[Aopels]

Hello everyone, I have a decent gaming rig (4GB RAM/ Quad core q6600/ Gigabyte 7700OC).

I got this game off GOG, and I started out with Ultra settings (no ubersampling/SSAO), and the game ran fine with an FPS range of 35-50, after I got out of the tutorial though things turned a bit ugly so I turned the computer down to High, now fast forward to Flotsam, my computer can barely run the game on medium/low, I start out with 40+ FPS when I load the game then after walking for a few seconds my game goes down slowly to 30 then to 20 and below, changing the settings of the game doesn't do much either, even I go down to low (with almost everything disabled) or max out the settings, my FPS still keeps jumping from between 15-25 in the town. I tried this frame rate skipping fix online and the game seems to be a bit more stable but still low FPS, I'm also running the game with the 3GB fix since it kept crashing every 5 mins before that on my Windows 7 32-bit rig. I've got the latest drivers for my GPU and the game is updated to 3.2, even though my graphics card isn't that strong, I'd still like to think I can run this on medium/high with no problems but that doesn't seem to be the case.

Anyone have any ideas? Thank you in advance!

[*Tommy*]

Try 1280 x 720 or 1600 x 900 to see if the FPS is more stable as you play the game .I would start on medium and work your way up the ladder until you find the right mix that feels good for you . What kind of temps are you getting on the card ?

[Aopels]

I turned down the resolution to 1280*720 but no dice (mine was originally 1680*1050), I started out with 40ish FPS then dropped down to 10-20 after a bit of walking, I got almost the temps to almost 50 but then again I only opened the game for a few mins so the card didn't have time to heat up.

[*Tommy*]

Antivirus set to exclude witcher 2 from real time scanning ? All background or unneeded programs closed ?

[Aopels]

No antivirus yet as it's a clean install of Windows 7 made last week, used GameBooster to shut down all unnecessary programs except FRAPS of course.

[*Tommy*]

Windows up to date as well as your motherboard drivers

[Aopels]

I'll try motherboard drivers tomorrow but my chipset is kind of old and Gigabyte don't like supporting old hardware much, but windows is up to date..

Just gave the game a run on Ultra with a lot of things disabled, I start out in the village in Flotsam with 50+ fps then I roam around a bit and the framerate dips to around 30, middle of Flotsam is where it really hits me with 20FPS tops, I tried fighting a few creatures in the forest and the fps was a solid 20-28 with some stuttering of course, my GPU and this game don't see to like each other much, because playing this game on the lowest settings and highest settings seems to be giving me almost the same FPS!

[*Tommy*]

There is a fix for the stuttering for some people it may work for you or it may not . If it doesn`t then simply remove the file . I`ll attach it just in case . Unzip it and place in your witcher 2/bin folder . It may also help with the spikes in FPS .

Attached File(s)

•  the_witcher_2_stuttering_fix.zip (7.04K)
  Number of downloads: 40

[Vinterberg]

It sounds to me like an overheating issue, in which the gfx card throttles down over time..?
Try MSI Afterburner and set it to monitor the temps, then you can both view them in-game, and in a graph upon exit..!

[Guy N'wah]

If this is your GPU model: http://www.hardocp.c...eo_card_review/

Make sure you get the BIOS update, not just the drivers. The card shipped with a defective BIOS.

[Aopels]

My BIOS is up to date but it seems like there's something with the card, I applied Tommy's stutter fix again (already had it, but replaced just for the sake of it) I got stable 50s then went down from 20-40, then inside Flotsam, I got lower than 20.

The game is using less than 60% of my GPU load, and temps are barely reaching 55C while in Furmark the card goes over 70C. I checked the processor load and the game is running on all four but it isn't using them to the max so it doesn't look my CPU is bottlenecking anything.

Strange is I got 50-60 FPS in the beginning mins then went into a cave and got around 80FPS but after a few mins, hell breaks loose.

[Vinterberg]

It still sounds to me like your driver/the gfx card itself is downthrottling... :/
Have you checked the ATI control panel for such features, also possibly enabling 100% performance instead of dynamic? I don't know anything about ATI stuff, so I'm shooting in the dark

Also, if you install MSI Afterburner you can make your own cooling graph, where you control fan speed at given temperatures - this often allows for much better cooling, and lower temperatures, than built-in fan control can provide

[*Tommy*]

What driver version are you using ?

Seems like you`re familiar with your card and system might give this a look-see
http://www.radeonpro.info/en-US/

[Vinthir]

Do you have any experience with overclocking? If so and only then you could try clocking your factory overclocked gfx card down to reference values. There are actually often problems when gaming with such video cards: crashes, freezes, graphics glitches. It could be interesting to see if downclocking would help also in this case.

Not sure if yours is a 7750 or 7770, anyway you can find all the values here and the reference values on the AMD website. Gigabyte uses a different convention for giving the memory clocks values than AMD so when comparing with the reference values it's e.g. not actually 5000 vs. 1100 but 5000/4=1250 vs 1100.

If you decide to perform any changes in the clocking of your components you are doing so on your own responsibility.

[Aopels]

My driver version is 12.8 (latest) and I've done no overclocking since the card comes factory OC'ed, I've decided to check the CPU temps since most of my games are barely using the card's full ptential. I'm guessing temps of over 80C while playing video games! This would explain why my GPU's performance drops after a few mins, which is because the CPU is throttling the whole system so that it won't fry! I'm going to buy some thermal paste and clean out the CPU and heatsink then post the results.

[Vinthir]

Yep, that could help. In fact we had more reports of problems resulting from overheating lately most likely related to the temperatures outside which add to the problem. So it's also a good idea to simply avoid graphics-intensive gaming when it's really hot.