Does it hang with any other games? Could be some llvm/amdgpu bug.

It's known to be an llvm bug. Thing is, I cannot enable that option as long as it hangs **any** game.

Exploring the rooftops of the Crow's Perch. I managed to get into that tallest tower actually, but not on its roof.



I suspect alt-tabbing or some steam-native problems on Arch.

Could be. I was apprehensive about Touissant after hearing some horror stories, but it worked perfectly for me. No issues at all. Arch, GTX 750, switching to a 960 in the middle of playing through it*, same driver (maybe the previous one; I finished the game about a month ago). The only major difference is that I was using vanilla Wine (and Openbox; so that might be your alt-tab issue).

Oddly enough, I intended to buy it on Steam to register a Linux sale, but missed the winter sale by literally a couple of hours and went to GOG instead. Maybe I lucked out there.

*With a literal doubling of the framerate. (Going off-topic here - and it's not even a new card - but the 960's a weird upgrade over the 750. Some games show virtually no improvement at all, while others - like this - are spectacularly better.)

I'm playing it now (first playthrough) since I finally got time to do it. So I spend time exploring different places and will be posting some screenshots here, since bugs are practically non existent now :)

Mysterious elven tombstone on Fyke Isle:


It radiates yellow light, without any obvious sources like candles or torches.

Spoiler, click me

Keira's magic lamp doesn't reveal anything unusual about it

By the way, elven tombstones in the game are using Old Permic alphabet, but the text isn't saying anything interesting, it's just the alphabet cycling itself.

Exploring some wild areas.

Sunset on one of the remote Velen islands:


Thunderstorm in the bay near Lornruk, Velen:




I have not started the game for a while and now, to my surprise, the game thinks it's a fresh installation. No saves at all nor the button to Continue appears. Has someone experienced something similar?

This is the output when running the game:

