Witcher 3 Frame Dips

[LordofSavages]

So when I play the Witcher 3, I get an average of around 60-65FPS and highs of 75FPS at ultra with my GTX 1070 at 1440p. However, when I'm sprinting in Novigrad or in places with a lot of NPCs, my PC seems to drop to 45 to 50FPS and the frametime increases to 50ms or even more, which makes the game nearly unplayable. You can see my PC's specs in my signature, I highly doubt anything bottlenecks a 1070 in my build, an overclocked 4690k and 16GBs of RAM.

Note: It seems that my GPU usage can drop to 65% while my CPU usage can go all the way up to 99% (Or so MSI afterburner says)

[ttam]

You said it.

 

When you enter a place with a lot of NPCs, aka more things for the GPU to render, aka more of a load, your FPS drops.

[LordofSavages]

1 minute ago, ttam said:

You said it.

 

When you enter a place with a lot of NPCs, aka more things for the GPU to render, aka more of a load, your FPS drops.

Respectfully, Did you read the whole thing? The GPU usage drops when I get into places with more NPCs which doesn't make sense, does it?

[Lays]

2 minutes ago, ttam said:

You said it.

 

When you enter a place with a lot of NPCs, aka more things for the GPU to render, aka more of a load, your FPS drops.

Don't NPC's usually rely on the CPU?  

[ttam]

Just now, YaqinHasan said:

Respectfully, Did you read the whole thing? The GPU usage drops when I get into places with more NPCs which doesn't make sense, does it?

I did. And what I said still stands. You're running a game that does 70 FPS normally on a 1070 at 1440p. If you factor in more things, it's going to slow down. It's an extremely simple concept.

[LordofSavages]

2 minutes ago, Lays said:

Don't NPC's usually rely on the CPU?  

Yeah that's what I figured but even if I drop the background population setting to medium I still see frame dips, which doesn't really make sense with an overclocked 4690k 

[ttam]

There is also a chance your CPU is thermal throttling. Do check temperatures.

[Aereldor]

You're experiencing a CPU bottleneck. I'm guessing your GPU usage drops in areas like Novigrad as well as the framerate. The GPU is unable to get to 100% because the CPU is already maxed out running all of the NPC logic. I find that the best way to alleviate this is to reduce the number of background NPCs to medium or high. There isn't much of a visual difference between high and ultra, but there is a significant performance difference. My Core i3 4160 doesn't max out with it set to high, although you might still notice a slight decrease in performance, as there are a ton of objects for your GPU to render. If you're using ambient occlusion (which everyone should in this game), it'll just add to it.

[LordofSavages]

3 minutes ago, ttam said:

I did. And what I said still stands. You're running a game that does 70 FPS normally on a 1070 at 1440p. If you factor in more things, it's going to slow down. It's an extremely simple concept.

Still doesn't make sense why the GPU usage goes down and CPU usage goes up because "There are more things to render"

[LordofSavages]

2 minutes ago, ttam said:

There is also a chance your CPU is thermal throttling. Do check temperatures.

My signature has my PC specs and I doubt an NH-D15 will cause a 4690k to overclock

[LordofSavages]

5 minutes ago, Aereldor said:

You're experiencing a CPU bottleneck. I'm guessing your GPU usage drops in areas like Novigrad as well as the framerate. The GPU is unable to get to 100% because the CPU is already maxed out running all of the NPC logic. I find that the best way to alleviate this is to reduce the number of background NPCs to medium or high. There isn't much of a visual difference between high and ultra, but there is a significant performance difference. My Core i3 4160 doesn't max out with it set to high, although you might still notice a slight decrease in performance, as there are a ton of objects for your GPU to render. If you're using ambient occlusion (which everyone should in this game), it'll just add to it.

Even when I drop my population density to medium, I still see frame drops

[Aereldor]

This really shouldn't be happening with a 4690k at 4.3 and a GTX 1070 at 2150. What resolution are you running at?

 

1- First, make sure you're on the latest available drivers and that the game has been update to its latest revision.

