Digital Foundry- Should you install The Witcher 3 patch 1.07?

Thomas Morgan, Eurogamer writes: "Essentially, gameplay on Xbox One now appears to rely on a similar double-buffer v-sync set-up to the PS4 game, locking its frame-rate to 20fps during these lulls in performance. This means that the reading on our graph is consistently lower on patch 1.07 as compared to 1.05, where it was free to waver between 20-30fps freely. On a matching route through the bog, frame-rate can be up to 8fps slower on the latest version of the game."

[GarrusVakarian]

So this patch, that was supposed to fix the PS4 version's framerate issues has in fact made both versions worse. Great. The X1 version now uses the same double buffer V-sync than the PS4 version uses, despite the fact that the framerate was fine beforehand, resulting in the same 20fps lock when the engine is under strain.

A really, really strange decision. Seems that all it would take for both versions to run great is the removal of the double buffer. The hell are they smoking over at CDPR?

[yewles1]

But then you would have more screen tear. Give/Take.

[GarrusVakarian]

But screen-tearing was never an issue for either version of the game, was it? Literally all they have to do is go back to whatever was implemented before this patch. And the degradation of the X1 version's framerate due to the double buffer suggests that the PS4 could also benefit greatly from the removal of it.

[yewles1]

Of course it was considered a problem, why else was it implemented in the PS4 in the first place?

EDIT: Bottom line, the next patch needs to make it an option to make everyone happy.

[GarrusVakarian]

"Of course it was considered a problem, why else was it implemented in the PS4 in the first place?"

How can we say for sure if they've just implemented it in a version that clearly didn't need tinkering with at all? It makes sense to me that all they need to do is use whatever method they were using for the X1 version before this patch for both versions.

"EDIT: Bottom line, the next patch needs to make it an option to make everyone happy."

Or they could just do what I said above and use the previous X1 V-sync method for both versions. I don't know if it would be quite that simple for the PS4 version as it was hot garbage from the start and we don't have a previous, better performing version to compare it to...and the hardware is different, but in the X1's case it's literally a matter of pressing 'undo'.

[CernaML]

^ Talk about clutching at straws.

[Letthewookiewin]

XBL- not really sure how PS4 is holding back the weaker hardware? Doesn't make much sense.

[dantesparda]

@Xboxskull

What a trollish thing to say. Yet its Sony fans that troll Xbox news, right?

[mikeslemonade]

The updates fixes my gamebreaking glitch in Baron's quest.

But what in the holy **** my frame rate is 41 frames on max settings. 970sli. Such weak gpus I need to upgrade.

[Ashlen]

People won't accept the actual FPS fixes like lowing the res, or reducing texture quality or draw distance or post processing.

[joab777]

Exactly. And to be honest, I've had no issue that have caused me noticeable problems. Seriously.

The inventory, which still forces you to slowly scroll over, is very noticeable and time consuming. The patch helps tremendously. I don't gallop through the bog much so...

Also, many quests were fixed. One issue though, is that I tried on a new piece of armor and lost my mastercrafted feline until I hit 24. Oh well. And do NOT get a haircut...lol!

Overall...love the patch. And I also know that they will continue to support it, and do what they can. It's just who they are. But, imho, I want degradation to respond or textures. Framerate has been fine for me.

[dantesparda]

@Ashlen

Or they can get rid of whatever is causing the PS4 to lock down to 20fps (which everybody thinks, including myself, is double buffering). I mean seriously they just did it to X1 (applied double buffering) and now its in the same situation the PS4 is in. Great job! But no, you would rather them drop the res and degrade the image quality when a better solution would be to just use triple buffering.

[Ashlen]

@dantesparda

Actually I don't care I get all multiplats on PC.

If you would prefer a system with a more varied fps thats fine.

But I can tell you the easiest way to get a solid 30 FPS would be to take some cuts to image quality. They can only tweak it so much. They have been doing all they can and thus far have not been able to maintain a solid 30 fps.

[JackStraw]

I love when people say "oh, well it's as simply as... as if you would know. If it was that simple of a fix, don't you think they would implement it? It's obviously more difficult than you, or anyone outside of the development team, can understand.

[TheSaint]

Which is why I rarely buy games on release now, no point until they have gotten all the patches out, IMO.

[Cid33]

i want to disagree but i cannot :( 60$ to be a beta tester no more

[D3TH_D33LR]

Lol you have Destiny to thank for this. That games a $120 beta test and they still want $40 from those beta testers.

[BallsEye]

Yes, works worse on both version. XO was running at average of 35 going up to 40. Then they've put a 30 fps cap. It was butter smooth 30 fps. Now dips to 22 at times? WTH! In addition, they almost completely turned off foliage physics on ps4 in cut-scenes see 1:14 onwards.

