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Watch Dogs 2 PC performance thread

Chris_Rivera said:
Game runs well on 6900k 1080 sli @ 1440p. About 80-90 fps (Gsync) 80% usage on each gpu, 375.96 driver. 20mg Indica.

By far the superior version. Played a few missions on PS4 pro already.
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20mg Indica? It always helps with the immersion. :D

Anyway, on a 6700k@4.5, 16 gigs ram, 980Ti@1500, what's the best way to achieve good performance? I am playing on a 2k gsync ips screen. Looks like temporal filtering is gonna be a setting that I have to turn on, how much should I increase the pixel density in order to match with my native res, or at least, be close to that goal?
 
sertopico said:
Anyway, on a 6700k@4.5, 16 gigs ram, 980Ti@1500, what's the best way to achieve good performance? I am playing on a 2k gsync ips screen. Looks like temporal filtering is gonna be a setting that I have to turn on, how much should I increase the pixel density in order to match with my native res, or at least, be close to that goal?
Click to expand...

Have a read through Nvidia's performance guide (there's a link in the OP). It explores each and every graphics option and their respective performance hits, so it's the perfect resource for ascertaining which settings you can live with dialling down in the pursuit of higher performance.
 
I'm not even using PCSS for shadows. Turn it down to ultra or one under that for an instant performance boost without losing much in quality.
 
JaseC said:
Have a read through Nvidia's performance guide (there's a link in the OP). It explores each and every graphics option and their respective performance hits, so it's the perfect resource for ascertaining which settings you can live with dialling down in the pursuit of higher performance.
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Yeah, yesterday I had a quick look to the guide, reall well done as always.
The thing is, there are really few options which actually impact drastically on framerate (shadows, SSR, temporal filtering and the extra LOD on distant objects) so I just wanted to get a quick advice from somebody who has a rig like mine. One thing is sure, this game will be fully enjoyable on the next gen of GPUs, like Quantum Break.
 
sertopico said:
Yeah, yesterday I had a quick look to the guide, reall well done as always.
The thing is, there are really few options which actually impact drastically on framerate (shadows, SSR, temporal filtering and the extra LOD on distant objects) so I just wanted to get a quick advice from somebody who has a rig like mine.
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Shadows Very High or Ultra, SSR Very High, TF On, Extra Details 0-50%. If you don't mind a lower framerate, or have a beastly PC, enable HFTS shadows.
 
Temporal filtering seems okay for maximizing performance. When going fast on a motorcycle, if you swing the camera to get a profile shot you can see the faint outlines behind it. Neat effect, actually.
 
sertopico said:
20mg Indica? It always helps with the immersion. :D

Anyway, on a 6700k@4.5, 16 gigs ram, 980Ti@1500, what's the best way to achieve good performance? I am playing on a 2k gsync ips screen. Looks like temporal filtering is gonna be a setting that I have to turn on, how much should I increase the pixel density in order to match with my native res, or at least, be close to that goal?
Click to expand...

Try this (my 1070 settings):

1440p+1.2 pixel density

Geometry: V.High
Extra Detail: 0%
Terrain: Ultra
Vegetation: Ultra
Textures: Ultra
AF: Ultra
Shadows: V.High
Headlight: 2 cars
Water: High
Reflections: High
Screenspace Reflections: OFF
Fog: On (not encountered yet)
DoF: On
Motion Blur: On
Bloom: On
AO: HBAO+
AA: SMAA

You could even go a bit higher, I guess.
 
Thanks. I am not interested in having 60 fps all the time, 45-50 is fine.
I was going to start the game but I noticed I cannot change the language, so now I am downloading the english audio pack from Steam.

PS: those settings are with temporal filtering ON right?
 
I'm really impressed with temporal filtering, there's definitely some noticeable aliasing but the performance increase seems substantial. I'd like to see this as a standard feature in games.
 
Well, having played the game on the PS4 Pro, I was really expecting less aliasing with proper PC settings. TXAA @ 1440p gets rid of mostly everything but HOLY SHIT it costs an arm and a leg.

