Witcher 3-Performance on mobile GPUs

[uthvag]

Witcher 3-Performance on mobile GPUs

Hello,

seeing that virtually everyone here has a titan sli or a 970 at the minimum , me being stuck with an 860m would like to request all the laptop gamers to post their FPS and settings along with their hardware so that others might find it helpful in finding what to expect

To the mods- this might fall under the pc benchmarks and discussion thread , but it is hard to get noticed there with everyon else worriyng over their
970s.So maybe after this has garnered enough responses , you guys can maybe move it to the other thread?

Thank you

EDIT- the mobile gpus rough desktop equivalents for the 8 series( rough)
860m- 750ti
870m- slightly better than the 580
880m- gtx 760

960m - 7% better than the 860m ( same chip , just higher clock)
965m- slightly over the 870m
970m- silghtly better than the 680
980m- almost the same as the 970 ( 75% of the 980)

these are rough estimates from notebookchech, however i have been told that the performances were better

Tips- max IQ(personal preference) a bit basic ones
1.turn off AA
2. no Vsync
3.texture quality medium is decent enough
4.no AO
5.Make sure your laptop is in high performance mode
6.PLUG you laptop
7.Proper ventilation to avoid thermal throttling
8.Good new for Kepler! Nvidia is working on optimization https://forums.geforce.com/default/t...37394/#4537394 Thanks @EvoHavok
9.Amd seems to use igpu instead of dgpu ,turn it manually if you are getting questionable performance.Thanks @Defiler1337
10.Latest amd beta driver ( catalyst 15.5) seems to give massive performance gain. Thanks @bobisimo
11.Set your physix procesor to CPU. Thanks UnrealEck
Tweak Guide

Official Nvidias tweak guide
http://www.geforce.com/whats-new/gu...-hunt-graphics-performance-and-tweaking-guide

User made tweak guide
http://forums.cdprojektred.com/threads/36088-A-compendium-of-tweaks-and-fixes-for-the-PC-version?p=1665572#post1665572

low settings ini tweaks

http://forums.cdprojektred.com/threads/37293-Low-spec-config-v0-1?p=1677307#post1677307

reviewers noticed little difference from medium settings onwards

CPU Analysis
I did following test with my Core i7.

I set affinity to just 2 cores for witcher3.exe process (from my 8 total). There was no performance loss at all. Only if set to single core there would be performace drop and surprisingly, while noticeable it was not huge. It was around 20% at tops.

So definitely, mobile Core i5 (4 virtual cores) will handle Witcher 3, if they match Core i7 in single core speed.

.

Another test, using power options to down-clock CPU to 50%. With all 8 cores running at 1.3GHz, there was no performance drop at all. This is really weird, since on my old Core i5, such downclock would affect almost every other game.

50% CPU power with just 4 cores working on the game. Same thing, no performance effect.
50% CPU power with just 2 cores. -> Finally drop in performance.

So, for CPU to not be bottle-necked, Witcher 3 requires either 2 powerful cores, or 4 weaker cores.
This should be doable with any modern Core i3 mobile processor, or greater, with maybe exception of low powered variants that have very low clock values (and small number of cores also).

Thanks @player1fanatic

Benchmarks



these are all with patch 1.02 /1.03


NVIDIA GPUs

500m series

i5 2520m/GT 555m - low @ 720p 10-15fps
-low with ini tweaks @ 1024 -20 - 25fps

600m Series

i5 2520m/GT 620 m - low @ 720p(unconfirmed) 13-24 fps

i5 3210m / GT 640m @ low - 18 fps (resolution unspecified)

MSI GE60
GTX 650m @ 1280 x800 - medium textures/low medium post processing/low preset ~ 22 fps

Lenovo Y580
GTX660m low @ 1366x768 25-30 fps
ultra@ 1366x768 16-20

CPU(?)/GPU 660m [/U]@ 720p low preset/medium textures ~ 30fps

ASUS G46 - 4gb ram
Gtx 660m (overclocked) @ 1366x768 ~ 30(?) fps

Spoiler

vsync off
res 1366
hairworks off
nr characters low
shadow low
terrain high
water high
grass low
texture medium
foliage low
detail medium

i7 3630qm/GTX675mx OCed (797 Mhz, 2200Mhz) -@ 900p low- 30fps

MSI GT60 0NE
GTX 680m(overclocked)- post processing ultra/ , high @ 1080p 30fps (19-36)

