yea should be able to get max without uber settings switched on. From my understanding , to be able to use uber sampling you will need a good dual graphic cards.

it might dip below 30fps with everything max except uber in some intense spots but you should be good to go, you could always turn off motion blur or bloom if you run into any issues but I would say you should be able run it fine with ~40fps in most situations.

2xGTX580 SLI & i7 3.06GHz.

1980x1200 res.

Max setting with ubersampling off gets me around 80-85fps, can dip to around 75fps during scene involving fire etc (like the first dragon scene). the lowest I've seen it dip is 65fps for about a second.

Ubersampling is pure rape, I can barely manage 25fps with it on during the first dragon scene at the start of the game and it peaks at 40fps during less intense scene .

Curious on you're ubersampling performance ... you're res is clearly superior to mine but I would like to know AMD's card performance vs Nvidia, I cannot play this game at ultra spec due to ubersampling, it destroys framerate and action scene comes out at a pathetic 25fps (can dip to 20fps for a second or two!).

Do you think it's my hardware's lack of optimization or is the game simply that hectic?

I heard Witcher 2 is a resource hog that's why I haven't downloaded it yet (I have a Radeon 4850 from 2008). I will wait until I get my new rig in time for 11-11-11 with two Radeon 6950s in Crossfire so i can check out Witcher in max settings 1920x1200.

Kantor gave it 8.7 in what sounded like a fair and well written review (overall a great game but underdelivered on the promise of being non-linear and different choices having significant effect).

It's probably because Nvidia doesn't have an SLI profile for the game yet. Your gtx 580 SLI setup should definitely be faster than my "essentially" AMD 6970 crossfire setup.(unlocked 6950's @6970 speed) ATI already released a hotfix for crossfire problems with the Witcher 2. Prior to that I was getting terrible performance at ultra w/uber at 1080p (my old 24" monitor max res.), less than 20 fps or so! After the hotfix ultra w/uber was playable at 1080p, though I'm playing without it at a higher resolution now.

I can't test this, but you might try something like this (as a possible temporary fix):

http://www.overclock.net/pc-games/1021185-witcher-2-sli-fix-guide.html

http://www.evga.com/forums/tm.aspx?m=1033639&mpage=1

Or you could wait for Nvidia to do something. I think I heard Dragon Age 2 took about a month for them to get SLI compatibility working. I'd rather not breakout my old gtx 260 sli setup to test that. ;-p

God bless you! This is a significant improvement. I am now running a steady 38-45fps! At the very start of the intro dragon sequence I was at 35 but it rose to 40 immediately and remain faithfully steady with fan speed at only 60%!

So with the little tweaking thanks to smbu200, I am now as follow:

1920x1200 res; 2x GTX580 SLI; i7 3.06GHz

Ultra-spec with Texture Memory Size @ Very Large and LoD Distance @ Far (with ubersampling on)
Result: 38-45fps (low point @ 35fps)

Ultra-spec with Texture Memory Size @ Very Large and LoD Distance @ Far (with ubersampling off)
Result: 80-85fps (low point @ 65fps)

Damn ubersampling is still hectic!

Glad to see it helped out. I was checking out different things related to crossfire/sli with the witcher 2 when I was having performance problems of my own (before the hotfix), which is when I saw that thread. ;-p

Wow at both of you! With those dream PCs and you can't use uber... this game is a beast!

I just found this comparison at Techspot that may be useful for those who still haven't bought the game and want to know how it will fare on their hardware:

http://www.techspot.com/review/405-the-witcher-2-performance/