I've played the game for ~21 hours or so and I've noticed stuttering here and there and I've gotten over it but it's really getting on my nerves lately when I went into more crowded areas of the map and when there is a higher number of NPCs on screen. Even without that the FPS cuts itself like crazy, in the woods it goes from 60 to 59 and in crowded areas sometimes to 45 but not in a nice transition, but a cut that freezees my screen. Does anyone know a fix or has similar issues?
Specs:
Ryzen 2600X
Nvidia GTX 1080
8 GB 2400 RAM
And the game is installed on an SSD
I mean, the problem is that it's not a regular drop, with a constant frame rate droppage, but that that happens in a split second where the screen freezes and reverts to a solid 60, like something hits the PC.
And no mods, and yeah thinking about upgrading the RAM.
GE is disabled, but it's like not a normal FPS drops, in forests i get a 60 to 59 drop, but its not a normal one, rather, a cut.
And got no second monitor and I've toyed around Vsync and tried out five or six versions and nothing helped.
Did you check out your task manager to see if perhaps some other program is requiring a significant amount of your CPU power? Things like that or even automatic windows updates can also mess with games sometimes.
Nvidia Control Panel (game-specific settings for wither3.exe):
Anisotropic Filtering = 16x
Texture Filtering = High Quality
Power settings = Prefer maximum performance
Frames to render ahead = 1 (do not confuse with "VR frames to render ahead")
If that doesn't work, try installing the Nvidia 381.65 drivers using the CLEAN installation option. I'm still using those on a 980 ti with no issue.
Nvidia Control Panel (game-specific settings for wither3.exe):
Anisotropic Filtering = 16x
Texture Filtering = High Quality
Power settings = Prefer maximum performance
Frames to render ahead = 1 (do not confuse with "VR frames to render ahead")
If that doesn't work, try installing the Nvidia 381.65 drivers using the CLEAN installation option. I'm still using those on a 980 ti with no issue.
Did the first thing and it didn't help and the driver is not compatible with my GPU.
This is the third PC I got that's giving me problems. You have no idea how much I've worked to get this PC just to play W3 and I'm utterly disappointed and loosing my will for gaming. It's like buying three cars in a row, brand new, and all of them break down, use too much gas and are at the mechanic every 2 weeks. I honestly can't believe that my friends system that's weaker than mine runs the game without a flaw and mine can't run it on low. I have absolutely no idea why it does it because I've literally spent weeks on the forums just trying to solve it looking for so many solutions and none of them worked. I'm just utterly disappointed and I'm not blaming W3, it's just a feeling of misery that is being rewarded for your hard work.
Nothing about a PC is "plug-and-play" really. Almost every single game I own has needed some amount of tweaking (aside from game settings). As time passes and new versions of Windows appear / drivers are updated / new hardware is installed / etc., older games that used to work brilliantly suddenly have monstrous issues. That's simply the nature of PC gaming. Here are the rules of thumb that I follow:
1.) Never buy "state-of-the-art" hardware (unless you've got money to burn and are looking for a challenge! ). Basically, doing so means that you're buying proprietary technology: untested, unproven, and unknown. Existing and immanently upcoming games were likely not developed to take advantage of it. It's a great way to run into ongoing issues. Plus, you'll probably spend a small fortune on it, and by the time everything is sorted and devs are actually building titles to take advantage of it, you can get better, faster, and more stable hardware for a fraction of the price. Instead, always try to buy the best of the prior generation's hardware.
2.) Don't fret about odd issues, just learn your system. Every PC is unique. Even identical, off-the-shelf systems will wind up with completely unique system configs after 6 months of use. Especially for gamers. It's best to just accept that your system will have a "personality", and there are times it will develop an attitude. You need to be sort of a bad parent -- just give it what it wants and don't try to make it do things it doesn't want to do. (In practice, this means that you'll occasionally have to accept wonky performance on a powerful rig, or spend a lot of time tweaking things under the hood to get it to work correctly.)