[Gwiz]

The fact that this game already pushes the systems limits.

Some people already had foreseen this happening sooner or later.

[ceooflhm]

Probably smoking wax. You smoke enough of that you wont notice the frame rate because time is slowed and the universe is flying by.

[jobboy]

CDPR...what garbage of a dev you are on console!!

[joab777]

Seriously? What an entitled commenter and gamer you are. CDPR is one of the best. Made a masterpiece and has continuously supported it to the best of their ability. And will keep doing it.

Gimme a break.

[PygmelionHunter]

I don't agree with these guys being terrible at console development, because I take it that the X360 version of TW2 was pretty much flawless, considering the hardware, but... My God, has this game been a mess since day one.

I've been waiting mostly for patch that fixes the PS4 version's ridiculous frame rate drops. And then comes this damn patch and pretty much middle fingers all console users in general. I'm actually starting to lose hope at this point. If this keeps up, I might as well wait until the game drops beneath $20, since I don't feel like giving the developers full retail price for an unfinished game.

[pumpactionpimp]

@joab77

Yes. How dare a money paying consumer complain, and get frustrated. They shouldnt be allowed to complain about a product that is constantly made worse by patches over time.

In the real world, if I do poorly at my job, and continue to make things worse as time goes on I get fired. My boss doesnt care if I support my customers, or try really hard.

Maybe you should acknowledge how consumerism, and the real world works, rather than support studios that try real hard.

[Paulino30]

They are not garbage. The problem is the consoles are not strong enough to handle this large open world game.

[Palitera]

It's a dev choice to spend resources on shiny graphics instead of decent performance, so...

[Lamboomington]

I absolutely think that consoles are underpowered this generation for the expectations of developers.

However, your criticism is completely invalid. If a dev wants to make a game on console, it MUST ensure 30fps stable MINIMUM. It's a basic requirement for a playable game !

[Paulino30]

@ lamboomington

That's my point. I believe it can't be tweeked better than that because the consoles aren't as strong as people thought. When the game is running at 30 fps you see tearing. I don't think their is much they can besides what they did know.

[jznrpg]

Consoles are strong enough, the game was running well for me on ps4 before the patch.

[gedapeleda]

Sorry but laptop hardware can't handle high demanding games.

[D3TH_D33LR]

Jobboy... you sound like an entitled 12 year old.

[jobboy]

me?? this game is out for 2 months and it's still bugged like a mess on consoles, pointing it out it's just a mere port from the PC version (where it really shines); nonetheless the last patch got it even worse (DF said that, non me...as i am non entitled to do tech analysis)....So i feel really entitled to blame CDPR for being lazy on consoles (and not the hardware), even if i was really 12!!

[KiwiViper85]

loving the new patch. inventory is much smoother, even if still a bit laggy.

[Clown_Syndr0me]

I feel so lucky I've never ever had a problem (except a minor camera bug) with this game. It's literally been 99% flawless for me.

[Kingdomcome247]

Thankfully I've had the good luck to not encounter the issues that many people are experiencing either. In fact, my playthrough actually had me thinking many times about how impressed I was with the lack of game impacting bugs that I've encountered. Bugs are a part of all games, open world games in particular, but considering the massive scope of this game I have had an experience that has been far beyond acceptable. It's actually been exceptional in fact. Unfortunately this is not the case for a large number of people, and it's a shame that they're unable to experience this masterpiece as it was meant to be experienced. I've always wondered, and now seems as good a time as any to ask this question. Obviously on PC with the immense number of possible setups you'd expect there to be quite a bit of variance from person to person regarding their experience with a certain game, but on consoles where the hardware is exactly the same across the board for both the PlayStation and Xbox versions, with it being a strictly single player game with no internet requirements that could lead to variations due to different internet speeds and quality for different people, what causes the differences that we're seeing people encounter while playing on the exact same hardware? I've always wondered about this. With the experiences and issues that some people have spoken about having in their playthroughs, I feel as though at times that we're not even playing the same game. This obviously isn't just an issue with The Witcher either. I see it quite frequently across various games, and I always wonder what could cause such a large discrepancy in different people's experiences while playing the same game on the exact same hardware.

[Clown_Syndr0me]

I'm no expert, but perhaps some bugs are triggered from tiny differences, like a butterfly effect. For example speaking to NPC in a certain order could trigger a crash at a cut scene somewhere just because of some minor scripting errors.

[kainslayer]

IM so glad that the pc patch brought only improvements....sorry console owners maybe a quick fix will be adressed next week for ya patience
p.s. At last i can run again on witcher 3 ;-p

[Sm00thNinja]

Only time I've ever had an issue was against Ifrit on Xbox One frame rate dips below 5 fps in this fight

[aquaticDonut]

This is why I do everything in my power to not have to resort to getting something on my PS4. At least on PC I can always drop my settings until it runs well.