Spoiler

Post Processing:

Motion Blur: On
Blur: Off
Anti Aliasing: On
Sharpening: On
Ambient Occlusion: SSAO
Depth of Field: On
Chromatic Aberration: Off
Vignetting: On
Light Shafts: On


Rendering:
VSync: Off
Resolution: 1920x1080 (1080p)
Mode: Borderless Window ( I did not get any performance improvement when using Fullscreen mode)
Max FPS: 30
HairWorks: OFF
Number of Background Characters: High
Shadow Quality: Ultra
Terrain Quality: High
Water Quality: High
Grass Density: Ultra
Texture Quality: Ultra
Foliage Visibility Range: High
Detail Level: Ultra
Hardware Cursor: Off



Overclocking:
+135 on Clock and +140 on Memory

700m series

i7 3630QM/GT 740m @ 1024 x768 low ~ 25 - 27fps

Alienware 14
GTX 765 -@ 1366x768 high medium - 30fps

MSI GT70-2OC
GTX 770m -@ 1080p low/ultra textures ~ 24 fps (with recording)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jl6fM6uGWk

Sager, 17" I7 4910MQ @ 3.99gh
780m SLI(overclock)- @ 1080p ultra(with hair works -35-45 fps

Spoiler

irst 780m (4gigs) is overclocked to 1034mhz with a voltage clock to +75mv
-The second 780m is overclocked to 1070mhz with a v clock to +100mv.

780m- maybe half the performance of the rig above due to 99% scaling

Alienware 18 Laptop
780m SLI @ 1080p max settings with hairworks - 48fps

800m series

i7 4710/840m low @ 1366x768 ~ 25 fps

HP envy i7-4712HQ
GTX850m - @ 900p medium ~ 30

Spoiler

Resolution: 1600x900/Full screen
Hairworks off
Shadow Quality/Water Quality: low
Terrain Quality/Grass Density/Foliage Visibility: Medium
Detail Level/Texture Detail: Ultra
Num of Background Char: Ultrra

Clevo W230SS
GTX 860m - High/medium @ 1080p SSAO/AA on 35 - 45 fps

lenovo y50-70
GTX 860m - high/medium ssao /AA(+ 2xMSAA) on @ 1080p - 30 fps @ 900p- 35-40 fps (Source: youtube)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jD7M3oOpNi8

Acer Aspire V15 Nitro - Black Edition
GTX 860m - high medium @ 1080p 35-45 fps

Spoiler

Motion blur: on
Blurn
Anti-aliasing: on
Bloom: on
Sharpening: on
Depth of Field: on
Chromatic Aberration: on
Vignetting: on
Light Shafts: on
NVidia HairWorks: off
VSync: off


Ambient Occlusion: SSAO
Maximum Frames Per Second: Unlimited
Resolution: 1920x1080
Display mode: Full Screen
Number of Background Characters: High (thinking of switching to Ultra to see what it does)
Shadow Quality: Medium
Terrain Quality: High
Water Quality: Medium
Grass Density: Medium
Texture Quality: High
Foliage Visibility Range: Medium
Detail Level: High
Hardware Cursor: no

Alienware 17
GTX 880m- ultra/no hairworks/high foliage/high shadows @ 900p capped to 30 fps

Spoiler

- Postprocessing: Everything ON (and HBAO+ on max)
-Graphics:
Max Frames set to 30
Nvidia Hairworks completely off
Number of characters: HIGH/ULTRA (doesn't matter, as already stated by nvidia themselve, because ULTRA means 150 NPCS and there is no such place)
Shadow Quality: HIGH
Water Quality: ULTRA
Grass Density: ULTRA
Texture Quality: ULTRA
Foliage Visibility Range: HIGH (I set to ULTRA FPS drop is really dramatic, runs then around 24 FPS all around, of course without enemies etc 30, but in a fight noway)
Detail Level: ULTR

