The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

[Mem]

I am probably older than you, but I guess it is just what you want out of a game. I get that some like mature themes, and moral ambiguity. Myself though, I like a more clearly defined character, either evil or good. I know that is not realistic to what real life is like, but I play games to get away from real life, not necessarily to mirror it. And yes, I was pretty lost in all the politics and conspiracies. Maybe that is part of why I could not identify with the Witcher.

Witchers are pretty straight forward in regards to politics etc ,technically Witchers are supposed to be neutral in politics and only deal with monsters etc,however Geralt has a long history due to his long life span and has friends from his history even important/famous elves etc,Witcher 1 explains some of this(I finished it three times),end of the day you decide what you think is right with regards to politics etc when it comes to some of the decisions you can and have to make.

Good and evil well you have to remember what a Witcher is ie basically monsters hunters that deal with monster problems,Witchers have very long life spans due to their mutant genes that get paid so sort of monster bounty hunters.

Nothing really complicated about them.

The way I played it was straight forward,I did what I thought was right,my priority was being a Witcher and dealing with those issues,my friends I also helped for obvious reasons.

As to Witcher 2

Spoiler

near the end of the game you decide if you kill the other Witcher or not,he explains why he did those things etc,I killed him due to honouring the king he killed,also the bad Witcher not really acting like a Witcher ie going rogue in a way.

 

[Carfax83]

I agree the forest and outdoors look amazing. The indoors are only so-so though. I have a feeling this game will murder graphics cards in the outdoors since I can't see how they can render those visuals with those view distances. THey're probably playing it on a 980 SLI rig.

They're probably using the same rig they used for January's gameplay; a GTX 980, 4790k with 8GB of RAM. This same rig is said to deliver buttery smooth gameplay at 1080p high settings.

Supposedly, ultra quality will be playable on a single 980 at 1080p as well. 1440p will likely require 980 SLI however.

 

[Fire&Blood]

I don't expect maxed out settings and ubersampling to be playable on anything but the top 4 GPU's right now. W2 was the same, still is. @1440p, ubersampling cuts my fps from 70 down to 30 avg.

 

[Riceninja]

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Interview with Adam Badowski, Managing Director of CD Projekt RED - Recommended PC specs will result in "30 fps".

Are all the textures and models the same?

"Yes, there is only one version, otherwise we wouldn’t be able to make the game on time. We would have to take it all apart, and build and test on three different platforms at the same time, which is impossible. So we have one base, and then carry it over to other platforms."

"I think that there will be places that will look jaw-dropping, and no one will claim that they differ from what was seen in the trailer. Unfortunately, there will also be fragments, where the game looks worse."

Aren’t you afraid, that after the release the game will share the fate of Watch_Dogs, where the game was being compared to the first E3 gameplay?

"If someone will be rewatching the trailer, he will notice that the in-game models look better, even Geralt, he is more polished – for one, he has better shaders."

How will the PC ultra version hold up against consoles?

"It will be possible to spot differences in, for example, Nvidia HairWorks, but those are very demanding graphically, so a strong PC will be needed."

"It is impossible to make a game for three different platforms that will utilize all of the various platforms’ unique feature and specs. It’s a technical fact. Making an exclusive title allows to squeeze more out of the target machine."

http://www.gamepressure.com/e.asp?ID=51

 

[Red Hawk]

Are all the textures and models the same?

"Yes, there is only one version, otherwise we wouldn’t be able to make the game on time. We would have to take it all apart, and build and test on three different platforms at the same time, which is impossible. So we have one base, and then carry it over to other platforms."

Hmm. I hope this doesn't imply what I think it could be implying, that the PC version has only one set of textures, and it's the same as the Xbox One/PS4 version textures. That would be unfortunate for both high-end gamers PC gamers and low-end PC gamers. PC games having several sets of textures not only enables high end gamers to get the best visual experience out of their rig, but it also allows the game to scale down so low-end gamers can still play it. If the PC version only uses one set of textures, that's lazy PC game development and "not making it on time" is really no excuse.

Immediately after that he says this...

