The Witcher 3 PC Ultra Runs At 1080p 60FPS On GTX 980

From NextPowerUp:

The Witcher 3 PC Ultra Graphics Settings Runs At 1080p Resolution And 60FPS On A GTX 980 GPU

German publication Gamestar got to play The Witcher 3 at Ultra settings. The good guys reported their PC specs. Turns out, an Intel Core i7-4790 CPU and an Nvidia GTX 980 GPU can play The Witcher 3 at Ultra graphics settings, while delivering smooth 60 frames per second gameplay, all at 1080p resolution.

Yesterday, we had reported that The Witcher 3 won't have support for DirectX 12, which dampened the mood of some. However, if a GTX 980 is able to max out The Witcher 3 Ultra settings and give us a 1080p@60fps experience, CD Projekt Red must have done a fine job at optimizing the game for the PC platform.

Previously, CDPR explained the reasons behind which the PS4 and Xbox One versions of The Witcher 3 won't run at 60fps. PC gamers won't have any such restrictions, if they have adequately powerful hardware at their disposal.

Wonder if it will run well on crossfire setups, the witcher 2 certainly didnt ran better on a single 7850 than on crossfire 7850.

That's still quite a bit better than my rig... maybe on high settings I'll reach 60

Assuming that ultra includes PhysX... Then a OC'ed 970 + PhysX card should get the same result.

i wonder how my poor 970 GTX can handle this.

You're gonna need more then a single 7850 to run Witcher 3.

which is why I said I wonder how it will run on crossfire setups

If it's even gonna have Crossfire support?

I hope they support SLI/Crossfire. CDred loves PC so I hope that within a week of release Nvidia gets an update.

I have SLI 970's and I saw no difference on DA:I with just one or two running, it was a major disappointment because I upgraded from SLI580's to 970's to run games like DA:I and Witcher 3 in 1440p maxed out.

Anyone here with 290 / 970 in 2 way setup? LOL

Graphics are great but there isn't anything extraordinary to make such demands, specially on 1080p

1080p is not a high resolution. 1440p at 60fps is more important. And not all of us own a GTX 980, or a Core i7, so I'd like to know how an AMD FX CPU, and an R9 280X/290X would fare at ultra 1440p settings.

I hope so too. This is one I game that I really do hope they have SLI/Crossfire support for.. After all it's a big title so let's just have our fingers crossed.

Well most of us here that have SLI/Crossfire 970's / 290's are playing @ 1440P.

If the Witcher 3 doesn't support SLI then im done with SLI. I'll sell my dual 970's and buy a Titan X and be done with it.

I don't benchmark anymore so if games aren't supporting SLI then it's pointless to me.

Titan X is more then just for gaming... You'd be wasting your money... You'll never use 12GB of VRAM.
DX12 is around the corner and it's suppose to make SLI/Crossfire VRAM stack up.

The DX never live up to there hype though. Alot was promised with last DX's but they were poorly supported or never happened.

The Titan X for me would not be real waste because I'll be gaming with a 1440p IPS monitor @ 144hz. That is demanding. As of right now the GTX 980 hit Witcher 3 maxed out ultra settings at 60fps @1080p. Put that to 1440p and 144hz then all of a sudden you are averaging 35-40 fps and possibly less when chaotic scenes happen. Also throw in that im a believer of the "Vive" which is Steams VR and you are adding even more stress. I've tested out Alien Isolation and Elite Dangerous already with the Rift and this is no gimmick like 3D was. It's incredibly immersive and addicting yet very demanding.

Which means you can't run this game on ultra on 1440p, you can run games on 4k with decent amount fps with 2 way high end GPUs; I guess for Witcher 3 it'll have to be 3-4 way 980s

@PredatorRules: I doubt that, I'm able to run most games maxed out. Plus my cards are overclocked. Either way I'll be able to run it on high settings but I expected Witcher 3 to be demanding before system requirements even came out. Also keep in mind most of the time system requirements are bullshit so we'll see about maxing Witcher 3 @ 1440P.

This game better run 60+ fps with my 970 SLI @1440p or I will be pissed. It better be optimized and scale well with SLI.