 

2- Run MSI afterburner and check your usage and temperature metrics again. You'll want GPU usage, GPU temperature, CPU usage, CPU temperature, RAM usage, GPU memory usage, and Disk Usage. Try different settings in more intense areas (Novigrad is good). If your game storage drive is full, it's possible that the game is unable to load assets fast enough, and frames drop at regular intervals when it has to.

 

... WAIT A MINUTE- are you using NVidia Hairworks? If it's maxed out (HairWorks on everything) then every NPC's hair is being rendered in real-time with HairWorks, which is horrible for performance. Enabling HairWorks anti-aliasing will make it even worse.

[LordofSavages]

13 minutes ago, Aereldor said:

This really shouldn't be happening with a 4690k at 4.3 and a GTX 1070 at 2150. What resolution are you running at?

 

1- First, make sure you're on the latest available drivers and that the game has been update to its latest revision.

 

2- Run MSI afterburner and check your usage and temperature metrics again. You'll want GPU usage, GPU temperature, CPU usage, CPU temperature, RAM usage, GPU memory usage, and Disk Usage. Try different settings in more intense areas (Novigrad is good). If your game storage drive is full, it's possible that the game is unable to load assets fast enough, and frames drop at regular intervals when it has to.

 

... WAIT A MINUTE- are you using NVidia Hairworks? If it's maxed out (HairWorks on everything) then every NPC's hair is being rendered in real-time with HairWorks, which is horrible for performance. Enabling HairWorks anti-aliasing will make it even worse.

1. Game and GPU drivers have been updated, I never lack behind on drivers 

2. My game drive is a WD Blue 1TB, which is quite popular and has about 600GBs free so I doubt it could be that. My RAM isn't even half used, My CPU hovers at 80-100% and my GPU can drop to as low as 65% when the CPU goes up to 100% 

3. I don't have any hairworks on, I notice no difference except the 10FPS drop

4. I am running in 1440p ultra, like I mentioned before

 

[SeanBond]

2 hours ago, YaqinHasan said:

So when I play the Witcher 3, I get an average of around 60-65FPS and highs of 75FPS at ultra with my GTX 1070 at 1440p. However, when I'm sprinting in Novigrad or in places with a lot of NPCs, my PC seems to drop to 45 to 50FPS and the frametime increases to 50ms or even more, which makes the game nearly unplayable. You can see my PC's specs in my signature, I highly doubt anything bottlenecks a 1070 in my build, an overclocked 4690k and 16GBs of RAM.

Note: It seems that my GPU usage can drop to 65% while my CPU usage can go all the way up to 99% (Or so MSI afterburner says)

If your gpu usage isn't max, and your cpu usage is and you feel like there is lots of stutter despite good frame rates it's almost certainly your cpu. Unforuntately the only thing you can do is lower settings or overclock. Try lowering npc variety or count or whatever that option is to medium. I don't think the crowds are impressive anyway. I run a 4790k@4.7ghz, even on my cpu areas like novigrad will hit it really hard and cause my minimums to drop as low as the 60's even when the gpu isn't under full load. It doesn't sound like a system issue so much as user isssue. Are you newer to pc gaming? Are you just used to all your other games not strangling the life out of what is some pretty good parts? lol Witcher 3 is a system crusher. Though i5's bottlenecking gpu's is seems rare in the last 2 or 3 years cpu's seem to really be holding back the limits of gaming. Dx12 was supposed to help but I am not seeing it. Uhhh maybe I am ranting at this point. It's late...

[leelaa14]

Lower shadows to high and foliage viability range to high or medium.
You won't be able to notice the difference but will get quite a good fps boost.
Also turn hairworks off or at least hairworks MSAA if you have it enabled.
That's how I roll with my 1080 at 1440p.
 

[Aereldor]

3 hours ago, YaqinHasan said:

1. Game and GPU drivers have been updated, I never lack behind on drivers 

2. My game drive is a WD Blue 1TB, which is quite popular and has about 600GBs free so I doubt it could be that. My RAM isn't even half used, My CPU hovers at 80-100% and my GPU can drop to as low as 65% when the CPU goes up to 100% 

3. I don't have any hairworks on, I notice no difference except the 10FPS drop

4. I am running in 1440p ultra, like I mentioned before

 

If your GPU drops to 65% when the CPU goes up to 100%, it's definitely a CPU bottleneck.