[modelgod]

@aquaticdonut why invest 400$ "to do everything in your power to not have to resort to it?"

[aquaticDonut]

Exclusives :/

[Perjoss]

As an owner of both a PS4 and a top end gaming PC I just wanted to say this is a dumb comment, there are very few titles that have performance issues on PS4, and when it comes to games that are on both PS4 and PC its probably best that we don't even talk about Batman either.

[aquaticDonut]

I have yet to play a single game on PS4 that never stuttered or had any framedrop. TLOU, MGS GZ, BloodBorne. Even the home screen does. They might not happen too frequently, but they still happen.

[berndogskate]

True for these big open world games pc is the way to go

[1nsomniac]

Well 1.07 has completely broke my game on PS4. All the assets keep randomly disappearing, lights, textures, items, mini map, inventory.

I'm trying not to think about it to much because the thought of losing all the hours I've put into it, is too much to take.

[Kingdomcome247]

I'd be reduced to a pitiful weeping mess if I were to lose all of my progress and the time that I've invested into this game. I will say, though that in the past whenever I've lost my save files in various games, even with the games that I absolutely love, I've always found it to be pretty much impossible to muster the desire to jump back in immediately and start the game anew. I have to give it some time to let the frustration subside before picking it back up. This is the rare game that were I to lose my save file (fingers crossed) I'm almost certain that I'd get right back after it without hesitation. This game has been such an amazing experience for me personally.

[Two-Face]

For you people complaining about low framerate: Fork out the money and invest on a PC, or live with the dated hardware and its limitations. Welcome to the real world.

[PhucSeeker]

The problem is that the game was running fine before. If they release a patch which make the Pc ver run worse, wouldn't you get mad ?

[Shakengandulf]

No, because he'll just brute force it without a care in the world..... Unfortunately.

[WellyUK]

it ran like crap in the first place when under strain so no its hardly the patches fault... The only fix really is to downgrade the game but you mugs wont take that despite knowing the consoles aren't powerful enough...

[SonyKong64]

I forked out last year and yet I still game on my ps4 and wii u more then the glorious pc that sits at its shinny new desk, waiting for me to play dota and gw2 😦

in my real world 🌍, my friends play console as priority, it's simple, easy and above all else FUN 🙌🙌🙌

I can't remember the last time I had some of the boys over to crowd around the pc and play a game together. Makes me wonder, do pc elitists have friends (non steam) irl?

[Two-Face]

Your whole post has nothing to do with my comment. Way to go.

[Krakin1]

I'm just sitting here wondering when DF is gonna do an analysis of the Horizon footage....it's been a month!

[Kingdomcome247]

I'd be really interested in reading that! I'd love to read up on what manner of sorcery Guerilla is using to acheive what we witnessed in the E3 demo.

[Dynasty2021]

What's this bollocks about "parity" etc again?

God, what a load of crap.

Runs great on PC now. Shock horror, a PC dev does a better job on PC.

[zu4G]

just accept the Truth .. Next GEN consoles are WEAK

[Pandamobile]

After I grabbed a new GPU last week, TW3 was the first game I tried out. I was pretty giddy when it held a solid 120 FPS on the settings I was using before at ~40-50 FPS.

[kevnb]

last gen nobody seemed to care too much about framerate on consoles, this gen everyone on here does.

[WellyUK]

because games were mostly running at at least 30 fps where as we seem to be getting games that cant even handle that...

[kevnb]

no they werent, games were just as bad or worse last gen but I guess digital foundry wasn't well known. http://www.eurogamer.net/ar...
they didnt start showing videos with fps counters until later on as well.
https://www.youtube.com/wat...
https://www.youtube.com/wat...

[SilentSolid]

20 fps? I'm glad I switched to pc.

[samchez77]

ME TOO.

[ReDeviL16]

Batman says hi..

[Str8Chaos74]

Ultra SF4 says hi back, and we know what a demanding tour de force that game is lol. Batman is one game that will get fixed and like every other multiplat, blow the console version out of the water.

[SilentSolid]

@ReDeviL16 Yes. You are totally right. Imma switch back just because of 1 shitty game /s

[modelgod]

@sonykog64 Shots fired!!! Wow........ And so true!

[ps4fanboy]

Defo worse.

[deadfrag]

Crap developers and liers!

[Meltic]

SLI 970 i7 4790 16 gb ram. No frame rate issues here. Love the new patch

[Gwiz]

After extensive testing i wouldn't even install it on PC.
I'm back to 1.05,there's many performance issues with 1.07.