900m series

Asus G551JW
GTX 960m - customized ultra @ 1080p ~ 30fps

Spoiler

Postprocess: default High preset (with SSOA)
Graphics: customized Ultra preset (with old big hitters turned off)
*disabled hairworks
*medium foliage view distance
*low shadow

Asus G751JT
GTX 970m (overclocked) @ 1080p ultra ( no hairworks) ~ 40 fps

MSI GS 60 Ghost Pro
GTX 970m - ultra/no hairworks/medium shadows/high foliage @ 1080p 45-55 fps

MSI Dominator GT70 2QD
GTX 970m - Max post processing/ultra textures/medium shadows/medium foliage/no hairworks @ 1080p - 50 -60 fps

CyberpowerPC fangbook hx7
GTX 980m-ultra -no hairworks/ foliage medium /shadows medium @ 1920x1080 60fps


AMD GPUs

MSI GE700
HD5730 + 4gb ram @ 720p low + ini tweaks Novigrad - 10-15 fps Outskirts - 15-17 fps


i5 2410m/ radeon 6650m @ low ~ 30 fps (resolution unspecified)

Dell Inspiron 15R SE Core i5-3210M
HD7730m @ 1280x768 -low preset -20-22 fps ( within the starting tower area)
-ultra preset - 10fps

i7 4700 MQ /HD8970M - 640x480 low .ini tweak 14 - 30 fps , avg 19

I5-4200U/HD 8870M - @ 1366x768 26 -28 fps

CPU(?) GPU- HD7730m @ 720p 22-24 fps

i7 4700 MQ/ HD 8970m @ 1080p high - 22 - 23 fps


Intel iGPUs


HD 4600 - @ 1024x768 ~15 fps

 

[warbaby2]

ALIENWARE 14 i7-4600MQ. 16GB RAM, SSD with a GTX 765M... getting somewhere around 30 fps on high to medium settings (no hairworks or anything fancy) @1366x768... kinda lame for a machine that could run TW2 on ultra, to be honest.

Not everyone has a 980... performance tweaking for older/mobile GPUs would have been nice there.

 

[uthvag]

ALIENWARE 14 i7-4600MQ. 16GB RAM, SSD with a GTX 765M... getting somewhere around 30 fps on high to medium settings (no hairworks or anything fancy) @1366x768... kinda lame for a machine that could run TW2 on ultra, to be honest.

Not everyone has a 980... performance tweaking for older/mobile GPUs would have been nice there.

thanks!

 

[Daczster]

CyberpowerPC fangbook hx7 i7-4810MQ, 16GB RAM, 500gb SSD and 1tb sshd, also a GTX 980M. I'm getting a constant 60fps on ultra at 1920x1080p with the exception of 3 things; nvidia hairworks off, shadows on medium and foliage visibility range at medium.

Have a nice day.

 

[Clintius_Maximus]

Anyone know how it runs on a GTX 680M? I won't be getting the game for another couple days.

 

[yatin]

Anyone know how it runs on a GTX 680M? I won't be getting the game for another couple days.

Pretty good for 1080p and if you don't want 60 FPS. I am running Post Processing on Ultra and every things else on High (HairWorks off) and getting ~30 FPS (I think, didn't actually run anything to confirm). I have a MSI GT60 0NE (i7 3630QM, GTX 680M 4GB, 12GB RAM, SSD) and have connected to a external screen with HDMI.
Finished the prologue till now. Everything was fluid in White Orchard, didn't encounter any texture popins, etc. However I got constant texture popins during the conversation which takes place when Geralt is getting a forced shave, but only for Geralt's beard/foam-lather.
Frankly I am just happy I could run the game at High settings on the thing.

-- Update with actual numbers --
I forgot to add before that the display I use is a 59Hz 40" LED TV with ~12ms response time, and I don't sit too close to it so I probably won't notice much of the minute difference between minor settings (like Chromatic Aberration).

Here's my settings:

Post Processing:

Motion Blur: On
Blur: Off
Anti Aliasing: On
Sharpening: On
Ambient Occlusion: SSAO
Depth of Field: On
Chromatic Aberration: Off
Vignetting: On
Light Shafts: On

If I turn Off the stuff I have On right now I gain 2 FPS. So I guess they are not much useful for tweaking. From the above only setting Ambient Occlusion to HBAO+ causes a noticeable drop in FPS about 3-4.
Also I didn't notice any huge fidelity difference between then options being On and Off.