3.) If everything is working -- don't touch it. Modern day habit is to constantly update everything and stay current. Bad idea for a gaming rig. Obviously, if you're seeing an issue, updating drivers or something may be necessary. I'd also recommend keeping up with Windows 10 updates until things are ironed out. (Seems like we're finally getting there, too.) Once you've got things humming, DO NOT continue updating things. (I'm still using drivers for my GPU that were released around January of 2017, and I haven't had any issues. Nvidia Reference 381.65, if you want to try them.) Attempting to get 4-5 additional FPS is not worth borking an otherwise lovely config. (I'm also still using Windows 7. )
4.) Avoid power-user stuff. I've done my share of overclocking and trying to push graphics engines past their design limtations...but that type of thing begs problems. Hardware is built to do a certain thing a certain way. Any sort of "pressure" you put on it will simply wear it out faster. Kind of like custom work done to a car. Yep, it may result in faster speeds, but it's going to make the handling suffer, require more tire changes, and the engine will not last long like that. Run things at default clock speeds with default voltage. Aim for realistic performance. (Like, 120 FPS in The Witcher 3 at 4K resolution...probably not gonna happen. A smooth 50-60 at 1080p is likely doable. [But not guaranteed, as you'll see in my case. ])
5.) No, it's not going to change. PC gamers simply spend a large amount of their time getting stuff optimized for individual games. It IS perfectly possible to get fantastic graphics and performance on even middle-range hardware, but it always takes some doing. And ,what works for one person will not work for others. That's simply the mojo. I'd say I spend at least an hour with every new game getting stuff tweaked. For monstrous titles (like TW3, Bethesda games, really zealous indie games, etc.) I might tweak for weeks before I get things really nice...then a year later I'll discover even more.
For TW3, I've gotten excellent performance on 3 different systems using the settings above, but with an interesting catch. On my old ASUS RoG G71, I would get great performance everywhere, but it would tank near cities or the swamps. (The GPU was just under minimum, so that's to be expected.) On my nephew's iBuyPower desktop rig, he gets a pretty solid 50-60 fps, with occasional dips into the 30's for odd scenes here and there. On my desktop (i7-4790K, 980 ti, 16 GB G.Skill Ripjaws, Samsung EVO SSD...) I need to lock the frames to 48 in order to get smooth play. The most powerful of the 3 systems by far can't hold 60. Why? It's usually sync. Something in my system config is likely getting ahead of an engine process, and it's forcing the game to wait until other stuff has caught up. Limiting the FPS sorts out the issue. (And I mean beautifully. I get a rock-steady framerate everywhere, and that's what creates the sense of smooth play.) You can try that out by manually editing user.settings and changing FPSLimit=48. (This will make it say "Unlimited" in-game. Just ignore that. It works.)
Ensure that everything is set the way I indicated, restart your PC, and try launching the game from there. Also, try starting a brand new game; it could be an issue with your save-state, though I doubt it from the description. If the problem continues, change only one thing, and test it.
My guess is that it's a Ryzen issue. New tech and all. Watch for updates to the BIOS specifically for you motherboard and Ryzen chips. I would not recommend flashing it often, but if a certain version seems to be getting positive reviews, give that one a shot.
Keeps us posted! One thing troubleshooting like this is often not...is fast.
I've been having some minor judder, mostly in cities, since day one. I'm rocking a 4790K @ 4.4GHz with 16GB 2400MHz DDR3 & (currently) a GTX 1080 Ti. And that judder is usually accompanied by fluctuating GPU usage, so the CPU seems to be the issue in my case at least. Novigrad especially is really hard on the CPU and the judder is worst there, so the faster CPU & memory you have with as many cores & threads as possible, the better.
But again, the judder is so minor I can't be arsed to upgrade my CPU just yet. It runs the game well enough.
Nothing about a PC is "plug-and-play" really. Almost every single game I own has needed some amount of tweaking (aside from game settings). As time passes and new versions of Windows appear / drivers are updated / new hardware is installed / etc., older games that used to work brilliantly suddenly have monstrous issues. That's simply the nature of PC gaming. Here are the rules of thumb that I follow:
1.) Never buy "state-of-the-art" hardware (unless you've got money to burn and are looking for a challenge! ). Basically, doing so means that you're buying proprietary technology: untested, unproven, and unknown. Existing and immanently upcoming games were likely not developed to take advantage of it. It's a great way to run into ongoing issues. Plus, you'll probably spend a small fortune on it, and by the time everything is sorted and devs are actually building titles to take advantage of it, you can get better, faster, and more stable hardware for a fraction of the price. Instead, always try to buy the best of the prior generation's hardware.
2.) Don't fret about odd issues, just learn your system. Every PC is unique. Even identical, off-the-shelf systems will wind up with completely unique system configs after 6 months of use. Especially for gamers. It's best to just accept that your system will have a "personality", and there are times it will develop an attitude. You need to be sort of a bad parent -- just give it what it wants and don't try to make it do things it doesn't want to do. (In practice, this means that you'll occasionally have to accept wonky performance on a powerful rig, or spend a lot of time tweaking things under the hood to get it to work correctly.)