000b:fixme:winediag:start_process Wine Staging 4.8 is a testing version containing experimental patches.
000b:fixme:winediag:start_process Please mention your exact version when filing bug reports on winehq.org.
000d:err:menubuilder:init_xdg error looking up the desktop directory
info:  Game: witcher3.exe
info:  DXVK: v1.1.1
warn:  OpenVR: Failed to locate module
info:  Enabled instance extensions:
info:    VK_KHR_get_physical_device_properties2
info:    VK_KHR_surface
info:    VK_KHR_win32_surface
info:  AMD RADV POLARIS10 (LLVM 8.0.0):
info:    Driver: 19.0.4
info:    Vulkan: 1.1.90
info:    Memory Heap[0]: 
info:      Size: 7936 MiB
info:      Flags: 0x1
info:      Memory Type[0]: Property Flags = 0x1
info:    Memory Heap[1]: 
info:      Size: 256 MiB
info:      Flags: 0x1
info:      Memory Type[2]: Property Flags = 0x7
info:    Memory Heap[2]: 
info:      Size: 8192 MiB
info:      Flags: 0x0
info:      Memory Type[1]: Property Flags = 0x6
info:      Memory Type[3]: Property Flags = 0xe
info:  D3D11CoreCreateDevice: Probing D3D_FEATURE_LEVEL_11_0
info:  D3D11CoreCreateDevice: Using feature level D3D_FEATURE_LEVEL_11_0
info:  Enabled device extensions:
info:    VK_EXT_conditional_rendering
info:    VK_EXT_memory_priority
info:    VK_EXT_shader_viewport_index_layer
info:    VK_EXT_transform_feedback
info:    VK_EXT_vertex_attribute_divisor
info:    VK_KHR_dedicated_allocation
info:    VK_KHR_descriptor_update_template
info:    VK_KHR_driver_properties
info:    VK_KHR_get_memory_requirements2
info:    VK_KHR_image_format_list
info:    VK_KHR_maintenance1
info:    VK_KHR_maintenance2
info:    VK_KHR_sampler_mirror_clamp_to_edge
info:    VK_KHR_shader_draw_parameters
info:    VK_KHR_swapchain
warn:  DXVK: Updating state cache version to v4
info:  DXVK: Read 0 valid state cache entries
warn:  DXVK: Creating new state cache file
info:  DXVK: Using 9 compiler threads
warn:  DXGI: VK_FORMAT_D24_UNORM_S8_UINT -> VK_FORMAT_D32_SFLOAT_S8_UINT
0039:fixme:ver:GetCurrentPackageId (0x52bfdc0 (nil)): stub
002c:fixme:win:DisableProcessWindowsGhosting : stub
002c:fixme:msvcp:_Locinfo__Locinfo_ctor_cat_cstr (000000000214E130 1 C) semi-stub
002c:fixme:msvcp:_Locinfo__Locinfo_ctor_cat_cstr (000000000214DB10 1 C) semi-stub
002c:fixme:msvcp:_Locinfo__Locinfo_ctor_cat_cstr (000000000214E4B8 1 C) semi-stub
002c:fixme:msvcp:_Locinfo__Locinfo_ctor_cat_cstr (000000000214E320 1 C) semi-stub
info:  Game: witcher3.exe
info:  DXVK: v1.1.1
warn:  OpenVR: Failed to locate module
info:  Enabled instance extensions:
info:    VK_KHR_get_physical_device_properties2
info:    VK_KHR_surface
info:    VK_KHR_win32_surface
info:  AMD RADV POLARIS10 (LLVM 8.0.0):
info:    Driver: 19.0.4
info:    Vulkan: 1.1.90
info:    Memory Heap[0]: 
info:      Size: 7936 MiB
info:      Flags: 0x1
info:      Memory Type[0]: Property Flags = 0x1
info:    Memory Heap[1]: 
info:      Size: 256 MiB
info:      Flags: 0x1
info:      Memory Type[2]: Property Flags = 0x7
info:    Memory Heap[2]: 
info:      Size: 8192 MiB
info:      Flags: 0x0
info:      Memory Type[1]: Property Flags = 0x6
info:      Memory Type[3]: Property Flags = 0xe
info:  D3D11CoreCreateDevice: Probing D3D_FEATURE_LEVEL_11_0
info:  D3D11CoreCreateDevice: Using feature level D3D_FEATURE_LEVEL_11_0
info:  Enabled device extensions:
info:    VK_EXT_conditional_rendering
info:    VK_EXT_memory_priority
info:    VK_EXT_shader_viewport_index_layer
info:    VK_EXT_transform_feedback
info:    VK_EXT_vertex_attribute_divisor
info:    VK_KHR_dedicated_allocation
info:    VK_KHR_descriptor_update_template
info:    VK_KHR_driver_properties
info:    VK_KHR_get_memory_requirements2
info:    VK_KHR_image_format_list
info:    VK_KHR_maintenance1
info:    VK_KHR_maintenance2
info:    VK_KHR_sampler_mirror_clamp_to_edge
info:    VK_KHR_shader_draw_parameters
info:    VK_KHR_swapchain
warn:  DXVK: Updating state cache version to v4
info:  DXVK: Read 2186 valid state cache entries
warn:  DXVK: Creating new state cache file
info:  DXVK: Using 9 compiler threads
warn:  DXGI: VK_FORMAT_D24_UNORM_S8_UINT -> VK_FORMAT_D32_SFLOAT_S8_UINT
info:  Game: witcher3.exe
info:  DXVK: v1.1.1
warn:  OpenVR: Failed to locate module
info:  Enabled instance extensions:
info:    VK_KHR_get_physical_device_properties2
info:    VK_KHR_surface
info:    VK_KHR_win32_surface
info:  AMD RADV POLARIS10 (LLVM 8.0.0):
info:    Driver: 19.0.4
info:    Vulkan: 1.1.90
info:    Memory Heap[0]: 
info:      Size: 7936 MiB
