Yeah It's really annoying me too. I'm sure it wasn't like that before the patches. I'm gonna reinstall my game and check.

I don't have houses to pop up, only people (at smaller numbers than before, but I think there are fewer people on streets now) and minor objects - crates, barrels, that sort of thing.

That's why I'm still holding on to 1.03. Pop-in is the bane of my 3d gaming experience.

Also, with all this push for 4K gaming, then pop-in will only be that much more noticeable. Game companies need to realize this.

Just Spent a few hours testing with patch 1.02, 1.03, and 1.05. There is no difference in LOD quality or visibility range that I can tell between versions. The Character pop in bug also happened on all versions too.

draw distance is as bad as it has ever been.

Popping assets on building surfaces, thatched roofs on huts still popping, npc popping still horrible.

Go into the merchant areas in novigrad, still need to wait 10 seconds for the blacksmith to spawn in LOL.

NPC heads still aren't rendering fully unless you're literally standing right next to them.

Hmm they sure need to improve that, but I had almost none of those effects.

I installed Galaxy + W3 on a 500 MB/s SSD, so maybe they developed the game on SSDs and didnt try to or messed up the optimization for normal Hard Drives?

This kind of visual quality is just inaccaptable in modern days! Not for an AAA game title! This one screen depicts thee problems at one time:
1)Low LOD switch distance
2)Low small assets loading distance (I think its not the same as LOD)
3)NPC loading problems (in this case it's T-shaped NPCs, but I also encounter NPC pop-up all over the game)

Or this game is still in a Beta, or it's just a crap!

All settings on ultra and some distancec even tweaked further in ini.

PC specs:

i5 4670K
GTX 770 4Gb
32Gb DDR3 RAM

I think it has something to do with Speed of Data Transfer.

Remember, the 4GB Version of the 770 graphics card has a slower memory transfer rate than the 2GB version (which I bought exactly for that reason).

Uh, no. No it has nothing to do with that.

I've just noticed too NPCs popping out in 1.05, wasn't the case before, definitely they changed something.
And I do play on a SSD (and a 770)..

Im not saying they dont need to fix that for everyone. Im just sayin I have the 2GB Version and a 500MB/s SSD and the only time I had a T shaped NPC was after 6 hours of playing and riding through novigrad to the end to the temple district where about 40 npcs are praying to a flame.

I simply dont have all of the issues mentioned above... and I dont think anything else seperates my computer from anyone elses :)

Mind that I only mention the speed of the SSD because when I bought this SSD for GTA V (half the loading times) I first connected it to the "wrong" slot on the mainboard. I used the Marvell one instead of the Intel one (they are right next to each other, one is naval blue, the other baby blue). Whats the difference you ask? The Marvell connection is trash... the SSD runs with 150 MB/s instead 500 MB/s (the maximum the SSD supports).

P.S.: Oh yeah, all options are on Ultra except for Shadows (they are on high). I dont know if I could have ultra shadows, its just an old habit to not put them on the maximum setting, because Ive never seen any differnece except it stealing 5-10 fps (in other games) xD

Yeah well shadows could be the culprit, I've always run the game with shadows at medium, old habit too. And I have never encountered a problem. I have been playing in patch 1.04 though, haven't updated yet.

And you guys say this happen only on patch 1.05?

The LOD downgrading and NPC popping in has been happening far more extensively since 1.03. They MOST DEFINITELY did something to the LOD in 1.03. Or did something that ends up somewhere down the line affecting how the LOD works. I run on an SSD (Samsung 840 EVO 250 Gb) and I constantly get NPC's popping in like 2 foot in front of me. And the LOD is atrocious in cities. Mainly Novigrad. Things just appearing like 10 foot in front of me, grass appearing out of no where, signs, billboards, NPC's of course, flames etc. It all started happening for me and from what I've read once 1.03 was released. I'm in Skillege now so I haven't had opportunity to compare since 1.05. Since there's no major cities there where it's most noticeable. I have every INI/Config tweak possible. Every one in Nvidia performance guide activated, so I know it's due to lack of settings. The developers have said LOD is directly linked to some file for items. Thus why it's not adjustable in game (detail level in options is for blood ironically and confusingly)
They said altering LOD requires editing files. Though I'm sure there's another way that inconsequentially altered them. because I've surely noticed it. Crappy as game already had pretty bad LOD.

Actually I have tested.. Deleted the game, cleared any crap in regs, clean-installed video drivers and reinstalled the game to 1.02 state. Started new game. The "Pop-In" is there. So it was there all along, it's just was not noticed because of the hype. But the problem exists, and no matter was it all the time there or presented with patched - LOD and Draw distances are too small.