Yup, we'll have to see; heck even I could max out Witcher 3 with my 280X :D

A steady 60fps? I kinda doubt it since i cant max TW2 with a i5 3570k @ 4.5 ghz and a 780ti at steady 60fps.

Maybe because it's because Supersampling was terrible intensive in that game. But what ever. We shal see.

I don't factor in supersampling when talking about maxing a game. As long as you are able to max out all the detail settings (lighting, textures, shadows, shaders, etc.) at 1080p+ 60fps+, then I consider that maxed out.

My body, 970 x2, and i7 are ready.

This should be good news for my buddy who wants to run this at 4K with 2 Titan X's. Too bad my CPU and RAM are bottlenecking my 780ti. Guess I'll have to wait for Skylake to play this. :(

The Titan X is a waste of money and 100% hype pub nothing more.. Linus did a overview with the card.. The card only is about 40% faster than the 980 but has numerous heating and voltage problems.. Its like the Asus 760 MARS.. Cool idea but hardly practical or useful.

Only 40% faster. That's huge man. My two best buddies have already stressed test theirs over night with no heating or voltage problems. After benches the card ran much cooler than a gtx 580 and pulled 30-50 less watts. It also pulled ahead of my SLI 970s buy almost 40% in DA:I maxed out at 1440p. The only time my SLI setup won was 1080p and 1440p high settings. For 300 more dollars which is worth it to me for a 40% increase which like I said is actually massive considering in the last people have paie much higher for a 15% increase. Titan X is the first Titan that is actually worth the upgrade when compared to the other Titans at launch.

Meh. The Witcher games have always been pretty ugly - this one is no exception. I can only imagine the barrage of crap recycled animations we're about to endure

I can relate with the animations, but The Witcher games have never been ugly when they released.

They look okay when they release (I guess), but within the year they end up looking pretty gnarly. There's just a blatant lack of budget, translating to a blatant lack of detail - everywhere. The animations alone are enough to call Witcher 1 and Witcher 2 ugly. How are animations constantly being recycled within the same fight not ugly to you? Probably will be the same deal with 3. Since it's open world, they're likely to even give less detail to areas than they did in the previous game. Even the recently released screenshots look a bit muddy in the textures with relatively bad looking foliage. If you squint your eyes really hard it looks pretty good sometimes...I guess? There's just nothing that sticks out to me about it being good looking - we all know ingame it's going to look a lot worse than the screens.

Ugly has more to do with visuals. Animations are part of the overall presentation. I think Witcher 3 is not the most advanced looking game, but looks pretty good considering the scope of the game.

I am not a huge fan of the series because of various shortcomings, but the third game has a lot of potential.

Unfortunately, nobody plays screenshots. Presentation and visuals are the same when you're playing the game. When you see next-gen models moving around like a PS2 game (confirmed by previews), the entire visual experience gets bottlenecked. The Witcher games have a reputation for looking extremely clunky and rough around the edges - this game will be no exception.

Exactly! Plus R9 295X2 (Crossfire R9 290X) beats Titan X in most benchmarks.. even @ 4K. Let me remind you that Crossfire R9 290X is basically the same thing as SLI GTX 970.

My 2 GTX 970s are oced to perform like stock 980s.

I will definitely have no problem maxing The Witcher 3 out at 1440p.

I will probably tweak the config file in The Witcher 3 just like I did with The Witcher 2 so I can have a better draw distance and LOD.

Thank you!

I've got a pretty high daily stable OC as well, my X2 R9 290's performance is beyond any R9 290X's. I'm pretty sure there will be no problem getting 60 FPS @ 1440P maxed out.
I mean if I am able to max pretty much every game @ 1440P, I am sure Witcher 3 will be just fine as well.
2-Way SLI GTX 970 & Crossfire R9 290(X) is pretty perfect for a 1440P setup. Otherwise I would have gone for a three card setup.

At 1440p my SLI scaling has been great in most games.

The most demanding games that need the extra performance get over 90% scaling which is awesome.

I am even able to get 30+ fps in Nvidia's New Dawn tech demo at 4k res which was astounding because the last time I ran the demo was on a GTX 570 and I was barely able to break 12fps at 1920x1080.

I stuck with 2 card SLI because going from 2 to 3 lowers the scaling performance by quite a bit and is not worth the money for what you get IMO.