info:      Flags: 0x1
info:      Memory Type[0]: Property Flags = 0x1
info:    Memory Heap[1]: 
info:      Size: 256 MiB
info:      Flags: 0x1
info:      Memory Type[2]: Property Flags = 0x7
info:    Memory Heap[2]: 
info:      Size: 8192 MiB
info:      Flags: 0x0
info:      Memory Type[1]: Property Flags = 0x6
info:      Memory Type[3]: Property Flags = 0xe
info:  Game: witcher3.exe
info:  DXVK: v1.1.1
warn:  OpenVR: Failed to locate module
info:  Enabled instance extensions:
info:    VK_KHR_get_physical_device_properties2
info:    VK_KHR_surface
info:    VK_KHR_win32_surface
info:  AMD RADV POLARIS10 (LLVM 8.0.0):
info:    Driver: 19.0.4
info:    Vulkan: 1.1.90
info:    Memory Heap[0]: 
info:      Size: 7936 MiB
info:      Flags: 0x1
info:      Memory Type[0]: Property Flags = 0x1
info:    Memory Heap[1]: 
info:      Size: 256 MiB
info:      Flags: 0x1
info:      Memory Type[2]: Property Flags = 0x7
info:    Memory Heap[2]: 
info:      Size: 8192 MiB
info:      Flags: 0x0
info:      Memory Type[1]: Property Flags = 0x6
info:      Memory Type[3]: Property Flags = 0xe
info:  Game: witcher3.exe
info:  DXVK: v1.1.1
warn:  OpenVR: Failed to locate module
info:  Enabled instance extensions:
info:    VK_KHR_get_physical_device_properties2
info:    VK_KHR_surface
info:    VK_KHR_win32_surface
info:  AMD RADV POLARIS10 (LLVM 8.0.0):
info:    Driver: 19.0.4
info:    Vulkan: 1.1.90
info:    Memory Heap[0]: 
info:      Size: 7936 MiB
info:      Flags: 0x1
info:      Memory Type[0]: Property Flags = 0x1
info:    Memory Heap[1]: 
info:      Size: 256 MiB
info:      Flags: 0x1
info:      Memory Type[2]: Property Flags = 0x7
info:    Memory Heap[2]: 
info:      Size: 8192 MiB
info:      Flags: 0x0
info:      Memory Type[1]: Property Flags = 0x6
info:      Memory Type[3]: Property Flags = 0xe
info:  Game: witcher3.exe
info:  DXVK: v1.1.1
warn:  OpenVR: Failed to locate module
info:  Enabled instance extensions:
info:    VK_KHR_get_physical_device_properties2
info:    VK_KHR_surface
info:    VK_KHR_win32_surface
info:  AMD RADV POLARIS10 (LLVM 8.0.0):
info:    Driver: 19.0.4
info:    Vulkan: 1.1.90
info:    Memory Heap[0]: 
info:      Size: 7936 MiB
info:      Flags: 0x1
info:      Memory Type[0]: Property Flags = 0x1
info:    Memory Heap[1]: 
info:      Size: 256 MiB
info:      Flags: 0x1
info:      Memory Type[2]: Property Flags = 0x7
info:    Memory Heap[2]: 
info:      Size: 8192 MiB
info:      Flags: 0x0
info:      Memory Type[1]: Property Flags = 0x6
info:      Memory Type[3]: Property Flags = 0xe
info:  D3D11CoreCreateDevice: Probing D3D_FEATURE_LEVEL_11_0
info:  D3D11CoreCreateDevice: Using feature level D3D_FEATURE_LEVEL_11_0
info:  Enabled device extensions:
info:    VK_EXT_conditional_rendering
info:    VK_EXT_memory_priority
info:    VK_EXT_shader_viewport_index_layer
info:    VK_EXT_transform_feedback
info:    VK_EXT_vertex_attribute_divisor
info:    VK_KHR_dedicated_allocation
info:    VK_KHR_descriptor_update_template
info:    VK_KHR_driver_properties
info:    VK_KHR_get_memory_requirements2
info:    VK_KHR_image_format_list
info:    VK_KHR_maintenance1
info:    VK_KHR_maintenance2
info:    VK_KHR_sampler_mirror_clamp_to_edge
info:    VK_KHR_shader_draw_parameters
info:    VK_KHR_swapchain
info:  DXVK: Read 2186 valid state cache entries
info:  DXVK: Using 9 compiler threads
warn:  DXGI: VK_FORMAT_D24_UNORM_S8_UINT -> VK_FORMAT_D32_SFLOAT_S8_UINT
warn:  DXVK: No matching border color found for (1e+10,1e+10,1e+10,1e+10)
info:  Presenter: Actual swap chain properties:
  Format:       VK_FORMAT_B8G8R8A8_UNORM
  Present mode: VK_PRESENT_MODE_IMMEDIATE_KHR
  Buffer size:  1920x1080
  Image count:  2
warn:  DXGI: MakeWindowAssociation: Ignoring flags
info:  Presenter: Actual swap chain properties:
  Format:       VK_FORMAT_B8G8R8A8_UNORM
  Present mode: VK_PRESENT_MODE_FIFO_KHR
  Buffer size:  1920x1080
  Image count:  3
002c:fixme:msvcrt:__clean_type_info_names_internal (0x53e6ac8) stub
002c:fixme:msvcrt:__clean_type_info_names_internal (0x587d298) stub
AL lib: (EE) ReleaseThreadCtx: Context 0x7e033910 current for thread being destroyed, possible leak!
AL lib: (EE) ReleaseThreadCtx: Context 0x7e033910 current for thread being destroyed, possible leak!
AL lib: (EE) ReleaseThreadCtx: Context 0x7de6d9c0 current for thread being destroyed, possible leak!
002c:fixme:msvcrt:__clean_type_info_names_internal (0x2431878) stub
002c:fixme:msvcrt:__clean_type_info_names_internal (0x135768) stub

