Does Hairworks Really Sabotage AMD in Witcher 3?

[Guest Kloaked]

Digital Foundry makes awesome videos about stuff like this and I suggest you guys subscribe to their Youtube channel.

Anywho, what you're going to see is four tests put into a single video that ran the same part of the game.

As you can see, without Hairworks enabled the 970 and 290x perform about the same more or less, but with Hairworks enabled on both cards the 970 comes out on top with a clear advantage, getting 13FPS more on average compared to the 290x.

So this about sums up what I and others have been saying: if you can't run it, turn the effect off.
 

@Kloaked you should add this to your post, it seems that not enough people are aware of it. https://www.reddit.com/r/witcher/comments/36jpe9/how_to_run_hairworks_on_amd_cards_without/
 
Hopefully this will put the complaints to rest.

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Now if anyone is still reading and would like to be scientific about this happenings: if you own Witcher 3, I would like to invite you to a private message with me and other members who would want to participate in this. I want to compare frame rates.

I own a 280x and a 980 so I can compare both of those when I buy Witcher next week. If you want to participate, please let me know in the comments and I'll invite you to a PM.

[werto165]

290x with hairworks is unplayable, 970 is perfectly playable(30FPS and above). I don't think hair works is worth the performance hit it takes.

[DudeWazap]

Hair Works also makes Kepler GPU's perform worse.

[mikat]

your signature, @TheSLSAMG will have to buy a big supply of milk in the next few weeks/months XDDD

[ManIkWeet]

Why is this such a topic, yes it sucks and yes someone found a fix. Get over with it...

[Guest Kloaked]

Why is this such a topic, yes it sucks and yes someone found a fix. Get over with it...

It's a hot topic because it's how AMD gets their marketing.

I also didn't post this just to say "hurr durr you guys are wrong about Hairworks", I have another part on the OP but so far I don't think anyone has read all of it.

[Fulgrim]

Overclock3D did an article detailing as to why - it's to do with the tesselation for Nvidia's HairWorks

 

http://www.overclock3d.net/articles/gpu_displays/amd_say_nvidia_completely_sabotaged_our_performance_with_hairworks/1

[SkilledRebuilds]

So easy to fix... a few clicks.

HairworksAA to 4x not 8x, looks great.

Make a profile in AMD CCC for Witcher3 to use 16x Tesselation not 64x and its smooth as silk again on my 290x @ 1100mhz.

Smooth sailing!

[ThE_MarD]

Heyyo,

Well if they did? NVIDIA sabotaged themselves.. my GTX 680 acts like a slug with NVIDIA hairworks...

That, and no mention which patch they are running... patch 1.03 just released and is supposed to improve NVIDIA hairworks performance.

http://thewitcher.com/news/view/1038

That... and they're comparing latest gen NVIDIA to AMD's R9 290X is a GPU from 2013 ffs... of course it won't have the tessellation performance of a newer GPU. It's been said to the AMD R9 390X is supposed to have way better tessellation performance. A fairer comparison would be a GTX 780 or so.

Also, anyone remember when Witcher 2 released? IT RAN LIKE ASS. Then again, the game was complete ass at release where-as Witcher 3 runs decent and combat isn't broken so it's a better release than Witcher 2 was... but still, Witcher 3 needs more optimization on PC. GTA V looks better on my PC than Witcher 3 for the same framerate.

[Guest Kloaked]

So easy to fix... a few clicks.

HairworksAA to 4x not 8x, looks great.

Make a profile in AMD CCC for Witcher3 to use 16x Tesselation not 64x and its smooth as silk again on my 290x @ 1100mhz.

Smooth sailing!

With Hairworks enabled correct? Are you using it?

[Ostwind]

@Kloaked you should add this to your post, it seems that not enough people are aware of it. https://www.reddit.com/r/witcher/comments/36jpe9/how_to_run_hairworks_on_amd_cards_without/

 

Hopefully this will put the complaints to rest.

[SkilledRebuilds]

With Hairworks enabled correct? Are you using it?

Yeah that was my point, using hairworks then setting its AA to 4x not the 8x default in the ini brings a decent bump to fps, as does the AMD profile.

With extra performance it allows me to use bigger draw distance values elsewhere in the ini.

[Guest Kloaked]

Yeah that was my point, using hairworks then setting its AA to 4x not the 8x default in the ini brings a decent bump to fps, as does the AMD profile.

With extra performance it allows me to use bigger draw distance values elsewhere in the ini.

 

Would it be too much trouble to ask for a video? I'd like to see it, for science.

[Megahurt]

I don't think hairworks is worth the performance hit on any graphics card, it's crap.

[KE2012]

I recently got a 980 and I have a old 7950 somewhere outback, I could possibly send you those performance numbers but it would have to wait till after my exams finish on sat next week.