Witcher 3-Performance on mobile GPUs

[AussieDad075]

Lowest settings except textures and a very low resolution and it might still not be fluent at all. I strongly suggest sticking to the PS4 version this time for a smoother and prettier experience.

Yeah was hoping to at least play at 1920X1080 but that isn't going to happen, especially considering this rig struggled with Witcher 2 at those resolutions, 1080p is just a pipe-dream I guess, maybe I should just stick to my PS4 version atm, playing on a 60 inch LCD with surround sound hooked up so its not all doom and gloom, just miss Witchering (my new word!) on my PC New Asus ROG's are using GTX980M's so I am at least 4 Gens behind current tech, probably more!

 

[slavonac91]

Although not everything explained this was quite helpfull for me as its a lot more organiased than dealing with a bunch of files.
http://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/mods/12/?

That helped alot thanks. Much simpler that way than editing each file individually over and over
Im now in skillege and get 17 on avg but also often over 20. Also the shadow and tree popping is lower \o/
But i still get regulary fps drops in dialogues. Sometimes down to 10, then the camera pans into another direction i get 20.... its weird.

Also i noticed that dialogues start to desynch when under 15 fps.
So guys if you want fluent dialogues you need more than 15

 

[vladgiurgiubv]

Guys...I have found a way you can make your gameplay smoother and maybe even a bit more fps!
From intel graphics control panel: in 3D tab you select performance and in power tab you select maximum performance!
helped me a little bit (or maybe placebo!) worth the try
(because Optimus aka. Shitimus)

 

[SRSR333]

I noticed that other than Hairworks and Foliage Density, the other settings barely make a difference. I turned everything down to Low at 1080p, and still get crappy performance (i.e. 25-30 FPS). Only dialling down resolution to 900p increases FPS at all. Except HBAO, none of the post-processing settings make much (if any) of a difference.

 

[uthvag]

I noticed that other than Hairworks and Foliage Density, the other settings barely make a difference. I turned everything down to Low at 1080p, and still get crappy performance (i.e. 25-30 FPS). Only dialling down resolution to 900p increases FPS at all. Except HBAO, none of the post-processing settings make much (if any) of a difference.

even resplution doesnot make that much of a change . max 13 fps from 1080p to 1366x768

 

[hummatov]

With the new Geforce driver update 353.06 I gained 13 FPS on the low end dips, & 8 FPS gain on the average. I was getting a 40 FPS average with dips to 27 before. Now I am getting a 48 average with dips staying above 40. This is with all settings turned on & maxed @ 1080p including full Hairworks.

Alienware 18 Laptop (1080p/60Hz)
i7-4900MQ OCed to 4.0GHz
32GB RAM @ 1600MHz
2 x 4GB GTX 780M in SLI
2 x 1TB Samsung 840 EVO SSD
Windows 7 Pro 64-bit
Geforce Driver 353.06

Sir, please share your settings with me, at least by explaining. Because i have alienware 18 with 880m sli and i can only get 35 fps with everything maxxed out. What am i missing? SLl enabled, latest nvidia driver. I feel my gpu-s are only working to their partial potential.

 

[carsomnyr]

Specs
Lenovo Z510 notebook
i5 2400m
740m
8 gb
If i go all low, all post process off got 21 avarage at 1366x768 on patch 1.05. After the release of 1.05 i noticed gameplay isnt that tied to fps anymore and dont need that extra frame rate so decided to go for better graphics below is what i ended up with and a really short video showing how my gameplay is with these settings
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-OeSRmg19A
Oh first time i recorded a video and seemed to me its acting up a little on youtube btw. Below is the benchmark of that video with fraps.
Frames, Time (ms), Min, Max, Avg
1275, 106422, 11, 15, 11.981
Settings

Spoiler

Vsync = On
Frame Limit =30
Resolution = 1366x768
Display Mode =Fullscreen
Nvidia Hairworks =Off
Number Of Background Characters = High
Shadow Quality = Medium
Terrain Quality = High
Water Quality = High
Grass Density = High
Texture Quality = High
Foliage Visibility Range = High
Detail Level = High
Post Process
Motion Blur = Off
Blur = Off
Anti-Aliasing = On
Bloom = On
Sharpening = High
Ambient Occlusion = HBAO+
Depth Of Field = On
Chromatic Aberration = Off
Vignetting = Off
Light Shafts = On

As far as i tested most of the gameworld has the same amount of fluidity other than a few places in velen such as four corners inn and the village where the soothsayer(Gwent and prophecy guy) is. Didnt notice any performance drops on big cities been to both novigrad and oxenfurt with these settings. Only tweaks i am using are garbage collector, game exe priority, and the tweaks for nvidia control panel(From the megathread). My opinion since my gameplay isnt getting effected by these settings i would prefer these over an +10 frame view that looks like a disected alien.

 

[youknowwho77]

After patch 1.05 and with some tweaking, I managed to make the game run smoother. Still around 20fps @ 720p, but at least it's smooth.

 

[uthvag]

After patch 1.05 and with some tweaking, I managed to make the game run smoother. Still around 20fps @ 720p, but at least it's smooth.

great!! what tweaks id you do?

 

[Prokktor]

On an NVIDIA K5000M Chip I play medium to high Quality at 40 Frames. So its absolutely playable.

 

[digitalray]

here are the tweaks for mobile GPUs und smooth gameplay without stuttering i found so far, working super fine for me. ignore the stutters in the video, comes from high quality encoding while gaming and encoding again with youtube. game is stutterfree for me now..

video is gtx 760m, all postpro fx on, hbao+, AA, graphics all high, shadows medium, foliage low.

28 - 55 fps (capped at 30 for 98 % of the time).

read the description of the video on youtube for how to achieve it.