I have not started the game for a while and now, to my surprise, the game thinks it's a fresh installation. No saves at all nor the button to Continue appears. Has someone experienced something similar?

The game is storing its saves in:

<prefix>/drive_c/users/$USER/My Documents/The Witcher 3/gamesaves

if your documents association is disconnected from the desktop one (I always disconnect them all, to keep prefixes self contained). Otherwise it would store it in wherever your documents association points to (like $HOME/Documents and etc.). That can get reset in some cases due to this bug: https://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=22974

However if that location already has some data, it shouldn't reset it.

So what I recommend doing is, find your old saves first and back them up to be sure. Then start a new game and make a new save. Check where it goes, and then replace it with old saves.

Check out these two mods: Friendly HUD and Friendly Meditation. I've tried both out and I've decided I won't play the game again unless I have both. Unfortunately I ran into a issue with both mods working at same time.
If you can get both working I'd appreciate if you let me know how. That said, I just wanted to share the mods with you. There is also a debug mod that can be used to pause game for better screenshots.

Friendly meditation is great, I'm using it as well. I haven't used friendly HUD though. The other mods I use are are More Quickslots and No Talk Icon. The later helps with immersion.

If some mods cause conflicts, it means they alter the same file. You need to merge their scripts using some merge tools.

Some ideas related to mods scripts merging are explained here:
https://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/mods/484

I did see get that part but seemed like the merge tools were strictly Windows. But glad to hear you're not having issues, means I did a step wrong.

I like immersion too, so I'll be sure to grab that the No Talk mod. Friendly HUD is imo a must for such experience. I would set it up so I would have a number showing quests and markers when using Witcher senses like this video at 4minute mark.

You can also disable radial blur during Witcher senses. I am torn when it comes to Witcher senses. On one hand you need to use it to highlight barrels and such containing loot. On another it's such a shame to go into Witcher sense as opposed to normal mode, as it kinda impedes your view of teh game.
Here you come across a nice place, but now you must frequently use your Witcher senses to find the stuff.

It would have been perfect if there was a mod that did what Witcher senses did for objects containing loot, but that the highlightning would stay permanent until you left that area or/and made the highlight less pronounced.
Softening the yellow highlight would be similar to what they did with Witcher 1 and 2/3 when it comes to Quen. Quen in W1 was to much effect.

Another thing that I find really annoying is candles and light sources. Often getting in way of interacting with npcs or objects.

I've done some merging of scripts manually in my setup (I think for that no talk icon mod), you can use some tools like meld, kompare or vimdiff for that - whatever works. You don't need to use those Windows tools.

I've seen friendly HUD, but decided not to use it. I'm OK with vanilla interface in this regard (though I disable quest name in the HUD, since it's just taking space for nothing - I know what my current quest is anyway).

I don't find using witcher senses annoying. But what I miss is the medallion interaction. In TW1 the medallion could alert you about monsters proximity. May be I missed it, but I don't see any analog of that in TW3. TW2 had something in between.

https://witcher.gamepedia.com/Witcher_medallion

I have not started the game for a while and now, to my surprise, the game thinks it's a fresh installation. No saves at all nor the button to Continue appears. Has someone experienced something similar?

