In the video game industry there is an ever increasing need for calculation power to support the ever improving graphics quality. If a new game get released and your PC hardware is simply not powerful enough anymore you have the option of either looking at a stop motion film on your screen or spend tons of money to get the newest graphics card, right?! Don’t you worry, Lossless Scaling is a software tool that claims to fix exactly this problem! Lets take a look and verify if these claims are actually true.

How does it work?

Lossless scaling offers to main aspects. On one side it allows you to upscale a non full screen video game to full frame through various methods including AMDs FSR and Nvidias Image Upscaler. This is not only useful for some emulators that don’t support full screen natively but also allows you to render ANY game at a lower resolution and then upscale it to your screen resolution regardless of what GPU you have. This essentially is the same thing as Nvidias DLSS but now usable in any game.

The second feature is the build in frame generator which uses an AI algorithm to generate frames in between the normally rendered frames to offer a smoother gaming experience with the end result of higher FPS. For the frame generation Lossless Scaling uses its own models called LSFG from which the developer now just released the 2.0 version. Should you be running on extremely low end hardware there is now also an additional Performance button enabling the most power optimized version of LSFG.

It should be noted that Lossless scaling is meant to improve the performance on devices that already have a decent graphics card so please view the results of this test as an extreme case for which the program most likely isn’t optimized for.

Testing run

To check if Lossless scaling might actually be the future of low power hardware gaming we will run a few FPS tests in the valve game Portal. You might now rightfully proclaim that Portal is not the most graphically demanding game to have ever reached the home computer and you are absolutely right with that. But because this test is aimed at even some of the least powerful hardware out there like old Lenovo Thinkpads we need to lower the bar quite a bit to even get close to a reasonable experience.

Speaking of which, the following tests are run on a Lenovo Thinkpad X270 which only relies on its Intel integrated 620 HD graphics card for rendering. It has a 1920×1080 display. The graphics settings in Portal are turned all the way down.

Baseline 1 – NO LSFG // NO SCALING // Rendering 1920×1080

To create a performance baseline running at the native resolution of the screen the integrated graphics manages to render at 25 to 35 FPS while mainly staying at 30. While this is not a particular luxurious experience, it does work.

Baseline 2 – NO LSFG // NO SCALING // Rendering 1080×720

At 1080×720 the 620 graphics unit is much more happy and is easily reaching 60 FPS and peaking at above 70. This is now as smooth as it gets on such a laptop only limited by the 60 Hz refresh rate of the screen.

Test 1 – NO LSFG // LS1 Scaling // Rendering 1080×720

Please note that taking screenshots is not working as such with scaling turned on therefore the quality of the pictures here is worse than what you would see on the screen. But rendering at 1080×720 and scaling it up through Lossless scalings own LS1 algorithm on performance mode does make a difference in the achieved FPS. Instead of around 30 FPS you can expect up to 50 FPS with an average increase of 15 FPS. This results in a very pleasant gaming experience with few stutters and a noticeable difference in smoothness.

Test 2 – NO LSFG // AMD FSR Scaling // Rendering 1080×720

This time trying it with the AMD FSR upscaling algorithm also on optimized mode, the performance is a bit worse FPS wise. In average you can expect up to 10 FPS more than rendering at native resolution. I would say though that especially in fine details it looks a bit more refined and sharper than LS1.

Test 3 – NO LSFG // NVIDIA Image Scaling // Rendering 1080×720

Surprisingly the NVIDIA image upscaling did work great even on so little power. Averaging a plus of 20 FPS and resulting in peaks above 70 FPS this was seriously impressive. There was also no apparent loss of quality. This is so far my favorite although sometimes there were rare irregular stutters with FPS crashing to 25.

Test 4/5 – LSFG 2.0 // NVIDIA Image Scaling // Rendering 1080×720

With frame generation turned on i was not able to get decent performance from the tiny integrated GPU. I got an average FPS of around 20 with dips going down to 10. Not great. Sadly i was not able to fix this. LSFG 1.1 didnt make much of a difference either. I assume the frame generation simply needs a dedicated GPU with appropriate power to work in a reasonable environment. I will later retest this on more powerful hardware but so far it seems you have to stick to only using upscaling for a better performance.

