grrr.... I wanted to update my gfx card, but bought a bicycle in the end. Don't think my card is going to hold out too much longer at 2560x1440 with things turned up. But the hair thing looks so good, and I was hovering over a gtx 980 purchase. Damn, what was I thinking? Trying to make my life better with exercise & lower fuel costs... what a loser.
Nvidia Game Ready Driver for The Witcher 3 is here... http://www.nvidia.co.uk/download/driverResults.aspx/85087/en-uk
Being a FPS man through and through with just a toe in the water of RPG's with Skyrim I am looking to try and get into a game that lasts a bit longer than most FPS's do. And looking at a bit of gameplay here I am wondering is it necessary to play the first two games before this? I am sure I tried on of the previous but really could not get into it think I got confused with the many menus for all the kit ETC. But willing to have another go.
While the games do follow a path in an overall story, each one can be played as a self-contained plot with no prior knowledge going in. You don't need to know anything about the previous games to understand the story. I believe most of the mechanics and features have been massively overhauled for the third game, so again being familiar with the systems isn't likely to be a pre-requisite of enjoying the game. If you wanted to get up to speed on the history of Geralt, then it'd be just as easy to watch a couple of YouTube videos of "Let's Plays" of the first two games. Rather than try to wrap your head around the different mechanics through the series.
http://www.pcgameshardware.de/The-Witcher-3-PC-237266/Specials/Grafikkarten-Benchmarks-1159196/ In with a chance at the nearly the highest settings minus some stuff with my card. Overclocked currently to 1150mhz should push it up to the 290x performance or more.
Seems to run on 'high' settings at 1920x1200 on my machine. Reasonably impressed, I was expecting it to take a little bit of a wee on those settings. With the Hairwhatever stuff turned off, though. Edit: Side note, remapping keyboard keys. Anyone done it?
Everything except for AA & hairworks on max at 1440p, runs smooth & looking good, could max it but it runs a bit too chuggy for my liking & don't like stepping down to 1080p, makes it all look soft instead of sharp. Switched to playing it on the 1080p 40" tv, fully maxed & running well, 1440p maxed was just a little bit too much for SLI 770 4gb to handle.
With my doddery old AMD cpu and my pair of GTX 480's in SLI, Getting 30-40fps, Vsync on, 1920*1200, AA and all post processes effects on, SSAO not HBAO+, No hairworks obv, Mix of Mediums and Highs and all looks very very pretty Seems to be really well optimized to run this well on my poor old system, but then again two 480's normally perform as well as a GTX 680. Seeing the cards maxed out at 92C (as they do) with nigh on 100% GPU load, about 1.2GB of VRam usage, 5.2GB of system ram used and about half utilization of the CPU. Loving it so far
http://www.gamersnexus.net/game-bench/1947-witcher-3-pc-graphics-card-fps-benchmark Makes me think I'll hold off for a while, at least till drivers are cleared up. What are other people here experiencing?
On a related note... I haven't played any of the Witcher games, but I was watching the advert for W3, thought it looked really good and want to give it a go. Would it be recommended to play through 1 and 2 before 3? I usually don't really care for storylines as long as there is decent gameplay. My main concern is that if 2 and 3 are significantly better than 1, then I won't want to play the previous games / won't enjoy them as much after playing the sequels.
I would skip part 1 if you havent played any. Second one is very good, new one is simply awesome. If you have time, then play second part just to feel the character. Its a bit short, maybe 30 hours of game or even less if you go with main thread, very linear, no open world like this third part. I've read all the books about Witcher and love the whole idea, so will recommend this game to anyone Its a shame that not all of the witcher books have been translated to english so you guys could read it. Fantastic novel, great adventures, funny and very absorbing. If you have a chance to read any of the volumes, please try it.
Bought and installed yesterday after finishing a playthrough of 2 again, since I'd lost the save from a few years ago. Played about 4 hours or so, and to sum it up: AMAZING. I've never seen or been in such an atmospheric game. Graphics mostly look fantastic, but its the atmosphere that really draws me in. Voice acting is great so far and I just really love what I've played so far. Runs well with V-Sync,AA and Hair off, everything else on Ultra except shadows on High for those wondering about their rigs. Have a 680GTX.
Shadow Moses in my sig runs it on "high" default settings with Hairworks turned off at 30-40FPS 1920x1200. I've not had it go below 30 even when setting stuff on fire in dense environments.
There's performance gains to be had with some decent driver patches that's for sure. It's playable now just don't expect to run it on big settings.