Rendering:
VSync: Off (never liked it when FPS is below display frequency)
Resolution: 1920x1080 (1080p)
Mode: Borderless Window ( I did not get any performance improvement when using Fullscreen mode)
Max FPS: 30 (not sure I actually need it as I won't be having too much difference between average and max FPS)
HairWorks: OFF
Number of Background Characters: High
Shadow Quality: Ultra
Terrain Quality: High
Water Quality: High
Grass Density: Ultra
Texture Quality: Ultra
Foliage Visibility Range: High
Detail Level: Ultra
Hardware Cursor: Off (Not sure what this does, I use a gamepad)

Other Tweaks:
I have set Anisotropic Filtering to 16x and Texture Filtering - Quality to High quality in NVIDIA Control Panel. The cost of this for me is 2-4 FPS, I am not yet sure if its worth it.

Overclocking:
Have a +135 on Clock and +140 on Memory overclock using MSI Afterburner. +135 is the max it will allow for GTX 680m.

Performace (Stock / OC):
I set Max FPS setting to Unlimited during FPS counting. The count were taken in the same area which reloading for stock and OC settings. But since the game is so dynamic I don't know how accurate it would be.

Lowest FPS: 19 / 22 (This happened when I was on the main mission and you reach a town which has ice covered stuff)
Highest FPS: 35 / 36
Average FPS: 28 / 30
Average FPS Where it matters, like combat and horse sprinting: 27 / 29
Also I notice my FPS drops to 25 / 26 when it gets windy, probably because of Ultra shadows.

I am perfectly happy with 24-28 FPS. I just hope it remains there when I reach Skellige, those mountain tops ohh man.

 

[MomoSinX]

i5 2520M 3,2GHz, 8GB RAM, GT555M 1GB, HDD 7200RPM. Everything on the lowest settings at 720p (I checked on 1024 too, didn't make any difference anyway), 10-15 fps. Sadly, it's unplayable like that and I can't get more. Turning off shadows would probably give me an extra 10-15 fps but since you CAN'T turn them off I am pretty boned.

 

[Nonyo]

I have a customized MSI GT72 Dominator Pro. It has the 980m 8gb and a 4ghz i7. I have all settings on Ultra and nothing decreased. The only thing I turn off is motion blur, as I'm not really a fan of it in games and turn it off in almost every game. This game runs extremely smooth and I set my FPS to 60 which seems to be no problem whatsoever.

 

[ZeGamingman]

I have a Lenovo Y580, i7 3610QM @ 2.30Ghz, 16 GB RAM and a Geforce GTX 660M. Right now I'm reading some tweaks and fixes to improve my performance. I was naive enough to think my mobile gpu was falling at least inside the "minimum requirements" zone, but if the information regarding the gpus equivalents is true, then I'm somehow screwed.It's a fact that until I get a better pc or laptop I won't be able to run the game at its maximum capabilities, but right now I would settle with the "not so nice views but steady performance" option. So if anyone has a recommendation that I could take into account, I'm willing to read it.

 

[Doodi]

Almost the same setup as @MomoSinX but i have 4GB ram and GT620M. No matter where i am getting 13-24fps with everything on low. There's actually a chance to play it but someone who knows the thing must do Low spec .ini file configuration and release it because i tweaked some things but i got like 2-3fps boost. Something is also wrong with CPU usage,it never goes above 60%.

 

[uthvag]

I have a customized MSI GT72 Dominator Pro. It has the 980m 8gb and a 4ghz i7. I have all settings on Ultra and nothing decreased. The only thing I turn off is motion blur, as I'm not really a fan of it in games and turn it off in almost every game. This game runs extremely smooth and I set my FPS to 60 which seems to be no problem whatsoever.

hairworks?

---------- Updated at 06:53 PM ----------

Almost the same setup as @MomoSinX but i have 4GB ram and GT620M. No matter where i am getting 13-24fps with everything on low. There's actually a chance to play it but someone who knows the thing must do Low spec .ini file configuration and release it because i tweaked some things but i got like 2-3fps boost. Something is also wrong with CPU usage,it never goes above 60%.

try upgrading you ram man... it seriously isnt enough for running the os alone..

