The Witcher 2 Graphics Card Reccomendations

[Keela]

I am considering buying The Witcher 2 on Steam. My computer is a little ways above the minimum requirements for the game. However, systemrequirementslab.com has a few words on my graphics card (GeForce 8600 GT):

Required video RAM: 512 MB
Mine: 1.5GB

Required pixel shader version: 3.0
Mine: 4.0

Required vertex shader version: 3.0
Mine: 4.0

It wants the 8800, but my 8600 seems to exceed all the requirements. Being a computers n00b, I'm not sure whether I should upgrade my system or just buy it on Steam and see for myself whether it works. Advice?

 

[Dyp100]

http://www.systemrequirementslab.com/cyri/intro.aspx

Using this will help you see if you can run it.

Update us on what you get.

Though, if I was you I would go for it and see what happens, damn game is amazing.

 

[number2301]

Unfortunately I don't have the level of technical knowledge to know whether that will work, but as your graphics card is from the Ark why not give it a bash and if it doesn't work treat yourself to a nice DX11 card [http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=gtx460&hl=en&tbm=shop&aq=f&oq=&aq=f]?

 

[Rrido]

If you're willing to upgrade anyways I'd get it and then upgrade if necessary.

 

[Keela]

Unfortunately I don't have the level of technical knowledge to know whether that will work, but as your graphics card is from the Ark why not give it a bash and if it doesn't work treat yourself to a nice DX11 card [http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=gtx460&hl=en&tbm=shop&aq=f&oq=&aq=f]?

Is it worth twice the money for twice the gig?

http://www.systemrequirementslab.com/cyri/intro.aspx

Using this will help you see if you can run it.

Update us on what you get.

Though, if I was you I would go for it and see what happens, damn game is amazing.

I did, results are in my original post. Everything got the thumbs up except my graphics card, but the results of that are questionable to me.

 

[Sarah Kerrigan]

I be using a NVIDIA GeForce GTX in my Asus, and it runs The Witcher 2 pretty damn well. Yes, it lags sometimes, but works.

Bad sadly, I suggest going to the system requirements site. Would help more XD

 

[viranimus]

Well I run a G 560 and it runs pretty damned good even with ubersampling turned on.

But I know its not required.

However, I know the cited card may be more than powerful to handle the games system specs what you will find is that a card that is essentially anything less than a card from the new naming transition when they ran out of 9000 numbers (moved from thosands to hundreds) youll see that typically a pre change card will have a lower number of stream processors, even if you have two cards that are both 1gb, pixel shader 4.0, vertex shader 4.0

And it has been my experience that two cards that share those same base specs can have a vastly different performance that seems relevent to the number of stream processors.

Honestly? Id look for an Nvidia card and prolly stick with a 250, 450, 550 (as the new naming convention makes the middle number more indicative of the cards power, and the first number being more to the effect of the "generation" or year it was manufactured)or higher (2/4/5 60, 2/4/5 70, 2/4/5 80, etc) These newer generation cards also handle things like PhysX more effectively.

Past that your existing card can hypothetically handle it. Youll just have to tweak your system settings to get the level of performance you find acceptable. But thing is that is true with any card, because even cards 400$ or greater can potentially chug dependent on how many "pretties" you have turned on, or the level of resolution your trying to run.

EDIT: What I think is more important is ya say Screw Steam and actually own what your going to buy and pick it up via GoG, that way your also supporting CDproject and make it easier for them to make more games like the Witcher. Plus.. GoG typically has it cheaper than Steam does anyway.

 

[CoL0sS]

In my experience Witcher 2 is very processor heavy game. Graphics card wise - I'd say GF450, Radeon HD4850 or 6770 would suit you perfectly. As someone above me said, theoretically your card can run it but settings will depend on how many things you turn on. I have a relatively decent graphics card (ATI Radeon HD6850) and Witcher 2, along with Bad Company 2 didn't profit much from upgrading from HD3850 since the rest of my system is not on par.

 

[Keela]

*snip*

I appreciate the input. Any chance you could recommend me a single card that's not much more than $100? I can read all the specs in the world, but like I said, I'm a computers n00b and don't know what most of it means, plus I don't do enough PC gaming to validate a big purchase as far as graphics cards go.

Alternatively, I could say "screw PC, it's too damn complicated" like I usually do and wait for the 360 port.

 

[Tanakh]

Will it run? Yeah for sure, but not with ubersampling.

Edit: 100 bucks GPU in US? Radeon HD 6770 or 6790, they are a lil more than 100 though... but the 6790 is amazing for its price. IMO never go Nvidia if you are price constrained, they do good mid and high end cards, competitive with Radeon there, but in the low end Radeon is king.

