Home Gaming CDPR trying to improve Witcher 3 PS4 frame rate

CDPR trying to improve Witcher 3 PS4 frame rate

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Witcher3

I’ve only recently started playing The Witcher 3 on PlayStation 4, and it’s a pretty damned addictive time sink of a game. I’m only going to do that one main quest, I’ll tell myself, before it’s 4 in the morning and I’m chasing question marks all over the map. The game is good stuff, but it’s still a bit wonky, particularly on the PlayStation 4 where the frame rate is often all over the place. CD Projekt RED really, really wants to fix that.

The PC version is being updated to 1.06 this week, bringing with it some minor changes:

  • Fixes the endless loading screen when fighting the Ice Giant during the quest ‘Lord of Undvik’
  • Geralt’s clothes will no longer be wet after leaving the menu
  • The gate in the crypt now works correctly during the quest ‘Scavenger Hunt: Viper School Gear’
  • Fixes the lack of interaction with Roche on Oxenfurt Bridge in the quest ‘Get Junior’
  • Fixes an issue that prevented players from creating more than one item via Crafting/Alchemy

But it’s the console versions that need optimisations. Unfortunately CDPR doesn’t quite know when that’ll happen. Here’s what CDPR’s Marcin Momot says to the many, many people asking about PS4 frame rate fixes:

Our development team is still looking into this issue. FPS on PS4 has been slightly improved with the recent patches but we want to say something when we have solid facts to present to you. As mentioned, the team is trying to improve this aspect of the game, and I will share the information with you as soon as I have something.

The frame rate has indeed improved exponentially on the PS4 since I first saw the game running without its day one patch; it was nigh unplayable then. Now, it’s a heck of a lot better, and is on the cusp of being a fantastic experience. I’m finally on level 6, guys. This game will last me until November, when Fallout 4 is released. And then I’ll be stuck in another endless RPG. And I couldn’t be happier about it.

Last Updated: June 15, 2015

66 Comments

  1. WitWolfy

    June 15, 2015 at 13:35

    The funny thing is.. The game said I’ve played a total of 12 days and 12 hours in so far….
    12 days x 24 hours = 288 HRS
    288 hours + the extra 12 hours
    300 hours…

    WTF… It cant be, felt like I just scratched the surface.

    Reply

    • Hammersteyn

      June 15, 2015 at 13:39

      XD

      Reply

    • Captain JJ Browmehn

      June 15, 2015 at 13:45

      Haha. I’m on 72 hours now and Skellige is still foreign to me.
      I just love that about The Witcher 3

      Reply

      • WitWolfy

        June 15, 2015 at 13:52

        Thats the thing Skelige is still foreign to me too.. Just recently finished most of Velen and Novigrad’s side quests.. Excluding the Gwent card side quests. I must be the only dude who doesnt give two damns about that crappy mini game.

        Reply

        • Captain JJ Browmehn

          June 15, 2015 at 13:56

          I love gwent. Sit down to go exploring. Find an Inn, end up playing Gwent for an hour.

          Reply

          • Hammersteyn

            June 15, 2015 at 14:36

            I’d rather play poker.

          • Captain JJ Browmehn

            June 15, 2015 at 14:38

            But in poker there’s not a card of an archer that says “I aim for the knees”
            Got to love those easter eggs.

          • Hammersteyn

            June 15, 2015 at 14:39

            In Poker you don’t have to scour the Earth for OP cards so that you can excel at a Magic the Gathering type knock off. But that’s just me.

          • Captain JJ Browmehn

            June 15, 2015 at 14:40

            I’ll be honest, when I started W3 I didn’t care much for it. But it grew on me.

          • Hammersteyn

            June 15, 2015 at 14:41

            I’ll give it another go eventually. But I’m not feeling it at the moment.

          • Captain JJ Browmehn

            June 15, 2015 at 14:43

            Ag, to each his own. I get it. I’m definitely not hunting to find all the rare cards. There are just way too many other great things to be spending my time on.

          • Brady miaau

            June 15, 2015 at 14:52

            Magic the gathering knock-off would have been better. This seems like nostalgia in cards.