The game is storing its saves in:

<prefix>/drive_c/users/$USER/My Documents/The Witcher 3/gamesaves

if your documents association is disconnected from the desktop one (I always disconnect them all, to keep prefixes self contained). Otherwise it would store it in wherever your documents association points to (like $HOME/Documents and etc.). That can get reset in some cases due to this bug: https://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=22974

However if that location already has some data, it shouldn't reset it.

So what I recommend doing is, find your old saves first and back them up to be sure. Then start a new game and make a new save. Check where it goes, and then replace it with old saves.

Thanks mate! I will do this over the weekend so I can continue the game :)

I don't think Roach likes me :-(



Though it was quite impressive to gallop on two legs for a good while.

Haven't played the game for over two months, but fired it up again yesterday (still on my first playthrough - it's so HUUUUUUUGE). Have to admit it's pretty weird to be able to go toe-to-toe with just about any monster under the sun, but two smacks in a boxing fight and Geralt is out cold. Have given up on some of them for now, as I can't be bothered to keep reloading or retrying for something so minor.

The reason I post is that after a couple hours of playing, the crackling sound issue happened again. There was a cutscene and conversation after some dungeon delving, and the sound suddenly started crackling. I've no idea what causes this, but it would be great if it was possible to solve it somehow.

Previously I edited a config file or suchlike after reading a tip about it, and that helped, but didn't remove the issue. I don't recall exactly what that change was, nor where, as it's been so long ago now.

Since last time I played I've started using the 5.0 kernel -- but as this sound issue was present both before and after the upgrade, I guess it doesn't impact anything in that regard.

If you have any advice, I'm all ears (as little as that makes sense when reading :P )


Edit: I found what I did earlier.
https://askubuntu.com/questions/1033405/crackling-and-delayed-sound-after-upgrading-to-18-04

It's probably due to some hardware specific quirk and ALSA support for your motherboard's audio chip. I.e. might not be easy to fix, except for getting something else to drive audio. If not a new motherboard, then may be a different audio card.

Just got full Griffin witcher school armor and swords set (after visiting Oxenfurt for the first time):


Medium armor seems most Witcher-lore fitting. Though light armor gives more stamina regeneration bonus, but at the cost of much lower protection.

It's probably due to some hardware specific quirk and ALSA support for your motherboard's audio chip. I.e. might not be easy to fix, except for getting something else to drive audio. If not a new motherboard, then may be a different audio card.

Sounds hard to solve then, short of buying new hardware. Thankfully it doesn't happen very often, but when it does I have to restart the game. Recently the game has crashed a few times too when going to a new area from the fast travel system. No idea why, but I suppose I can try to roll back from 5.0 kernel to 4.18?

Agree with you that Griffin gear makes most sense in terms of lore. Or possibly the light armour variant tbh, as witchers are all about quick reactions. With how the bonuses work though, I think griffin makes most sense. Feels more balanced too. I'm currently sporting some alder boots, but apart from that have gone with Griffin. Never found the way to the blasted Temple Isle stuff, though, so maybe I'll always lack something, haha. (edit: this was Cat not Griffin I see)

Some great scenery shots :)



By the way, supposedly Wolven armor should be also medium (and more fitting Geralt's school), but it's not available until later parts of the game. And I guess they didn't implement the Viper set?

As for playthrough, I was so far exploring Velen and didn't even get to Novigrad yet :)

Spoiler, click me

Crones quest is quite a tough one, since there is no good choice between helping the Ghost of The Tree or helping Crones to get rid of it. Both are pretty bad. She Who Knows promises to help children from the orphanage, but she also is quite bloodthirsty in general and not much better than her daughters, at least according to She Who Knows book.

And one thing to note about importing the save from TW2.

Spoiler, click me

In my TW2 playthroughs I usually let Letho go, but somehow that didn't work with import - Letho isn't in the game. Apparently, I imported a save before the choice :( And by default the game assumes Letho is dead. So annoying, since you can't fix that even using console commands.

Another sunset in Velen. This game is just beautiful: