I seem to be having a strange problem and I haven´t found a solution in any forum.

I am currently playing TW2 for the second time and since I have a new PC with a GTX 580 I have been playing around with the user.ini settings to max out the visuals.

But lately I have noticed the foliage and objects "changing" in front of me as I walk. I have set the Foliage and Mesh distance settings at high values and I didn't go to the Configuration panels in order to avoid the user.ini being overwritten. I checked the user.ini and it is indeed NOT overwritten. However, when I went to the configuration panel, I saw that the "texture memory size" and "LOD distance" were set to minimum. I set them back to maximum but the problem still persists. And when I get back to the configuration panel, I see that these two settings are set back to minimum.

Somehow, the game sets the "Texture Memory Size" and "LOD Distance" to minimum without respecting either the configuration settings or the custom user.ini settings.

In my first playthrough, I didn't have this problem.
(I have played this game only with patch 1.2 and I recall having downloaded the latest Nvidia driver after I started playing TW2, though I am not entirely sure as it may have been before. Perhaps it is a driver issue or related to the nvidia settings but I am not sure what to touch if it is the case although I somehow doubt it).

Does anyone knows what may be the cause of this strange issue? It is really annoying to see all kinds of objects "morphing" right in front of you, so any help is highly appreciated.

When using a custom user.ini file, ignore whatever the actual configuration tool tells you. What matters is what is written in the user.ini file, nothing else. (I don't know if it actually makes a difference, really, but people keep saying to set the file to read-only, as well as to make sure the top of the file reads: CustomRenderingSettings=1 / PerformancePlatform=1. Like I said, I have no idea if it actually makes a difference, but it can't hurt, at least.)

You seem to be experiencing the exact same problem as I am experiencing, however. I started a thread about it: Odd Graphical Issues - The Box of High Detail Textures. So you can check there for the ongoing discussion. I recently updated the topic with a response I received from TW2 tech support. There they explained that it is a feature within the game to lower the detail on textures in the periphery of the screen - you're not even supposed to notice it, unless you're really trying to look for it. In our case, however, this does not seem to be working as it should, as this 'box' is really small and limited, right in front of Geralt's feet sometimes. They haven't had many reports about this, but at least they've confirmed something is wrong, so they will take a look at it.

I didn't notice this during my first playthrough, either, but that might just have been a fluke. Like you, the game version doesn't seem to matter, but I am also using an Nvidia graphics card, and the only thing I can think of is that an update from 270 version drivers might have caused this problem to occur. It's just pure speculation, however, that I've thought of in retrospect while looking for solutions. Rolling back the driver version has not helped so far.

Thanks very much for your reply.

I have read your original post and we are indeed having the exact same problem. During the first playthrough I didn't notice it (the same as you) and I am sure that this issue wasn't present as I would have seen it since it is visually much too obvious and distracting.

So something must have happened during the 2nd playthrough. I will try some things and see if I accidently stumble upon the solution :-). I'll let you know if i find something.

Best regards

Yeah, I've been thinking the same. I mean, it is possible that I never noticed it because I was so entranced with how awesome the game is, or something - tunnel vision maybe - but I also doubt it. In-between your first and second playthrough, did you apply any driver updates for your graphics card? If so, from which version did you update?

My current Nvidia drivers are from version 275.33. My previous version was 270.61.

I have Windows 7 64 bits and a while ago it decided to automatically update itself. I don't think this is the cause of the problem but I am just looking at recent changes in my system.

There are 2 User.ini, one in the installation directory, another one in My Documents > Witcher 2 > Config. Maybe check both?

I'm fairly certain that 270.61 was the version I was using as well, during my first playthrough. During any subsequent playthroughs, they had started releasing updates that I continuously applied as I kept playing, and it was sometime during that time I started seeing this issue. Hmm... It might be worth it to try to roll back to 270.61. It's just a bit annoying to go through a proper driver clean-up, but at least then I'll be able to either confirm or deny that this problem occurred when updating to a later version. I'll get right on it, actually, so I'll pop back in later on to give you my report.

Update: Well, I just tried completely uninstalling the drivers (using a third party tool to properly clean them all up), and then I rebooted and reinstalled 270.61. No dice, I'm afraid, the issue is still there. :(

I tried the following. I went to Tweakguides.com, which is run by a knowledgeable guy, just to check what procedure to take to uninstall previous drivers. There I read that the custom installation options of the nvidia driver has the option to unistall previous drivers. I did this and tried to intall again the 275.33 driver but making sure that the 270.61 was completely removed.

Since you said you were reverting back to the old driver, I tried then to install a clean 275.33 but it didn't work as the graphical issue still persists.


EDIT: I forgot to mention that I checked both user.ini files as vAddictedGamer said. I also changed the one in the main directory but nothing, the problem is still there.

You changed the wrong one. The one in the user files affects the game. The one in the main file is the default one used for backup in case your user file one gets deleted.