I managed to win this fight after a dozen more tries. The main difference to easier fistfighting opponents is the very fast punch he can throw, it's pretty much impossible to counter. The only way to deal with this is to constantly keep up a block.
What enabled me to win was realizing that even though you can't block a heavy attack, you can still counter it. I just kept up a block constantly to deal with the light attacks, and waited for him to do a heavy attack. Those are slow enough that you can easily counter them, and then hit him a few times.
I can see why there are several posts suspecting it might be your video card overheating... the behavior you describe kind of suggests it... but it might be power settings.
Check the 'Manage 3D Settings' category in the NVIDIA Control Panel and make sure your Power Management Mode is set to Optimal Power. This is the default setting, so its kind of a long shot, but when it comes to troubleshooting, you need to be thorough.
With that 'thorough' concept in mind, test the stability during game play. If you can, find a large group of wolves or nekkers or something... try to cause graphic intensive activity. If it really is overheating, the GPU fan should cause a noticeable sound difference, not to mention the game would crash soon after. This serves the purpose of eliminating the cause more than it attempts to resolve the issue, but if you have overheating hardware, it needs to be addressed immediately.
Here's a final suggestion should your issue persist. Find the game installation folder... which, I think, by default is
C:\Program Files(x86)\The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt
and navigate to the bin\config\base
folder. Now locate the rendering.ini file and create a copy somewhere... anywhere.
Once you have the file backed up, Right-Click and Edit it. Either use the search function or skim the variables (under the [Rendering] block) until you spot TextureMemoryBudget=500 and increase this to 1024. Save the file, and test out the game again.
Hope this helps. If not, I think the error information needs to be analyzed a little more closely... in an attempt to narrow down and pinpoint a more precise cause.
Best Answer
No.
Even the quests that begin with "Meet me at the docks / tavern / Court of the (X) immediately" have no limit on starting / finishing, and will wait patiently for you to arrive (sometimes, admittedly, jibing you about hunting Drowners or similar when you arrive).
Quests (as you mention) that require you to meet folk/monsters at a given time of day will also loop indefinitely, day by day.
There are a few quests that will be failed if you continue with the main questline before completing them, but that's not related to timing.