Yeah, that tutorial area was always very heavy on the GPU. I'll try benchmarking in other places :)

Last edited by Shmerl on 24 Jan 2020 at 9:14 am UTC

If you have the xml bundle uncooked, can you check if it's reasonably easy to get info from the files? For difficulty, XP, items, abilities, and suchlike?

I didn't really delve into uncooked files besides for the soundtrack info (you can uncook only the files you need), so I'm not that familiar with their layout. But I can look around. Do you know which files specifically do you need resources from?

You can try uncooking yourself too with ModKit in Wine. It's actually doable from the regular Linux terminal, no need to use cmd.

Haven't managed to do it with Wine, and the commands look rather confusing.

Interested in lots of different files really, as I wonder if for instance components for items and dismantling are correct (re: some recent edits). Then I noticed quite a few abilities don't have the full effects noted down, but it's a pain to tab back and forth to the game for each one, and then try to combat with wikitables (gah!). XP, health, damage for enemies. XP etc for various difficulty levels. +vitality for each level (due to the link to console commands earlier I can do it manually, level by level, but it's a slow and boring process).

If stuff like this is easy to look up in xml files that would be preferable. But they could also contain loads of hard-to-decipher ID numbers (e.g. for ingredients).

As hinted at earlier, really not sure I should get so involved, though. I've been down that road before, and it's easy to burn out. Then you are left with half-done work, which in some ways may be worse than currently.


Had many big plans earlier for the RimWorld wiki, and I started on some of them, but it became way, WAY too much. My experience is that once you start looking into stuff like this, you notice 5 new issues for each one you try to solve, and suddenly what sounds like something fast and easy to solve has become a mountain of work.

And if you happen to look at the syntax/code for the DPL-generated tables... OMFG! :'(
(such as: https://witcher.gamepedia.com/The_Witcher_3_silver_swords )

Last edited by Pangaea on 24 Jan 2020 at 4:41 pm UTC

Oh, that table code is terrible :)

I might write some small tutorial on the Wiki itself, on how to uncook things on Linux.

Thanks, that would be great. I'm not all that proficient with either Wine or code like that, where to put what files (without cocking up the actual game) and stuff like that.


Finally hit level 17, so can wear Feline/Cat gear :) Which is quite fitting as I'm about to head out the door for a Steel Panther concert :D So far I kinda played like a normal sword wielding Geralt -- but I wanted to try out alchemy. I therefore blew 1000 crowns on a reset potion.

Before:

After:

DPS went down almost 100 (mainly due to lacking crit chance), but I did gain 600 health. Hopefully it will be fun to play like this, and I hope it will "feel" different. Shame it's so awkward to actually drink potions from several slots, since we realistically only have 2 or 3 quick slots for it. Some kind of selection system like for bombs would be nice, so we could do it during combat without having to go to the inventory screen (it's possible to drink directly there, if a little awkward).

Lacking Quen explosion could be dangerous, but I want to go more fully into alchemy, just to see what it's like.

Shame it's so awkward to actually drink potions from several slots, since we realistically only have 2 or 3 quick slots for it. Some kind of selection system like for bombs would be nice, so we could do it during combat without having to go to the inventory screen (it's possible to drink directly there, if a little awkward).

I highly recommend this mod: https://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/mods/1221

The especially handy thing it adds is the quick inventory UI. You might need to merge things, if you have other mods.

Last edited by Shmerl on 24 Jan 2020 at 8:01 pm UTC

just a heads up I think that during this sale some DLC items have gone free, not so important like a Geralt beard and a Yennefer costume, not sure because I haven't seen them free before. This is on steam.

They have always been free.

Shame it's so awkward to actually drink potions from several slots, since we realistically only have 2 or 3 quick slots for it. Some kind of selection system like for bombs would be nice, so we could do it during combat without having to go to the inventory screen (it's possible to drink directly there, if a little awkward).

I highly recommend this mod: https://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/mods/1221

The especially handy thing it adds is the quick inventory UI. You might need to merge things, if you have other mods.

Cheers, that looks quite useful, if perhaps a rather more than I'd really be looking for. Looks like the Minimapzoom mod uses some impacted files, which probably means I'd need to wrestle with ScriptMerger too. So guess it's better to live with the limited slots for now.

This is unfortunately one of those things that would have been easier (for me) on Windows, instead of needing to put stuff through Wine and often failing.

I don't really use script merger, simply old school manual merge using some diff/merge tool for scripts :) But that only covers the scripts part. I never had to deal with merging which involves uncooking and re-cooking resources, which is indeed a mess I suppose.

Last edited by Shmerl on 26 Jan 2020 at 2:23 am UTC

What I've realised after playing on Death March is that the game is actually quite easy. Didn't dare to try DM before because I thought it would be one-shot hell, but it doesn't really feel very different from blood and broken bones. I'm currently level 20 and just went to Skellige, so could potentially use a fair few skills now. However, it's been pretty smooth sailing throughout, and I've not been utilising many skills at all. Despite going with an alchemy build I'm sort of playing like before, with sword and dodging. Hurts to get hit ofc, but it's usually easy enough to get through combat without dying. And there are so much one can do to make combat easier (that I've not been doing), like throwing bombs, making and chugging down decoctions, potions galore, using signs.

It has surprised me, and now I get why people would so often recommend to play on death march from the get-go. It's not nearly as scary as I thought it would be.

It has surprised me, and now I get why people would so often recommend to play on death march from the get-go. It's not nearly as scary as I thought it would be.

