If your copy of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt was bought from Steam, then yes, your user.settings and user.settings.bak files will also be (quite frustratingly) stored in the cloud alongside your saved games. It's definitely something to remember when trying to refresh your files using Steam!

As for the shadow bug itself, it's most probably just something else CD Projekt RED need to address with their next patch. :ermm:

 

[MovingTargetx]

Yeah. I mean so far I've only seen it at that spot, so I should stop obsessing over it for now

I think my search for Reshade preset will have to continue though. I know a lot of people don't like the "piss" color in Touissant but I think k-putt's preset drains a little bit too much color from the game. It probably looks better in vanilla.

 

[Verrenus]

Yeah. I mean so far I've only seen it at that spot, so I should stop obsessing over it for now

I think my search for Reshade preset will have to continue though. I know a lot of people don't like the "piss" color in Touissant but I think k-putt's preset drains a little bit too much color from the game. It probably looks better in vanilla.

You have almost 130 presets to choose from, so take your pick! Alternatively, you can always tone down any preset to match your own preference.

 

[Martan]

I've seen those shadows bugs a lot in-game and also made sure many times, that it's just the game messing up itself.

It breaks the atmosphere, because I tend to spot it every time but there's no help to it, and I understand that in such a large game world weird stuff will happen ever after x-many patches

 

[Verrenus]

I've seen those shadows bugs a lot in-game and also made sure many times, that it's just the game messing up itself.

It breaks the atmosphere, because I tend to spot it every time but there's no help to it, and I understand that in such a large game world weird stuff will happen ever after x-many patches

Thank you very much for sharing your own experiences with this issue, my friend!

Indeed, this bug appears to be an unfortunate consequence of the incredible complexity of the game as a whole. Let's therefore hope that CD Projekt RED will not cease their support of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt any time soon and provide us with many more quality patches in the near future!

 

[Martan]

:smile:
More thanks should go to you, that you have kept this alive and updated for so long man ;-)

My config is nearly perfected after playing with it throughout whole weekend, but it's not with issues:

[size=+1]Generation of shadows[/size]​

• Occurrence: Some bugged shadows around the game world in some cases or in specific places
• Rating: It is a minor annoyance, visible & noticeable but minor all things considered.
• Solution: In-game problem, introduction of game fixes through patches by CDPRRED

[size=+1]Texture LOD scaling, distance wise[/size]​

• Occurrence: Around the game world on different objects: environment, building, characters etc.
• Rating: It is a minor annoyance, visible & noticeable but minor all things considered.
• Solution: Tweakable, by possible mods or config wise by users

[size=+1]Objects pop-in&out, distance wise[/size]​

• Occurrence: Around the whole game world. Could be characters or environment objects (barrels, crates even whole parts of ships etc.)
• Rating: It is a MAJOR annoyance, VERY visible & noticeable. We could say game breaking, because for example characters appearing from nowhere at streets. Instantly remanding us we play a game and something is wrong with it.
• Solution: Did NOT find any true solution so far.

 

[Verrenus]

:smile:
More thanks should go to you, that you have kept this alive and updated for so long man ;-) My config is nearly perfected after playing with it throughout whole weekend, but it's not with issues.

Thank you very much for your kind words, my friend, I really appreciate your support and am so glad that the OP helped bring a positive change to your enjoyment of the game!

With that being said, I do believe the presence of such bugs in a game as immersive as The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt only makes them stand out that much clearer. One moment you're absolutely engrossed in a fantastically-written quest, then you see game assets popping out right in front of you... :X

How did a modder like sjbox fix the game's LOD issues for free in his own spare time, but CD Projekt RED still hasn't managed to eliminate these problems even a year after launch? :ermm:

 

[Martan]

If anyone is interested I ended up with this setup on my system:
i5 4670K ^4.2GHz | 16GB RAM | 850EVO SSD | GTX 970 4GB ^1480/3700(7400)MHz
Windows 10 x64 | UWD resolution: 2560x1080x60Hz

With this you should get pretty stable 60FPS on 1920x1080 resolution.
GTX 970 has it's limits - that is mainly the 1080p resolution.
Anything higher and it can struggle to sustain the 60FPS.
So on my UWD 2560x1080 I'm somewhere around ~50FPS mark (70% of time) otherwise locked 60FPS (30%).
(I'm also using NVIDIA HairWorks ON - but with the mod to apply it to everything except Geralt own hair.)