          • Cubemon

            June 15, 2015 at 17:44

            I did not get into it until I had completed about 2/3 of the game, but I enjoy it now. I’m now playing through again, at the higher difficulty, and integrated it into my approach. You don’t really have to scour the Earth – I’ve exhausted the merchant cards, because every time I found a new merchant who plays, I’d get it out of the way. By buying the cards that the innkeepers sell early on (either 20 or 50 coins, not too much of a dent in the budget), and building up the deck via the merchants, I’ve lost maybe 3 games in total, and have done all of the velen and novigrad gwent quests except for the high stakes tournament. Currently taking care of the skellige ones in the same manner – just doing it when I come across an opportunity, rather than traveling for it.

          • Hammersteyn

            June 15, 2015 at 23:25

            Cheers! will try your way

        • Brady miaau

          June 15, 2015 at 13:59

          No, you are not. trust me.

          Reply

        • Geoffrey Tim

          June 15, 2015 at 14:06

          I care NOTHING for Gwent. Boring ass card game.

          Reply

          • Brady miaau

            June 15, 2015 at 14:08

            Indeed. the Poker dice in Witcher 2, while not brilliant, was a lot more entertaining than this.

          • Captain JJ Browmehn

            June 15, 2015 at 14:29

            Your ass is boring!
            Wait, no, that doesn’t sound right.

          • Hammersteyn

            June 15, 2015 at 14:36

          • WitWolfy

            June 15, 2015 at 15:40

            Oh thank God! I was starting to think I was the only one.

          • dsgncore

            June 15, 2015 at 19:30

            Me three

      • aj_nator

        June 15, 2015 at 13:58

        Hell, I’m about 5 and a half days in and only yesterday I discovered Oxenfurt(not due to a lack of exploring, mind you)! This game is huge!

        Reply

        • Captain JJ Browmehn

          June 15, 2015 at 13:59

          Haha. I know man, it’s just brilliant. I still think Oxenfurt is my favourite of all the cities. It’s just missing a good blacksmith. But I usually get my hair done there 😉
          I’m now busy with operation “clean skellige” then I’ll return to Velen for the two monsters with levels way above mine (both are griffins)

          Reply

      • oVg

        June 15, 2015 at 14:25

        The Skellige Isles are like a free expansion pack. Its like Skyrim, very Nordic with lots of red heads running around waiting for the Ragnarok. The best thing about having Islands is that each one can have its own atmosphere and back story. The Ice Giant quest reminded me of Jason and the Argonauts for some reason.

        Reply

        • Captain JJ Browmehn

          June 15, 2015 at 14:27

          Just did the Ice Giant quest Saturday. Loved it. Now I’m exploring so I can get to know the area a bit better, seeing as how I’m not fast traveling.

          Reply

          • oVg

            June 15, 2015 at 14:31

            lol the one feature that CD Projekt Red included for the first time in the series (fast travel) and nobody wants to use it 🙂 This game just shows how a screen shot when compared to the actual atmosphere and ambiance of the weather with moving foliage just does not compare at all. I love just trotting along and watching the day night cycle. So fcking immersive.

            Level 21 and look bad ass in Level 2 cat gear

          • Captain JJ Browmehn

            June 15, 2015 at 14:37

            I was super impressed yesterday, speaking of weather, when I was high up against a mountain, staring down at the ocean by Skellige and you could even see the trees in the distance waving from the wind. Amazing.
            Haha. I’m gathering Ursine gear now. Loving it. So far my favourite. The Griffin gear was ugly as hell.

          • oVg

            June 15, 2015 at 14:41

            I think the draw distance is very under appreciated. It really does enhance the immersion.

          • Captain JJ Browmehn

            June 15, 2015 at 14:48

            Another thing I love is how you may say something to a certain NPC. And TEN hours later you’ll be walking somewhere and that little decision you made back then comes to bite you in the ass.

      • Aries

        June 15, 2015 at 14:27

        Yep still stuck in Novigrad and that a good thing, lots of stuff to do

        Reply

        • Captain JJ Browmehn

          June 15, 2015 at 14:28

          I’ve finished all the treasure and monster quests there. So just have a few side-quests left to do, but most require me to be above level 25. And I’m on 22 now. Getting there…

          Reply

    • Matthew Holliday

      June 17, 2015 at 13:57

      130 hours in, level 31 and i think im near the end.
      explored everywhere, got the achievements etc, crafted my top armour etc
      but the storyline just keeps extending itself, theyr quite liberal with term “final”

      Reply

      • WitWolfy

        June 17, 2015 at 14:37

        Hmmm… That makes me wonder if the time kept on ticking even though my PS4 was in sleep mode then. Thats the only thing I can think of how I got so much hours in the game.