Test Results

Baseline: native rendering at 1920×1080 resulted in average FPS of 30 FPS.

Result and Impression

The upscaling through Lossless Scaling works good and has a easy to use interface to choose between the different modes and algorithms. It clearly has potential and can give you a more playable and enjoyable experience even on very low end hardware. Especially the NVIDIA Image Scaling algorithm impressed me through its great performance.

The frame generation does need more raw calculation power though and is not suitable for low power systems without graphics cards. I am deeply impressed that a single developer managed to get something up and running that works this great and I hope that the development of this project is going to continue for the good of non high end gaming.

Ceck out Lossless Scaling here:

This is not an affiliate link neither is this article advertising for Lossless Scaling.

While playing around with the different available car configurations in your favorite racing game like Forza Horizon you will probably reach the point of wanting a bit more realism. Especially if you are equipping Drifting or Offroading gear boxes. A popular and easy way of addressing this issue is the change of your sim shifter plate against one with the right amount of gears that matches your configuration in the game.

Hyped by this easy sounding option you will then soon be disappointed as you go online to find that these alternative plates cost you a fortune.

A few weeks ago we ourselves where standing at the same dilemma situation which is why we came up with the idea of designing our own shifter plates! Our version is designed to be printed with a 3D printer to allow for individual customizability and a cheap and easy production. The parts are designed to fit perfectly to the popular Thrustmaster TH8A shifter. To install them you simply remove the four screws of the original plate and swap it for your fresh new one.

Get yours here!

No 3D printer? No Problem!

Should you not have a 3D printer at home do not fear, we also got you covered!

Please write us a short Email to lj.server.info@gmail.com and we will try to send the printed parts for 5$ + shipping to your location.

Not your desired plate? Also no problem!

If you have a request for a plate with a special gear arrangement just write us a email to lj.server.info@gmail.com and we will try to add it to our range.

Video guide

As this challenge can get quite confusing on higher rounds i recommend watching the video guide as an explanation. Below you can find a few more additional tips.

How to beat the challenge – key elements

1. Make sure to have a defense for all kinds of bloons – twice!

As the gear in the middle in the map turns 1/8 of a rotation every round make sure that you have defense for all bloons classes on both sides. Two wizards monkeys (0-3-2) will do a good job of slashing through most of you problems.

2. Banana plantage – “investing upgrades”

Starting early with the Banana plantage seems like a stupid idea as it takes at least 3 upgrades away from our tight budget. The trick behind this idea is to invest these 3 upgrades to be able to afford the much more expensive upgrades for other towers in the later game.

3. Late game: super monkey to the win

As the game proceeds to the end it is wise to use the super monkey (0-2-3) upgrade as it offers the ability to jump across the map thus allowing it to always stay on the side facing the bloons track. Make sure to always use this ability as early as possible as the other side of the gear will get out of reach. Additionally this upgrade path also allows the super monkey to handle tarn bloons.

Summary

The new “Grow less than Galaxili!” is a fun but quite difficult new BTD6 challenge that came with the latest update. Using the super monkey technique and the help of this guide you can easily cope with it. Have fun!

Video Anleitung

1. Quest

Die erste Aufgabe ist erstmal die schwerste. Die zweite und dritte bedienen sich dabei den selben wiederholenden Mustern und es ist einfach das Konzept aus der ersten auf die die anderen anzuwenden.