On platforms with less memory, we manage it differently. Less complex models load, it all depends on what is going on the screen at the moment. To sum up, there are only a few differences between the PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, that, instead of changing the configuration, solve certain problems.

The PS4 and the Xbox One have the same raw amount of memory, so I can only think that he's talking about PCs with low amounts of memory. I'm not too sure what he's getting at, though. Is he implying that there will be some sort of dynamic adjustment while you're playing the game to model and texture detail, rather than different "configurations" of settings?

How will the PC ultra version hold up against consoles?

"It will be possible to spot differences in, for example, Nvidia HairWorks, but those are very demanding graphically, so a strong PC will be needed."

"It is impossible to make a game for three different platforms that will utilize all of the various platforms’ unique feature and specs. It’s a technical fact. Making an exclusive title allows to squeeze more out of the target machine."

Hairworks? I'm not too familiar with the feature, since I don't have any games that use it. Is it at all related to PhysX, and/or similar in how PhysX is essentially works exclusively on Nvidia hardware because it incurs a massive performance hit on AMD hardware?

Anyways, the only thing he talks about The Witcher 3 being better at on PC is Hairworks and ubersampling. That seems a mite troubling to me.

 

[Riceninja]

I hate to say it, but it seems this version is really getting held back by consoles.

 

[Red Hawk]

I also noticed this bit:

Platform unification exists – we have a single build, which is distributed to each one of them. The game is the same, the draw distance is the same. Minor differences result from the fact that the GPU is parameterized differently on different consoles, which can result in, for instance, the temperature of the color.

If he's saying that you're not able to bump draw distances on PC above what they are on consoles...that's troubling. Even Skyrim's PC version, which had no extra assets or effects (though a higher res texture pack did come later), gave you the ability to scale draw distances far above console draw distances. CD Projekt Red should know better than this. At this rate I'm not sure there's a lot of reason to think that The Witcher 3 will look significantly better than other recent open world fantasy aesthetic games like Dragon Age Inquisition and Shadow of Mordor, other than Hairworks.

 

[norseamd]

We all need to realize that it was us who thought they were actually a good company who cared about the consumer. This was already something that was foreshadowed by the huge DRM mess that was with the Witcher 2. Even I bought into some of that around the time I got the Witcher 2 although them getting all cozy with Jen Hsun Huang is when I started to understand they were not any type of moral company and now they are all wanting to play consumers with the marketing of "FREE DLC" and we need to be more critical of the true situation.

 

[Red Hawk]

We all need to realize that it was us who thought they were actually a good company who cared about the consumer. This was already something that was foreshadowed by the huge DRM mess that was with the Witcher 2. Even I bought into some of that around the time I got the Witcher 2 although them getting all cozy with Jen Hsun Huang is when I started to understand they were not any type of moral company and now they are all wanting to play consumers with the marketing of "FREE DLC" and we need to be more critical of the true situation.

I don't think this is an issue of "not caring about the consumer", though. I don't expect the game to be broken or exploitative of consumers. It's just that with The Witcher 2 CD Projekt Red seemed set themselves up as a developer that used the PC platform beyond what was expected of most developers, but they're not really doing that with The Witcher 3.

 

[Rakehellion]

I also noticed this bit:



If he's saying that you're not able to bump draw distances on PC above what they are on consoles...that's troubling. Even Skyrim's PC version, which had no extra assets or effects (though a higher res texture pack did come later), gave you the ability to scale draw distances far above console draw distances. CD Projekt Red should know better than this. At this rate I'm not sure there's a lot of reason to think that The Witcher 3 will look significantly better than other recent open world fantasy aesthetic games like Dragon Age Inquisition and Shadow of Mordor, other than Hairworks.

There will be a patch in a few months to fix the PC version. They don't want to piss of MS and Sony.

 

[escrow4]

There will be a patch in a few months to fix the PC version. They don't want to piss of MS and Sony.

When those who pre-ordered or bought Day 1 have finished? I already said CD Projekt sold out. They should have stayed PC exclusive. No compromises, no exceptions. 1 was PC only, 2 the rot spread (lack of Acts compared to 1, smaller levels, smaller game and no the replay mid game decision doesn't count) and was pushed out on 360 (for what??????) 3 just ruined it. Proof in this thread - one single more or less codebase, one single set of textures and models, even the draw distance is the same!

