i5 | 8 gig RAM | 860m/750ti 2 gig RAM - Overclocked (+135 core clock & +400 memory clock)
2015's game of the year, The Witcher 3, is a very taxing game to run well. By run well I mean 1080p and 30fps. If you were hoping for 60fps like the alienware alpha website promises then you not only need to be playing at the lowest settings but also a much lower resolution than 1080p. Infact you pretty much need to drop it down to 720p to achieve this. It's a bit of a missleading claim to make to be honest but its not techincally inaccurate.
This game runs at about 1080p and 30fps on the main consoles. I say 'about' because both have their own issues with frame drops and XboxOne is running at 900p rather than 1080p. My basic guide for how a game should perform on this model of the Alpha is slightly better than on PS4. This holds true most of the time but there are always exceptions to this rule.
It's getting more an more common for modern games to look fantastic even on low settings these days and The Witcher 3 is no exception. I use a mixture of settings but a lot of them are set to low with some set a bit higher and the game is still quite beautiful to experience. The games artstyle, lighting and almost constant movement within the game world (trees and plants swaying in the breeze for example) create what often feels like a living breathing world that is a pleasure to explore.
With the settings listed below you can get The Witcher 3 to run at 1080p and over 30fps 99% of the time. You will still get the rare hicup that drops it just below but its only for a split second here and there:
Postprocessing
Motion Blur: On
Blur: Off
Anti-Aliasing: On
Bloom: On
Sharpening: Off
Ambient Occlusion: None
Depth of Field: Off
Chromatic Aberration: Off
Vignetting: On
Light Shafts: On
Graphics
VSync: On
Maximum Frames Per Second: Unlimited (don't use this to lock the framerate, see 'vedict')
Resolution: 1920 x 1080
Display Mode: Borderless Window (Helps when locking to 30fps)
Preserve System Gamma: Off
NVIDIA HairWorks: Off
NVIDIA HairWorks AA: 0
NVIDIA HairWorks Preset: Low
Number of background Characters: Low
Shadow Quality: Low
Terrain Quality: Low
Water Quality: High
Grass Density: Low
Texture Quality: High
Foliage Visibility Range: Medium
Detail Level: Low
Hardware Cursor: Off
Verdict
The Witcher 3 runs nicely as long as you are willing to accept playing at 30fps with a resolution of 1080p. As long as you lock the framerate using 3rd party software such as RivaTuner and use settings like motion blur then the expience is still nice and smooth. I wouldn't recommend using the ingame frame lock option as the frame timing feels off causing a slightly stuttery feel to the camera movement. You can of course just play with a variable framerate but it jumps around between 30-60 so much it becomes increadibly distracting. Going into a cave where the frame rate will rise making the game run super smooth only for it to plumet back down to 30 as you exit can bring you out of the exerience really fast. So lock it to 30 and you will stop even thinking about the frame rate at all.
