The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings

By Yusuf M.
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Grand Master

Nagisan

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Loving this game so far. The combat system really bugged me at first because I was so used to the time system of the original Witcher. I kept trying to combo attacks together by clicking as soon as my last strike hit, and it didn't work that well. Instead I've found clicking as quick as you can to be much more effective.

Though one thing I don't like about the combat, is group fights are much more complicated....luckily they generally only happen in numbers of 3-4 and not many more. Without a type of attack that generally hits everything (yet, at least, still a low lvl), I struggle to take on multiple opponents at once. Anyone have tips for group fights? I usually start using the sign that knocks people down on a weaker guy so I get a few seconds to attack the others in slightly fewer numbers, but it only marginally helps most of the time.

Grand Master

Yusuf M. Veteran

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I finally had a chance to play the game recently and I'm very impressed. It actually feels like a PC game and it seems to run fairly well on a Radeon HD 5850. I'm definitely going to buy this game as soon as possible. CD Projekt deserves a lot of support because they did an awesome job. Right now, they're a shining beacon of hope in a market full of great-but-not-awesome PC games. They're also a good example of a PC developer that actually cares about its fan-base. Seriously, unlimited installs on a single PC with the ability to play it on up to five unique PCs is amazing.

Grand Master

neoadorable

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fairly well on a 5850? heh that card should be enough to run anything maxed out, failure to do so is developers getting lazy with resources imo.

and again no offense to inferniac and the good people of Poland, i know CD Projekt are big there and are important to the country's efforts to become a game development center, but from the feedback i hear and from what folks like neo003 and DL are saying it looks like many of the gameplay and interface issues the previous entry had persist. this is not trolling CDP or the game, i really wanted to get the sequel but after the first one proved itself incomplete i decided not to. BTW i'm not surprised the graphics are sweet, it was clear from the first game that the art department is definitely not the issue there. that game also looked marvelous overall, despite the odd conversation scenes...

Grand Master

Yusuf M. Veteran

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fairly well on a 5850? heh that card should be enough to run anything maxed out, failure to do so is developers getting lazy with resources imo.

and again no offense to inferniac and the good people of Poland, i know CD Projekt are big there and are important to the country's efforts to become a game development center, but from the feedback i hear and from what folks like neo003 and DL are saying it looks like many of the gameplay and interface issues the previous entry had persist. this is not trolling CDP or the game, i really wanted to get the sequel but after the first one proved itself incomplete i decided not to. BTW i'm not surprised the graphics are sweet, it was clear from the first game that the art department is definitely not the issue there. that game also looked marvelous overall, despite the odd conversation scenes...

My friend has a really weak CPU so my experience may not be a good indication of how well the HD 5850 performs in The Witcher 2. Check this out:

TheWitcher2-GPUs-1920.png

[Source]

Grand Master

Nagisan

Posted
Posted

I finally had a chance to play the game recently and I'm very impressed. It actually feels like a PC game and it seems to run fairly well on a Radeon HD 5850. I'm definitely going to buy this game as soon as possible. CD Projekt deserves a lot of support because they did an awesome job. Right now, they're a shining beacon of hope in a market full of great-but-not-awesome PC games. They're also a good example of a PC developer that actually cares about its fan-base. Seriously, unlimited installs on a single PC with the ability to play it on up to five unique PCs is amazing.

I agree, the developers did an awesome job with resource management on this game. I just turned the graphics up to High, increased texture memory size to "Very Large".....basically the only difference between my settings and ultra, is ultra has shadows set higher (both number and quality) and has ubersampling enabled, and it runs great on my i7 @ 3.5Ghz and GTX 295 @ stock. I forgot to run FRAPS so I don't know exact values, but it seems really smooth for the time I played it this morning. I quite surprised my 295 is handling it as well as it is.

fairly well on a 5850? heh that card should be enough to run anything maxed out, failure to do so is developers getting lazy with resources imo.

and again no offense to inferniac and the good people of Poland, i know CD Projekt are big there and are important to the country's efforts to become a game development center, but from the feedback i hear and from what folks like neo003 and DL are saying it looks like many of the gameplay and interface issues the previous entry had persist. this is not trolling CDP or the game, i really wanted to get the sequel but after the first one proved itself incomplete i decided not to. BTW i'm not surprised the graphics are sweet, it was clear from the first game that the art department is definitely not the issue there. that game also looked marvelous overall, despite the odd conversation scenes...

The only gameplay issue I have had (once I adjusted to the new combat system) is interacting with in-game objects seems a little broken. Basically there can be times where I have to wait 3-4 seconds for an object to light up (where I can actually use it), sometimes I actually have to walk away from it and come back in range. Its pretty annoying, but its something I think a patch could fix. As for the interface, I haven't had any issues with it. It is different than most games, but once you learn it, it's actually very easy to use and doesn't present any real issues. If anything, the gameplay and interface issues you read about are likely differences of opinion, and not actual issues that need to be fixed to make the game any better, except for interacting with world objects.

