GTX 960 bad preformance with witcher 3

[DemonMaruader]

Hi, my specs are

i5 2320
6gb ram
gtx 960

Made several posts/threads on different websites but basically with witcher 3 im getting terrible stuttering/micro stutters that make the game unplayable when rendering new areas. It goes from 50 fps all the way down to 15-20 fps for a brief moment. I have tried literally everything all the tweaks that were recommend on reddit.

So if you guys have any ideas I will be thankful

 

[DasHotShot]

What OS do you have installed? Is it 64-bit?

When you say "all the tweaks", what does that encompass? Drivers (latest nvidia gam ready driver for Withcer 3), AA, filtering, just textures and effects?

Are you running other things like chrome/antivir software etc alongside?

Can you tell us the GPU usage, mem usage etc when this happens?

Thanks

 

[DemonMaruader]

What OS do you have installed? Is it 64-bit?

When you say "all the tweaks", what does that encompass? Drivers (latest nvidia gam ready driver for Withcer 3), AA, filtering, just textures and effects?

Are you running other things like chrome/antivir software etc alongside?

Can you tell us the GPU usage, mem usage etc when this happens?

Thanks

This stuttering happens at all levels of quality texture and even resolution mainly in the biggest city Novigrad . Drivers are up to date, even did a clean install. Also reinstalled the game. Tried many other fixes one being changing pre rendered frames to 1 etc. By now i'm just assuming it's my processor or my ram. When i monitored my usage with msi afterburner my cpu usage was basically at 85% plus at all times while getting these sutters. GPU usage was the same.

 

[B3H1NDu]

Well seeing that there are tweaks out there, and that you have gotten the problem out in the open, this might not be a isolated incident, and there might be a software patch which could fix it, but last time I checked recommended specs was gtx 970 for 30fps 1080 or 980 for 60fps 1080, and I don't know if they would pay much attention towards the lower 960, as great as it is.

Really I wish you the best of luck, and I hope someone can help you, but you could also submit a ticket to customer support, and maybe they will be able to help you, maybe you just got a bad gpu.

- B3H1NDu

 

[Vitric9]

I understand there is an Nvidia Gameworks feature which can be turned off. Tr trying that off and note the differences in detail and performance.
Do have the 2GB or the 4GB gtx 960? 2GB may not be sufficient for even 1080p with certain titles. Once the Memory usage is above 2048MB , using the system memory will cause massive stuttering as the memory usage hovers over and under the limit.
Note: For now with the current drivers this setting is optimized Maxwell micro-architecture.

 

[DasHotShot]

What OS do you have installed? Is it 64-bit?

When you say "all the tweaks", what does that encompass? Drivers (latest nvidia gam ready driver for Withcer 3), AA, filtering, just textures and effects?

Are you running other things like chrome/antivir software etc alongside?

Can you tell us the GPU usage, mem usage etc when this happens?

Thanks

This stuttering happens at all levels of quality texture and even resolution mainly in the biggest city Novigrad . Drivers are up to date, even did a clean install. Also reinstalled the game. Tried many other fixes one being changing pre rendered frames to 1 etc. By now i'm just assuming it's my processor or my ram. When i monitored my usage with msi afterburner my cpu usage was basically at 85% plus at all times while getting these sutters. GPU usage was the same.

If you look at min and rec spec, you will see that it is a demanding title and a very poorly optimized one (as always, THANKS CONSOLES! and money hungry game devs!)

Also your specs is inbetween, so this adds to any potential problems.

 

[iam2thecrowe]

not enough ram, not enough vram and not enough cpu power combined all add up to the issues your experiencing. Turn all your detail settings down for a start that will help. look into upgrading ram to 8gb+, and a good dual channel kit like 2133mhz so you get some memory bandwidth, this will help with stuttering and increase your minimum fps somewhat. Next update that cpu as its a bit long in the tooth, look for a 2500k or 3570k and overclock if needed. last would be gpu, as its still decent but the 2gb vram will limit the detail settings you can turn up before it fills the vram and you get some stuttering.

