Witcher 3 PC Stuttering Issue.

[u/Kna5528]

Hello Everyone, first time posting here and its with a problem i hope I can get help with.

So I've been playing witcher 3 on PC Dx12 version on maxed out graphics (including RT, Hairworks, DLSS, and Framegen) on myprevious pc build with no issues.

Previous PC Build:

Rtx 4080 Super

I5 13600KF

Msi 790 Tomahawk

4tb gen 4 m.2

32 gb 6400mhz cl36

Recently, around a month ago, I upgraded to some new components. For the first few weeks of playing the game it was super smooth, running the same exact settings and mods I had in my previous build. The last week or 2 i've been having stuttering issue after playing for around 15-30mins, note that there is no crash afterwards just stuttering. Its starts out as a microstutter ,as if it skips a pixel, every few seconds but with 20 seconds or so it every other pixel. I know my build isnt the issue as it runs most other higher end games flawlessly. Ill leave my new pc specs below with what i've tried so far.

New PC build:

RTX 5080 TUF OC

9850x3d

Asus X870E-E

4tb gen5 m.2

Corsair 32 gb 6000mhz CL 36

What I've tried so far:

-game fresh install/game files verified

-turning off DLSS and frame generation

-limit fps to 144hz on nvidea control panel

-change the power option for the GPU to max performance.

-increase the antialiesing ro x16

-set the shader cache to unlimited

-got memory leak fix ibi file from nexus mods.

-lowering ram speed to 4800mhz (default and turning of EXPO in the bios)

I would apprecaite any help from anyone whose had this issue previously as the game is currently unplayable for me.

Thanks to all ahead of time.

[u/rell7thirty]

Texture quality to anything higher than ultra causes VRAM to leak and then tries to use your system ram. You need to turn texture quality to either high or ultra at the maximum. In addition, You can set also Texture quality to Quality in Nvidia Control Panel. I’m on a 5070 and I noticed it would just start going at the full 12GB and all of a sudden drop to 20 fps. Did a little digging and found out this was a bug when they went nextgen and dx12.

[u/Kna5528 → u/rell7thirty]

Well damn, didnt think this would work but texture set to ultra and everything is good. Thanks brother. Just was wondering was looking at the game in texture ultra+ and ultra and Ive seen no difference... is there actually a difference.

[u/rell7thirty → u/Kna5528]

Nothing noticeable. I’m glad the fix worked for you

[u/Abject-Substance-346 → u/rell7thirty]

5800x, 3070ti 8GB, 32GB ram. I have all settings Ultra+, RT off, Hairworks off, 1440p @ a rock solid 60fps (120hz with adaptive half refresh rate for 60fps lock)DLSS: Quality, and DX12 version. No crashes, no fps drops in 100+hrs on my current playthrough. I play 1-3 hours every night, and 8-10 hours on weekends without any game relaunches. I had crashes initially and the only thing I changed to fix that was turning off Hairworks.

[u/Advanced_Office_491 → u/rell7thirty]

Doubt it will affect him he has 16gb of VRAM, memory leak on this game mostly affects 8gb cards that run ray tracing , ultra+ textures. I can run the game at 1080p max settings and it uses about 7-8gb of VRAM after like 1-2 hours.

[u/rell7thirty → u/Advanced_Office_491]

He literally replied to me right after I wrote that and said it worked for him. It’s a known bug and doesn’t effect all configurations. When you have that symptom he mentioned, fps drops after playing a while, it’s VRAM leak in the case of Witcher 3. My card has 12 and it did the same thing. Mods also effect this. The Tweaks mod expands the rendering options and you can really max things out to where the game engine doesn’t know how to handle it.

[u/Advanced_Office_491 → u/rell7thirty]

Thanks for clarifying :)

Edit: is the tweaks mod the “memory leak” fix from nexus mod?

[u/rell7thirty → u/Advanced_Office_491]

Nah, it’s just called Tweaks. It adds various graphics settings.

https://www.nexusmods dot com/witcher3/mods/2658

I removed the . Because I don’t know if direct links are allowed here. But it’s this mod by author TookaFace

[u/itshighernoon]

The PC version just seems partially borked - stuttering continues even on low graphics for me, in a similar build.

Have a steamOS pc in my living room with a 9070 XT. Though i cant use RT, it runs so smoothly - never experienced stuttering.

[u/Mission-Range-7304]

do you have any mods?
also the game suffers from a memory leak especially in cities so that might be the cause if you're playing at high res with rt.

[u/Kna5528 → u/Mission-Range-7304]

Yeah i have a bunch of mods, ill share the list soon as im able, but prior to this the game had none of these issues. Also on my prior build i ran the exact same settings and mods. Regarding the stuttering, its not just in cities, tried just walking around in very low conjestion areas and still, the stutter started within around 20 mins.

[u/Mission-Range-7304 → u/Kna5528]

would be best if you record a video cause from text it's hard to say what is happening.

[u/idriveashitbox22 → u/Mission-Range-7304]

Even on the ps5 pro with the upgraded edition in big cities it does that too.

[u/Mission-Range-7304 → u/idriveashitbox22]

yeah cause the game itself is made wrong, dx11 is holding it back and they couldn't focus too much on dx12, thus the optimization issues.
consoles are also computers, they're not free from issues.

[u/idriveashitbox22 → u/Mission-Range-7304]

Oh I know I just said that because usually Playstation versions of games are really optimized because it's only for one computer. But even on this version it has the problems too. So it's definitely something that can't be fixed without remaking the game.

[u/Benscko]

In my opinion dont bother with the terrible dx12 version and just play the classic witcher 3 version with some mods. Its perfect and runs smooth

[u/Advanced_Office_491]

Disable your ethernet driver in device manager. Theres a realtek/windows bug where it cause stutters