I loved the original Witcher and have really enjoyed what I've been able to stomach of the sequel, but no matter what I do I cannot consistently get over 27 FPS.

I've tried the hotfix, installed the patch, updated my BIOS, everything I could think of. I have disabled every single video option to very little avail. Please help me.

Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit (6.1, Build 7601) Service Pack 1 (7601.win7sp1_rtm.101119-1850)
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5 CPU 750 @ 2.67GHz (4 CPUs), ~2.7GHz
Memory: 4096MB RAM
DirectX Version: DirectX 11
Card name: ATI Radeon HD 4870
Display Memory: 2804 MB

You have unreasonably high standards. 27 fps with that rig is good.

Try turning off uber sampling and SSAO, for a boost.

Its a demanding game, and I think you cant expect more with that rig. The graphic card cant push more than that imo.
hopefully others with a similiar computer can add their opinions, and maybe im wrong

Have you set texture downscaling to max?

nm

Don't use texture downscaling unless you have a VERY bad rig.

wrong thread...............

I really appreciate everyone who read my post and offered advice.
It appears I made two pretty crucial mistakes, the first being that I (accidentally) had LOD distance on "far" and the second was I had shadows on the medium setting. This card seems to handle shadows very poorly in most games.

I'm now able to run around town at a consistently good framerate (30s, 40s).
So, fingers crossed.
Also: just to note, I have AA, SSAO, Depth of Field - Gameplay, Motion Blur and UberSampling (duh) disabled. I'm not saying these are optimal, just what I'm using.

Thanks everyone.

EDIT: While i was typing you posted you had fixed it ;P , I'll leave the rest below in case anyone else has similar problems lol.

Sorry but what exactly are you running the settings on? I know for that card (I recently upgraded from it) even on the Low configuration should be able to pull more then 27fps. Or did you just set what can be enables/disabled and leave the rest on Very High?

I actually had a lot of problems running the Witcher 2 with my HD6970 was running at about 10 - 15fps. I'm not sure what exactly fixed it but I did a reinstall of the game and catalyst drivers. With the Catalyst drivers I also made sure that all the extra graphics settings were off or application controlled.

Also while I was researching my bad fps there I read about there was going to be a release/hot fixes in the new catalyst drivers to provide more performance in the Witcher 2. There was a hotfix but didnt support vista (what I'm running) but does Win7 that you could try. I believe it was 11.5b hotfix/catalyst driver

I rescind what I previously said, it must have been quite a fluke. The game is right back to running like stomped crap.
I've tried turning off absolutely everything possible along with lowering every option.

I have the new hotfixed drivers.

Open Catalyst Control Ctr. Wherever 'use application settings' is an option, set the option to 'on'.

No reason you should be getting bad performance unless you have unreasonably high standards, but I assume that's not the case.

I have a Phenom II X4 940 which is slower than your CPU, and a 4850 1GB which is slower than your GPU.

I have everything on high with all the extras on (such as SSAO, anti aliasing, motion blur, etc) except for shadows (low), and number of shadowed lights (low). LOD normal, and Ubersampling off at 1280x720. I get 20-45 fps. Most of the time I get 30-35 fps, while my game NEVER drops below 20 fps.

I also installed the hotfix but didn't realy notice a change in performance.

Only reason you might be getting bad performance is if you're trying to run the game at 1920x1080, but even my card can run at that resolution as long as everything is set to low. Obviously though, it's better to just run at high settings at 1280x720.

It had never occurred to me to try changing the resolution. This appears to be the best solution to my issue, thank you very much.
I wish this game ran better.

This is because in this game changing resolution doesn't only change resolution, but also how far you can see high detailed objects. This is why resolution (and UberSampling) affects performance so much.