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Lovell

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I agree, the developers did an awesome job with resource management on this game. I just turned the graphics up to High, increased texture memory size to "Very Large".....basically the only difference between my settings and ultra, is ultra has shadows set higher (both number and quality) and has ubersampling enabled, and it runs great on my i7 @ 3.5Ghz and GTX 295 @ stock. I forgot to run FRAPS so I don't know exact values, but it seems really smooth for the time I played it this morning. I quite surprised my 295 is handling it as well as it is.

The only gameplay issue I have had (once I adjusted to the new combat system) is interacting with in-game objects seems a little broken. Basically there can be times where I have to wait 3-4 seconds for an object to light up (where I can actually use it), sometimes I actually have to walk away from it and come back in range. Its pretty annoying, but its something I think a patch could fix. As for the interface, I haven't had any issues with it. It is different than most games, but once you learn it, it's actually very easy to use and doesn't present any real issues. If anything, the gameplay and interface issues you read about are likely differences of opinion, and not actual issues that need to be fixed to make the game any better, except for interacting with world objects.

I'm pretty sure you can only interact with objects after the fight and it usually takes a few seconds after the last persons died for the fight to be over it is incredibly annoying.

A list of what some of the GFX options do stolen from somewhere.

-Texture downscaling: higher values result in lower texture quality.

-Texture memory size: sets the amount of graphics card memory allocated to textures. Larger values will decrease the amount of streaming that occurs in game and will make the game run more smoothly, but they can also cause the graphics card to run out of memory and even result in game crashes. Choose a reasonable value based on the amount of memory available on your graphics card.

- Shadow quality: affects graphics performance. Consumes GPU power without affecting CPU performance.

- Number of shadowed lights: set the maximum number of lights that cast shadows. Affects graphics performance. Consumes GPU power without affecting CPU performance.

- LOD distance: distance scale for level of detail on meshes. Lower values improve game performance but result in reduced detail on models.

- Bloom: effect greatly improves quality of game graphics without placing excess demands on GPU.

- Light shafts: visual effect recommended for medium-high/high-end machines. Should be disabled on older systems.

- Anti-aliasing: demanding effect that can significantly reduce performance, so it should be disabled on medium and low-end machines.

- Blur effects: special blur and radial blur visual effects that are quite demanding on hardware but used rarely in the game.

- Depth of field ? gameplay: subtle visual effect. Option determines appearance of effect only during gameplay sequences and does not affect DoF in cutscenes.

- Vignette: aesthetic option that produces a photographic vignette around the game screen. Does not affect performance.

- Rain, Wet surfaces rain effect: modest impact on performance.

- SSAO (Screen Space Ambient Occlusion): lighting effect that is important to the game but unfortunately places significant demands on the GPU.

- Motion blur: blur effect on camera movement, demanding on the GPU.

- Cinematic depth of field: provides movie-like depth of field in cutscenes and dialogue sequences. Extremely detailed but demands significant power. Should only be enabled on machines equipped with top-end graphics cards.

- Depth of field ? cutscenes: option only affects cutscenes and dialogue sequences, does not affect gameplay performance.

- Dangling objects limit: limiter for physical animation of character components like Geralt's hair. Disabling this option places greater demands on the CPU.

- Ubersampling: high quality rendering mode under which whole scenes are rendered multiple times to provide the best possible textures, object details and anti-aliasing (superior to anti-alias and anisotropy even on the highest settings). Use with caution, only on top-end computers (best possible in terms of both GPU and CPU).

- Vertical sync: helps eliminate "screen tearing" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screen_tearing) during camera movements and blinking on very quick animations (e.g., bright explosions), but can cause somewhat slower rendering and short input lags.

- Decals: enabling decals like dust or blood on characters can affect CPU performance.

UBERSAMPLING is the only thing that absolutely rapes my PC.

Mentor

Billus

Posted
Posted

Just in case anyone has any trouble with Crossfire...

Current settings:

witcher2settings.png

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/546/witcher2settings.png/

Runs smoothly between 40 - 60 in worse case scenarios. Get over 100 indoors and in caves etc. Averaging round 60 fps

outside in the forest

in Act 1.

Using RadeonPro with DiRT2 crossfire profile with the slider set at alternate frame buffering.

Drivers are Catalyst 11.5.

Veteran

Lovell

Posted
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Gah so annoying they've removed the storage from the game in order to speed the game up so people aren't wasting time stashing items away while at the same time added a new crafting system and 100s of random items so now rather than just stashing your items away you have to go through a giant list deciding on what you can sell and what you should keep. :angry:

Also from the looks of it you HAVE to keep potion recipes so don't sell them.