 

[Red Hawk]

Witcher 3 probably wouldn't have the overall production values when it comes to world size, gameplay, animation, etc if it wasn't multi-platform.

 

[Carfax83]

Hmm. I hope this doesn't imply what I think it could be implying, that the PC version has only one set of textures, and it's the same as the Xbox One/PS4 version textures. That would be unfortunate for both high-end gamers PC gamers and low-end PC gamers. PC games having several sets of textures not only enables high end gamers to get the best visual experience out of their rig, but it also allows the game to scale down so low-end gamers can still play it. If the PC version only uses one set of textures, that's lazy PC game development and "not making it on time" is really no excuse.

I think you misunderstood what he's saying. He's saying that there is only one set of textures yes, but that they are dynamic in detail and complexity, along with the models.

So depending on how much VRAM and system memory your PC has, it will determine the quality of the textures and models that are displayed on screen at any one time.

It's not an unusual solution these days, and more game developers are doing this because the PS4 and Xbox One are no longer strapped for memory unlike the last generation of consoles.. Also, it's been reported by several previewers that the PC version has better textures and shaders than the console versions at high settings, when run on a GTX 980 with 4GB of VRAM..

So we know for a fact that the textures on PC looks better already..

The PS4 and the Xbox One have the same raw amount of memory, so I can only think that he's talking about PCs with low amounts of memory. I'm not too sure what he's getting at, though. Is he implying that there will be some sort of dynamic adjustment while you're playing the game to model and texture detail, rather than different "configurations" of settings?

Thats exactly what he's implying, but there will still likely be a way to hardlock the texture and model detail if I had to guess..

Hairworks? I'm not too familiar with the feature, since I don't have any games that use it. Is it at all related to PhysX, and/or similar in how PhysX is essentially works exclusively on Nvidia hardware because it incurs a massive performance hit on AMD hardware?

Hairworks uses DirectCompute, so don't worry. You should still be able to access it on AMD hardware..

Anyways, the only thing he talks about The Witcher 3 being better at on PC is Hairworks and ubersampling. That seems a mite troubling to me.

Ultra quality will have better physics, more post processing, more tessellation, along with hairworks.

Source

 

[Carfax83]

If he's saying that you're not able to bump draw distances on PC above what they are on consoles...that's troubling. Even Skyrim's PC version, which had no extra assets or effects (though a higher res texture pack did come later), gave you the ability to scale draw distances far above console draw distances. CD Projekt Red should know better than this. At this rate I'm not sure there's a lot of reason to think that The Witcher 3 will look significantly better than other recent open world fantasy aesthetic games like Dragon Age Inquisition and Shadow of Mordor, other than Hairworks.

It's already been confirmed that the PC version has better draw distance, shaders, lighting, textures etcetera when just running on high settings.

The PS4 and Xbox One versions definitely seem to be running at lower settings than the PC's high setting.

Anyway, The Witcher 3 looks excellent on High and presents itself on the PC, as expected, with better antialiasing, stronger colors, sharper textures, and more shader and lighting effects than on the consoles. Polished leather armor shimmers slightly on the PC, but not on the PS4 or the Xbox. Moreover, ground details such as bunches of grass pop in at just five to seven meters in front of Geralt on the consoles, while the detailed sight distance on the PC amounts to roughly twice that.

Source

On the PC side, things ran smooth as butter and everything was beautiful. The powerful PCs running the game allowed for better textures and effects all over the place. Scars have more depth, fires burn like you’d expect. If you have a PC, it’s definitely the place to play, whether you use the mouse and keyboard or your dual analog controller of choice.

Source

 

[Red Hawk]

I think you misunderstood what he's saying. He's saying that there is only one set of textures yes, but that they are dynamic in detail and complexity, along with the models.

So depending on how much VRAM and system memory your PC has, it will determine the quality of the textures and models that are displayed on screen at any one time.

It's not an unusual solution these days, and more game developers are doing this because the PS4 and Xbox One are no longer strapped for memory unlike the last generation of consoles.. Also, it's been reported by several previewers that the PC version has better textures and shaders than the console versions at high settings, when run on a GTX 980 with 4GB of VRAM..