Die allgemeine Idee ist, dass der Wurfpfeilaffe (0-2-4) als Hauptverteidigung gegen die Bloons verwendet wird, während der Alchemist ihn mit dem Berserker-Gebräu-Upgrade (4-2-0) verstärkt. Zuletzt hilft der Ingenieur den beiden mit einem Upgrade auf (0-2-4), wodurch er die Bloon-Falle bauen kann. Sollte ein großer Bloon-Ansturm im Anmarsch sein, können auch die Chinooks verwendet werden, um einen der Affen ein wenig zu bewegen da der Chinook in der Lage ist, Bloons sowohl wegzublasen als auch abzuschießen während er auf dem Weg ist einen Tower zu bewegen.

2. Quest

Die zweite Quest wird grundsätzlich wie die erste erledigt. Die drei Affen werden an besseren Stellen auf der Strecke platziert und auf mehr oder weniger die gleichen Wege geupgraded wie beim ersten mal. In diesem Fall kann es sinnvoll sein, den Ingenieur auf (2-0-4) zu verbessern, da er dann besser mit größeren Mengen nicht sehr starker Bloons umgehen kann, die durch die Verteidigung dringen.

3. Quest

Die dritte Quest ist um einiges schwieriger als die zweite. Vor allem gegen Ende des Spiels sind etwas zeitlich richtig ausgeführte Aktionen erforderlich. Außerdem steht in diesem Level etwas mehr Geld zur Verfügung, sodass man den Dart-Affen auf (0-2-5) upgraden muss. Wichtig ist auch, dass es in diesem Level sinnvoller ist, den Ingenieur-Affen auf (4-0-2) zu upgraden, da man sonst die zu Beginn einströmenden Ballonmassen nicht loswird.

Herzlichen Glückwunsch! Du hast die Scoops Prahlerei Challenge in Bloons TD6 bestanden!

Interesse an mehr Bloons TD6 Anleitungen und Tutorials? Schau dir unseren deutschen Biker Bones guide an!

Besorge die Bloons TD6 hier:

Video guide

Quest 1

The first quest might also be the most difficult as the challenge is quite repetitive and you can use the concepts on the two other quests.

The general idea is that the dart monkey on (0-2-4) is used as the main bloon defense while the alchemist boost it with the berserker brew upgrade (4-2-0). Lastly the engineer helps the two with an upgrade to (0-2-4) allowing it to build the bloon trap. If you fear that a big bloon rush comes through you can also use the chinooks to move one of the monkeys by just a tiny bit which will then help you as the chinook is able to blow away bloons as well as shoot them.

Quest 2

The second quest is basically done like the first. The three monkeys are placed at better places across the track and upgraded to more or less the same paths. In this case thought it can make sense to upgrade the engineer to (2-0-4) as it is then able to deal better with bigger amounts of not very strong bloons leaking through the defenses.

Quest 3

The third quest is quite a bit more difficult than the fist two. It requires a bit more timed actions especially towards the end of the game. You will also have a bit more money available in this level giving you the ability to upgrade the dart monkey to (0-2-5). It is also important that it makes more sense in this level to upgrade the engineer monkey to (4-0-2) in this quest as otherwise one wont be able to get rid of the balloon masses rushing in at the beginning.

Congratulations! You beat Scoops Tall Tale in BTD6!

For more Bloons TD6 Tutorials take a look at our Biker Bones challenge guide.

Get Bloons TD 6 here:

Video guide

Two Towers to the win

As the skipping of round in itself can be quite overwhelming we will keep it to two simple towers only to beat the set time of 6:23.65 with ease. For this challenge it is very important to have monkeys that are able to strike multiple bloons at once while being quite cheap. Therefore we are going to start with a druid and then proceed with a bomb shooter to finish the mases.

Heart of Thunder is key in early games

Begin by placing the druid in the intersection of the three ways and upgrade it on the upper path and middle path. Then proceed spawning the bloons up to round 16 and wait till you are able to buy the Heart of Thunder (2-1-0) upgrade for the druid.

Recursive Clusters – big solution to big problems

As their are more and more bloons coming in you should then be able to afford yourself a bomb shooter by round 19. While rushing through the bloons until round 30 buy the lower and middle path upgrades for the bomb shooter (0-2-3) so that it has the cluster bombs enabled.