 

[MomoSinX]

Almost the same setup as @MomoSinX but i have 4GB ram and GT620M. No matter where i am getting 13-24fps with everything on low. There's actually a chance to play it but someone who knows the thing must do Low spec .ini file configuration and release it because i tweaked some things but i got like 2-3fps boost. Something is also wrong with CPU usage,it never goes above 60%.

Visit this topic .

http://forums.cdprojektred.com/threads/37293-Low-spec-config-v0-1?p=1677307#post1677307

I am sure more ini configs will follow in the future. With this, I was able to squeeze out 16-20 fps, then setting the resolution to 1024 and stretching that to 1366 I got another extra 3-5 fps. So I am currently at 20-25. But be prepared, it's not pretty and the draw distance is f*ed up a lot. But hey, it's almost completely playable . If someone finds a way to completely turn off shadows we will get even more. I didn't monitor CPU usage but 60% does not sound right for this game hmm.. especially since it's only 2 cores, it should be 100%. Let's not give up yet, I am sure CDPR will release a patch too which will make our potato lives better.

You will get better results than me obviously.

 

[uthvag]

Almost the same setup as @MomoSinX but i have 4GB ram and GT620M. No matter where i am getting 13-24fps with everything on low. There's actually a chance to play it but someone who knows the thing must do Low spec .ini file configuration and release it because i tweaked some things but i got like 2-3fps boost. Something is also wrong with CPU usage,it never goes above 60%.

resolution?

 

[ZeGamingman]

I applied some of the tweaks and got some improved performance. I have been reading the pc tweaks, and it seems that grass is eating resources like hell. So I will begin with that. Also it seems that you can give the game a high priority in task manager to improve performance.I'm just testing though... slooooowly testing heh. If I can get some 45 - 50 solid fps at expenses of a less grassy enviroment, so be it

 

[Doodi]

@uthvag Lowest resolution but when i change it to for example 1280x1024 i am getting...like 2-3fps loss. Also about RAM. I have clean OS with no processes and almost none services run(disabling them when i play games). Afterburner shows that RAM usage never goes above 3100MB and my OS is running stable when i ALT+TAB the game.

 

[kndl]

I have i5 3210m, gtx640m and 6gb. That config can provide only 18 fps at lowest options, that is awful. I suspect, that only Nvidia mobile card has such low performance, as at i5 2410m and radeon 6650m it is 30 fps. That is just lame, since the second config is worse. Hope they will fix this, and I can play the game I have been waiting for 2 years at least with 25 fps.

 

[Deathstruck92]

Acer Aspire V15 Nitro - Black Edition

i7-4720 HQ 2.60GHz
12GB RAM
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 860M 4GB

Had to lower the resolution a bit, but the game runs on medium-high settings on stable 20-30+ FPS.

However, while fighting and roaming around is a very smooth experience, cutscenes are really choppy, especially when the camera focuses on someone's face with a forest or tons of grass behind them (falls to 10-15 FPS).

 

[Doodi]

I tried to tweak my ini file and ended up with..REALLY shitty graphics,NO GRASS,almost no trees,NO RAGDOLL and...i am getting the same fps or even worse LOL. Tried also this Low Spec ini,nothing changes. Also CPU usage STILL is very shit...i mean what the fuck sometimes its using barely 40%...sometimes it uses 5% lmao i thought Afterburner fucks up readings but i checked cpu usage in Windows manager and its the same. I would love to get at least 25fps. Just want to play the game,dont give a fuck about graphics but i guess i have to wait for upgrade...

 

[GuyNwah]

This game is not CPU bound; do not expect to see anything but low CPU usage unless you are running a low-end CPU. It is heavily GPU bound, and low-range nVidia products like the 620m and 640m just don't have enough hamsters to turn the wheels. Low-range AMD products are generally more powerful.

You're in deep sub-minimum territory, far below anything CDPR said the game would support, and the community that is working with sub-minimum configurations is just getting started. You will have to be patient.

 

[Deathstruck92]

Ah, I just turned off the Hairworks option and my FPS went 60+ sky high (both in battle and cutscenes).

Maybe it could help someone here, not sure.