So we know for a fact that the textures on PC looks better already..

Thats exactly what he's implying, but there will still likely be a way to hardlock the texture and model detail if I had to guess..

See, that's confusing, because the way you get different level of detail out of textures is by having different sets of textures. You can increase the resolution setting that the texture is rendered in (1024x1024, 2048x2048) to get more fidelity of that texture, but you won't get more or less actual detail without using textures that are stored as a higher resolution base asset. So even if the game is dynamically changing texture detail, it is still going between different sets of textures.

Also, I get that it might be using a dynamic system, but I instinctively don't like when games try to take control away from my ability to customize settings. Who here ever uses the "Detect best settings" button in PC games? The modern Total War games, for example, detect if your settings are going to exceed your amount of video RAM, and automatically turns down settings to adjust each time a battle loads. I prefer to tweak the settings myself so I've tuned exactly what settings stay up or are reduced. I get the benefit of dynamically detecting the best settings on the fly for less technical PC users, but as a more technical PC gamer I would definitely hope that The Witcher 3 still has the option to take direct control of graphics settings.

Hairworks uses DirectCompute, so don't worry. You should still be able to access it on AMD hardware..

It's not like my 270X will have enough muscle to push Hairworks either way, I'm pretty sure Tomb Raider's TressFX on a single character still gives me a frame rate hit.

Ultra quality will have better physics, more post processing, more tessellation, along with hairworks.

Source

Hmm. That's not a quote from the developer, but the journalist's impression of the game, and it's from back in the summer. The recent interview was straight from one of the developers. So things could have changed, or the journalist could have been a bit inaccurate.

It's already been confirmed that the PC version has better draw distance, shaders, lighting, textures etcetera when just running on high settings.

The PS4 and Xbox One versions definitely seem to be running at lower settings than the PC's high setting.



Source



Source

Ah, ok, hands-on impressions assuage my concerns a bit. I still feel a bit confused at the meaning of the developer's statement that all platforms are working from the same base when it comes to assets.

 

[Carfax83]

Hmm. That's not a quote from the developer, but the journalist's impression of the game, and it's from back in the summer. The recent interview was straight from one of the developers. So things could have changed, or the journalist could have been a bit inaccurate.

Actually it was from the developer. It was from John Mamais, the producer for the Witcher 3..

Ah, ok, hands-on impressions assuage my concerns a bit. I still feel a bit confused at the meaning of the developer's statement that all platforms are working from the same base when it comes to assets.

Yeah it's a bit confusing I agree. It could all be smoke as well, because I don't think that the particular dev that said it is from a technical background.

Anyway, I am fully confident that the Witcher 3 will deliver jaw dropping visuals. This is CDPR we're talking about, and not Ubisoft

 

[Red Hawk]

Actually it was from the developer. It was from John Mamais, the producer for the Witcher 3.

The article's author had talked with John Mamais, but the actual line "Witcher 3 on PC ultra settings adds better tessellation, more physics, more post-processing and of course more realistic fur" was not itself in quotations, meaning it was not a direct quote from the developer.

Anyway, I am fully confident that the Witcher 3 will deliver jaw dropping visuals. This is CDPR we're talking about, and not Ubisoft

Yes, very true. I'm not expecting train wrecks like Watch_Dogs or Assassin's Creed Unity out of CDPR. (I know you personally liked ACU's visuals, but it's hard to deny that the game was a technical hot mess on release) At worst, I'm just concerned that TW3 will fall short of the standard that CDPR set for itself with TW2 relative to the technical side.

 

[Carfax83]

The article's author had talked with John Mamais, but the actual line "Witcher 3 on PC ultra settings adds better tessellation, more physics, more post-processing and of course more realistic fur" was not itself in quotations, meaning it was not a direct quote from the developer.

Here's the original quote:

As for PC, CD Projekt plans to add an ultra setting that, according to Mamais, you'll need a beefy machine to use.

"But I think it'll be worth it," he said. "Our ultra is pretty much the peak in games. At least we hope it is. The stuff we're doing is going to look really amazing."

