The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings


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Considering getting this game, as i recently bought the first and i plan on playing it through. I was reading the pcgamer review, though, and they mentioned that the 3rd act (or was it chapter?) is vastly inferior to the other 2. I really hope that's not true, as i would buy it for the story.

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I pre-ordered this game on steam but I can't seem to download the pre-order content "Troll Trouble"

Also I'm quite fortunate that on my tv at 1360 by 768 I can run this game on 'Ultra'. Everything just looks amazing!

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I pre-ordered this game on steam but I can't seem to download the pre-order content "Troll Trouble"

Also I'm quite fortunate that on my tv at 1360 by 768 I can run this game on 'Ultra'. Everything just looks amazing!

You have to register the game you can do it from the launcher.

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This game is amazing.

Considering getting this game, as i recently bought the first and i plan on playing it through. I was reading the pcgamer review, though, and they mentioned that the 3rd act (or was it chapter?) is vastly inferior to the other 2. I really hope that's not true, as i would buy it for the story.

There's supposed to be 16 different endings, so its possible the one he got was more disappointing than some of the others.

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^ the two monitors I have comes in very handy for that, game manuel and browser on small screen and game running on 1080p screen :laugh:.

Yeah I was actually doing the same thing, but the game was acting a bit funky whenever I alt tabbed out of it. That and I figured why not destroy some trees. :laugh:

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I have not tried it myself yet, but I keep reading more and more people saying that uninstalling the Nvidia 3D Vision drivers (2 of them in the control panel add and remove) really does improve the frame rate for anyone who is using Nvidia cards. I have to go to bed, but as soon as I get home from work tomorrow, I will see if I gained any performance by removing those drivers. Also am using the latest Nvidia beta drivers, which I am assuming anyone who owns a Nvidia card is already doing themselves, as they are the drivers to use for this game by all accounts.

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Hmmm, I am pretty sure SLi is enabled with the Beta drivers. I use EVGA Precision to monitor my temps, clock speeds and FPS on my Logitech Keyboards LCD Display, and if SLi is not enabled, the clock speeds of both cards are not the same. When I play the Witcher 2, both cards are at the same clock, nearly the same temps (top one is always a tad higher), which is always an indication SLi is working. The easiest way to confirm it also is just to put on the SLi visual indicator from the drivers which I usually do not do as I hate the huge stripes on the left hand side, but I will do it as it is the simplest way to make sure it is working. So I will see. If it is not working, I will definitely try this out, as that would mean I can bump up the settings to Ultra.

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Hmmm, I am pretty sure SLi is enabled with the Beta drivers. I use EVGA Precision to monitor my temps, clock speeds and FPS on my Logitech Keyboards LCD Display, and if SLi is not enabled, the clock speeds of both cards are not the same. When I play the Witcher 2, both cards are at the same clock, nearly the same temps (top one is always a tad higher), which is always an indication SLi is working. The easiest way to confirm it also is just to put on the SLi visual indicator from the drivers which I usually do not do as I hate the huge stripes on the left hand side, but I will do it as it is the simplest way to make sure it is working. So I will see. If it is not working, I will definitely try this out, as that would mean I can bump up the settings to Ultra.

SLI does seem to work somewhat, I get around 40-50% utilization on both GPUs with the beta drivers. But if this fix is able to improve FPS above that (by forcing more efficient utilization) than it's at least worth a try.

EDIT: Actually, to answer your question about the beta drivers:

This fix has been tested to work for Nvidia drivers 270.61 (stable) and 275.27 (beta). There is no FPS improvement between the two after much testing. The beta drivers however have improved 3D Vision compatibility for The Witcher 2, and maybe other non-documented tweaks.

There is almost not FPS difference between stable and beta, the only difference is compatibility fixes and possibly some other minor tweaks.

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Witcher 2's ending is the worst, ever. EVER.

The game, in my opinion, also suffers from pre-transition consolitis as in some of the design choices were made with easy porting in mind and to top my whining; it's bloody short, seriously. I was playing on the hard (not insane yet) difficulty and the only issue I had was the fact that the game was literally raping my GPU into pieces and thus caused lagging during combat, making it a whole hell of a lot harder (nVidia ftw?)

Looks like all their budget went to making the game look good instead of fixing some ahem, interesting design choices, and making a proper ending instead of rushing it out the door.

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SLI does seem to work somewhat, I get around 40-50% utilization on both GPUs with the beta drivers. But if this fix is able to improve FPS above that (by forcing more efficient utilization) than it's at least worth a try.

EDIT: Actually, to answer your question about the beta drivers:

There is almost not FPS difference between stable and beta, the only difference is compatibility fixes and possibly some other minor tweaks.

Good to know, I was actually under the impression SLi did not work at all with the official drivers.

I will try this fix regardless, as it is super easy to implement. Curious what others have to say in the meantime, as I am at work and will not be able to even try this until much later on today.

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After adding it, my utilizations went up to around 70-80% for each GPU, and I seem to get a bit smoother gameplay overall, but it doesn't seem to be a huge improvement compared to before hand (but even before adding the fix, I got pretty decent FPS to start with).

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so i bought the first one... thuoght about doing on it GoG for 5 bucks but paid 20 for the steam version cause i love steam... i'll catch up to you guys eventually!

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so i bought the first one... thuoght about doing on it GoG for 5 bucks but paid 20 for the steam version cause i love steam... i'll catch up to you guys eventually!

That is just crazy. I like Steam too, but I much prefer a game that just runs on its own with nothing, such as the GOG version.

