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Is my GPU dragging me down?


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Here's the deal:

 

I've just done a large upgrade on my system, new CPU (I5 3.32Ghz), Motherboard and 2 sticks (4GB Each) of RAM. I even formatted my hard-drive. I played Witcher 2 last year when it first came out, I played through it a few times however it was choppy and laggy, so I left it hoping it would be better later. Now I'm trying to play it again with my new system and I still find it awful, barely getting 15 FPS on the lowest settings. I've done all the tricks and tweaks I've found on the Internet but nothing seems to help.

 

I'm now afraid that the one thing I didn't upgrade is dragging me down, my graphics card. It's a Nvidia Geforce 9600 GSO, it's 3 years old, but it's always been good enough to keep me playing most games at the highest graphics (Skyrim for instance). When I last played Witcher 2, my CPU just didn't make minimum requirements, but I was still able to play (albeit very laggy).

 

So here's my question: Is it my graphics card that is dragging down my FPS? And if so, what card would you recommend I replace it with, under £100 if possible?

 

Thanks guys.

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i'm playing W2 on a 8800GT GPU, E8400 w/ 4 gb ram, low to medium quality , and my FPS stays above 25 most of the times ( 30 usually), so i'd say that it's not the GPU. And then, with your other specs, don't know what else could it be. Maybe try a defrag on your game partition...
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I'd blame DRM or Securom or whatever The Witcher 2 uses (I don't play it, lol, I'm just here for TES forums), but that was removed in an update, wasn't it?

The recommended specs for The Witcher 2 aren't really much different from Skyrim's. This problem is very strange...

 

Apparently whatever security system it used/uses can be a 40% performance decrease for some people.

Edited by Rennn
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Yes, the DRM was removed in the first patch update - not sure why you brought it up?

 

Back to the OP - The minimum spec for TW2 is the 8800GT. Your 9600 GSO is significantly lower spec than this, and will be the cause of the problem.

Comparison of 8800GT with 9600GSO

The 9xxx range tend to perform a little better than their specs, so you may be able to get an acceptable framerate, but it is unlikely ever to be great.

Try playing in windowed mode, make sure you use a 16:9 aspect ratio, and lower the resolution as far as you need to. The absolute highest you're likely to be able to use is 1280x720, and you may need to go lower than this.

Failing this, you should probably be looking at getting a new card to go with that new PC.

 

TW2 is very demanding on the GPU compared to most other games.

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Thank you all for your advice.

 

I found that my GPU actually works well with the game, the problem was the resolution. I turned it down to 1280x720 and now I can run the game on Ultra settings (without Ubersampling) perfectly. It seems my GPU is still good, it can handle it. Not exactly sure why the resolution was affecting it so much.

 

Thanks again guys.

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