[size=+1]1)[/size]I'm using these mods:
(a lot of them, but I've put all the links for anyone interested, just click at'em =)

Spoiler

• modALL
• modAlternateLSInteraction_IgniOnly
• modAnimalMonstersWind
• modAutoApplyOils
• modAutoLoot
• modBetterTrophies1_43
• modCan
• modColoredMapMarkers_AQO
• modFaceThem
• modFastTravelFromAnywhere
• modFriendlyHUD
• modHair
• modHDReworkedProject
• modHdtexture1
• modHQFacesV3
• modMapQuestObjectivesFull
• modNextGenStoneAndMisc
• modNoDirtyLensEffect
• modNoStairRolling
• modNovigradReloadedFullPackage
• modRealtimeflow
• modRemoveClearedMarkers
• modSheathAnimFix
• modSkipMovies
• modToxicityCleanScreen
• modVolumetricClouds1_21

[size=+1]2)[/size]With these configs:
(Click to show them)

• mods.settings
• user.settings

Two notes on them:

1) The "mods.settings" file is really important!
If you will use all of the mods above, respectively all of the texture mods from there - the priorities must be kept otherwise you'll have conflicts.

2) In "user.settings" file I've kept only the necessary tuned graphic parameters. You can manually copy & replace - for example the whole [Rendering] section or any other sections you like to your local config file.
After doing this don't forget to manually delete the "user.settings.bak" file in your "\Documents\The Witcher 3" folder! Otherwise the new settings will not work!
​

[size=+1]3)[/size]NVIDIA Inspector profile:

Spoiler

Download NVInspector profile

[size=+1]4)[/size]Also I am running W3 in Borderless Window mode with RTSS Framerate limit set to 60 FPS.
Because of Borderless Window mode and Windows 10 behavior - No VSync is needed, in-game or NVIDIA profile wise.

OPTIONAL
[size=+1]5)[/size]On top of that this superb (for me) present is running.
Providing more accurate colors, SMAA AntiAliasing and Sharpen filter(mostly needed I think).
I disabled the SMAA and used in-game Antialiasing. With full package you can expect 1~3fps loss.

• K-putt'e Config 1.4

Some screenshots with no spoilers:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/martan/albums/72157668918114742

PS: If anyone have a question just ask me.

 

[Verrenus]

If anyone is interested I ended up with this setup on my system

Thank you so much for taking the time to share your entire working configuration with us, my friend!

I will update section 18 of the OP straight away with a direct link towards your post, so that everyone with similar hardware might benefit from your thoughtfulness! :cheers2:

 

[Martan]

I will update it over time - right now I've started to play with shadows settings again and done some of the testing in-game wise, but needs more.

 

[Verrenus]

I will update it over time - right now I've started to play with shadows settings again and done some of the testing in-game wise, but needs more.

We would all greatly appreciate it if you could share your findings with us whenever you have the time, of course!

Best of luck with the tweaking until then, my friend, you are doing a terrific job for everyone visiting our humble thread! :cheers2:

 

[Lyvean]

I agree that the game has some issues but I think there is a lot of over reaction and misinformation going around, because people simply do not know how games are made. I don't say that I do, but I have read a lot on the subject and played many, many games.

In any open world game it is very common to have pop ins and it is not simply a matter of patches to fix it. People actually believe that CD couldn't fix the pop in issues if they wanted? Of course they would, but that would deteriorate other parts of the engine and drop the frame rate a LOT. You have to understand that an engine is being built on limitations and not abundance and that the developer has to take into account the averages of the PC consumer and knowledge.

One very important thing is that some people don't understand CD's choices as far as immersion goes. W3 has unified interiors and exteriors, something which have never been done and is the number 1 factor for immersion. You don't get a loading screen when you enter a building, like it happens in Skyrim for example, it exists in the world. Do people have any idea how power hungry of a feature that is?