EDIT: What I think is more important is ya say Screw Steam and actually own what your going to buy and pick it up via GoG, that way your also supporting CDproject and make it easier for them to make more games like the Witcher. Plus.. GoG typically has it cheaper than Steam does anyway.

And i disagree with this, because with steam you actually own the game and you support Valve ADN CDproject, for me supporting 2 developers > support 1 developer and 1 retailer. At least in my experience Steam has worked flawlessly, and also includes the community, the amazing sales and the sense of supporting the devs of HL, Portal, TF2 and most important DotA 2 which i am in love with (and in the beta bitchez!).

 

[viranimus]

*snip*

I appreciate the input. Any chance you could recommend me a single card that's not much more than $100? I can read all the specs in the world, but like I said, I'm a computers n00b and don't know what most of it means, plus I don't do enough PC gaming to validate a big purchase as far as graphics cards go.

Alternatively, I could say "screw PC, it's too damn complicated" like I usually do and wait for the 360 port.

Well Ill make 2 suggestions. Oddly enough if your able to be patient it ends up being the same cost.
Low end
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130612

Little more oomph
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121426

Outside of the cost and rebate the difference is the memory clock speed. The first runs on DDR3 vs the asus card running on DDR5 Negligible differences but youll see a noticable difference especially when it comes to render lag.

Not sure if your in the states, but those would be solid templates to use to look for something comparable more locally.

EDIT: Also, forgot this point. The first card, the EVGA card is a lower physical profile card, So it will fit in easier to any case config, whereas the ASUS card takes up 2 plate slots. Plus, the EVGA card will not require a direct line from the power supply, but the ASUS card likely will.

Best of luck to ya.

 

[gideonkain]

I bought a new video card specifically because Witcher 2 wasn't running good on an ATI 4870, so I upped it to an ATI 6770 and it still was a little slow, but this was before that big Update 2.0 that was supposed to really streamline and reinforce the game.

Witcher 2 (v1.0) is the most memory intensive game I have ever played, I am currently playing Skyrim on fullsettings with the FXAA mod, AC: REvelations full settings and I played RAGE on full settings before that, so it's a great card but Witcher 2 is just one heck of a resource hog, great game though.

 

[viranimus]

Will it run? Yeah for sure, but not with ubersampling.

Edit: 100 bucks GPU in US? Radeon HD 6770 or 6790, they are a lil more than 100 though... but the 6790 is amazing for its price. IMO never go Nvidia if you are price constrained, they do good mid and high end cards, competitive with Radeon there, but in the low end Radeon is king.

EDIT: What I think is more important is ya say Screw Steam and actually own what your going to buy and pick it up via GoG, that way your also supporting CDproject and make it easier for them to make more games like the Witcher. Plus.. GoG typically has it cheaper than Steam does anyway.

And i disagree with this, because with steam you actually own the game and you support Valve ADN CDproject, for me supporting 2 developers > support 1 developer and 1 retailer. At least in my experience Steam has worked flawlessly, and also includes the community, the amazing sales and the sense of supporting the devs of HL, Portal, TF2 and most important DotA 2 which i am in love with (and in the beta bitchez!).

Except that would be incorrect because you own absolutely nothing with steam. You are given a license to which steam can in their discression revoke for whatever reason they choose.

First Note:

Spoiler

Now read the ToS

http://store.steampowered.com/subscriber_agreement/

Valve hereby grants, and you accept, a limited, terminable, non-exclusive license and right to use the Software for your personal use in accordance with this Agreement and the Subscription Terms. The Software is licensed, not sold. Your license confers no title or ownership in the Software.

So... Why would you want to give less support to the developing company who also distributes it, when Steam does not confer ownership and actually contributed nothing but to remove the part where you own what youve paid for? Does the community matter in single player? Steam sales are only good if you have no idea what comparative shopping is and steam may be stable, but its also restrictive. Hell if nothing else, with the GoG version you dont have to run 3rd party client eating up system resources on a game thats already a ram whore.

Also, on the ATI suggestion, I fully disagree because I would much rather have a stable card. ATI/AMD cards do great graphics, but they are more prone to incompatibility issues, the drivers are less secure, the ever present possibility that the card will fry out, and if nothing else, the witcher 2 is a game that is optimized for Nvidia chipsets. In this instance, Nvidia makes much more sense.

 

[Hazy]

I maxed The Witcher 2 on a 5850 with only 4 gigs of RAM, Uber Sampling turned off, and AA turned on, if that's any help.

 

[Tanakh]

So... Why would you want to give less support to the developing company who also distributes it, when Steam does not confer ownership and actually contributed nothing but to remove the part where you own what youve paid for?

I know the ToS. I am talking about what actually happens, not about my legal rights to the games.