 

[DemonMaruader]

I understand there is an Nvidia Gameworks feature which can be turned off. Tr trying that off and note the differences in detail and performance.
Do have the 2GB or the 4GB gtx 960? 2GB may not be sufficient for even 1080p with certain titles. Once the Memory usage is above 2048MB , using the system memory will cause massive stuttering as the memory usage hovers over and under the limit.
Note: For now with the current drivers this setting is optimized Maxwell micro-architecture.

Yes, the gameworks feature is called Hairworks, which notably takes a huge hit in performance, anyhow I appreciate your response regardless. Also mine is the 2gb version, and I have tried playing at lower resolutions while having all in-game quality settings to low, still there is noticeable stuttering. Even the latest optimization patch there is stuttering. Anyway it must be some part of my hardware because it's rather outdated

 

[DasHotShot]

I understand there is an Nvidia Gameworks feature which can be turned off. Tr trying that off and note the differences in detail and performance.
Do have the 2GB or the 4GB gtx 960? 2GB may not be sufficient for even 1080p with certain titles. Once the Memory usage is above 2048MB , using the system memory will cause massive stuttering as the memory usage hovers over and under the limit.
Note: For now with the current drivers this setting is optimized Maxwell micro-architecture.

Yes, the gameworks feature is called Hairworks, which notably takes a huge hit in performance, anyhow I appreciate your response regardless. Also mine is the 2gb version, and I have tried playing at lower resolutions while having all in-game quality settings to low, still there is noticeable stuttering. Even the latest optimization patch there is stuttering. Anyway it must be some part of my hardware because it's rather outdated

It is PARTLY your hardware, however the game is not optimized well.

Over time this will become better, I am sure of it. I +1 the recommendation to upgrade some hardware from the mod.

 

[DemonMaruader]

not enough ram, not enough vram and not enough cpu power combined all add up to the issues your experiencing. Turn all your detail settings down for a start that will help. look into upgrading ram to 8gb+, and a good dual channel kit like 2133mhz so you get some memory bandwidth, this will help with stuttering and increase your minimum fps somewhat. Next update that cpu as its a bit long in the tooth, look for a 2500k or 3570k and overclock if needed. last would be gpu, as its still decent but the 2gb vram will limit the detail settings you can turn up before it fills the vram and you get some stuttering.

Thanks for the information, this helped alot. In all honesty Im short on money at the moment and these upgrades are at least 600$+ because everything in my computer is outdated besides the video card somewhat. But one more question, is my hardware that i listed limiting me that much that i will even get stuttering at 720p everything on lowest possible ?

 

[Vitric9]

at first i thought the post said i3 2320, now i see i was a bit off. You would think that a Sandy Bridge Quad core would be totally fine. It probably is. Though is there anything stopping it from clocking at 3000MHz while gaming? Say some power limitation or voltage cap? i know some motherboards cap the voltage, even ones that can overclock.
Side note: Your using a 3x2GB Kit? I know it migt not help gaming much but using a Dual Channel kit can offer some more system stability .

 

[DemonMaruader]

at first i thought the post said i3 2320, now i see i was a bit off. You would think that a Sandy Bridge Quad core would be totally fine. It probably is. Though is there anything stopping it from clocking at 3000MHz while gaming? Say some power limitation or voltage cap? i know some motherboards cap the voltage, even ones that can overclock.
Side note: Your using a 3x2GB Kit? I know it migt not help gaming much but using a Dual Channel kit can offer some more system stability .

Yeah i was thinking about getting a 2x4 to replace the one 2gb stick on its own, but even that is like 70 dollars minimum on newegg now. And im not sure what you mean by power limitation, I have a 500w PSU and ACER IPISB-VR Rev 1.01 motherboard these are in prebuilt PC's i just upgraded the GPU. So maybe that is my problem but in a few years im going to just build one from scratch, thanks for the help and information sir.