Also, about the Lod mod. The mod doesn't fix the pop ins, it merely expands on the engine's capabilities. But. By stretching the assets, LOD creates extra problems in close distances who people believe is the fault of CD (you can find this in the comments section on nexus). By using the mod you get better texture lod but many times, your immediate surroundings, items, etc pop into existence out of nowhere. That is the price you pay. Plus, it drops the frame rate when you use it in combination with the ultra settings.

In comparison to other game makers, notable Bethesda, W3 is on a completely different level and no way near as broken as games like Skyrim of Fallout 4. If you take into account the animations, facial details, lighting techniques, the size of the world, the neverending content of quality quests and writing, the amazing expansions and general support of the game (skyrim is still using community patches after 6 years) it sounds quite arrogant to complain about about problems that games much less ambitious have.

Sometimes it's good to take a step back and appreciate what we have and, more importantly, don't blow things out of proportion. Saying that pop ins are game breaking, when in reality they are far from terrible in such an immense world and draw distances, reeks of entitlement.

 

[Verrenus]

Sometimes it's good to take a step back and appreciate what we have and, more importantly, don't blow things out of proportion. Saying that pop ins are game breaking, when in reality they are far from terrible in such an immense world and draw distances, reeks of entitlement.

Thank you very much for sharing your thoughts on the matter with us, Lyvean!

You are absolutely right that The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is head-and-shoulders above other blockbuster RPGs on both a technical and quality level, of that I personally have no doubt, but it is also because the game is so immersive that the LOD and pop-in issues are so much more distracting than they would be in all other games. :ermm:

I also don't think we are being entitled when, after reporting these issues to CD Projekt RED since launch, we still don't have the opportunity as PC players to manually tweak said LOD and pop-in distances on our individual machines at our own risk. It is very possible that the two consoles wouldn't have the resources to handle such changes, but most PC players out there have better hardware than that and would love to be at least given the option of adjusting these parameters if their rigs could handle the additional performance hit!

 

[Lyvean]

I have no problem with reporting these issues to CD, not at all. We should.

But saying (not you Verrenus) that pop ins make the game unplayble and broken? Isn't that a tad overreacting?

 

[Martan]

I never said that the game issues I've posted are making the game unplayable.
I just wrote my opinion and I think Verrenus could just see this from his perspective as well.
That those pop-in issues are distracting - therefore it's often breaking the atmosphere of the game when playing it.
(The game-breaking term was used with atmosphere when playing in mind. Maybe I wrote it not so well.)

I have no issues with the LOD whatsoever - it's a great technique to provide good performance/quality results.
Pop-in's however are different story for me, that's all.

In normal world nothing just appears in front of you from nowhere, like it's been just teleported there

And yes, you are right in saying many people do NOT understand the meaning of different techniques, processes used in games, how it's working etc. And they tend to confuse and misinterpret different terms on many many occasions.

 

[Challengan]

Hello everyone,

Here is my problem. I've always been able to play TW3 on decent 30 to 40 fps. I have a solid laptop with gtx960m, but after patch 1.21 it's unplayable for me. a minute or so after loading my game fps drops to 10-15 and it really is bothering me. I've tried various things but nothing too complicated. Do you have any ideas? Thank you in advance!

 

[Martan]

First you should recreate your config file.

Go to your Documents folder, it should be located somewhere like this path:
C:\Users\Martin\Documents\The Witcher 3 = Martin would be your user name in Windows of course

Delete both these files in there:
user.settings
user.settings.bak

Relaunch the game and set your settings in-game as you wish, then try to play with them to achieve some performance/quality you'll be OK with.

You can post what settings you've set and how is the game performance afterwards.

 

[Challengan]

Well, i followed this thread quite a bit, deleted both of those files and set my settings at 1920x1080 borderless
Blur and Motion blur off
AA on
Bloom off
Sharpening off
AO SSAO
Depth of field off
Vignetting and light shafts off
Terrain, Texture and Detail on Medium. Everything else is Low
I got maybe +5 fps out of it but it is still frustrating to play. I even tried reinstalling the game as I've read somewhere. Maybe i need to reinstall my windows. This just isn't making any sense...

Edit: forgot to mention that i've also went through all of the performance tweaks for laptop and in Nvidia control panel. Set max rendered frames to 1 and ticked power management to performance and turned on threaded optimisation.