Steam has provided me with a flawless service, i dont have limited bandwith per month and it also runs on my LinuxMint with a little tampering; they have also publicaly said that if Steam ever goes down they will release your games a la GoG, also for whatever reason Steam supports more the indie games than GoG (dont asky me why, it makes no sense but go and see the GoG and the Steam pages and tell me which one actually has indie games advertised) and i love those. Valve has also developed games i have loved through the years.

So, developer, indie supporter, comparable non sale prices and better sales; and yeah with a ToS that could potentially totally screw you but with impecable respect towards the customer record as far as i know (though slow customer support), ill go with them. If you are going with ToS and worst case scenarios you would need to barren youself from playing anything from Ubisoft, EA, Activision/Blizz and any MMO ever.

Also, on the ATI suggestion, I fully disagree because I would much rather have a stable card. ATI/AMD cards do great graphics, but they are more prone to incompatibility issues, the drivers are less secure, the ever present possibility that the card will fry out, and if nothing else, the witcher 2 is a game that is optimized for Nvidia chipsets. In this instance, Nvidia makes much more sense.

Well... that was true like 10 years ago, and by that i meant the incompatibility, nowdays i have seen the same ammount of GPU specific issues for both, and that ammounts to 1 for each in the last year. Drivers less secure? No one ever is going to try to hack you targeting your GPU driver, not yet at least who knows if the GPU processing becomes more popular. Cards frying out? Not in the last 6 years unless you are OCing with poor cooling or a poor PSU. And the logo of Nvidia or ATI makes good publicity, but in the real world benchmarks ammounts to nothing, in the worst case you will need to wait 2 weeks for your manufacturer to release new drivers and even again the field.

Right now if you are going for a sub 150 bucks card i really cant say i would ever reccomend Nvidia, for 200+ cards it's more of a personal choice, i would go with the one with the best manufacturer actually, they seem very even.

 

[viranimus]

I know the ToS. I am talking about what actually happens, not about my legal rights to the games.

Yes, but what actually happens when you choose Steam over the alternative is you say to the industry that you dont care to give up your rights of ownership and have no problem giving your money away and basically having nothing to show for it. That is why you now have things like Games for Windows Live, EA:Origin, etc trying to horn in on what Steam already established the consumers will accept. THATS why I say screw steam. Its not a worst case scenario, that is reality.

If you are going with ToS and worst case scenarios you would need to barren youself from playing anything from Ubisoft, EA, Activision/Blizz and any MMO ever.

Well cant speak for others, but I dont play games from Ubisoft (except From Dust which I bought not knowing it was from ubisoft until it was already licensed) Activision/blizzard make no games that I find even remotely interesting, and EA I typically only buy bioware titles of which I usually buy on consoles used for single player only. MMOs, that is a different animal all together, so you have to read what your agreeing to and weigh out if that is acceptable to you and not just blindly accept the TOS so you can play. In my situation that is just one of the reasons I have no interest in MMOs any more.

Ive said what I intended. I would hope the majority of gamers dont suffer from "cant see the forest for all the pretty trees" and actually understand the impacts of their actions. So I need to say nothing more on this matter.I just tried to point out the importance of supporting the original developer, Not giving credit(money) where it is not actually due, and understanding the importance of the effects of ones decisions. Its not my intention to derail this thread to a Steam Pro v Con track. So unless it is on track related to video cards Im not interested in perpetuating that conversation here. Thats why they make a "Create thread" button.

 

[Keela]

Will it run? Yeah for sure, but not with ubersampling.

Edit: 100 bucks GPU in US? Radeon HD 6770 or 6790, they are a lil more than 100 though... but the 6790 is amazing for its price. IMO never go Nvidia if you are price constrained, they do good mid and high end cards, competitive with Radeon there, but in the low end Radeon is king.

When it comes to the number of gigs on the card, is there much difference?

 

[DazZ.]

Just out of curiosity, what's your processor? If it's a dual core (or maybe even a tri-core) you are going to have real problems running the game, regardless of your card, simply because it's incredibly poorly optimised for dual core machines

Runs 50fps+ on my i3-2100, with a 460gtx and 4 gb RAM.

I'll happily recommend the 460GTX.

 

[Tanakh]

When it comes to the number of gigs on the card, is there much difference?

RAM size gigs? Well, it usually determines the quality of textures your GPU can handle. Big ram = lots of space to handle the textures = you being able to use higher resolution textures to make your objects look preety!

Also allows the video card to store more stuff in RAM, thus allowing you to lets say turn and have the videocard take those textures and polygons from RAM rather than having to reprocess them or take them from your HD.

With computers when your game lags due the GPU is usually cuz one of the following two:

- Right off the bat, then your GPU is just not powerful enough for the game.

- After a lil while, when turning around, quick cutscenes and that kind of stuff, or when switching from low res to high res textures, then your vid card doesn't have enough ram.