3.) If everything is working -- don't touch it. Modern day habit is to constantly update everything and stay current. Bad idea for a gaming rig. Obviously, if you're seeing an issue, updating drivers or something may be necessary. I'd also recommend keeping up with Windows 10 updates until things are ironed out. (Seems like we're finally getting there, too.) Once you've got things humming, DO NOT continue updating things. (I'm still using drivers for my GPU that were released around January of 2017, and I haven't had any issues. Nvidia Reference 381.65, if you want to try them.) Attempting to get 4-5 additional FPS is not worth borking an otherwise lovely config. (I'm also still using Windows 7. )
4.) Avoid power-user stuff. I've done my share of overclocking and trying to push graphics engines past their design limtations...but that type of thing begs problems. Hardware is built to do a certain thing a certain way. Any sort of "pressure" you put on it will simply wear it out faster. Kind of like custom work done to a car. Yep, it may result in faster speeds, but it's going to make the handling suffer, require more tire changes, and the engine will not last long like that. Run things at default clock speeds with default voltage. Aim for realistic performance. (Like, 120 FPS in The Witcher 3 at 4K resolution...probably not gonna happen. A smooth 50-60 at 1080p is likely doable. [But not guaranteed, as you'll see in my case. ])
5.) No, it's not going to change. PC gamers simply spend a large amount of their time getting stuff optimized for individual games. It IS perfectly possible to get fantastic graphics and performance on even middle-range hardware, but it always takes some doing. And ,what works for one person will not work for others. That's simply the mojo. I'd say I spend at least an hour with every new game getting stuff tweaked. For monstrous titles (like TW3, Bethesda games, really zealous indie games, etc.) I might tweak for weeks before I get things really nice...then a year later I'll discover even more.
For TW3, I've gotten excellent performance on 3 different systems using the settings above, but with an interesting catch. On my old ASUS RoG G71, I would get great performance everywhere, but it would tank near cities or the swamps. (The GPU was just under minimum, so that's to be expected.) On my nephew's iBuyPower desktop rig, he gets a pretty solid 50-60 fps, with occasional dips into the 30's for odd scenes here and there. On my desktop (i7-4790K, 980 ti, 16 GB G.Skill Ripjaws, Samsung EVO SSD...) I need to lock the frames to 48 in order to get smooth play. The most powerful of the 3 systems by far can't hold 60. Why? It's usually sync. Something in my system config is likely getting ahead of an engine process, and it's forcing the game to wait until other stuff has caught up. Limiting the FPS sorts out the issue. (And I mean beautifully. I get a rock-steady framerate everywhere, and that's what creates the sense of smooth play.) You can try that out by manually editing user.settings and changing FPSLimit=48. (This will make it say "Unlimited" in-game. Just ignore that. It works.)
Ensure that everything is set the way I indicated, restart your PC, and try launching the game from there. Also, try starting a brand new game; it could be an issue with your save-state, though I doubt it from the description. If the problem continues, change only one thing, and test it.
My guess is that it's a Ryzen issue. New tech and all. Watch for updates to the BIOS specifically for you motherboard and Ryzen chips. I would not recommend flashing it often, but if a certain version seems to be getting positive reviews, give that one a shot.
Keeps us posted! One thing troubleshooting like this is often not...is fast.
I'll try the things you've posted even if did most of them, if they don't work then I'll sell my PC and let some poor bugger fix it himself and give up on PC gaming or gaming in general. Or if I get mad enough smash it into bits, not the first time I smashed my own gear.
I've been having some minor judder, mostly in cities, since day one. I'm rocking a 4790K @ 4.4GHz with 16GB 2400MHz DDR3 & (currently) a GTX 1080 Ti. And that judder is usually accompanied by fluctuating GPU usage, so the CPU seems to be the issue in my case at least. Novigrad especially is really hard on the CPU and the judder is worst there, so the faster CPU & memory you have with as many cores & threads as possible, the better.
But again, the judder is so minor I can't be arsed to upgrade my CPU just yet. It runs the game well enough.
Hm. That sounds like it might actually be using your on-board video, not your GPU. Try going into Nvidia Control Panel, head to the game-specific settings for witcher3.exe and manually set the game to use only your 1080. Should look like something like this:
Hm. That sounds like it might actually be using your on-board video, not your GPU. Try going into Nvidia Control Panel, head to the game-specific settings for witcher3.exe and manually set the game to use only your 1080. Should look like something like this:
following! 