Grand Master

DirtyLarry Veteran

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quick question (probably asked before) do i have to play the first one to know what's going on?

Some dude with stylish long hair prances around the forest and kills things and in-between that tries to get laid a lot. I think that about sums it up. :rofl:

I am jk FTR.

Grand Master

rajputwarrior

Posted
Posted

Some dude with stylish long hair prances around the forest and kills things and in-between that tries to get laid a lot. I think that about sums it up. :rofl:

I am jk FTR.

dude, that sounds like the perfect game story... other then the long hair.

Grand Master

WastedJoker

Posted
Posted

Apparently Yrden should be used to hit the tentacles - once you "pin" 3 of them the fourth will sweep across. You then get a QTE to press to ride the tentacle (heh) whereupon it will smash the enarby bridge and allow Geralt to climb atop the demolished bridge and leap onto its back.

I got that from reading the GOG.com forum.

I read spoilers to help you, mister :angry: Now go out there and kill some monsters :crazy:

Grand Master

DirtyLarry Veteran

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Man, this game is a beast on the graphics. I am averaging about 35 FPS and that is with most everything set to High, Textures set to Medium. I just let it Auto Detect. I kept Shadows and whatever else is after that at High. Inside areas it jumps up to 60, and I have VSync enabled so assuming it can go higher. It is a beautiful looking game though, no doubt about that.

I have to say, not playing the first game, I am absolutely lost. Story wise. Game play. Just absolutely lost. So I am contemplating going back and playing it first actually. With that said, I did get the game from GOG, so I will be referring to the manual and guide heavily it seems. I can say though I absolutely LOVE the combat system, but I think I have shared I am not a big classic RPG player, so the fact the combat is more similar to an action game is actually the entire reason I picked it up to begin with.

Regardless, I have no plans on playing this until I beat LA Noire, I just wanted to check out how it ran, and I absolutely see this as a game that I will just play over the next half a year or so. As being 40 hours long, even if I did play it at every moment I get to play these days, it will still take me well over a month to beat it, so I will just keep going back to it when I have nothing else to play. And I am pretty sure it will actually take me much longer to beat it then 40 hours since I am an RPG noob.

Grand Master

WastedJoker

Posted
Posted

Man, this game is a beast on the graphics. I am averaging about 35 FPS and that is with most everything set to High, Textures set to Medium. I just let it Auto Detect. I kept Shadows and whatever else is after that at High. Inside areas it jumps up to 60, and I have VSync enabled so assuming it can go higher. It is a beautiful looking game though, no doubt about that.

I have to say, not playing the first game, I am absolutely lost. Story wise. Game play. Just absolutely lost. So I am contemplating going back and playing it first actually. With that said, I did get the game from GOG, so I will be referring to the manual and guide heavily it seems. I can say though I absolutely LOVE the combat system, but I think I have shared I am not a big classic RPG player, so the fact the combat is more similar to an action game is actually the entire reason I picked it up to begin with.

Regardless, I have no plans on playing this until I beat LA Noire, I just wanted to check out how it ran, and I absolutely see this as a game that I will just play over the next half a year or so. As being 40 hours long, even if I did play it at every moment I get to play these days, it will still take me well over a month to beat it, so I will just keep going back to it when I have nothing else to play. And I am pretty sure it will actually take me much longer to beat it then 40 hours since I am an RPG noob.

Get the trainer for Witcher 1 and activate god mode - then you can play through the game fairly quickly to get the background history etc :p

Turning off ssao/ubersampling will boost your fps.

As for sound problems: http://www.gog.com/en/forum/the_witcher_2/common_issues_and_possible_solutions_read_before_posting

Grand Master

DirtyLarry Veteran

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Get the trainer for Witcher 1 and activate god mode - then you can play through the game fairly quickly to get the background history etc :p

Turning off ssao/ubersampling will boost your fps.

As for sound problems: http://www.gog.com/en/forum/the_witcher_2/common_issues_and_possible_solutions_read_before_posting

That is a brilliant idea. (Y) Thanks for suggesting it.

And I believe the ubersampling was off by default with the auto detect, but I will definitely make sure. I am reading all over the place people saying it kills FPS.

I also read a few people saying that for Nvidia drivers, to uninstall the 3D Vision part of the drivers and that makes a difference. Since I do not have a 3D capable monitor, I am going to give it a whirl, but just do not see how that could make a difference, but stranger things have happened.

Thanks again for that idea.

Grand Master

DirtyLarry Veteran

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Thanks to my fast networked printers at work, I was able to print out with no one finding out the 97 page Game Guide and the 37 page manual, both from the GOG.com Digital Edition, so I think that should help a total noob like me with playing the game. And I was smart enough to remember to rename the files to something work related sounding, just in case deleting them from the print logs did not stick. :shiftyninja: :laugh:

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