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Watch_Dogs PC Performance Thread

aranth

Member
RadeonPro doesn't seem to be working with this game. I've got 64bit enabled but it just doesn't seem to be doing anything. It's disappointing because it improved my experience with Assassin's Creed IV tremendously and I'm pretty confident it'll help with watch_dogs if it works.

radeonproswuds.png


You also need to click there to toggle 32/64 bits support. By default it should only show 32 bits.
 

Smokey

Member
Everyone's saying you had Titans and got rid of them. Why and when?



My 780 is a pos already? ;(

Someone please reassure me I won't vastly regret it for its VRAM when The Witcher 3 comes around. Oh god, Assassin's Creed: Unity is going to be bad, isn't it? Man, my card doesn't even seem to choke on its VRAM with AC IV at 4K, can one game like Watch Dogs realistically spell doom (for max textures)? It's so strange; the only time I fear higher texture settings is the first time I jump into the truly high-end GPU scene.

I sold one because I thought I was going to get a better TV. Didn't happen. Rolled with the single Titan for a while and then sold that and picked up 2x 780Tis. I didn't expect 4k monitors to become so "cheap" so soon. So I got one and here we are. Basking in the glory of 3GB of VRAM.
But to be fair AA isn't really needed at this resolution IMO. Some of the rig destroying games I've tried (Crysis 3 and BF4) at this resolution without it look insanely good. In BF4 I averaged 80+ fps with max settings except for AA.

So that's what I'm hoping to do with WD...turn off AA and see how far I can get.

To your second point, WD seems to be an outlier with its engine. Andy from Nvidia mentioned it. It seems to be the only next gen engine that is hungry for VRAM like this.

FINALLY:

 

Denton

Member
Finally got into the game. Spent around an hour.

Not happy with the performance.
In order for the game to be playable, I need VSync, since tearing is horrible.
However, when I enable VSync, in the scene where my framerate without it is 55+fps, with Vsync it is around 30, basically the game is unplayable. I tried all combinations of ingame vsync and prerendered frames.
So I will have to try forcing vsync + triple buffering from outside the game, like with AC4. Sigh.
 
Anyone want to speculate on how they think this will run on my system?

i5 2550k
8 GB DDR3
2 x Radeon HD 6950 2GB

I run pretty much every PC game I play on the max settings and usually get no lower than 45 fps average.
 

lmbotiva

Junior Member
i ended up cranking everything to ultra and locking the frame to 30, at least is a super stable 30 because that fluctuation on framerate between 40 and 60 was getting me literally sick, after a few minutes playing at 30 my eyes got used to it and the game looks quite nice on ultra settings and MSAA 4x
 

Cronee

Member
Here's my report for my rigs performance. Hopefully this gives some hope to other budget or cheap-ass gamers.

What I got:
AMD FX 6300 OC'd to 4.2GHz
GTX 560 Ti 448 1.2Gb OC'd to 840 (810 stock) core and 4000 (3900 stock) memory
16Gb ram at 1600
Nvidia 337.88 drivers

Settings:
1080 resolution
Medium texture settings
Temporal AA
High pre-set graphics settings
VSync off (locks at 30, havent tried forcing driver settings)

Frame rate varies from 37 to 45 outdoors, while driving. Indoors, frame rate varies 45 to 60. I am pretty pleased with the results. No stuttering or crashes yet nor has it dropped below 30 fps. I've only played for about 30 minutes but I'll give it some more time tomorrow. I'll also give it a shot on my ASUS 750G-JM laptop tomorrow and see how that goes. It has an i7 4700MQ, an 860m 2Gb Maxwell, and 12Gb ram at 1600. So far it seems to perform about 10-15% less than my main rig, so I'm optimistic that it'll run decently with the same settings.

I'd push my GPU hard on the core OC but it has that notoriously horrible fan ASUS decided to use and it sounds like a power steering pump that's out of fluid when it really spins up.
 
They made a big mistake in this game not allowing people to combine the temporal SMAA with MSAA,

People could run Temporal SMAA with 2XMSAA and have a fantastic imagine quality. Also, quite the game that the game does not use a2c or alpha transparency super sampling in its MSAA.
 
I totally forgot that 8xMSAA was in the game so I tried it, and, well, it took 4072MB out of my 4096MB VRAM.
...and it doesn't even look very good. TXAA may be a tad blurry, but it sorts the vegetation out so much better. Comparing the leaves on the trees, your previous shot with 2xTXAA is far more pleasing to the eye.
 

lmbotiva

Junior Member
the level of detail setting is a frame killer man, just like in the assassins creed games, if you ask me they could do a better job creating separate sliders for each option instead of adding everything in one big framerate eater option
 
Is my i5 760 a problem, or my gtx-670, or is this game unoptimized?


What are some settings that I can turn up without taking a huge fps hit, and what are some to avoid at all costs?
 

lmbotiva

Junior Member
The driving-stuttering and lack of triple buffering is really killing the experience for me. Should probably throw it on the shelf and wait for a few patches. Oh UBI... :(

im using the nvidia control panel for vsync and the stuttering is gone, in case you have an nvidia card, this is something i tried 5 minutes ago and it worked fine, never worked before on any ubisoft game, for me at least
 

Denton

Member
Tried 8xMSAA

Game immediately crashed

Windows reported no memory, close applications:
Watch Dogs

I guess 8GB RAM + 1GB pagefile are not enough.
 

Smokey

Member
Heh. I win!

14263591536_1691d0b3bd_o.png


SLI is rather broken btw. I get better average frame times with a single 780 Ti at the same settings.

The news just gets better. Pretty sure I'm gonna sit down with a beer when this is finally able to be played by me.

Depends on whether you like input lag.