        I’m only on LVL 27 almost 28 and it says 288 hours, plus I only have like 16 trophies so far.

        Reply

        • Matthew Holliday

          June 17, 2015 at 14:39

          aye, its definitely fabricating hours, unless your early game was horribly unstructured.

          Reply

          • WitWolfy

            June 17, 2015 at 15:02

            Nah doubt it… Feels more like I’ve played somewhere in the 90+ hours to be honest. Not 200, that would be insane!

  2. Hammersteyn

    June 15, 2015 at 13:39

    Level 10 atm. They nee to fix the inventory screen/map screen. Still feels sluggish to navigate between them.
    Ps. Winds still blowing!

    Reply

    • WitWolfy

      June 15, 2015 at 13:42

      I’m LVL 27 myself. I agree, the item menu is a drag. Especially when you wanna buy something and painstakingly have to move from your inventory to what you wanna buy.

      Reply

    • Captain JJ Browmehn

      June 15, 2015 at 13:46

      *howling 😉
      #inhonourofadmiral

      Reply

      • Hammersteyn

        June 15, 2015 at 13:49

        hehe

        Reply

  3. UnholyMunk

    June 15, 2015 at 13:43

    Lol, I’m on the cusp of level 7 at the moment! I am loving every second of this game! I honestly don’t mind the odd dips in fps it’s having every now and again, but it’s good to know that it’s gonna be sorted eventually, which will just be the cherry on top imo.

    Reply

  4. aj_nator

    June 15, 2015 at 13:55

    Sure, the game has it’s issues with frame rates now and then but I’m loving the hell out of this game! Been a while since I’ve played an open world game that made me wonder if i have adhd XD

    Reply

  5. Brady miaau

    June 15, 2015 at 14:05

    As regards the frame-rate: I think, on Xbox One, they have another issue, not just frame rate. It seems that sometimes parts of the screen load before others, after fast travel. Other than that, I have not really seen frame-rate issues, but then I do not look for things like that. Fun, fun, fun.

    I went from level 10 to 14 in about an hour and a half. Seriously. did some Witcher contracts, killed some Ghouls above my level, cleared some monster nests and bam, levelled up very quickly.

    *Edit*, just note I did not ? because I got killed. At level 10 I saw that I can do many of the question marks in Velen, that was a lot of fun, ticking them off.

    Reply

  6. oVg

    June 15, 2015 at 14:17

    That darn Ice Giant quest. If you follow the Boat trail instead of the footprints to get the 2 people required for the boss fight you end up breaking the cut scene. The quest marker tells you to find the other person before entering the cave. I did but I kind of already knew that I did not do the quest in order. The endless loading screen was there with the 2 characters and they had not even interacted yet. So I re-loaded and ignored the the extra person. The boss fight worked minus 1 archer.

    Also because that quest broke I missed the horn that you find when following the trail. The horn grounds all those annoying flying bastards. Will just have to improve my aim with the cross bow.

    fcuking loving the game.

    Reply

    • Captain JJ Browmehn

      June 15, 2015 at 14:26

      I think I encountered something similar actually. Though I don’t even bother with the crossbow, unless I’m underwater.

      Reply

      • oVg

        June 15, 2015 at 14:34

        SPOILER The dude that you rescue in the pot from the trolls should be activated first before finding the Red head viking otherwise the endless loading screen happens.

        Still, if this is the only bugged out quest then that is quite a feat when compared to Skyrims many broken side quests.

        Reply

        • Captain JJ Browmehn

          June 15, 2015 at 14:36

          True. I’ve only encountered one issue regarding quests and that was way in the beginning
          SPOILER
          The lady at the herbalist where you had to decide whether or not to give her a potion. It went into an endless loading screen. But I quit, went back in, and it rolled perfectly fine the second time.

          Reply

  7. oVg

    June 15, 2015 at 14:38

    This is the first game that forced me to make a choice in the story that made me feel like a real prick. I still dread my decision even if it was the lesser of 2 evils.

    Reply

    • Captain JJ Browmehn

      June 15, 2015 at 14:39

      Man. I know exactly what you mean.
      BUT
      If you’ve done the whoreson junior quest (POTENTIAL SPOILER if not) that is one time when I really felt happy with my decision to forget about mercy.

      Reply

      • oVg

        June 15, 2015 at 14:43

        FCUK YEH 🙂

        Reply

      • Brady miaau

        June 15, 2015 at 15:02

        Busy with quest, getting pissed off with his guys already.