 

[spdragoo]

Minimum System Requirements

-- Intel CPU Core i5-2500K 3.3GHz
-- Nvidia GPU GeForce GTX 660
-- RAM 6GB
-- OS 64-bit Windows 7 or 64-bit Windows 8 (8.1)

Your GPU is fine, your RAM is at the minimum, but your CPU is below the minimum. Don't know about your OS, as you didn't mention it, but hopefully it's the 64-bit version. Not surprised you're getting stuttering & other issues.

Best bet would be to replace your CPU with at least an i5-2500K, or a better Sandy Bridge or Haswell chip (depending on what motherboard you have).

 

[gamerk316]

My 770 GTX (2GB) can handle High with Hairworks off; so that's a good place to start. That being said, you will get occasional spikes in performance, ESPECIALLY in resolutions greater then 1080p. Really, I argue no single GPU setup can handle resolutions any higher then 1080p; game is the new Crysis.

Witcher 3 isn't CPU heavy, so the i5 probably isn't hurting much. Even i3's can max it out.

Simply put: Witcher 3 is a very GPU dependent game, which is expected given many of the effects used in game (especially hairworks and lighting effects) are almost entirely GPU dependent, and very, very expensive to perform.

 

[DemonMaruader]

My 770 GTX (2GB) can handle High with Hairworks off; so that's a good place to start. That being said, you will get occasional spikes in performance, ESPECIALLY in resolutions greater then 1080p. Really, I argue no single GPU setup can handle resolutions any higher then 1080p; game is the new Crysis.

Witcher 3 isn't CPU heavy, so the i5 probably isn't hurting much. Even i3's can max it out.

Simply put: Witcher 3 is a very GPU dependent game, which is expected given many of the effects used in game (especially hairworks and lighting effects) are almost entirely GPU dependent, and very, very expensive to perform.

I knew this, i just find it weird how if im trying to play vysnced at 60 fps and im running around novigrad my framerate goes from like 50 to 20 fps for a few seconds, seems like its having trouble buffering/rendering areas in this game. Anywaise I might try upgrading my ram see if that would help, but I doubt . Funny thing is the stuttering stops and i can play this game on ultra with hairworks on (geralt and monsters) at locked 30 fps

 

[Vitric9]

at first i thought the post said i3 2320, now i see i was a bit off. You would think that a Sandy Bridge Quad core would be totally fine. It probably is. Though is there anything stopping it from clocking at 3000MHz while gaming? Say some power limitation or voltage cap? i know some motherboards cap the voltage, even ones that can overclock.
Side note: Your using a 3x2GB Kit? I know it migt not help gaming much but using a Dual Channel kit can offer some more system stability .

Yeah i was thinking about getting a 2x4 to replace the one 2gb stick on its own, but even that is like 70 dollars minimum on newegg now. And im not sure what you mean by power limitation, I have a 500w PSU and ACER IPISB-VR Rev 1.01 motherboard these are in prebuilt PC's i just upgraded the GPU. So maybe that is my problem but in a few years im going to just build one from scratch, thanks for the help and information sir.

Yeah, on newegg.ca about that. Though it was fairly high a few months back. nothing under 80 for 2x4GB . I must ask when say stuttering is it all the time and from 50-60 fps? Sometimes with certain manually setting Max pre-rendered frames to 1 in the Nvidia Control panel can help with stuttering, I know it works ok for Far Cry 3 and 4. Crysis 3 as well. But Crysis 3 is prone to input lag with most things to due with V-Sync. Also Adaptive V-Sync is very helpful for smoother gameplay in any game that does not require cat like reflexes , say for CS GO .