With the temporal rendering enabled + DSR, I'm able to try insane resolutions like 5K and jaggies are STILL visible. Fuck, where's the TAA solution from Ratchet and Clank, Fallout 4, Uncharted 4 and others when you need it.
 
felipepl said:
Well, having played the game on the PS4 Pro, I was really expecting less aliasing with proper PC settings. TXAA @ 1440p gets rid of mostly everything but HOLY SHIT it costs an arm and a leg.

With the temporal rendering enabled + DSR, I'm able to try insane resolutions like 5K and jaggies are STILL visible. Fuck, where's the TAA solution from Ratchet and Clank, Fallout 4, Uncharted 4 and others when you need it.
Click to expand...

So PS4 pro version looks better ?
 
felipepl said:
Well, having played the game on the PS4 Pro, I was really expecting less aliasing with proper PC settings. TXAA @ 1440p gets rid of mostly everything but HOLY SHIT it costs an arm and a leg.

With the temporal rendering enabled + DSR, I'm able to try insane resolutions like 5K and jaggies are STILL visible. Fuck, where's the TAA solution from Ratchet and Clank, Fallout 4, Uncharted 4 and others when you need it.
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Then nVidia TXAA would have been useless, if you catch my meaning... They kept the same shitty shader AA from the previous WD, when there are many efficient and less taxing solutions.
 
Iceternal said:
So PS4 pro version looks better ?
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If you don't care about 60 FPS, PS4 Pro looks about the same as the PC version in 4K temporal, maybe with a little less aliasing. Obviously there's no HBAO+, no advanced shadows or fog, but besides that... makes me appreciate the PS4 Pro version more than before.
 
sertopico said:
Then nVidia TXAA would have been useless, if you catch my meaning... They kept the same shitty shader AA from the previous WD, when there are many efficient and less taxing solutions.
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Exactly, also, when I said TXAA I meant it at 8x. 4x isn't enough. As you said, I can't believe there are methods so more efficient than this and that does the job way better, but we still get the same proprietary crap that performs and looks worse.
 
Iceternal said:
So PS4 pro version looks better ?
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Fuck no. I've sunk maybe 40 hours into the PS4 Pro version and it looks good. But the PC version kills it in every regard. Higher res textures, better AF filtering, lighting, effects, particles, draw distance, LOD, IQ (jaggies and sharpness), everything.

The PS4 Pro also frequently dips under 30fps and even into the teens for stretches in some instances.

No, the PS4 Pro is a solid console version, but it's a console version with all the common caveats. On PC it's a solid version with all the bells and whistles we demand with few short falls and good optimization. It's not really productive to try to compare console versions to PC versions unless it's one of the 5 games in history that actually run worse than the console version. :)
 
Jumpman said:
Fuck no. I've sunk maybe 40 hours into the PS4 Pro version and it looks good. But the PC version kills it in every regard. Higher res textures, better AF filtering, lighting, effects, particles, draw distance, LOD, IQ (jaggies and sharpness), everything.

The PS4 Pro also frequently dips under 30fps and even into the teens for stretches in some instances.

No, the PS4 Pro is a solid console version, but it's a console version with all the common caveats. On PC it's a solid port with all the bells and whistles we demand with few short falls and good optimization. It's not really productive to try to compare console versions to PC versions unless it's one of the 5 games in history that actually run worse than the console version. :)
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You make it look like the PC version is light years ahead, and it really isn't. Also, the Pro version is a constant 30 FPS for me after the latest patch.

And good optimization on the PC version? LOL. If it wasn't for the temporal filtering, people would be going nuts that their 1080s were not able to keep 60 FPS at 1080p with all maxed.

The game is not well optimized if you're playing at native resolution. Nothing against smart upscaling techniques like the available here, but so much could've been done with the spare resources when using it, and still, the game looks marginally better than the Pro version. IMO.

Also, the fucking aliasing can't be completely eliminated.
 
People with the Origin version, do you just use Origin to install it? I installed it through Uplay, but clicking the game in Origin only brings up another option to install. Do i not need to start Origin to play?

EDIT: Had to start and then close the game to finish the install properly.
 
felipepl said:
You make it look like the PC version is light years ahead, and it really isn't. Also, the Pro version is a constant 30 FPS for me after the latest patch.

