The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt revealed

[homerdog]

I promise you really won't see any difference between an i5 and i7 (at similar clocks of course). Staring at my i5 and i7 systems side by side in the same games with same settings I cannot see any advantage for the i7. Not in the slightest. And every meaningful benchmark I can run seems to confirm this.

This is with only 1 GPU per system. I'm sure if you doubled up it would be different.

 

[Kyyla]

Yeah I was pretty surprised by the requirements as in every gaming benchmark the old cores had been just fine so far. The lack of progress in CPU speeds is certainly saving my wallet, even if it is a bit disappointing.

 

[London Geezer]

Well the i7 in my Macbook Pro does show one noticeable difference. It sucks power like a bitch.

 

[Kyyla]

I'm sure my 2500k would suck in a laptop as well.

 

[London Geezer]

Not sure, but I think this is what's inside mine, and it's hot and thirsty: 2.4 GHz (i7-3630QM) quad-core Intel Core i7 Ivy Bridge with 6 MB on-chip L3 cache. Or maybe this one? Optional 2.6 GHz (i7-4960HQ) with 6 MB on-chip L3 cache.

I'm amazed I actually can't remember.

Runs like a dream though.

 

[Lightman]

Very nicely done!

I would love animated series done this style

 

[Silent_Buddha]

I promise you really won't see any difference between an i5 and i7 (at similar clocks of course). Staring at my i5 and i7 systems side by side in the same games with same settings I cannot see any advantage for the i7. Not in the slightest. And every meaningful benchmark I can run seems to confirm this.

This is with only 1 GPU per system. I'm sure if you doubled up it would be different.

Oh I already know I'll see a difference. If I was running the game and only the game, then yes. The 2500K could probably last another year or two. But I don't. I have other stuff running. And it's gotten to the point where the 2500K (at 4.4 ghz) can no longer run some of my games smoothly with those applications running.

Heck, I used to run multiple games simultaneously with no problems. Can't do that anymore with some games released in the past year.

Basically whenever something like this starts to happen, that's when I start looking at a CPU upgrade. It's why I got the 2500K and the CPU's I had prior to that.

Regards,
SB

 

[homerdog]

Ah, yes I suppose in that case you would notice. I usually just have web browsers and Outlook and stuff running in the background. Certainly don't think I've ever run two demanding games at the same time!

For your usage case you might want to think about the 2011v3 platform. It has benefits outside of just moar threads and cache as well.

 

[Squilliam]

Im hoping for some new hardware to come out before this game. Amd hasn't released anything on 20 or 16 nm yet, so heres hoping they do

 

[Dresden]

Holy crap, I can't believe I haven't been on this forum for two years

Anyway, I've returned and I'm glad to see a couple of my threads are still alive and kicking, as well as some familiar faces still posting in them. I'm still just as anxious for the arrival of TW3 as I was since it's announcement, and finally the release date is mere weeks away. I'm ditching my dual 780's, I'm planning on selling one to a friend and keeping a backup and will be ordering two Titan X's (which rest assured, I realize is absurd) strictly so I can play this game in 4K when I buy a new monitor, which is also on the horizon. But there's been tons of new info that I found really interesting:

(source: http://www.bluesnews.com/s/160098/the-witcher-3-day-one-patch-other-details-revealed)

Gameplay

• There are 4 difficulties (easy, medium, hard and dark) which differ in the skill of the monsters you face. Hitpoints remain the same.
• You can bargain for more money after finishing your monster contract through some sort of minigame.
• The side quests are extremely well made with great writing and branching.
• Potions are a necessity on higher difficulty levels. You only need to craft a potion once and you can refill it if you have enough alcohol present. Potions are upgradeable for stronger effects. Stronger potions will increase your toxicity more
• Novigrad and No Man's Land are indeed one single map, much bigger than Skyrim. The isles of Skellige form the other big part of the game. Next to that, there are 5-6 other separated locations, including Kaer Morhen.
• No enemy respawning or at the least not very frequently
• Best items in the game must be crafted
• They were very impressed with the story branching and how it is not always obvious. Correcting 'wrong' choices by saving/reloading will be very difficult if not impossible.
• Contrary to BioWare games dialogue options are not good or bad, this you will have to figure out for yourselves.
• They really liked the in-game card game Gwent, praising its design.
• The game features two really big cities: Novigrad and Oxenfurt, both very lively.
• The are of No Man's Land features 25 smaller towns, some of which are the size of Flotsam from The Witcher 2.
• Geralt can rob people, although the system is too easy and feels a bit lacking.
• Journalist (level 7) was one shotted by a wyvern (level 24). No level scaling.
• Ciri sequences will be (in total) 5-10h and feel more like an action-adventure game than an RPG
• Extra storage can be made by crafting saddle bags for your horse.
• Many small details such as Roach stopping to eat apples from a basket
• All equipped items are visible in-game on Geralt
• Fist-fighting is back, this time no QTE
• World never felt empty
• Journalist didn't encounter any simple fetch quests