 

[gamerk316]

Based on what I've seen, the problem may be RAM/VRAM dependent. There's a LOT of texture pop in in certain areas, which indicates a bottleneck somewhere in the RAM subsystem. Would need to do more testing to confirm that, but this might be a case where faster RAM/HDD/VRAM is necessary because of all the loading that's constantly going on.

That's the primary reason open world games tend to not be the most graphically demanding titles out there.

 

[DemonMaruader]

not enough ram, not enough vram and not enough cpu power combined all add up to the issues your experiencing. Turn all your detail settings down for a start that will help. look into upgrading ram to 8gb+, and a good dual channel kit like 2133mhz so you get some memory bandwidth, this will help with stuttering and increase your minimum fps somewhat. Next update that cpu as its a bit long in the tooth, look for a 2500k or 3570k and overclock if needed. last would be gpu, as its still decent but the 2gb vram will limit the detail settings you can turn up before it fills the vram and you get some stuttering.

Uhh, How do you know when someone doesn't have enough RAM if its independent per system ? Even when I'm playing at the most demanding area of the game I still have around 1 gig of free memory. For the other suggestions I think you are right, its a combination of my CPU and vram, but then i basically need a whole new computer so i'd rather save my money than have a little better performance, thanks anyway this problem is happening at any resolution/quality level of detail in-game settings.

 

[Supernova1138]

6GB of RAM is pretty much the bare minimum to play modern games these days. If you're running a lot of background processes, then 6GB can very quickly become a problem when current titles are eating 4GB or more on their own.

I'd say the reason why you're getting stutters in the cities is your CPU, it's simply clocked too low to give you good performance in the busier areas. I run into the same problems on my rig with my older Lynnfield i5 that has been overclocked. In Novigrad my CPU will get pegged at 100% while my GPU usage constantly alternates between 80 and 100% usage as my CPU struggles to keep up. For optimal performance in the cities, the game really needs either a current Haswell i5 with a fairly high clockrate, or an unlocked Sandy or Ivy Bridge chip that can be bumped up to 3.8GHz or higher. Fortunately, the game is far less CPU bound outside of Novigrad and Oxenfurt and it isn't a huge problem in most of the game world.

 

[DemonMaruader]

6GB of RAM is pretty much the bare minimum to play modern games these days. If you're running a lot of background processes, then 6GB can very quickly become a problem when current titles are eating 4GB or more on their own.

I'd say the reason why you're getting stutters in the cities is your CPU, it's simply clocked too low to give you good performance in the busier areas. I run into the same problems on my rig with my older Lynnfield i5 that has been overclocked. In Novigrad my CPU will get pegged at 100% while my GPU usage constantly alternates between 80 and 100% usage as my CPU struggles to keep up. For optimal performance in the cities, the game really needs either a current Haswell i5 with a fairly high clockrate, or an unlocked Sandy or Ivy Bridge chip that can be bumped up to 3.8GHz or higher. Fortunately, the game is far less CPU bound outside of Novigrad and Oxenfurt and it isn't a huge problem in most of the game world.

Thanks, I'm pretty sure you are right. Well i'm not going to upgrade my computer any time soon as I will just build another later on. Even If i upgraded my PC components they would be outdated again once the next title comes out. Surprisingly the game runs butter smooth at 60 fps on high settings in the outside world until i get into novigrad and oxenfurt, like you said. Plus if i needed to upgrade my CPU, i would need to basically get everything else as pretty much everything in my computer is outdated, and at this point im just considering a ps4, also i don't really understand how to overclock a CPU.

Thanks for your help friend you seem to know what you are talking about.

 

[thormx121]

i am experiencing the same issue on my system, i have a fx-8320, 8gs or ram, and the asus strix gtx960oc on a biostar a960d mb. sometimes the game will lag randomly even when i cap it at 30 fps. I wish i bought the gtx970 but since i already have the 960 i am considering a big upgrade and buying the i7 devils canyon and running sli gtx960oc and id have to replace my garbage mb if i switch too intel... any thoughts?