Witcher 3 on PC ultra settings adds better tessellation, more physics, more post-processing and more realistic fur, Mamais said.

By comparison, the graphics of the console versions are equivalent to high settings on PC.

So it's definitely something that he said.

Yes, very true. I'm not expecting train wrecks like Watch_Dogs or Assassin's Creed Unity out of CDPR. (I know you personally liked ACU's visuals, but it's hard to deny that the game was a technical hot mess on release) At worst, I'm just concerned that TW3 will fall short of the standard that CDPR set for itself with TW2 relative to the technical side.

It's really difficult to appease all sides in this; console gamers, regular PC gamers and elitist PC gamers.. Everything has to be scalable, and thats not an easy thing to do..

The only thing I've seen that kind of worries me are the shadow draw distance and detail. The draw distance for dynamic shadows is kind of short, and some things seemingly cast no shadows at all, like grass for instance.

Dynamic shadows are very costly, so I'm hoping that the draw distance being so short on high settings is just a performance enhancement, that will not be enabled for ultra quality. I don't know what to make of the missing grass shadows though.. That could possibly be another performance enhancement, or it could be something that they will put back in once they've optimized the game a bit more.

One of the things I found very impressive about DAI, is that the shadow draw distance and detail is very good..

 

[Spjut]

I feel bad for CD Projekt Red. He seemed to be honest in the interview, and now TW3 is getting overwhelmed by complaints.
If this goes on, only marketing folks will be interviewed. We don't want that!

I don't think this is an issue of "not caring about the consumer", though. I don't expect the game to be broken or exploitative of consumers. It's just that with The Witcher 2 CD Projekt Red seemed set themselves up as a developer that used the PC platform beyond what was expected of most developers, but they're not really doing that with The Witcher 3.

I don't want to criticize TW2, but in what way was it really special? It was released in 2011 and required the 8800GT or HD 3870, yet was only a DX9 game.

 

[escrow4]

How is ultra even worth it? More post and tess? That you will only see in zoomed in screenshots? More fur? That is it? Why should I buy a fat old Titan X for that?

- Where are the fat old super crisp textures?
- Where is the draw distance slider?
- Where are the high res character models and other ingame bits?
- Where is the ultra dynamic lighting?
- Where are the ultra high res dynamic soft shadows? Or is it pre-baked?
- Where are the fancy environmental effects - snow/rain/fog?
- Where does PhysX fit into all this?
- LOD? Pop-in? Different for "Ultra"?

I know High vs Ultra normally isn't THAT different (although fully maxed you can usually tell) but still

WHERE IS THE ULTRA

 

[bystander36]

I don't want to criticize TW2, but in what way was it really special? It was released in 2011 and required the 8800GT or HD 3870, yet was only a DX9 game.

Just because they only used DX9, does not mean they didn't use very advanced techniques for a very good looking game. Newer versions of DX, just give more tools for the dev to use, but that doesn't mean it is higher quality. TW2 had great lighting, textures and overall appearance. The only major loss, by using DX9, was tessellation.

 

[Fenixgoon]

I feel bad for CD Projekt Red. He seemed to be honest in the interview, and now TW3 is getting overwhelmed by complaints.
If this goes on, only marketing folks will be interviewed. We don't want that!



I don't want to criticize TW2, but in what way was it really special? It was released in 2011 and required the 8800GT or HD 3870, yet was only a DX9 game.

the outdoors in TW2 looked phenomenal. i was blown away.

 

[ImpulsE69]

I am so glad I outgrew this sort of analyzing and just play games to enjoy them. The graphics are probably the least of my concerns for this game.

 

[chimaxi83]

The only thing that was terrible as far as TW2 graphics were the shadows. I just threw up in my mouth a little bit, actually.

 

[Spjut]

Just because they only used DX9, does not mean they didn't use very advanced techniques for a very good looking game. Newer versions of DX, just give more tools for the dev to use, but that doesn't mean it is higher quality. TW2 had great lighting, textures and overall appearance. The only major loss, by using DX9, was tessellation.

More advanced features aside, DX11 could also yield higher performance than DX9 at the same settings