The first couple of hours on DM are more difficult because you can die very easily. But after you're properly geared up, it's not that bad. Then again, I did manage to get killed to a level 7-9 bandit camp at level 20 because I failed to spot the archers. :D But then again, that is why Death March is better. You can still get punnished for carelessness.

True. You can still get mauled by a group of foes because one good hit (or combo) can easily take away half your health. I recently died to a group of drowned dead, and it's been close several times against low-level bandits. This is good, as it's always a challenge if you mess up or get unlucky. And although it's tempting to call the game unbalanced because most things are easy even on death march, it kinda isn't because we can easily die as well. It's sort of odd. Dodging is essential, though, and even more so against a group of foes.

Looking at the various options in the skill trees, however, there are so many that are quite frankly very OP. Have actually never used decoctions in my 2.5 playthroughs so far (the high toxicity threw me off), but some of them seem outright broken. And with only 3 skill points into Acquired Tolerance (available in the first 'row'), you can chug down 2 or even 3 decoctions. I imagine it's fairly easy to become nigh on unkillable, even on Death March. It almost feels like that already (group overpowerement aside), with only usage of dodging, quen and food mid-combat.

But I do really like the combat in this game. It's fun to dodge around, get in a swing or two, and then dodge some more. Need to act quickly on the spot. Can quickly end up dead if several foes jump on you at the same time.

I used two decoctions to kill elementals that were 7 levels above me. (yes, I could easily handle 2 with 245 allowed toxicity). And I used one to deal with a certain intermediate boss that started hitting really hard in phase two. In that case it was a decoction that gave me auto quen so I didn't get the full combos.

This is strange. In a lair deep underground -- and it's raining heavily.


I've seen that before. Must be a bug, or at least you can view it as a cave water dripping. Would be more weird if it started snowing in there :)

Last edited by Shmerl on 28 Jan 2020 at 6:25 pm UTC

Yes, it must be a bug. Some droplets here and there would be fitting, but not pouring rain like that. Moving around, there were also dividing lines in some areas. So it could be pouring down in a rectangle, and then nothing outside it. Surely a bug.



Came across a 6-part documentary/interview series about the Witcher games: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNZkTk5gLuo
A couple years old so perhaps it is well known, but I hadn't seen it before and found it interesting. Lots of developers and other employees speaking about the process.

However, skip episode 4 and 5 if you haven't completed the game yet. Some big-ish spoilers there (which the videos warn about beforehand).

I wasn't aware the company was in such colossal problems during development of Witcher 2. They mentioned the financial crisis and that probably played its part. Certainly glad they got through it, and both Witcher 2 and 3 saw the light of day.

Last edited by Pangaea on 28 Jan 2020 at 9:58 pm UTC

I have NO idea what happened but I logged into this game recently (thanks Netflix) and it performs sooooo much better now. The stutter only occurs when initially loading an area and then it's gone. Previously I would run around and every so often hit some stutter.

This has enabled my Witcher addiction again. Time to Finish this game once and for all.

I'm unsure who to thank for this performance boost whether it be the 5.5 rc (at the time) kernels, mesa, newer proton/dxvk, or the upgrade from the 2700X to the 3950X.

For my part it worked pretty well.. But I have stuttering/tearing issues lately. I'm wondering if it as to do with Nvidia 440 driver... Annoying when I consider that it ran so well, couple of weeks ago. I tried Gamemode, setting the CPU governor with cpufreq, In-game Vsync, in-game max fps, Full Composition Pipeline, reverting Proton version, lowering the graphics settings... any of these combinations... I'm at a loss. Any idea? Did I miss something? With a GTX 1660 Super, I should be able to run it maxed out. Something feels wrong.

Last edited by Mohandevir on 29 Jan 2020 at 2:39 pm UTC

For my part it worked pretty well.. But I have stuttering/tearing issues lately. I'm wondering if it as to do with Nvidia 440 driver...

I think the smoothness is entirely due to the Steam shader cache downloads. I had a whole bunch of stutter when the driver updated to 440.48.02 from the graphics-drivers PPA. Which was a bit odd since that is the Vulkan beta. I don't think this is a common driver version and the Steam shader cache wasn't really complete (or there at all), leading to stutter.

For my part it worked pretty well.. But I have stuttering/tearing issues lately. I'm wondering if it as to do with Nvidia 440 driver...

I think the smoothness is entirely due to the Steam shader cache downloads. I had a whole bunch of stutter when the driver updated to 440.48.02 from the graphics-drivers PPA. Which was a bit odd since that is the Vulkan beta. I don't think this is a common driver version and the Steam shader cache wasn't really complete (or there at all), leading to stutter.

I'm used to that kind of stutter... It goes away over time, but after 10hours of gameplay, it shouldn't be still there... I don't think so, at least... Oh well, I will try with conservative settings (Very High) and see if it goes away. Sure thing, without Full Composition pipeline, there is tearing all over the place and in-game VSync doesn't change that one bit.

Last edited by Mohandevir on 29 Jan 2020 at 3:23 pm UTC

Have anybody tried out the Ghost Mode overhaul mod?
I read a long review of it here: https://www.reddit.com/r/witcher/comments/7yaezw/an_indepth_review_of_the_ghost_mode_gameplay/

It has been updated since then, though, so not sure how relevant some of those criticism are.

I like the general idea of it, but are quite strongly opposed to some of them. Mainly removing the weightlessness of monster parts, and the increased meta-gaming requirements due to removing the "safe" threshold of 5 levels without getting XP punished.

If anybody have tried it, I'd love to hear what you thought.