The same problems occured for many people with Witcher 2 (crashes to desktop without error, crashes when opening inventory, freezes), and the suggested solutions were almost the same like in this thread and on the GOG support sites. None of them worked for me, although they helped to increase the time between the crashes. And now I have the same problems with Witcher 3. My system hasn't changed much since then (Win7 64 bit, i7 3930K@3,4 Ghz, 16 GB RAM, ATI Radeon HD7970 with 3GB VRAM), there are only 2 differences:
1) In the meantime the AMD drivers have evolved from Catalyst 12.x to Omega 15.x. So I'm afraid new drivers still won't fix the issue, especially when AMD- and NVIDIA-users experience the same problems. Of course, perhaps it's only the same outcome but different reasons. In this case I'm really fucked up ^^
2) I have the Witcher 2 on Steam and Witcher 3 on GOG, so I think it has nothing to do with the plattform.
My best guess is that it's some sort of software conflict between a part of the game engine and something else, perhaps a monitoring tools from a specific vendor like the AI suit from ASUS or a specific task/service which causes the problems.
I've already deactivated a bunch of tools but still the game crashes about every 15 minutes.
So my approach would be to compare what programms/processes in the background we all have in common, with a focus on the tools which came with your hardware.
I'll start with a screenshot from my currently running processes. Perhaps someone sees anything out of the ordinary which is also running at his computer (besides the usual windows crap).
EDIT: Mh, can't attach any pictures at the moment...perhaps too new?
Post edited May 21, 2015 by grummelding