Some of you may know I'm a fairly long term SLI user (currently 780Ti SLI) and have something of an obsession, bordering on madness, with resolving stutter and microstutter issues caused by SLI in many games (AND that Gsync is not the magic fix for these issues at all. In fact Gsync can make SLI stutter worse).
I have various tweaks and fixes for quite a few games now to get the smoothest experience with 2 cards in SLI and Gsync, and here is a present for any Witcher 3 players, frustrated at the stutter and lack of performance when using SLI in this brilliant game.......
Note: This fix is specifically for SLI and Gsync, as that's what I use. I have no idea if this works for non Gsync monitors. My particular monitor is the Rog Swift. My cards as mentioned are 780Ti x 2.
I should also add that the game runs perfectly smooth on ONE card with gsync on my system with any driver and no tinkering, just that the framerate is a tad low with one 780ti and therefore gets motion blur. And if you've got 2 cards, you want to use em both don't you, to make the most of the swift
Anyway, here is the fix for stutter free, totally smooth Witcher 3 SLI performance
1. Set monitor refresh rate to 60Hz. Do this manually if preferred using the Rog Swift turbo button once in game. For ease do it on the game menu. There is no in game Hz setting and no command line tweak I know of yet to make it easier. Do not set to 120. Do not set to 144. Trust me.
2. Use a framerate limiter and set it to 59! This can either be done using a 3rd party prog like Bandicam or RTSS (Afterburner), or for ease you can do it in the My docs\Witcher 3\user.settings file under the [Engine] settings - make it so it's "LimitFPS=59". I use RTSS and set in game to unlimited framerate in the graphics menu. I've heard it mentioned that RTSS is a superior frame rate limiter to others so this is my preferred choice now.
3. Here is the biggie, I discovered just yesterday.......Using NVidia inspector, for the Witcher 3 profile set the SLI COMPATIBILITY BITS (DX1x) to:
0x280000F5 (Lord of the Rings Online: Shadow of Angmar, Lost Planet 2, Pollen Demo)
Using any drivers since 352.86, including all the buggy 353.xx ones and these compatibility bits, I no longer get the dips under 59 by groups of people/ fire/ using the torch and the associated microstutter! And it is butter smooth. BOOM!
The performance is also improved using the bits - I have yet to see it dip under 59 - but need more testing to be sure.
Before using the 0x280000F5 SLI bits above, it would be very smooth using the other tweaks but would often dip down to the low 50's by groups of people, fires and using the torch, and have awful microstutter.
Until Nvidia release a better SLI profile/ driver for the game, consider this a fix!
(Note "Far cry 3" SLI bits has a very similar positive effect, but there is slight flicker sometimes, and corruption on minimap icons. Other SLI bits cause major major epilepsy inducing flickering).
Rant
On a final note, I've just tried the latest 353.30 drivers released today. The fix above still works. But I've just had the usual desktop driver crash writing this post, so they are still ****ed.
It genuinely beggars belief how bad Nvidia drivers are at the moment. If I can make a major AAA game release like Witcher 3 run beatifully well and smooth simply by using a different games' SLI bits in Nvidia Inspector and a few tweaks, then what the hell are Nvidia playing at? Do they not test anything!?
/rant over
I have various tweaks and fixes for quite a few games now to get the smoothest experience with 2 cards in SLI and Gsync, and here is a present for any Witcher 3 players, frustrated at the stutter and lack of performance when using SLI in this brilliant game.......
Note: This fix is specifically for SLI and Gsync, as that's what I use. I have no idea if this works for non Gsync monitors. My particular monitor is the Rog Swift. My cards as mentioned are 780Ti x 2.
I should also add that the game runs perfectly smooth on ONE card with gsync on my system with any driver and no tinkering, just that the framerate is a tad low with one 780ti and therefore gets motion blur. And if you've got 2 cards, you want to use em both don't you, to make the most of the swift
Anyway, here is the fix for stutter free, totally smooth Witcher 3 SLI performance
1. Set monitor refresh rate to 60Hz. Do this manually if preferred using the Rog Swift turbo button once in game. For ease do it on the game menu. There is no in game Hz setting and no command line tweak I know of yet to make it easier. Do not set to 120. Do not set to 144. Trust me.
2. Use a framerate limiter and set it to 59! This can either be done using a 3rd party prog like Bandicam or RTSS (Afterburner), or for ease you can do it in the My docs\Witcher 3\user.settings file under the [Engine] settings - make it so it's "LimitFPS=59". I use RTSS and set in game to unlimited framerate in the graphics menu. I've heard it mentioned that RTSS is a superior frame rate limiter to others so this is my preferred choice now.
3. Here is the biggie, I discovered just yesterday.......Using NVidia inspector, for the Witcher 3 profile set the SLI COMPATIBILITY BITS (DX1x) to:
0x280000F5 (Lord of the Rings Online: Shadow of Angmar, Lost Planet 2, Pollen Demo)
Using any drivers since 352.86, including all the buggy 353.xx ones and these compatibility bits, I no longer get the dips under 59 by groups of people/ fire/ using the torch and the associated microstutter! And it is butter smooth. BOOM!
The performance is also improved using the bits - I have yet to see it dip under 59 - but need more testing to be sure.
Before using the 0x280000F5 SLI bits above, it would be very smooth using the other tweaks but would often dip down to the low 50's by groups of people, fires and using the torch, and have awful microstutter.
Until Nvidia release a better SLI profile/ driver for the game, consider this a fix!
(Note "Far cry 3" SLI bits has a very similar positive effect, but there is slight flicker sometimes, and corruption on minimap icons. Other SLI bits cause major major epilepsy inducing flickering).
Rant
On a final note, I've just tried the latest 353.30 drivers released today. The fix above still works. But I've just had the usual desktop driver crash writing this post, so they are still ****ed.
It genuinely beggars belief how bad Nvidia drivers are at the moment. If I can make a major AAA game release like Witcher 3 run beatifully well and smooth simply by using a different games' SLI bits in Nvidia Inspector and a few tweaks, then what the hell are Nvidia playing at? Do they not test anything!?
/rant over
Last edited:
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