Why the big resource-hunger?

[kicker044]

Why the big resource-hunger?

Hi there guys!

I recently installed TW2 and realized that it is unbelievably resource hungry. Even if I change every graphic setting to the lowest or disable it completely I can't run this game. Performance is so bad it's like watching a snail.

Here are my specs:
InteCore2Duo 2,5 GHz
Intel GeForce 8600M GT
4 GB Ram

I know what you gonna say: This is just too bad, too slow, not enough for the game and so on. Maybe you're right.

But: I can run Skyrim on really high settings, I even installed the High Resolution Texture Pack and it runs flawlessly. And Skyrim really has beautiful graphics.
So why is The Witcher 2 so resource hungry that I can't even play it if I change graphic settings to a Tetris look? I really want to understand that.

Thanks a lot for an explanation!

 

[GuyNwah]

CDPR did this game on a new engine of their own creation. When they did so, I believe they made a conscious decision that they were not going to reduce the game from the highest quality they could achieve on then-current hardware, even at the expense of the game performing poorly on lesser hardware.

So, for example, the game uses 2Kx2K textures and is written to downscale them for low hardware. It is written to do heavy processing in the output stage, and because of that it performs poorly on inexpensive GPUs that provide just 4 or 8 output processors.

I believe these were conscious decisions made to allow the game to look its best on the best hardware available, even at the expense of it performing poorly or not at all on hardware that is far below the stated minimum requirement.

 

[rising_jtr]

Out of curiosity which resolution you play your games at, because its kind of hard for me to believe skyrim running on Really high with Texture mod and very high at 8600GTM.

Also are your games capped at 30fps?

Try use autodetect best hardware setting and put texture downscaling to maximum.

 

[kicker044]

Out of curiosity which resolution you play your games at, because its kind of hard for me to believe skyrim running on Really high with Texture mod and very high at 8600GTM.

Also are your games capped at 30fps?

The resolution is the one of my display, it's 1440x900. But reducing it is just a drop in the ocean. Game remains unplayable.

And I swear on high heaven that I can run High Res Pack on Skyrim with great performance. It wasn't like that from the first version of the game. But some of the patches Bethesda released for Skyrim were really pushing performance for me.

I didn't cap frames, I don't even know how to do so.

 

[rising_jtr]

Your hardware isn't far off from this guy. So I believe you.
I feel the skyrim might be running at 26-35 frame rate.

8600GT Skyrim High Vid
Yes It seems witcher 2 is above your system , but at very low the game must be running at again 20+ fps.

Oh btw, Welcome to The witcher forums.

 

[kicker044]

Well, If I set all settings to the worst possible and disable everything that looks nice (which makes the game look like Tomb Raider 2 by the way) it is "playable". But only if you consider it as work and not as fun.
It's not really possible to use this game for me. So I compared TW2 to games which I'm actually able get them running. That's why I was confused.

 

[GuyNwah]

Rising_JTR is right: the 8600M GT is similar to the desktop 8600 GT, which is known to be about the lowest nVidia card that will run this game successfully.

Try running the game windowed. 1280x720 windowed (rather than full screen) is often the best-performing setting on below-minimum hardware.

Also try low settings, but change texture downscaling to "None" unless you have a 256MB card. (If you have a 256MB card rather than 512MB, you will have a lot of trouble. The game does not play nice with 256MB cards at all.)

(Texture downscaling forces the game to compute the downscaled textures on the fly. This is burdensome. You need it only for graphics cards that have really slow or really inadequate memory.)

 

[kicker044]

Seems like The Witcher 2 is one of the worst optimized games out there.

 

[tommy5761]

worst optimized...no but it is a very GPU hungry game . It ranks right up there with Metro 2033