OFFICIAL The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (Discussion)

[RCoon]

Release Date - May 19th 2015

System Requirements
Minimum:

• CPU: Intel Core i5-2500K 3.3GHz or AMD Phenom II X4 940
• GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660/AMD GPU Radeon HD 7870
• RAM: 6GB
• OS: 64-bit Windows 7 or 64-bit Windows 8 (8.1)
• HDD Space: 40 GB

Surprised to see no thread yet. I've broken my golden rule and gone ahead and pre-ordered it. Hell, it's the first game I've preordered since Mass Effect 3! Anybody else become one of the pre-order filth-fest? Does anyone else feel like this is going to melt their system?

Gotta get me some 'o that ubersampling.

 

[64K]

I've been seeing conflicting articles on The Witcher3. Some are saying the game has downgraded visuals from the early screenshots and now I see this

http://www.dsogaming.com/news/the-w...ning-uber-terrain-textures-lod-options-found/

I'm sure the game is going to have plenty of eye candy for most people but that word being thrown around (downgraded) makes me wonder. We'll see soon.

 

[CounterZeus]

I saw the min specs today and was like, 'wow, my CPU is minimum'? I feel like the intel minimum is better than the AMD equivalent though...

I started playing the first one again a couple of days ago, but didn't play enough hours. I'll probably buy wild hunt in a sale.

 

[RCoon]

My preload was ~25GB. The minimum requirements say 40GB, plus there's a day 1 patch. So either there's going to be a buttload more (another 20GB) downloading, or the preload is massively compressed and is going to take a fair while to decompress. Either way I'm stuck with an alternate review title until Thursday, so Witcher 3 time is going to be like gold dust for a few days for me.

I feel like the intel minimum is better than the AMD equivalent though...

Recommended were even weirder. R9 290 or GTX 770. I don't understand how they are on equal footing for recommended. One doesn't even have that much VRAM as standard!

 

[Ferrum Master]

I've been seeing conflicting articles on The Witcher3. Some are saying the game has downgraded visuals from the early screenshots and now I see this

http://www.dsogaming.com/news/the-w...ning-uber-terrain-textures-lod-options-found/

I'm sure the game is going to have plenty of eye candy for most people but that word being thrown around (downgraded) makes me wonder. We'll see soon.

Honestly the last video footages from German sites on Ultra 4K... ain't that pretty... there are many generic things, we all waited for more, and in the end it is still not really better than modded skyrim then I will be really disappointed. I'll see how it benchmarks, but I'll keep my money to myself still... The grass is ugly, it may be of using FXAA as it makes it thicker, but we'll see soon enough.

This stinks like needing Enhanced edition... As we see there are still only 2K textures around as max... and this is bad... It ain't enough, I am spoiled... even PS3 Final Fantasy XIII has them lol...

 

[rtwjunkie]

i will be playing tonight. According to GOG website, I will be able to install and play my already downloaded game at 6pm U.S. Central time.

Everybody, stop complaining about graphics like it's the be all-end all. The Witcher games have never been about the graphics. What made them such great pc games has ALWAYS been the story, rich world, and gameplay. Sure, they have looked pretty damned good, but not the best. Expect pretty damned good but not the best this time, and focus on playing the game.

 

[Valeriant]

I've broken my golden rule and gone ahead and pre-ordered it. Hell, it's the first game I've preordered since Mass Effect 3! Anybody else become one of the pre-order filth-fest? Does anyone else feel like this is going to melt their system?

Lately there're more and more bad receptions of AAA titles because of bugs, performance, etc. Witcher 3 is one of the most hyped and anticipated title this year, I hope this one doesn't suck.

I... I pre-ordered it too...

 

[Ferrum Master]

The Witcher games have never been about the graphics

Yeah sure.

Spoiler

 

[Ahhzz]

Looking forward to the review

 

[rtwjunkie]

Yeah sure.

Spoiler

I fear you misunderstand me, sir. The Witcher games HAVE always had good graphics, but not the best in either 1 or 2. Probably a B+ for Witcher, and an A- for Witcher 2 if I were to grade them.

But worrying about whether the game will be good because graphics might be reduced does an extreme disservice to CDPR, and the many thousands of hours they have put into his series, focusing on doing justice to the Witcher books, giving you well-woven storyies inside of a believable world, with choices, and roleplaying. In short, they have sought to give you an awesome playing experience, among the best, only supplemented by graphics.

I just 2 weeks ago finished replaying The Witcher 2, using my settings from almost 4 years ago. Yes, I still had initial save brought over from my old system. So, I didn't up the graphics settings, even though I easily could have. Know what? It looked GREAT anyway, and I STILL loved the gameplay. That's all I'm saying...don't let your perception of what the graphics SHOULD be in your mind distract you from enjoying what is likely to be a fantastic game!

 

[dyonoctis]

Recommended were even weirder. R9 290 or GTX 770. I don't understand how they are on equal footing for recommended. One doesn't even have that much VRAM as standard!

I'm pretty sure that the awesome optimization of gameworks on amd hardware explain how a gtx 770 can match a r9 290.

