So I am one of the many loyal Gog'ers who preordered The Witcher 2. However I hadn't yet played through The Witcher, so I had to finish that (very large game) first. Last night I finally fired up The Witcher 2. I was very excited to begin the adventure -- only to discover that the performance is so incredibly awful that the game is virtually unplayable. It's a shame. The game clearly has some beautiful graphics (I get as far as finishing the opening conversation in the tent before the performance is all I can take) and would probably be a lot of fun if it were playable. I have seemingly tried everything there is to try:

- Installed NVidia 275.57 Beta (minus 3D Vision)
- Turned Screen Resolution down to 1280 x 720 (both in Windows and in The Witcher 2) - this actually helped ~a little~ but it still leaves the game unplayable.
- Turned all graphics settings to the absolute bare minimum settings!
- Turned off all unnecessary background processes.
- Installed the 1.1 patch

So what now? Just verify that I'm not crazy and don't have a crappy PC, I fired up Mass Effect 2 for the first time (which I would say is graphically comparable to The Witcher 2) and had no problems whatsoever with performance. So what next? Is there any hope that I'll be able to play the Witcher 2 some day? As it stands right now I feel like I have thrown away $45.

System Specs:
Alienware M15X
Intel Core i7 Extreme 940 2.13 GHz (dual core)
6GB RAM
Windows 7 Home Premium x64
NVidia GeForce GTX 460M

Help?

GTX460M is not a card designed for gaming. It is designed for low resolution media playback. The fact you can run the first Witcher is amazing.

And Mass Effect 2 has far inferior graphics to The Witcher 2.

The problem is, Witcher 2 is a true PC game...you do not have a true PC. You have a over-priced Alienware Laptop which is about mid-range for a laptop. This game is designed for PCs.

I have a Q6600 @ 3.3GHZ
GTX470
4GB RAM
W7 64-bit

My processor is from 2007, as is my RAM. My GPU was a replacement for my 280 which had died. In this system, I can run mostly high settings at around 40-60FPS, or I could, post 1.1 patch. It looks a ton better than Mass Effect 2.

You do not have a rig designed for gaming. Nothing modern, that is.

Ok thanks for being a troll. My specs should be more than adequate to play The Witcher 2, certainly at minimum settings. Clearly there's something else going on here.

It is also possible that "something, somewhere" is killing game performance. Any "M" series card is not really meant for serious gaming, though Mass Effect and it's ilk will run fine, because the game is built around the limitations of the XBOX 360, which your system actually surpasses.

What kind of maintenance do you do on your laptop? Have you tried and disabling all startup items from "msconfig?" This wil give you a cleaner load for Windows, and may help determine where yout bottleneck is coming from.

Dude, I'm playing this game on GeForce9600M and it works. His computer is fine, the age of laptops being nothing powerful has passed a good few years ago. If you have no constructive feedback, don't post. Please.


As for the topic, it really seems like a very anomalous issue, you should def. contact CDPR support.

I'm not being a troll, I build computers for a living. Mass Effect 2 uses Unreal Engine 3, which is well optimized, and it's a console port, so very low resolution.

For example, textures in ME2 are 512 x 512, while in The Witcher 2, they are 2048 x 2048.

The problem is you have a Laptop, not meant for gaming dude. Dual core, not a quad core.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GTX-460M.33612.0.html

It is about half as powerful as mine, and as I said, I get worse performance with 1.1, I get 40-60FPS with mediumish settings.

To expect to play one of the latest and greatest games on such a Laptop, you're kinda crazy.

Actually I was mistaken, my proc is a quad core.

Erm, even I feel offended from that Mass Effect quote. Read about your card here: http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GTX-460M.33612.0.html

I could be wrong but it looks like it should handle the game, but not at high settings probably.

Right, I'm fine with that. Never had the expectation of running The Witcher 2 at High settings. Low settings, however, should be completely doable. Anyway I'm opening a support ticket with CD Projekt, as someone else recommended.

completly uninstall the drivers, reboot and re install.

if you jus installed the drivers without uninstalling you previous ones, you still may have 3d vision stuff installed causing the performance drops
spelling and grammar ftw ^^

Hmm, I did a "Clean" install, would that not yield the same effect?

If you have i7 quad core and the graphic card you mentioned, you SHOULD be able to play, even if not at highest resolution. My spec.: Intel quad core 4x 2,66 Ghz, Graphic card ati radeon 4870x2 (2 GB). It works at high res. maximum 1680x1650, but had to uninstall AAA filter and other details. MY PC is 2 years old.
So you SHOULD run TW2 with yours at lowest details with no problems.

Aha! So I found the issue :-)

I feel silly now, but I'm still somewhat new to PC Gaming (or haven't done much of it in the past 6-7 years I'd say).

So I was running my Video card in what is called "Stealth Mode" and never knew it! There's a touch button in the right-hand corner above the keyboard that turns it off. After turning of Stealth Mode, I turned up the clock speed on my GPU and BAM! Completely playable :-)
Wow, yeah, even Ultra settings are fine now, as long as I leave Ubersampling off. "Not a gaming PC My Arse!" :-D

All's well that ends well.

I really think you should take the moment to savor this OP.