Witcher 3 - Hype is REAL!

[Peppermint Lounge]

Started Blood and Wine. This game. I dropped vast cash into my winery renos so had to go back to old school Velen exploration to replenish some coin and whad'ya know, it's still magnificent. 226 hours to date. Geralt wears Viper armour & swords.

[Peppermint Lounge]

An innocuous round of Gwent with a shop vendor last night ended with the Card Collector achievement popping along with completion of the Collect ‘Em All quest. Nice when an achievement actually feels like an achievement.

[Froggy]

Fucking I bought every Gwent card I saw and played every person I possibly could and still didn't get the card completion achievement. No idea who I missed, I did every quest so I met presumably all the Gwent players.

[Peppermint Lounge]

There's a book in the game called 'A Miraculous Guide to Gwent' which arrived in one of the later patches. Ironically I was actually looking for the book when I played this vendor and popped the achievement. Apparently it displays the number of cards missing from a player's base game deck and gives info on which region to find them.

[t0mby]

Ooooh that's handy. Is the book common like some of the others found when looting or is it only found in certain places?

[Peppermint Lounge]

Apparently it can be purchased from a vendor in the affluent areas of Novigrad.

[Peppermint Lounge]

Cavill looks good.

[flipswitch]

Finally have an AVR and speaker setup, was previously using a sound bar which wasn’t too bad. I returned back to my Witcher 3 PS4 save file having since buying it on PC and modding it up. So I re downloaded it on PS4 Pro because it has been updated to 4K and HDR support.

Looks gorgeous. Screenshot can’t do it justice. Sound is just as good, but visually on my pana OLED with wider colour gamut , it’s so vibrant.

I’m going to complete it and then buy the expansions which I own on PC but for PS4.

This game deserves to be completed and looking forward in putting in many more hours. The Witcher 4 will begin production when Cyberpunk 2077 is complete.

[t0mby]

That looks amazing for 8yo tech, in fact it reminds me that I haven't played mine since I got a 4k telly. I'm up to the last battle so not far to go.

[Peppermint Lounge]

Been playing this the past couple of nights and it is still gorgeous. Still the best rolling weather effects I’ve enjoyed in an open world. I’ve literally been walking around soaking it all back in.

Anyway I thought there was nothing this game could surprise me with anymore but I came across a Blood and Wine quest called Equine Phantoms. I won’t spoil anything. If you haven’t played it I recommend you seek it out. It’s one of the question marks in relative proximity to the Dun Tynne Crossroads.

[Candy Arse]

My love for this game is splattered all over this thread. One of my all-time favourites.

No HDR support for the PC version is disappointing.

[flipswitch]

They say the HDR implementation on console isn’t that good, but to my eyes it seems alright.

[Peppermint Lounge]

Next gen update has landed badly on PC. The game on Steam now has a CDPR launcher where you can specify DX12 or DX11. DX11 is pretty flawless, comparable to the previous version in looks and performance and comes with the updated 'Ultra +' options. DX12 - I can get a 60fps experience (with minor 50s dips here and there) at Ultra with no RT. For me as soon as I switch on any RT option I get a CTD + driver timeout error with the latest Witcher 3 supported driver. Other Radeon users are reporting same. FSR/DLSS feature among the AA options which is odd. FSR @ Quality is blurry for me. As a comparison FSR @ Quality looks near indiscernable from native 1440p in CP77 which has FSR + options listed separately in the menu. Nvidia 30 and 40 series users are reporting terrible framerates and utilisation with RT on.

[lestat]

I read somewhere that they're using some DX11onDX12 layer that is not recommended for performance.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windo ... d-11-on-12

D3D11On12 has not been optimized for performance. There will likely be moderate CPU overhead compared to a standard D3D11 driver, minimal GPU overhead, and there is known to be significant memory overhead. Therefore it is not recommended to use D3D11On12 for complicated 3D scenes, and it is instead recommended for simple scenes, or 2D rendering.

This is why the raw DX11 version runs a lot better against the DX12 with RT disabled. From what I've seen the game is heavily CPU limited because of that translation layer.

[Peppermint Lounge]

Maybe that explains why DX12 Cyberpunk RT performs better.

[Rorschach]

The PC update has been a bit of let down. DX12 with RT is pathetic - was struggling with single digit frame rates and frequent crashes (I'm on a 3080). I'm just playing the rest of Blood and Wine through in DX11 mode, 60fps limited and Ultra settings. Looks and plays fine but disappointing as not RT in DX11 mode.

[Rorschach]

Reading more about this, seems like CDPR just dialed it in for the PC version - DirectX 12 mode is completely broken, I can't even load in anymore. Such a shame because feel RT would add more to the world. Not a deal breaker - enjoying going through the DLC again. Seems like a collection of the best mods and the use of a simplified control scheme. I feel this would be a better game on the consoles but I'm just going to finish it out and wait for the remake of The Witcher down the track.

[Peppermint Lounge]

I remedied my CTDs by manually loading a version 4.0 save rather than clicking 'continue' to load in. Now I can run DX12 with RT on or off. I get decent 1440p >60fps DX12 performance with RT off, ultra settings and FSR @ Quality. It's way less sharp than DX11 but is more brightly coloured and you can see the lighting and ambient occlusion upgrades. There are 50s dips in cities however GPU and CPU util is nowhere near 100%. I like the new camera placement.