 

[v12dock]

I preordered on gog, does anyone know if the Steam version is DRM free?

 

[Kaynar]

They certainly spent a lot of time optimising the game for both the consoles and the pc and from the very recent PC version videos on youtube, some scenes look great and some look like a slightly modded skyrim... which is a 4 year old game if im not mistaken.

Sure the gameplay and story will be great but I expect to be dissapointed from the graphics due to the gameplay videos they have released in the past which were far, far superior in graphics quality. As @rtwjunkie wrote above, The witcher series always had very good graphics but never "the best" of the year.

 

[RCoon]

I preordered on gog, does anyone know if the Steam version is DRM free?

Only DRM is steam's I think.

 

[Ferrum Master]

I just 2 weeks ago finished replaying The Witcher 2, using my settings from almost 4 years ago.

I was just making fun... about decent places were polygons and textures matter the most but I hope you used the texture pack on Witcher nexus site... it really does the job fine and ups the whole feeling to look and explore the surroundings. I guess I have finished witcher like 6 times... Can't remember thou... have various save files on different with decisions.

Initially Witcher 2 ran like arse too... there were many problems I remember... I guess many loading/stutter issues were mend by using SSD and custom ini settings to hold a bigger cache. If I recall correctly... Witcher2 never ran on Crossfire too... at least I couldn't do it with two 7970, I tried like in winter again, the game crashed.

And here is a bit spoiler... the game runs quite funny... 280X is same 780 and... 960 outperforms them both lol... it will be a bloddy mess as Gameworks really kills the performance... it is utter rubbish.

http://www.pcgameshardware.de/The-Witcher-3-PC-237266/Specials/Grafikkarten-Benchmarks-1159196/

 

[dyonoctis]

Guess i'll be waiting for the enhanced edition...you know something is wrong when a r9 285 can match a titan...although the number seems more coherent on 970/980/titan x and r9 290/290x....
I'm waiting for more in depth review, but it looks like my r9 270x will barely make it with medium setting at 1080p...

 

[64K]

i will be playing tonight. According to GOG website, I will be able to install and play my already downloaded game at 6pm U.S. Central time.

Everybody, stop complaining about graphics like it's the be all-end all. The Witcher games have never been about the graphics. What made them such great pc games has ALWAYS been the story, rich world, and gameplay. Sure, they have looked pretty damned good, but not the best. Expect pretty damned good but not the best this time, and focus on playing the game.

Yeah, that's true. The people I see complaining are saying that the graphics have been downgraded to make it playable on consoles. That's a touchy subject with PC gamers especially since it's CD Projekt Red and they made their name on the PC.

 

[rtwjunkie]

@Ferrum Master Thanks for the heads up about 780's getting left behind by 960's. That does kinda suck.

I actually prefer the Review graphics to the Preview graphics in that link you provided. Using the slider, the Preview looks oversaturated and unrealistic. Review copy looks much more natural and "real".

@64K I don't think the "downgrade", if one exists, will be an issue. Even that will very likely be improved on the already really nice graphics of Witcher 2.

 

[dyonoctis]

hmmm....so the titan x can only manage 67 fps on 1080p but a video on youtube show it can play it at 4k ultra setting quite well...I don't know what to think anymore...

 

[Easo]

My CE should arrive in timeframe from tommorow to Thursday.
I am trying to avoid this graphics debate, from PC streams it looks good enough.

 

[Devil-Walker]

As long as the game is good and runs smooth im not going to sweat the downgrade. According to steam the game will unlock 8 hrs from now, so im happy about that lol.

 

[INSTG8R]

I just ordered it. I need to stop playing Elite Dangerous. This should be a more than worthy distraction. I really enjoyed 2 once I got into it(I still haven't played it since it went "Enhanced" tho)

 

[Kaynar]

http://www.pcgamer.com/witcher-3-graphics-options-performance-and-settings/

PCGAMER just released this. Look encouraging for us PC gamers.

 

[dyonoctis]

According to nvidia a 960 will do fine in high setting without gameworks, a 970 is needed for uber setting, and gamesworks at 1080p will need at least a 980/970 oc.
2k games works is for rich ppl only.
http://www.geforce.co.uk/whats-new/articles/the-witcher-3-wild-hunt-is-your-system-ready
But from i'm what i'm seeing the game also works better on gcn 1.2, since the 285 outperfom the 280x...
Anyway medium setting look good enough for me, the extra candy of uber/gameworks don't look's like it's worth buying a 300+ gpu, i'do rather wait for the 16 nm gen.

 

[Jacko28er]

I've been ridiculously hyped for this game but have yet to purchase it. Seems like a few people have been caught out by the initial promo images / gameplay and are now disappointed with how the game has ended up visually - which is completely understandable. I kind of expected all the buttons to be pushed with W3, especially after the release date push back.

Despite that I'm still going to pick it up this week. I love the game lore, characters and gritty/mature feel. Graphics are the icing on top, from what I've heard it's an amazing game still. I know it's not what we want but perhaps we'll see a visual/texture update further down the line.