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Installed the game, clicked on the desktop shortcut but it gives an error "Insufficient privileges to run the activation - run application as administator" so I re run it as admin and it asks for my activation key, after entering the activation key it says checking for available updates and after few minutes that window disappears, and drops back to desktop. Nothing else happens. I have tried around 10-15 times now changing the way I enter the key, incase that is the problem (eg entering with all CAPS, entering with the - symbol, entering without the - symbol and nothing ever happens. This is ****ing me off and the official forums are down :(

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That is just crazy. I like Steam too, but I much prefer a game that just runs on its own with nothing, such as the GOG version.

I much prefer not to use GoG at all.

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That is just crazy. I like Steam too, but I much prefer a game that just runs on its own with nothing, such as the GOG version.

I much prefer not to use GoG at all.

i was reading up on the GoG forums and the GoG version of the first witcher apparently loves to crash to desktop when you start it...

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I much prefer not to use GoG at all.

Not sure why you would prefer not to use a website that one of their main reasons for existing is to offer DRM free games, but hey to each their own. Is it their games cost more for you because of your location? Because I also know they also do the one price no matter where you are, which is based on USD. But I would think with the state of the American dollar, that would actually mean less for other countries, but perhaps I am wrong, and that would be a reason not to use them IMO.

Only difference I see in GOG games unless I am missing something, I am new to their service as of late last week, is the installer is branded with their name on the installation screens. Other then that, just seems like any other exe to me. When I first got a game from them, I thought maybe you needed to have their downloader running to launch a game, but was glad to find out that was not the case.

If there is something bad about them please do share, as I will not use them if there is a good reason to.

i was reading up on the GoG forums and the GoG version of the first witcher apparently loves to crash to desktop when you start it...

No issues at all on my end.

Like I just said above, to each their own, but I am all about saving money whenever possible and if I have the option for no DRM and have it be stand alone, that is what I like. I do like Steam and if I could get every game in it at the best price, I would definitely do that, but I am all about saving money at the end of the day, especially on a game like this one where I was not sure I would like it.

But if there are known evils about GOG I just do not know about, I would like to know about them.

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Installed the game, clicked on the desktop shortcut but it gives an error "Insufficient privileges to run the activation - run application as administator" so I re run it as admin and it asks for my activation key, after entering the activation key it says checking for available updates and after few minutes that window disappears, and drops back to desktop. Nothing else happens. I have tried around 10-15 times now changing the way I enter the key, incase that is the problem (eg entering with all CAPS, entering with the - symbol, entering without the - symbol and nothing ever happens. This is ****ing me off and the official forums are down :(

Do you have the Steam or GOG version?

If the GOG version, I also had an issue with the install.

I had to uninstall the game, disable my AV software and UAC, reinstall the game, and then it worked. Once I did that, was able to enable UAC and my AV again, just had to add it to my list of exceptions on my AV Software, which is Kaspersky.

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Thanks for sharing this. I do believe it gave me a performance increase. I was able to bump some settings that I previously had at Medium (shadows, textures, and something else) to High, and no change in performance right now at all.

Reason I say I think is I am currently underground in the game, and it pretty much was running at 60 FPS anyway (I have V Sync enabled), so it is hard to say for sure. Once I get outdoors again, I will be able to tell almost instantly.

SLI does seem to work somewhat, I get around 40-50% utilization on both GPUs with the beta drivers. But if this fix is able to improve FPS above that (by forcing more efficient utilization) than it's at least worth a try.

EDIT: Actually, to answer your question about the beta drivers:

There is almost not FPS difference between stable and beta, the only difference is compatibility fixes and possibly some other minor tweaks.

See above, I do think it helped a bit. My Utilization said 50% iirc, was not paying close attention to it (and I am downstairs on my laptop or else I would check) but glancing at it, I believe that is what it said.

This is also the first time I have checked it out since I uninstalled the 3D Vision drivers unfortunately, so I cannot say with certainty which tweak is responsible for the increase in performance. In hind sight I would have checked it out before the Inspector fix.

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Witcher 2's ending is the worst, ever. EVER.

The game, in my opinion, also suffers from pre-transition consolitis as in some of the design choices were made with easy porting in mind and to top my whining; it's bloody short, seriously. I was playing on the hard (not insane yet) difficulty and the only issue I had was the fact that the game was literally raping my GPU into pieces and thus caused lagging during combat, making it a whole hell of a lot harder (nVidia ftw?)

Looks like all their budget went to making the game look good instead of fixing some ahem, interesting design choices, and making a proper ending instead of rushing it out the door.

God people will accuse ANY game of being "consolized" these days, its ridiculous. This game isn't even on consoles yet, and I didn't notice anything that seemed to obviously cater to them.

I agree the ending kinda sucked, but all the story stuff up to it was excellent.

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God people will accuse ANY game of being "consolized" these days, its ridiculous. This game isn't even on consoles yet, and I didn't notice anything that seemed to obviously cater to them.

I agree the ending kinda sucked, but all the story stuff up to it was excellent.

And usually, the only thing they're even talking about is the interface.

Until we switch to something besides mouse and keyboard it's always going to be an issue I'm guessing.

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Do you have the Steam or GOG version?

If the GOG version, I also had an issue with the install.

I had to uninstall the game, disable my AV software and UAC, reinstall the game, and then it worked. Once I did that, was able to enable UAC and my AV again, just had to add it to my list of exceptions on my AV Software, which is Kaspersky.

I have the retail version, I manged to cure the problem, it was Securom, I had to download a tool from Securom site (srdiag.zip) and run that, it found problems with securom, it went online and downloaded some files and it appeared to fix the issue, well it the allowed me to verify the game and play it. What a load of crap, plus I cannot get the bonus content as you cannot login to the developers servers still, and you need to log in there and register the game in order to play/use/download any bonus content. All in all I think the devs have handled this release very poorly.

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