        Reply

        • Captain JJ Browmehn

          June 15, 2015 at 15:06

          It’s a good quest. Rough story.

          Reply

      • Blood Emperor Trevor

        June 15, 2015 at 18:22

        I’m literally busy with that right now. “I just want to talk.” Yes, and I’m going to kill you once we’re done talking.

        Reply

    • Brady miaau

      June 15, 2015 at 14:47

      Fallout 3? Dragon Age Origins?

      Reply

      • Captain JJ Browmehn

        June 15, 2015 at 14:49

        I felt too detached from my characters in Dragon Age.
        Maybe Inquisition will be better. Thought it could just be me.
        Skyrim and Fallout 3 both had a few rough decisions to make.

        Reply

        • Brady miaau

          June 15, 2015 at 14:51

          Dragon Age Origins? Nah, I felt entwined with SOME of the characters. Truly. Alistair, Leilana especially. Shale also close.

          Morrigan as well, just negatively.

          Reply

        • Matthew Holliday

          June 17, 2015 at 10:18

          inquisition felt a little awkward as an elf, but thats because male elves were so emasculated in that game.
          just dont play as a male elf and the game is A+

          not perfect, but feels polished.

          Reply

      • Blood Emperor Trevor

        June 15, 2015 at 18:21

        There’s no comparison between those & W3 when it comes to drawing you into the story. It blows them both out the water. I still feel bad about how the Bloody Baron story line ended. But then you also get moments of comedic genius, like any conversation with a troll, or one that made me literally lol yesterday – Geralt finds a special sword in the lair of a mage who specialised in cheeses and he mutters to himself something along the lines of what should he call a sword made by a cheese mage… The Emmantaler.

        Reply

        • Matthew Holliday

          June 17, 2015 at 10:16

          i disagree, the forced feels, level of cheese and skimming over the big decisions.
          the witcher 3 leaves alot to be desired.

          the bloody baron quest line has been the only tough decision ive had to make this game and then that was just brushed aside afterwards, no consequences, no guilt, doesnt even get mentioned again.

          even the motion capture during cut scenes feels choppy and SUPER akward.

          Reply

          • Blood Emperor Trevor

            June 17, 2015 at 10:52

            You’re so jaded. ;P

          • Matthew Holliday

            June 17, 2015 at 10:58

            mass effect spoiled us.

    • aj_nator

      June 15, 2015 at 14:53

      <<<>>> :'( the bloody baron quest line

      Reply

      • Captain JJ Browmehn

        June 15, 2015 at 14:53

        🙁

        Reply

  8. Cubemon

    June 15, 2015 at 17:54

    I’m now replaying it at the highest difficulty, and I can’t say that frame rate bothered me much at all in the first run-through, or this one. The only bug that really bothered me was the endless load screen in the skellige succession quest – I ended up choosing “not my business” just to get on with the game, which hurts later on. That seems to be fixed now, as I was able to do it with Cerys (I might go back and do the Hjalmar option just for kicks, though). A great game, thoroughly enjoying a second pass (doing everything this time, left quite a few question marks littering the edges of the maps the first time, and never did finish the horse races or skellige fistfights).

    Reply

    • Matthew Holliday

      June 17, 2015 at 10:35

      i want to be able to make those “not my business” decisions, and not be made to feel guilty about it.
      or get the FOMO feeling. its the decision a witcher would make, commander shepard would want to help, but not geralt.
      one of my biggest gripes about the game.

      Reply

      • Cubemon

        June 17, 2015 at 13:46

        You can absolutely make that decision. I won’t make a spoiler and say what the consequence is, but it’s not *that* big of a deal (I finished the game without any trouble). My problem is that I wanted to choose the other path, and was unable to. I have no problem with choices affecting game events – that’s real to me. As you say, perhaps “not my business” is the choice that Geralt would make, but choices do have consequences. There are definitely times when “not my business” is the “correct” choice – sometimes you might have good intentions, but should leave things alone. That’s a nice, realistic subtlety that I welcome. But, to each his own.

        Reply

        • Matthew Holliday

          June 17, 2015 at 13:55

          yeah, ive played through the consequences.
          i chose to help participate in the politics, because not doing so just didnt feel right, even if ignoring it would have been the witcher decision. geralt hates politics.

          the witchers decisions just dont feel like the right ones to make… which is annoying.

          Reply

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