Now your defense is all settled. Rush through to round 40 and on the way upgrade the bomb shooter to (0-2-4) and the druid to ball lightning and heart of oak (4-2-0). Having this setup by the middle of round 40 and nothing is going to stop you anymore. As only the drones can target tarn bloons some will leak through. But don’t worry, you’ve got enough lives to easily handle these.

Congratulations you beat Biker Bones by quite a big margin! Have fun playing!

Interested in more BTD6 tutorials? Check out our Monkey Meadow CHIMPS guide!

Get Bloons TD 6 here:

Getting ready! – choosing the right hero

Before we start in to a fresh round of CHIMPS on the monkey meadow you need to select the right hero monkey for the job. In the following tutorial I will use Obyn, the druid hero. Thankfully its free and you can use it without needing to spend your precious monkey money. The tutorial from now on will be separated into the different rounds where you will need to act, upgrade or place in some kind of form, so read the upcoming step ahead of reaching it and slow down your game. Have fun!

Round 6 – First steps are important

As CHIMPS already starts in round 6 you will need to start really good and prepared into the game. The best tower to do so relaxed is the druid. Place it in the lower left corner of the first “intersection”. This will give it good enough coverage to be the sole defense until round 9.

Round 9 – the hero comes to the rescue

To proceed further place the hero which you should have set to Obyn in the lower right corner of the first intersection right next to the druid. It will now help the druid with bloon popping and will give it some other nice boosts on higher levels.

Round 14 – upgrades on the druid

To proceed onto higher rounds without any major worries, upgrade your druid on the middle path to (0-2-0).

Round 21 – even more upgrades to the druid

Once you reached round 21 you should have enough money to buy your druid another upgrade on the middle path. It should now be upgraded to (0-3-0).

Beware of the tarn bloon on round 24 and read the next step now before reaching round 23!

Round 24 – be careful and take it slow

Even though your line of defense to the bloons might be working quite good, round 24 is where this comes to an end. To fight the single camo ballon in this round you need to activate the power of the hero Obyn right when the bloon enters to place a thornbush in its way. You may want to slow down the game in round 23 already as it can otherwise get quite difficult to time it right.

Round 29 – reinforcing the camo defense

You already defeated a camo bloon in round 24 but the method used there wont last you long. To help with that place a monkey village in the upper left corner of the intersection and upgrade it to (0-2-0) so that all the monkeys in its range are able to defeat camo bloons.

Round 33 -upgrading the druid

To prepare for the larger and larger masses of bloons coming towards you, upgrade the original druid on the upper path to (2-3-0) which gives it the ability to send out strikes of lightning.

Round 39 – preparing for the MOAB

To slowly prepare for the upcoming MOAB place a bomb shooter in the upper right corner of the first intersection and upgrade it on the middle path to (2-3-0). Also make sure that it is within the range of the monkey village.

Round 41 – seemingly worthless upgrade

Once you got the money, upgrade your druid to (2-4-0) on the middle path. Although this upgrade would give the druid the ability to generate money with an ability, this is not possible inside of CHIMPS mode but we still need to buy this upgrade to get to the much more powerful fifth tier upgrade. While you are at it also toggle the druids priority from strong to first.

At the end of round 41 or at the start of round 41 you should also have enough money to buy the bigger radius upgrade on the upper path for the monkey village and shortly after also the jungle drums upgrade to have it on (2-2-0).

With these upgrades in place you should now be good until round 46.

Round 46 – stepping up the MOAB defense

To fight the upcoming BFB (red MOAB class bloon) it is needed to upgrade the bomb shooter to MOAB assassin on the middle path. It should then be on the (2-4-0) upgrade path.

Round 50 – finishing up the bloon masses

To deal with the large amounts of bloons it is advised to place another bomb shooter right next to the already existing one so it is within the range of the monkey village. You should also have enough money to upgrade this one to (0-2-4) so that it has the recursive cluster.