It adds input lag by allowing frames to be rendered ahead. If you are using the 30 FPS lock set it to 2. If not keep it at 1.


bleh

thanks
 

maneil99

Member
I feel like if you have no idea what you are talking about you shouldn't act like a tech expert in this thread. You will just confuse others and say dumb things.
 

Buburibon

Member
Finally got to try the game, and I am wondering whether anyone else has come across these glitchy/finely pixelated shadows...

ED2E8960C9D644E4DFF3468C51F16849126D4909


Any input will be appreciated. Thank you very much!

Possibly relevant specs:

- GTX Titan
- 337.88 WHQL drivers
- Windows 8.1 64-bit

All settings at maximum except for anti-aliasing. Currently using Temporal SMAA.
 

maneil99

Member

I am referring to the people that keep saying 4gb 770s are worth buying even though they have no idea of how the market looks or the alternatives. by enforcing more VRAM = Better all you do is help create more graphics cards like the 640GT 3gb
 

stufte

Member
I am referring to the people that keep saying 4gb 770s are worth buying even though they have no idea of how the market looks or the alternatives.

I bought 2 770s earlier based on the comments in here, should I not have done that?
 
I am referring to the people that keep saying 4gb 770s are worth buying even though they have no idea of how the market looks or the alternatives.

Yeah would definitely go with a 780 at that price. Actually had this same dilemma after titanfall came out and asked around in the PC thread and people recommended the 780 3gb instead of the 4gb 770 and I sure am glad they did.
 
So what is better?
4x MSAA or TXAA?

I noticed that TXAA makes the textures a little... blurrier? Or it's a problem with my eyes?
I notice the same with FXAA (ugh) and Temporal SMAA.
 

Zacillac

Neo Member
I seriously hope that there's a patch coming out for this game rather quickly. None of the fixes for the stutter while driving seem to fix it for me. I don't think I should be having as many issues as I have:

i7 4771
16GB RAM
Superclocked GTX 780 ti
 

Skyzard

Banned
I seriously hope that there's a patch coming out for this game rather quickly. None of the fixes for the stutter while driving seem to fix it for me. I don't think I should be having as many issues as I have:

i7 4771
16GB RAM
Superclocked GTX 780 ti

Sounds like I'm definitely going to drop the res to 1680. Those are my specs, except I have a 4770k, at 4.4
 

maneil99

Member
I bought 2 770s earlier based on the comments in here, should I not have done that?

4gbs? Personally I don't see the point buying 2 mid range GPUs over a single high end, especially when they are essentially 680s. Not to say you will have a bad experience I just wouldn't have recommended that.
 
TXAA 2x is very forgivable in this game if your GPU supports it, that is why I was shocked that more people are not experimenting with it, I think people should experiment with it and see how many frames they really lose compared to lesser settings.

Switched between Temp SMAA and TXAAx2 and SMAA is my clear winner. Much crisper and still pretty efficient.
 

Zacillac

Neo Member
Sounds like I'm definitely going to drop the res to 1680. Those are my specs, except I have a 4770k, at 4.4

Dropping the res may help, though I've only been trying to run it at 1080p before doing a little bit of downsampling once performance has been ironed out.
 
I seriously hope that there's a patch coming out for this game rather quickly. None of the fixes for the stutter while driving seem to fix it for me. I don't think I should be having as many issues as I have:

i7 4771
16GB RAM
Superclocked GTX 780 ti

Here is your fix:
Lower textures to High
 

TSM

Member
I seriously hope that there's a patch coming out for this game rather quickly. None of the fixes for the stutter while driving seem to fix it for me. I don't think I should be having as many issues as I have:

i7 4771
16GB RAM
Superclocked GTX 780 ti

When you get stuttering, it was pretty much determined in the other thread that you are out of vram and the game stutters as the video card swaps assets in and out of vram.

Here is your fix:
Lower textures to High

It's been suggested by several people with 2GB cards that even high textures causes problems and medium is far less likely to cause stuttering. Then again he has 3 GB, and pre nvidia driver release someone with a 6 GB titan was having stuttering.
 

Denton

Member
Is there anyone here who can achieve 100% locked constantly 60fps at 1080p/at least high preset + textures/at least FXAA ?
 
i7 3770k @ 4.4GHZ
8GB RAM
SSD
WIN7
GTX TITAN

Downsampling to 1080p from 2560x1440 with everything on max and Temporal SMAA

30FPS locked.
VRAM usage maxed at 4.3GB after 20 minutes of testing.
No stuttering

Pretty happy I guess.

Sweetfx makes the game look nicer aswell:

ibsWQAnXoTXbsR.jpg

ibsyJgfhHXGWCI.jpg

iY7bbNA2WVQyR.jpg

iTiBVYP6lBAtJ.jpg

ivYNGKp2cA22R.jpg

ibaAgSdd1XXLaT.jpg
 
It's been suggested by several people with 2GB cards that even high textures causes problems and medium is far less likely to cause stuttering.

Yes, I recommend medium for 2gb cards. He has 3 though, so High should work I would think.
 

Red Comet

Member
Found about as sweet of a spot as I'm probably going to get for now.

My rig:

i7-4770k @ 3.50 GHz
16 GB DDR3 RAM 1600 Mhz
780 Ti SLI (with SLI disabled)

I've set textures to high, AA to Temp SMAA, and everything else at ultra (with HBAO low). I get almost a near constant 60 FPS with minimal stuttering. Stuttering is still present while driving, but it's at least more manageable now. I'm testing right outside of Aiden's apartment and the surrounding area. The game doesn't look as pretty as I would like it to, but at least with these settings I can play the game without thinking about performance too much, and I'm sure it still looks better than PS4. Perhaps if they fix the SLI issue I'll be able to increase my AA or textures.
 
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