Witcher 2 laggy game on mid class notebook

variant999

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Jun 16, 2011
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Hi.
I recently bought my Acer 5750g with i3-2310m sandy bridge, 3 gigs ddr3 and 540m 1 gb. Same day i also bought The Witcher 2, because im an patriot and besides that - that game rocks. My problem is, that the game doesnt want to run. It lags as hell. I've seen ppl playing it with i3-330m and radeon 5650 fluently on YT, so im a bit disappointed. I can run Crysis 2 in med/low, Mafia 2 in med/high and GTA IV in med/high, so its something wrong. I dont believe its the most demanding game... Maybe i've got mess on my HDD or with some drivers. Does anybody have some experience with such issues? Could anybody help me, cuz that game cost me like 90 zlotys (approximately 30 $, 15 gbp) and thats as much as i can earn for 10 hours of hard work :( It sound desperate - but look: I'm a student :p Sorry for a mess in my post, but it's kinda late, and im tired :)
Thanks in advance

Poor Polish guy - Lukasz :p
 

CaedenV

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Jun 14, 2011
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ok, I think I see a potential answer for you. While your computer does have a 540m chip for graphics, it is not always on. By default it uses the much more power efficient HD graphics on the CPU, and then when there is a demand, it is supposed to dynamically switch over to the 540m. However, as with most things dynamic, I am assuming that there is something about this game that is blocking the crossover to the better graphics chip. The other potential problem is the minimum system requirements:

The Minimum Requirements
Processor: Core 2Duo 2.2 GHz or dual core AMD 2.5 GHz
RAM: 1GB Win XP/ 2GB Vista/7
Graphics: GeForce 8800 512MB or Radeon (HD3850 512 MB)
HDD Space: 16 GB

The Recommended Requirements
Processor: Quad Core Intel or AMD
RAM: 3GB Win XP/ 4GB Vista/7
Graphics: GeForce 260 1GB or (HD4850 1GB)
HDD Space: 16 GB

Anything that requires a minimum 8800/9800 (same card), is going to have trouble on a mobile chip. Also, check your HDD space; 16GB isn't huge on a modern HDD, but it may be too much if it is sharing space with a music library, video library, and a few other large games. The minute you hit a mere 15% free HDD space Windows begins freaking out wondering how life will continue if it does not have space for it's precious page file. So free up at least 20% of drive space for windows to play nice.

Just because a game doesn't look like it is difficult to work with, doesn't mean that it isn't. Never underestimate the stupidity of people in large groups, or the inefficiency of programmers working in large groups.
 

CaedenV

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ok, I looked up the requirements for crysis to compare, and the Crysis recommended requirements (meaning to play the game at high settings) is equal to this game's minimum requirements. So playing this game at it's lowest quality and resolution is like playing Crysis on high quality... good luck there.
 

variant999

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Ok. I think that it could be the optimus driver problem - ill check it in a minute, because i have to install the witcher 2. However, my friend's got phenom x3 n870 and radeon 6650 1gb, and he can run the game in med details with average 25 fps. My cpu can be compared to 2,6 ghz Core 2 Duo E6700.
 

variant999

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Sry for double post but somehow i cant edit previous one. Crysis 2 has almost the same requirements and it is pretty much playable.
PC Minimum System Requirements

Operating system: Windows XP, Vista or Windows 7, with the latest Service Pack

Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo at 2Ghz, or AMD Athlon 64 x2 2Ghz, or better

Memory: 2Gb (Vista requires 3Gb)

Hard disk space: 9Gb

Video: NVidia 8800GT with 512Mb RAM, ATI 3850HD with 512Mb RAM, or better

Sound: DirectX Compatible Sound Card
 

variant999

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Hah - Witcher works fine now. I foun out, that it was running on Intel H Graphics instead of Nvidia 540m. I forced game to run with dedicated card and its smooth now (low details, v sync on, 1280x720)