Round 53 – slowing your enemies down

The bloons can come in quite fast at these rounds. To slow them down place a glue gunner monkey right next to the monkey village and upgrade it to (0-2-4) so that it affects the MOABs heavily.

With this setup you are now good to go until round 74.

Round 74 – unleash the tier 5

After saving up all you money over the rounds you should now be able to afford the final fifth tier upgrade for the druid, the spirit of the forest (2-5-0). This gives it the ability to grow dangerous spikes all across the path.

Round 79 – boosting the towers

To boost the popping power of your towers place an alchemist to the left of the druid and proceed by upgrading it to (4-0-2).

Round 84 – making it difficult for the MOABs

To make it harder for the MOABs in the upcoming last rounds of the game, place a ninja monkey above the first bomb shooter so that it is still covered by the monkey village and upgrade it to the sticky bomb path (0-2-4).

Round 92 – second tier 5 monkey

After saving a bit more money you should have enough to afford your second tier 5 monkey. Select the ninja monkey you placed a step earlier and upgrade it to master bomber (0-2-5).

Round 97 – last steps

Now you nearly made it. To finish it up you can place an ice monkey next to the ninja and upgrade it to (2-0-4). You should now be good to go to finish the game successfully. To be save though you can lastly buy the (2-0-5) upgrade for the ice monkey at the very beginning of round 100.

Victory!

Congratulations, you made it! You popped the evil BAD on Round 100 in CHIMPS mode! You can now decide between ending the game or going into free play. By simply upgrading the existing towers you are then able to reach a few rounds higher which you can then let anyone know in your account dashboard.

Either way we hope you had fun and thanks for reading. Leave any questions down in the comments and we will answer them as soon as possible. For more BTD6 content check out our full review or our guide on how to make your own challenges!

Get BTD6 here:

Go achievement hunting

Drift86 offers 41 steam achievements which can be grouped in different difficulty categories. Most of them are pretty easy to complete while others can be a bit challenging, especially the “earn 1 million drift score in one combo” achievement. These offer a cool challenge to complete with friends. Check out the article we wrote about how to get all achievements with ease here.

Join community tournaments

On the community discords of Drift86 you can participate in tournaments that take place every month. You can sometimes even win prices. These tournaments have different winning requirements and rules. Check out the discord servers below to get in touch with the community.

Compete with the best

Try speedrunning tracks in the game. There is a whole community that strives to complete the tracks as fast as possible.

I would suggest joining the discord servers mentioned above to get in touch with the community and get introduced to basic rules. You can check out the best times that were approved by the speedrun.com admins with the button below.

Keep in mind that you need to record your runs to submit them so maybe pick up a classic speedrunning tool called LiveSplit to integrate a timer in your recording. There are also preset categories for Drift86 that were put into the LiveSplit menu.

Let us know whats your favorite thing to do in Drift86 in the comments below!

DISCLAIMER: There will be some story spoilers in the mission summaries.

The missions are given to you by Dax, the leader of the Fooliganz gang. You can find their HQ, the Freakshop, at the yellow D near the east highway of Los Santos after completing the first mission in the First Dose series. You as a player are working with the Fooliganz to fight against the Lost MC, a rival drug selling gang. The second part of the story was added with the Last Dose mission series. Dax also offers some other variable, repeatable missions that reward 50.000$.

If you play through the missions chronologically this is the correct order:

• First Dose 1 – Welcome to the Troupe
• First Dose 2 – Designated Driver
• First Dose 3 – Fatal Incursion
• First Dose 4 – Uncontrolled Substance
• First Dose 5 – Make War not Love
• First Dose 6 – Off the Rails

As we have only completed the First Dose missions and not yet the Last Dose series, we are unable to replay the missions I didn’t take screenshots of. Please excuse the lack of impressions for some of them.

1. First Dose 6 – Off the Rails

You have to steal precursor chemicals from Humane Labs and Research in order to start producing LSD. While collecting supplies Dax notices, that there is a train with more chemicals on the way. The player is tasked to let the train crash by flipping a railway switch. After that you’ll have to collect more chemicals and finally have to take a Brickade 6×6 to the Freak Shop.