And good optimization on the PC version? LOL. If it wasn't for the temporal filtering, people would be going nuts that their 1080s were not able to keep 60 FPS at 1080p with all maxed.

The game is not well optimized if you're playing at native resolution. Nothing against smart upscaling techniques like the available here, but so much could've been done with the spare resources when using it, and still, the game looks marginally better than the Pro version. IMO.

Also, the fucking aliasing can't be completely eliminated.
Click to expand...
Are you sure your drivers are up to date? It runs very well on my machine...
 
felipepl said:
You make it look like the PC version is light years ahead, and it really isn't. Also, the Pro version is a constant 30 FPS for me after the latest patch.

And good optimization on the PC version? LOL. If it wasn't for the temporal filtering, people would be going nuts that their 1080s were not able to keep 60 FPS at 1080p with all maxed.

The game is not well optimized if you're playing at native resolution. Nothing against smart upscaling techniques like the available here, but so much could've been done with the spare resources when using it, and still, the game looks marginally better than the Pro version. IMO.

Also, the fucking aliasing can't be completely eliminated.
Click to expand...

Look, you clearly have a personally motivated narrative here for whatever reason (or maybe you have some of those eyes that can't pick out differences). The PC version is objectively well beyond the game on PS4 Pro as I purposely indicated.

Hell, despite overall being pleased with the PS4 Pro version, the pro enhancements were not stand outs. In fact for the longest time I seriously questioned if they had even been patched in at all.

You can have your opinion, that's your right. But Watch Dogs 2 is running a lot of options and qualities that aren't present at all on console. Turn the settings way down and voila, you can run the game similarly to PS4 Pro with comparable PC hardware. You want vastly better everything? Use the corrosponding PC hardware. The option is there. And from the sounds of this thread, it appears the majority of people are having the same experience as me.
 
MaLDo said:
Are we really sure about that for WD2?
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From the Nvidia guide:

This same principle was already achieved in a similar fashion in last year's Rainbow Six Siege, which introduced us to what Ubisoft calls "Temporal Filtering". This first-take on the idea rendered the same number of depth samples as a full-resolution 1920x1080 picture, but only a quarter of the shaded samples, improving performance at the expense of image quality. This manifested as a reduction in the quality and visibility of Ambient Occlusion shadowing, increased shader aliasing, decreased lighting and shading fidelity, and a loss of fidelity on smaller game elements, such as leaves, grass, visual effects and minute pieces of geometry.
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The game itself mentions the use of MSAA ("Combines MSAA with temporal reprojection ..."). Granted, the guide only goes over the implementation as it works in R6 Siege, but it's probably safe to assume the upscaling factor is the same.
 
icecold1983 said:
renders the game at 1/4th res(half of each axis) and uses 2x msaa to reconstruct geometry edges at native resolution
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I believe that's just part of what's going on. The name itself is a big clue towards what the algorithm is actually doing, and the Nvidia article reinforces it. Apparently the algorithm looks at previous frames to figure out what should be shown in the "missing" pixels of the current frame, which means it still keeps a high level of detail and doesn't just turn into a blurry mess because of AA.
 
Jumpman said:
Look, you clearly have a personally motivated narrative here for whatever reason (or maybe you have some of those eyes that can't pick out differences). The PC version is objectively well beyond the game on PS4 Pro as I purposely indicated.
Click to expand...

No, I don't. Also, I never said that the PS4 Pro version is better. I'm just disappointed by the IQ in the PC version. As you said, yes, LOD is better, particles are better, AF is better, but from a specific IQ standpoint, no, it isn't that much of a difference. Of course, in the grand scheme of things, the game is definitely better on PC, that's a given. But I was expecting more after a delay AND after checking out the image quality in the Pro version of the game. I'm specifically talking about aliasing and shimmering, not shadows, not AO, not draw distance nor proprietary crap from Nvidia, and in the end, IQ is what impacts most when visuals are concerned since it's so "in your face" all the time.
 
felipepl said:
No, I don't. Also, I never said that the PS4 Pro version is better. I'm just disappointed by the IQ in the PC version. As you said, yes, LOD is better, particles are better, AF is better, but from a specific IQ standpoint, no, it isn't that much of a difference. Of course, in the grand scheme of things, the game is definitely better on PC, that's a given. But I was expecting more after a delay AND after checking out the image quality in the Pro version of the game. I'm specifically talking about aliasing and shimmering, not shadows, not AO, not draw distance nor proprietary crap from Nvidia, and in the end, IQ is what impacts most when visuals are concerned since it's so "in your face" all the time.
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what does it take settings wise to surpass the ps4pro versions IQ level when it comes to aliasing and shimmer?
 
