The Witcher - Patch 1.2 Now Available
 

The official site for CDProjekt's cRPG The Witcher has announced the release of patch 1.2, before Christmas as promised. The patch is designed primarily to decrease save/load times and tweak in-game bugs:
You can download the patch from the official webpage, and it's also available at the following mirrors: FileShack, Gamer'sHell, and The Patches Scrolls.

Thanks to kalniel, for posting the news on the Witcher subforum.

More information.

It says 1.02 twice, it's 1.2. Fix plz.

The dialog fix by 1eyedking seems to be working fine, however you will need to reset your English Registry setting back to Short or 3, to be able to install the 1.2 patch.

How much shorter are the loading times?

Are you by any chance a CPA in RL?

Thanks for the heads up.

doctor_kaz I would say the 50% they claimed is correct., so YAY! :)
The only caveat would be the initial load which is only about 15% faster, afai can see.

Finally I can get around to play this game.

I caved and purchased this (simply: amazing) game yesterday. Load times were a little bit of a pain, but nothing I could not tollerate.

Any Speed increase is surely appriciated though :)

The patch is really helpful, load times are down to much more acceptable levels now. Subjectively it feels like more than 50% decrease in load times. Too bad they hadn't fixed that on release, that would have probably netted them some better scores in reviews.

Save game compatibility
 

More than halfway through the game with the original patch and was hoping someone could confirm that there are no (official or anecdotal) issues with save game compatibility.

I seriously doubt there are and I always take backup steps just in case, but always a bit nervous applying a new patch this far through a game.

I've found that loading a savegame is a little faster, but where the patch shines is when entering and exiting buildings. Gone is the 1 minute loadtime for each domicile. I'd say it takes about 6 seconds now.

Patch results
 

Before the patch -

Big outside areas were about 60 seconds, 90 with auto-save
now they are about 5-15, including auto-save

Small areas, like a house, were 30 seconds, 60 with auto-save.
now they are 2-5 seconds, including auto-save

I uninstalled, reinstalled, applied the 1.2 patch, then defragged my hard drive.

This has got to be the most impressive patch ever for a game.

Sounds like it's a great patch!

I'm glad they have not disapointed us. I thought they would improve slightly the load time… but it looks like it's much more than I expected.

I posted this in another thread, but I did patch a game already in progress and so far I have not found any problems it caused.

In regards to loading and saving, I am seeing an increase in times at each new chapter due to the larger files and more detailed graphics, from chapter 1 to chapter 2.

The Autosave is out of control still saving WAY to often in chapter 2 and they promised iirc to be able to switch off Autosave, but so far I can not find this setting, anyone?

Also, naming your savegames is still impossible. Which is a pain because me and my gf play on the same PC.

^ Have you tried agreeing on some convention, based on the little screenshot, such as "in my saves, Geralt should stare at his feet"?

Elwro: Create a second Windows user.

I think you can go into your save games folder and manually rename saves --you might check the Witcher forums for the details, but I know someone had figured out a way even before the patch. :)

edit: Here's the thread--I haven't tried it myself, though.

Magerette: thanks for this really simple suggestion, I'll try it when I get back to my gaming PC.

Whoknows: I don't want to do this in order not to deform my well-groomed directory structure :-)

The more total time playing the game seems to be leading back to the previous Save. Load and Autosave times, I hope this is wrong but I will be starting chapter 3 soon, so it should be pretty clear by then.

Intersting, thanks magerette. :)
There must be a trick to it, so I will check the thread, as I tired this a couple of times, in the past.

Thought I would give a update, in chapter 3 it's as if the patch has no effect, seemed in chapter 2 the patch had lost about 50% of it's benefits, now it's but a faded memory, at least in my case. Worst still after playing about 2 to 3 hours at a time seems like I am noticing Memory Leaks which were not there before.

If this is not just me whom loses all the patch benifits in chapter 2 & 3, then it would at most seem impossible for the Q & A to have missed this and I hope it was maybe a translation issue but how could Cd Projekt claim 50% improvement in Load Times and 2-5 sec Autosave times when they only exist in Prolog and Chapter 1? :(

Just you, from my position. The patch made such a difference I'm replaying on my underpowered laptop (now in Ch. 3). The initial startup load *might* be a tad longer but going in and out of a house is now but a few seconds. Fantastic.

I should probably clarify that the general performance (framerate) is much the same but I can put up with the laptop's jerkiness now that the load times are so much better.

Must be just you, then - I'm playing Chapter 4 and the improvements are very noticeable. Still, maybe your computer is just too weak for it? Basicaly, as I understand it, the Aurora Engine will empty out the memory and reload everything for every new area. The new patch has then, presumably, eliminated the "empty out memory" bit and instead make the game check the memory before adding new stuff in (this is why going into a house used to be a breeze even before, but going back out is a pain, whereas they both take about as much now). And of course, you can see how this wouldn't work - if your RAM is too small, the game still has to reload everything, so there's no real improvement.

Maybe it is me, yet I don't think it's my computer, drivers maybe, though it was working better before the patch, in regard to the Memory Leaks. However if I am correct it could explain how Memory Leaks appeared.

I might have been clearer in my post, too. I agree the Saving and Loading Benifits still exist going from Hub to Chunks (small buildings). Saving Auto and Manual are very swift inside these Chunk areas like Huts. However leaving these Chunks, with very small amounts of AI present to a very active AI area, Hubs the Saving and Loading is for the most part back to Pre-Patch levels for me.

Imo and seen in the Loading Screens, what I believe they did was prevent a Full Memory Flush, when going inside these Chunks. Normally going to a Hub Pre-Patch you would see the Main System Load Screen with the Wolf Amulet, then as a Chunk loads we Switch to the beautiful in-game stills, now we just see the Stills when entering the Chunks. This means less to Load and less data to Save. Also how a possible Memory Leak could have been born, maybe just missed since the Flushing is different now for Chunks or they have a Minor problem with there new Flush System.

So, in Chapter 2 & 3 you guys can go from a Chuck to a Hub at the same Speed as Prologue and Chapter 1 or how about Loading a Hub Save?
If so, maybe the way I patched by going from 1.1a to 1.2, did you guys go from 1.0 to 1.2?

Anyway glad your not having problems. :)

A lot of this too I see is also due to the Saves getting bigger and bigger, I just started Chapter 4.

Oh, I don't care about "hub" loading - the "chunks" are (were) the only thing that bother me.

I'm still only in act 1 in my second playthrough but so far both chunk and hub loading takes only a second or two, while on my first playthrough without the patch it usually took 15 seconds or more for hub loads, and about 5 seconds for chunk loads.

I'm still in vizima doing the investigation, but everything's been super smooth so far, I didn't play it before the patch though

Damn good game so far, I don't think I've hit a single dull moment.