@RyviusARC: Well going with 3 - 4 SLI/Crossfire would be the best with X79 / X99.

But as far as Z97 mobo for 3+ cards setup. It would probably be the best to go with one of these.

Gigabyte Z97X-Gaming G1

Gigabyte Z97X-Gaming GT

With no AA

IF witcher 3 didnt have crossfire profile right away ... i m gonna lose hope in pc gaming ... I upgrade my pc just for this game ...

Umm... you added another R9 290X just for one game..?
I think, you're forgetting about tons of other new games coming out this year.
Trust me, your second R9 290X will come in handy plenty of times (unless you only play few games).

@insane_metalist: nah i got it for DA : I and witcher 3 and batman ! :) ya i dont play that much as i was !

All I'm saying fellow PC brethren is I wish that developers would support SLI/Crossfire more. Majority of games don't use it and the ones that do they glitch up like DA:I.

AMD r9 295x will beat the Titan X in all categories because it's two top end video cards. Its like having SLI gtx 980's, but only AMD.

I remember when The Witcher 2 came out and i was rocking my SLI 580's. They could not run the game maxed out at 1440p, then I discovered it's because they didn't support SLI. I was so disappointed.

The Witcher 2 does support SLI though.

I've only seen a few demanding games not support it.

http://www.idigitaltimes.com/witcher-3-hands-gameplay-impressions-dev-details-video-427043

"During my Witcher 3 hands-on demo a brief rainstorm swept through the village. Immediately villagers scrambled to take shelter under various awnings and entryways. They didn’t just stand there in default poses, either. The hunched over and blew into their hands to warm them. They shifted back and forth on each leg. They looked alive."

Sounds pretty good to me.

Good thing I have eyes and can make these sort of judgments for myself. If you think it looks good, more power to you - you aren't picky about certain graphical aspects like I can be. The screenshots and gameplay footage out already shows me everything I need to see, and what I see is a game that almost looks a generation behind what we're seeing in upcoming games like Arkham Knight. I'm expecting cool details like you mentioned to be the exception and not the rule. I'm particularly excited to see how clunky and unimpressive the parkour is. From a recent Kotaku preview, "Geralt can run and jump and climb now! Like an assassin who's also a parkour master or a courier who's also a parkour master or any other modern video game character (who's also a parkour master). In my experience, however, it all felt kinda creaky and disjointed. Movement controls felt robotic.Clambering up cliffsides caused Geralt to pause briefly before hoisting himself up. In the grand scheme of things, these are smaller issues, but they prevented me from feeling the intoxicating flow of forward motion that other games with hyper-mobile main characters achieve."

and

"On the upside, most of the glitches I encountered were graphical in nature, and those can be fixed up with a few more months of polish. Still, there were a lot of them, not to mention a frame rate that would occasionally drop into the single digits. While I'll still give CDP the benefit of the doubt on this one, I am slightly worried given the series' history of launching with, let us say, some issues."

I'm sure there will be many reasons to play this game, but for me, graphics definitely won't be one of them.

I'm playing The Witcher 2 right now and villagers also do that by hunching when already on cover, commenting on it and looking at the rain and the clouds. The game is still rough and clunky as he said. I'm not expecting that to change. Also be prepared for glitches galore, bugs, and realizing that there is half finished content/mechanics. Even the Enhanced Edition's of both previous games still had annoying glitches.

Hopefully it will at least be playable at release. No DRM and being a single player game should help that, but I'm still always skeptical for any new game.

After playing the Witcher 1 and watching streams of the Witcher 2, yeah, the movement around the environment was pretty clunky. Though they have finally added in the ability to jump in W3 so hopefully the terrain will feel more open and explorable now.

For video card I'm thinking about saving up for the GTX 970 or 980 since you get the game free with those... Or would I be able to save some money and still get good results spending something like $150 on a new card? I was searching for video card reviews and found this list: http://daydull.com/reviews/the-witcher-3-video-card-recommendation-list-review-of-the-best-value-and-performance-under-150-200-250-300-etc/ Would I be able to play in 1080p and get smooth framerates with that R9 270x?

Oh no, dont know how Cd will live with there-selves if YOUR pissed.........Entitlement much?

I expect quality. When they don't deliver, me no happy. :(