I only played for about 15-20 minutes last night with all default settings on an again i7 3770k and 1070. From what I played it felt and looked pretty good, the IQ could be a little better and there were dips to 45-50 fps but generally it felt pretty good still!

This is only in the tutorial area with minimal open world though s owe shall see once I've had a bit more of a play this evening. Installing from Origin was weird as well as that downloaded the game, then added the game to my uPlay library which then verified the files. May of been easier just to add the game to my uPlay library and download it on their servers rather than EAs.
 
Ok, tried it maxed out at 2k without temporal filtering and SMAA, just to test it personally. It's definitely unplayable, around 20 fps if not less. I am gonna try to disable HFTS to see how it performs and activate TXAA 2x, otherwise jaggies are everywhere. As always, disabling those couple of perf killer settings will deliver a good gameplay experience, I just wonder why they put such settings when nobody is able to play with them.

And by the way, temporal filtering looks good but nothing compared to a full native res.
 
icecold1983 said:
what does it take settings wise to surpass the ps4pro versions IQ level when it comes to aliasing and shimmer?
Click to expand...

IMO, TXAA at minimum 4x, but that disables temporal filtering, and good luck getting more than 30 FPS at anything above 1440p when that happens. TXAAx8 and a little bit of sharpening is perfect, but that runs at 14 FPS on my GTX 980 TI @ 1440p.

This is where I think good old standard TAA from DOOM, Fallout, etc, would do wonders.

SliChillax said:
TXAA removes all that. That or downsample from 4k with SMAA
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Native 4K with SMAA does not remove aliasing/shimmering. Far from it. It's pretty visible even in the first mission.
 
tuna_love said:
yep
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Ah. Well, not that I'm speaking to you directly, but 80-120fps on near-"max" settings on an 18-month-old GPU is an unrealistic expectation for any AAA new-release, open-world game, not to mention a completely arbitrary metric. Watch Dogs 2 isn't Doom.
 
felipepl said:
Native 4K with SMAA does not remove aliasing/shimmering. Far from it. It's pretty visible even in the first mission.
Click to expand...
It does on a 1080p tv, at least if you're not sitting close. Was watching my friend play it on his TV and I didn't notice any shimmering.
 
felipepl said:
No, I don't. Also, I never said that the PS4 Pro version is better. I'm just disappointed by the IQ in the PC version. As you said, yes, LOD is better, particles are better, AF is better, but from a specific IQ standpoint, no, it isn't that much of a difference. Of course, in the grand scheme of things, the game is definitely better on PC, that's a given. But I was expecting more after a delay AND after checking out the image quality in the Pro version of the game. I'm specifically talking about aliasing and shimmering, not shadows, not AO, not draw distance nor proprietary crap from Nvidia, and in the end, IQ is what impacts most when visuals are concerned since it's so "in your face" all the time.
Click to expand...

Ok, let's just talk IQ then. Isn't the comparison silly? At comparable settings the PC version will look similar to PS4 Pro. But there are a world of options to go much higher on PC.

I understand disappointment in IQ. I couldn't stand how R6 or The Division looked with their blurry TF implementations. But in this case the temporal filtering solution is leagues above what has come before, however they did it. Temporal filtering + SMAA looks only marginally worse than straight MSAAx2 + SMAA. That is an outstanding result that comes with an amazing performance boost. It leaves tons of extra performance to go for higher render resolutions to further increase performance.

I think the situation is simple. If you have a PC more powerful than a PS4 Pro, play it on PC for better performance, period. If your PC doesn't meet that standard play it on the Pro for a solid experience. :)
 
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