[Taja]

It is a CPU bneck. Npcs Weight heavily on the CPU, and changing it to medium does nt change much because medium is still lots of npcs. I dont remember how many exactly, but try the lowest setting on npc population, you should get better results.

[LordofSavages]

2 hours ago, Taja said:

It is a CPU bneck. Npcs Weight heavily on the CPU, and changing it to medium does nt change much because medium is still lots of npcs. I dont remember how many exactly, but try the lowest setting on npc population, you should get better results.

Yeah that seems to work, but I think it's stupid that one of the most popular gaming CPUs out there can't handle one of the most popular games out there

[Gazereths]

That game maxes out my i7 4790K at some points at the same resolution you are on, all 8 threads @4.4ghz. Foliage visibility range, grass density and shadows seem to be the main culprits. In the city you don't notice foliage visibility too much anyway, it's only when galloping in the countryside that I notice it.

[Misanthrope]

15 hours ago, YaqinHasan said:

Respectfully, Did you read the whole thing? The GPU usage drops when I get into places with more NPCs which doesn't make sense, does it?

No actually there's more draw calls that need to be handled by the CPU which is not getting them as fast to the 1070.

 

There's honestly little that you can do Novigrad is just fairly intensive. Just try a setting that lowers the number of NPCs and such and it should improve, in fact I suspect they added that setting precisely for this reason.

[LordofSavages]

40 minutes ago, Misanthrope said:

No actually there's more draw calls that need to be handled by the CPU which is not getting them as fast to the 1070.

 

There's honestly little that you can do Novigrad is just fairly intensive. Just try a setting that lowers the number of NPCs and such and it should improve, in fact I suspect they added that setting precisely for this reason.

Yeah it seems to be a CPU bottleneck

[Taja]

8 hours ago, YaqinHasan said:

Yeah that seems to work, but I think it's stupid that one of the most popular gaming CPUs out there can't handle one of the most popular games out there

Well, the problem only occursin novigrad, because there are a ton of npcs. I dont think its a big problem, but the population density settings should have been better, because medium-ultra is kinda like the same.

[Praesi]

So you have strange lags or are 50 fps "unplayable"?

[Gazereths]

You are definitely bottlenecked by your CPU in certain circumstances but I doubt it ever becomes so bad it's unplayable unless there's something else at work. Witcher 3 is a very CPU intensive game, I get average of 75FPS at a mix of mostly high with some ultimate @ 1440p and it works all my cores/threads very hard but pretty evenly, I get drops to the mid 50's but it never becomes remotely unplayable.  I think draw/foliage  distance and shadows are the main reasons for intense CPU utilization, NPC numbers do affect it but not as much in my experience.

 

Look at the  screens below, same settings but the first has a long draw distance with foliage in the background and shadows on the rooftops. It hammers my 4790k to ~90% on all cores/threads. Second and third has loads more NPCS but  short draw distance and no foliage, ~50% on all cores. 

 

 

 

[LordofSavages]

1 hour ago, Gazereths said:

You are definitely bottlenecked by your CPU in certain circumstances but I doubt it ever becomes so bad it's unplayable unless there's something else at work. Witcher 3 is a very CPU intensive game, I get average of 75FPS at a mix of mostly high with some ultimate @ 1440p and it works all my cores/threads very hard but pretty evenly, I get drops to the mid 50's but it never becomes remotely unplayable.  I think draw/foliage  distance and shadows are the main reasons for intense CPU utilization, NPC numbers do affect it but not as much in my experience.

 

Look at the  screens below, same settings but the first has a long draw distance with foliage in the background and shadows on the rooftops. It hammers my 4790k to ~90% on all cores/threads. Second and third has loads more NPCS but  short draw distance and no foliage, ~50% on all cores. 

 

 

 

Welp time to go X99