Technical

• The HUD is fully customizable. Icons and quest markers on the map can also be deactivated. Audiovisual hints (e.g. people screaming for help) will be present if you wish to do so.
• Journalist encountered no clone NPC's
• Controller feels superior to keyboard+mouse.
• The extremely annoying doors from The Witcher 2 are gone. Doors are now opened automatically, no button pressing. No loading times for entering buildings either.
• Day 1 patch confirmed
• Xbox One resolution will stay at 900p
• Geralts beard will grow over time
• Switching between controller and mouse (for menu's) is easy and fluid
• Most impressive dynamic weather system in any game he has ever played
• They encountered very few bugs, no crashes of freezes.
• Ultra seems to have a big effect on the quality of vegetation and character models[
• No slider for LOD
• Visual gore more prominent than in The Witcher 2

Also, consuming potions will physically alter your appearance- http://segmentnext.com/2015/04/14/d...witcher-3-wild-hunt-will-change-geralts-face/

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Yeah, some good information there. And yay on the no QTEs!

Regards,
SB

 

[Lightman]

In console section of this forum there are few more videos linked from recent CDPR interviews and good info about game mechanics, monster leveling, ice skating and so on. A bit silly to maintain two similar threads about W3 when it will play the same (bar graphics) on all platforms. Anyway those who rarely frequent dark console section, go and check out Witcher 3 thread there

 

[homerdog]

On Steam the minimum CPU requirement reads: Intel CPU Core i5-2500K 3.3GHz / AMD CPU Phenom II X4 940

These CPUs aren't even close in performance. What gives?

 

[Dresden]

Here's a pretty sweet website I tend to check daily for their super high-quality videos, (1080p, 1920 x 1080, 60 FPS.) If you really want to see what The Witcher 3 looks like without YouTube's awful compression, I highly recommend this site:

http://www.gamersyde.com/game_2651_en.html

I watched something last night on nVidia's hair technology that is being featured in TW3. It's pretty damn impressive, especially when you see videos of Geralt fighting wolves. The fidelity of their fur is incredible.

 

[psorcerer]

These CPUs aren't even close in performance. What gives?

Probably their DX11 performance is very similar.

 

[orangpelupa]

On Steam the minimum CPU requirement reads: Intel CPU Core i5-2500K 3.3GHz / AMD CPU Phenom II X4 940

These CPUs aren't even close in performance. What gives?

maybe the game need proper quad cores instead of 2 cores with hyperthreading?

 

[Dresden]

I'm beginning to wonder if my CPU is getting old. I'm using an i7 3930k, which is a six core i7, but it's a third gen. i7, apparently Intel is already at sixth gen. I'm wondering if this will cause a bottleneck with TW3.

 

[AlNom]

I'm beginning to wonder if my CPU is getting old. I'm using an i7 3930k, which is a six core i7, but it's a third gen. i7, apparently Intel is already at sixth gen. I'm wondering if this will cause a bottleneck with TW3.

It's so far ahead of consoles that the only thing that might limit you now is DX11 drivers.

Maybe for the Enhanced Edition they should do DX12 etc. + Ludicrous LOD settings.

Spoiler

Wishful thinking

 

[homerdog]

The 3930K is still a damn fast CPU. Have you overclocked it at all? The only thing it lacks a bit in vs modern CPUs is per thread performance. Haswell CPUs have better IPC and faster clocks, but Sandy Bridge can ultimately clock higher in overclocking to compensate. Though even at stock I'd say that CPU will do fine.

 

[Dresden]

The 3930K is still a damn fast CPU. Have you overclocked it at all? The only thing it lacks a bit in vs modern CPUs is per thread performance. Haswell CPUs have better IPC and faster clocks, but Sandy Bridge can ultimately clock higher in overclocking to compensate. Though even at stock I'd say that CPU will do fine.

Nice to see you're still around homer

I don't mess too much with overclocking. My case is kinda old and doesn't provide the cooling I need to extensively OC. Besides, it's all pretty unfamiliar territory to me.

I'm currently using two Titan X's, and I went out and bought GTA 5 for the sake of blasting it to see what the "next gen" had to offer. At completely maxed out settings, including the shadow sliders, there were noticeable pitfalls in performance, and I can't tell if it's the games optimization or my CPU starting to show its age. That's when I started wondering if maybe my processor was the problem.

Then again, there's a couple aspects of my PC that I'm thinking about replacing. With the advent of DDR4, I got to thinking whether or not it's worth upgrading that as well. Which would require a new motherboard, and at that point I might as well replace the processor anyway.

Anyway, back on topic. All of the reviews I've seen thus far for TW3 have been on the PS4, and apparently that's barely capable of meeting a solid 30 FPS. Not to mention the PS4 doesn't play the game in fluid 1080p, apparently it transitions from 900-1080p depending on what's happening. And the XB1 is flat out 900p. So saying my CPU is better than what the consoles have to offer isn't really a surprise considering how much downscaling those platforms were subject to.