I really enjoyed this mission as it offers a pretty amazing ending to the first half of the Drug Wars missions. The cool part is, that you also get the opportunity to purchase the Acid lab business after this mission for around 750k.

2. First Dose 1 – Welcome to the Troupe

You are introduced to the Fooliganz while they are defending the Ace Liquor, an abandoned building near the south shore of the Alamo Sea. There you have to defeat the attacking Lost MC members and reconquer a stolen caravan. After you got the the caravan back you’ll have to take it to an abandoned warehouse situated in the Mirror Park Railyard, close to the Casino. Future missions will be started from here, the Freakshop.

The missions is pretty straight forward as you only have to defeat some groups of enemies twice and defend a driving vehicle. Nevertheless the introduction cutscene is funny but also a bit weird at the same time and offers you a general idea of what you’ll have to deal with in the future.

3. First Dose 5 – Make War not Love

Dax calls the player to fight against the rivaling hippies. You are tasked to destroy some supplies in a trailer park while being attacked by the inhabiting hippies. After that you’ll have to destroy 3 delivery vans before traveling to the Altruist camp where you have to destroy more vehicles.

I really enjoyed the packed action in this mission although it gets a bit difficult towards the end of the mission. The mission targets can be completed pretty fast with a 4-player squad or a solo grenade launcher approach.

4. First Dose 4 – Uncontrolled Substance

You meet Dax and some members of his gang outside the Freakshop and are given some beer. After drinking it, it is revealed, that the bear had some Acid in it. You’ll find yourself in a wild drug trip with weird transitions.

The challenges you have to complete during the trip are pretty fun but the colorful overlay is quite annoying during some parts of the mission.

5. First Dose 3 – Fatal Incursion

The goal of the mission if to steal the meth supplies of the Lost MC from their lab at Millar’s Fishery, a place near the north shore of Alamo Sea. You’ll have to deal with some enemies and search the supplies scattered around the mission grounds. After successfully collecting all supplies you fly back to the Freakshop and have to land in a storm drain.

This mission is pretty annoying the first time you play it as you have no idea where all the meth supplies are situated which leads to a lot of time waste. We should also mention, that the final part of the mission, the Dodo flying and landing can be pretty hard for beginner players as planes are not the easiest to control.

6. First Dose 2 – Designated Driver

Dax tells the players to steal Lost MC supplies from the harbor terminal. You’ll have to pick up a truck to tow a trailer back to the freak shop. On the way back the trailer is destroyed and the players are tasked to the nearest Lost MC clubhouse to steal information and weed.

I don’t like the fact, that you aren’t able to successfully transport the trailer to the Freakshop which is suggested by the trailer health bar. This makes the second part of the mission feel a bit like a loss rather than a preprogrammed part. What I did really enjoy was the robbing animations while stealing from the Lost where your character is stacking all the drug bricks inside your bag.

Conclusion

Most of the First Dose missions are lots of fun but some of them are quite annoying. The missions are defenitely worth a playthrough but as they reward you with an additional 50 grand each if you complete them for the first time. After all of them you get 250k.

The cherry on top is that you also get access to the acid lab business if you choose to purchase it. The Freakshop in itself is also worth a look as it offers a weapon shop that is free to use.

Let us know your personal ranking of the First Dose missions in the comments below.

GLPC: How did you discover The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and when did you start playing?

Pater Jakob: There definitely was not a moment that could be distinguished as THE moment I decided to try out the game. It was more like a constant confrontation with it over Youtube and over social medias, mentioned in context of “great games” or “games of the decade” etc. I don’t actually know exactly when I first bought the game, but it probably was sometime in 2019. That said I could not really get into the it on my first and even second attempted play-throughs, which only lasted about 5 hours. It was almost 5 years after the games release, at the start of the pandemic, when I got really hooked. On my third time trying I got completely addicted, played through it doing almost everything, completing all the achievements and yet I still could not get enough.