 

[slavonac91]

Thanks for the tip. I just ordered additional ram from ebay so i will have 6gb total. Will tell if it made a difference when the ram arrives.
Other than that i tweaked the .ini even further and now i get up to 22 fps in open fields, 18 avg and 14 avg in novigrad now.

I upgraded my ram, but it didnt help much with fps. got like 2 more fps on avg.

 

[Waystorm]

Just wanted to share my config. I'm at about 20hrs in on a GTX 660m 2Gb @ 720p. I'm looking to upgrade now though, I really want to play this gem in its full glory but I'm impressed with the 660m chip thoroughly, satisfied Asus customer.

Ultimately if you could turn dynamic shadows totally off that would be optimal, strange it's not an option.. devs.

User.settings
http://www.2shared.com/file/RIhyMB44/user.html

Rendering.ini
http://www.2shared.com/file/7-Cy9COo/rendering.html

Textures on Ultra, can't tell a significant performance difference.

Like I mentioned it's not in it's full glory but it's playing on a 660m at 30-60fps outside and 60fps inside (usually).

There's a huge black shadow box that turns up on occasion, I've tuned it out now but it was super annoying.

I don't know what my temperatures are, if this game retires my laptop I'd be proud.

I can play GTA5, Metal Gear Solid 5 and Killing Floor 2 on this GTX 660m @ 720p, I'm thoroughly impressed.



Other than the ini configs you should also try turning off hyper threading/ virtualizations off in your bios and unpark your cores, you can search for guides on how to do that online.

here you go, disable hyper threading
http://www.ehow.com/how_8291008_disable-hyperthreading.html

Unpark your cores,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Muj_BDJaWf8

I'm not trying to throw software at you guys, but give it a shot, it works.

 

[LeadStarDude]

Sir, please share your settings with me, at least by explaining. Because i have alienware 18 with 880m sli and i can only get 35 fps with everything maxxed out. What am i missing? SLl enabled, latest nvidia driver. I feel my gpu-s are only working to their partial potential.

Check your temperatures. Perhaps your 880M SLI is getting hot. I have heard of other 88M SLI users having heat issues before because of their higher clocks. If they go above 85C they will automatically down clock & then they perform like crap. My 780M is running between 72C & 76C on this games. However I am using a Targus HD3 cooling pad. Buy a cooling pad if you don't have one. The lower your temps the more stable your performance will be.

Also make sure to turn off as many background apps as possible.

Make sure that Windows Power Management is set to always high performance, & make sure your 880Ms are set to prefer maximum performance in the nVidia control panel's 3D Mangement's global settings. Also let Geforce Experience optimize the game once before you change any settings yourself in game. Oh & make sure to plug into your charger because playing on battery is crap with this game.

Set GPU(2) as your preferred PhysX card instead of using automatic. Do not select dedicate though because that will turn off SLI.

Change the TextureMemoryBudget in the User config from 800MB (Ultra) to a custom 1536MB. Save & Exit. Then right click on the User config folder & open the properties. Change it to read only so that the game doesn't over write your custom TextueMemoryBudget setting. This will help with Texture streaming after awhile of playing because it gives the game a bigger texture cache. Basically it lets your 4GB card use a little of that extra VRAM available.

Make sure to run a Malware scan & Registry clean up as well. Malwarebytes https://www.malwarebytes.org/mwb-download/ & CCleaner http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner/download are both great & free.

Other than that I don't know what else to say. Make sure that your Bios, USB, Audio, & Display drivers are all up to date. Good luck.

 

[player1fanatic]

I'll put this here:

 

[player1fanatic]

Let me revive this thread by adding some additional observation from my side.

First, Asus G551JW will throttle its GTX 960M, if temperature gets to 74C. That may result in around 5-20% performance loss.

There is official BIOS update that increases this limit to 78C, and unofficial beta driver that increases it to 82C.

All info on this thread:
https://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread.php?64295-G551JW-GPU-throttle-at-74-degree-celsius

Next, I did some utilization tests in the Novigrad central square during the day (running around).

I'm using Intel i7-4720HQ, quad core with HT, with 2.6GHz and 3.4GHz Turbo Boost.

I was testing downgrading CPU frequency (through power options) and reducing number of cores available (through processor affinity for witcher3.exe), and how it affects GPU utilization (used GPU-Z to test that).

8 cores, 0.8GHz - around 45-60% GPU utilization
8 cores, 1.0GHz - around 60-85% GPU utilization
8 cores, 1.1GHz - around 80-90% GPU utilization
8 cores, 1.2GHz - around 85-99% GPU utilization
8 cores, 1.3-2.6GHz - around 95-99% GPU utilization (more stable the higher the clock)

4 cores, 0.8GHz - around 35-45% GPU utilization, has sound shuttering
4 cores, 1.1GHz - around 45-55% GPU utilization, no sound shuttering anymore
4 cores, 1.3GHz - around 45-65% GPU utilization
4 cores, 1.6GHz - around 60-75% GPU utilization
4 cores, 1.9GHz - around 70-85% GPU utilization
4 cores, 2.1GHz - around 80-95% GPU utilization
4 cores, 2.4GHz - around 85-99% GPU utilization
4 cores, 2.6GHz - around 90-99% GPU utilization

As you can see, W3 uses multi-threading very well, and there is noticeable positive impact on lower clock with more cores.
Still, to be able to make use of 960M without performance drop in areas like Novigrad, you do need to have at least i5 with high CPU clock.

One more thing...
In my case disabling turbo boost has helped in performance (just put 99% as maximum processor state in power options).
This is because game would throttle GPU after reaching 82C, and that is much more likely with CPU trying to push 3.4GHz all the time. With this disabled, throttling would less likely happen and have lower effect.