Hello.

I have a strange issue, Witcher 2 is put on the high settings by the auto-option in the launcher. I still deactivated SSAO and all blurs.

The game runs quite well enough except that I get a mini-freeze every second or two, but not always. Lower settings still have that although a bit less.

I haven't found anything about it so I'm asking here.

Is it one of the remaining bugs?

My specs:
Core 2 Quad 2,66GHz
4GB RAM DDR2
ATI RADEON 5770

I could be wrong,but i think you are talking about the freezes that occur when the game is streaming data for the enviroments.Its particularly bad in Flotsam forest for instance.

A common fix is to use an FPS limiter like Dxtory,i personally use this program and have the FPS cap at 30. This resolved all mini freezing issues for me due to streaming =)

Mmh, is it a known issue? Could this be fixed by the devs?

I think I tried vsync but it doesn't help, right?

Vsync might help depending on your system. Though it also might cause more problems,such as input lag. I personally play with Vsync off because i dont experience much screen tearing.

As for the issue itself..aye its known,many people have experienced this problem. Im not sure if its something the devs are considering as an issue to be fixed though. It happens because the game constantly streams data into the game world to reduce area loading times and this in turn can choke up slower processors.

It results in a strange occurrence where the higher your FPS,the more stuttering you will notice due to the streaming. For me it was most noticeable in Flotsam Forest..while traversing that enviroment i was averaging 30-40fps but was experiencing constant stutters. Whereas in Flotsam itself,my FPS would drop as low as 20 in heavily crowded areas and i was experiencing no stutters at all. Funny..lol

As said,i would recommend you download Dxtory and give it a try. In my experience this solves the problem for nearly everyone experiencing it.

http://dxtory.com/v2-home-en.html

Download and install it,dont touch anything else in the program..just go to the Advanced tab and at the very bottom you will see an option that says "Limit Video FPS *number*". Set it to a number that suits you. Personally my choke point was at any amount of frames above 30.

Minimise the program,and run the Witcher 2..you should see an FPS counter in the corner of your game screen,and if everything is working correctly the number wont go higher then 30.

Hopefully,this will then be problem solved. No more mini freezes or stutters. =)

If it is caused by data streaming, make sure your disk is thoroughhly defragged.

That can help,though i havent seen many people reporting that it clears up the problem entirely.

...every little bit helps..............

True enough =) I was merely saying that i havent heard of it fixing the problem entirely^^ Forgive me if i came off as confrontational or hostile,wasnt my intention =)

Thanks guys, I'll look into these temp fixes.

It's silly, really, cos the game runs quite correctly but this mini stutterring spoils it.

vsync off seems too help but just a tiny bit.

It's due to the processor then? It's above the minimal requirements, does CDPR imply that mini stuttering is acceptable? :/


Anyway, thanks for the help.

I suspect it's more disk and RAM than processor.

There are parts of the game where you just can't get all the resources you need to render a scene into memory. Flotsam is probably the worst case.

When this happens, the game starts thrashing memory. It has to steal pages from other apps and even from itself and read resources from disk into the stolen pages.

Getting a program with this much expensive artwork to run in a 32-bit address space is a challenge. The current RED Engine isn't quite up to it.

Not sure what their stance on the matter is tbh. Seems to me that its just the way the game is built,but perhaps they will optimise it better in future patches..hopefully.

Im not sure what the exact problem is either,i just assume its processor related because generally speaking,people who experience this problem always seem to have similar processors..generally in the 2,40 - 2,66ghz range. Where as others with stronger processors dont report the problem at all =)

One can just hope it will be fixed in a patch really. Until then the FPS limter seems to be the only fix.

Anyways,i hope one of the fixes works for you mate. =)

Best way to track your bottleneck is running a monitor in the background. I have a G15 keyboard which runs a hardware monitor program as I am playing the Witcher. Shows a percentage bar of the games CPU and Memory usage. Witcher 2 definitely puts your CPU and memory to work.

If you don't have a G15 keyboard there are other utilties to track your hardware usage out there, just google it, ..........

Tried that software. It seems to work indeed (so thanks for that :) ). Tried in the hospital and the micro freeze are barely there, if at all.

Too bad that softawre is not freeware. :/

Couldn't CDPR implement such an option in game?

Very glad to hear it worked mate =) Funnily enough,it was that hospital in particular that forced me to look into this problem originally..if you didnt use the Fps Limiter you would notice that nearly all enclosed,cave-like places cause alot of micro-stutter,aswell as Flotsam Forest.

As for it not being freeware..true enough,but im pretty sure that the FPS limiter part is free.Ive been using it for more then 2weeks now with no problems.Either way though,there are other FPS limiters and various ways of getting around this problem. Dxtory is just the first one i chose and since it worked..well,ive not changed it^^

It would definately be nice if CDPR implemented such an option in-game..but i wouldnt hold my breath since this problem is low on the list of ones alot of players are experiecing as far as i am aware.

Plus,this issue might be easily fixed with a little bit of optimisation,who knows?

Also, it appears to work only either if VSync is deactivated or if the FPS rate is displayed. Haven't tested much but it didn't work those times.

Well, the game is quite well more playable now, and with high settings on my 3 years old pc (which was already old when I bought it :P).

Not putting any post as solution though, the ball is in CDPR camp. :)