GLPC: Was that the moment you decided to speedrunt the game or did you discover the possibility somewhere else? Do you remember what or who got you into speedrunning witcher 3?

Pater Jakob: I still remember the first time I got in contact with Witcher 3 Speedruns. I was already familiar with the concept of Speedrunning and following other popular games I played like Zelda: Breath of the Wild. So one evening I was curious if someone had done a 100% run of this game, and to my complete surprise there actually was one, done very recently by a runner called Aliatus_Aquilan. I was so impressed by that 19 hour run that I followed him on Twitch and checked out the leaderboards on the Website of speedrun.com. There I found other active runners who were streaming, like Trig, who’s run of the Blood and Wine DLC inspired me to do a run of my own.

GLPC: Whats your favourite questline in the game? What moment or place do you enjoy a lot?

Pater Jakob: My favourite questline must be the ending of the Hearts of Stone Main Quest, the last 2 quests to be more precise. They are dark, sad and scary at the same time. They mix being relatable and the fantastical elements of the world perfectly, all the while using the gameplay in a super unique way for the story telling.
My favorite moment is 100% killing Imlerith, the sheer brutality and satisfaction you get from avenging Vesemir immediately is just unmatched. It has a perfect build-up in the form of the Bald Mountain too. An honorable mention would definitely be the empress-ending, specifically the final moments you spend with Ciri in the snowy white Orchard.
The best place in the game for me is the Fairytale-World in the Blood and Wine DLC. I’ve always loved fairytales as a child, so seeing an entire area filled to the brink with easter eggs and references to them, all while being visually gorgeous and having a great quest with unique enemies, is just perfect.

GLPC: How are you motivated to keep playing the same game over and over again?

Pater Jakob: As I said before, I really can’t get enough of this game. And speedrunning is a way of playing it that is very different from the casual experience. It is not like the most speedgames out there, consisting of lots of cutscenes and not containing any crazy glitches or sequence breaks. I think my main motivation for comes from my love for this game and my obsession with optimizing every small movement and fighting sequence.
For not losing this motivation I think there are 2 key reasons. Firstly, Witcher 3 is just a great game, which has so much content you can just spend a lot of time without repetitiveness, in case of a 100% run. And secondly, taking longer breaks. When you speedrun for a World Record you need to grind, you need to play a lot to gain muscle memory and learn the perfect movements down to the smallest details. Obviously you can’t do that forever without getting burned out, so longer, even months long breaks after achieving your goal are necessary.

GLPC: How do you physically and mentally prepare for an multiple hours long speedrun, I imagine it can be quite hard to maintain focus.

Pater Jakob: Really depends on the run. For the any% classic runs, which are about 3 hours you don’t need much prep at all, I usually start sessions in the evening, after dinner. You just need to keep the time in mind, so that you don’t finish a run at 1am on workdays. For Blood and Wine 100% runs, which are roughly 4 hours, just keep enough water near you, and maybe plan an afternoon around it. You can obviously do it in the evening too, if you get started early enough. The full 100% run is where it gets really interesting. For a 20 hour run, you need to plan a whole day just for that, and you need to start early in the morning to keep your sleep schedule at least somewhat alive. I also searched for natural breaks during the run where you can go to the toilet, get food, etc. I also prepared lots of food to eat and water to drink, obviously. Luckily I did not have many issues getting mentally ready for the run, maybe you are a bit nervous at the start, but once the first major hurdles are gone it gets easy to keep going. It’s very important to have good practise and knowledge of the route, so you don’t get lost in the middle of the run or lose motivation after something does not work out. I also think, although I am not a psychologist or something, that you need to have some sort of aptitude to be able to play, keep calm and concentrate to do the most optimal decisions for such a long period of time.

To be honest the game is pretty generous when it comes to keeping you concentrated, it gives you a lot of breaks. Gwent for example takes up a good deal of the run and does not require you full attention. Then there is sailing, which if you tried to get all the Points of Interest you know what I am talking about, that takes a chunk of time too, and, with the calming music of Skellige, is pretty relaxing. Outside of 100% I don’t do oversized sessions, if I don’t get a run going in a reasonable amount of time I take a break or continue the next day. That helps with not getting frustrated, there is no point playing if you are.

GLPC: What do you think about Gwent, the card game integrated in the Witcher 3: Wild Hunt?

Pater Jakob: Gwent is great casually, and I loved it during my first playthrough. But in my opinion it gets pretty boring and repetitive after that. Once you saw every card, the simplicity of the AI really shows, even on the hardest difficulty it is very easy to manipulate. The card dynamics and interactions also get repetitive. When speedrunning its especially blunt. It has very little possibility in terms of strategies to go fast, and is purely RNG (luck-based). You can’t influence the hand of your opponent obviously, which makes runs that contain gwent extremely dependent on luck. Even if you win you can lose upwards of 30 seconds just from bad luck and the AI stalling the game. Add all the general problems on top and it gets pretty bad. In the 100% run though it can be quite a welcome break, it is easy to play with just your mouse hand and you can take the time to eat and drink.

GLPC: How has speedrunning the witcher 3 impacted your overall experience and enjoyment of the game?

Pater Jakob: When I first started speedrunning I thought that I could never enjoy the game casually again, I just could not enjoy sitting back and playing the “intended way”, or watching all the cutscenes, going for less optimal builds, etc. But that feeling went away once I started with the 100% run. Completing everything in the game as fast as possible makes you appreciate the game way more than doing just the main story. I studied it so intensely, like never before during my casual playthrough, really learning everything there is about the game and learning the most optimal routes and obscure little quests. I think that made me fall in love all over again, nowadays I can definitely enjoy both ways of playing the game.

GLPC: With all that playtime under your belt what is your favourite questline in the game? What moment or place do you enjoy a lot?

Pater Jakob: My favourite questline must be the ending of the Hearts of Stone Main Quest, the last 2 quests to be more precise. They are dark, sad and scary at the same time. They mix being relatable and the fantastical elements of the world perfectly, all the while using the gameplay in a super unique way for the story telling.
My favorite moment is 100% killing Imlerith, the sheer brutality and satisfaction you get from avenging Vesemir immediately is just unmatched. It has a perfect build-up in the form of the Bald Mountain too. An honorable mention would definitely be the empress-ending, specifically the final moments you spend with Ciri in the snowy white Orchard.
The best place in the game for me is the Fairytale-World in the Blood and Wine DLC. I’ve always loved fairytales as a child, so seeing an entire area filled to the brink with easter eggs and references to them, all while being visually gorgeous and having a great quest with unique enemies, is just perfect.

GLPC: Did you ever think about speedrunning other games than Witcher 3 or did you already tried some?
Pater Jakob: One obvious future goal would be to do a 100% run including the DLC’s in under 24h, that would be a huge milestone. Another thing would be an anthology run of Witcher 1, 2 and 3 in one go. Other games I tried out running were Witcher 1 and Far Cry 5, but I stuck with Witcher 3 as my main game. I definitely want to speedrun every witcher game at some point.

GLPC: Do you have any tips for our readers that want to get start speedrunning Witcher 3?

Pater Jakob: If you feel like speedrunning would be fun for you, make sure to join our discord community. There you will find resources that make your life easier and lots of people willing to help you, if you have any problems.

On the In-Game side of things, starting out running is actually very easy, and a lot of fun. Just expect the occasional bug, glitch or CDPR-jank (CD Projekt Red) that can happen in their games. This is usually pretty entertaining though.

And obviously don’t be disheartened if your first attempts are much slower than the top runs, improving in this game comes a lot from skill in movement and combat, and that takes time to master. It sure as heck is a fun journey though!

Thanks for reading to the end! If you have more questions for Pater Jakob leave them in the comments and we’ll maybe ask him for another interview.