Support NeoGAF

[nbthedude]

It is getting late, and I'm already on the couch with my phone. But reading comments, suggestions, and advice about card performance over the last few pages is genuinely cringe worthy.

I'll write up a lot of info tomorrow to help people understand what happens when a card needs to swap in new assets due to running out of memory, and what that does to performance.

In the meantime, shit like this needs to stop:

Schenmu, I'm not trying to be mean at all. But there's a lot going on in this post that is confusing. If taken at face value, there's a lot inferred that is terribly wrong. These kinds of comments lead to people making bad $800 decisions like this:

Yes, stutte, you should not have done that. I'd return them if possible, unless you bought them used or something.

Just in a nutshell, what is it you are suggesting? That the VRAM limitations aren't as big of a culprit as people are claiming?

I don't know shit about the tech side. I'd just like to get my 3GB Geforce 780 to be able to run the game at 1080p w/o stuttering during the driving sections.

 

[makeitawkward]

It is getting late, and I'm already on the couch with my phone. But reading comments, suggestions, and advice about card performance over the last few pages is genuinely cringe worthy.

I'll write up a lot of info tomorrow to help people understand what happens when a card needs to swap in new assets due to running out of memory, and what that does to performance.

In the meantime, shit like this needs to stop:

Schenmu, I'm not trying to be mean at all. But there's a lot going on in this post that is confusing. If taken at face value, there's a lot inferred that is terribly wrong. These kinds of comments lead to people making bad $800 decisions like this:

Yes, stutte, you should not have done that. I'd return them if possible, unless you bought them used or something.

I too am on my phone and couch. Please explain what's wrong with two 4gb 770s?

 

[Windom Earle]

Schenmu, I'm not trying to be mean at all. But there's a lot going on in this post that is confusing. If taken at face value, there's a lot inferred that is terribly wrong. These kinds of comments lead to people making bad $800 decisions like this

I am not giving any buying recommendations, just trying to reduce the stuttering that most people are experiencing caused by overflowing memory. This thread is a work in progress, we are all just trying to find the best settings here.

So far the best way to reduce the stuttering (for me) was either going to medium textures or reducing shadows from ultra to high as found out by another poster. The latter solution is preferable for me now of course.

But of course people shouldn't throw their 2/3gb cards out of the window because of Watch Dogs. Didn't mean to imply that or mislead.

 

[JudgmentJay]

Are people using anywhere in particular to benchmark? I set everything to ultra (1080p) except for AA which I set to 4xMSAA, and the lowest FPS I saw was 45ish. I was typically hovering around 60-90, but I didn't do anything crazy action wise. Just did the main story up to the birthday party. 3930k @ 4.7ghz, 3xGTX680 (4gb), 16gb RAM.

My 680s were maxed out on VRAM when I exited the game. I didn't notice any stuttering, but I was mostly paying attention to the framerate so I'm sure I just missed it. The screen tearing kills me though. Is there nothing that can be done about that? From what I understand enabling vsync is a no go. Is forcing it from the drivers possible?

 

[red731]

i7 3770k 3.5@4.4
16GB RAM
7970 3GB Ghz
game on 7200rpm hd
14.6 beta drivers
win 7 64x

GPU and CPU temps around 70C with GPU load at 100% depending on the scene...

Everything on ultra, hbao+high, vsync 1, gpu frame ahead 2, textures unltra and in system - no pagefile on any disk (I don't have any stuttering)

FPS around 30-60 depending on the situation. I am still playing with the options because I am not happy.
Have tried loading sweetFX preset in RadeonPro and that is working - if you don't have another soft that hijacks the buffer like MSI Afterburner, otherwise crash.

ed: Might lock it to 30fps, blragh, haha. Also unskippable intro, the fuck? I even got stuck once, at the beginning, in the locker room, when I seized controll of Aiden. Marcurius(?) body was a rock and I couldn't move.

 

[nbthedude]

I too am on my phone and couch. Please explain what's wrong with two 4gb 770s?

Because 770s are already not that great of a deal and as a former owner of a dual card set up I can safely say fuck the hassle, noise., heat, and lack of optimization on new releases for dual card set ups. Especially if you are someone who.doesn't want hassle and to have to constantly tinker. And for the money you are better with a single card solution.

 

[senahorse]

Because 770s are already not that great of a deal and as a former owner of a dual card set up I can safely say fuck the hassle, noise., heat, and lack of optimization on new releases for dual card set ups. Especially if you are someone who.doesn't want hassle and to have to constantly tinker.

As the current owner of a dual card setup on water I can say I have no issues with noise, heat and I never "have to" tinker, it's just that some games are optimised for and scale well with SLI, others not so much. As for 4GB 770's being not that great a deal, well, I put one in my gf's PC last year (well actually, she installed it), back before the new consoles had come out, as somoene who had finally had enough with AMD's drivers (admittedly they have gottn better since), it was the best option for the money. The way it comes across how some people are talking about the 770's in this thread is that they are a horrible choice, which is far from the truth.

 

[ItsTheNew]

PROTIP: Toggle Borderless, then set fullscreen to make the game settle at a higher FPS range. I have no idea why this works but it does on my end.

Alright, here are my PC specs
i3770k: oc'd to 4.2ghz on turbo
Radeon HD 7950 boost oc'd to 1ghz from 925 mhz.
16 gb of 1600mhz ram
running off a Mushkin Chronos Deluxe 240gb SSD

Running the game at 1080p, everything set to high (including textures), MHBAO, Temporal SMAA and removing depth of field gives me an fps range of about 55 - 35, usually settling at about 45 fps. Adding a custom radeon pro profile doesn't seem to do much.

 

[Wag]

I have 3770k@4.4GHz, 3 Titan SLI setup and even for me it's stuttering like a mofo. Frustrating as hell.

 

[TheD]

Looks like a lot of the stuttering has nothing to do with VRAM.
I have been playing with MSI Afterburner running and I can see no "bus" (which I am pretty sure is the PCIE bus) usage spikes when it stutters, the game is also not filling the VRAM (few hundred MB left).

 

[Hazaro]

770 value is pretty not great right now, it just doesn't hit a nice sweet spot and you get taxed $50 for 4GB over 2GB. It's just the only option in too wide a price gap.
760 is good (nVidia benefits at $250, but 2GB VRAM), 780 is tolerable.

AMD just fills every price bracket too strongly right now though and doesn't make the nVidia options as attractive. (I'm sitting pretty on my 670)

I have 3770k@4.4GHz, 3 Titan SLI setup and even for me it's stuttering like a mofo. Frustrating as hell.

Try 2 Titans?

 

[DonMigs85]

I wonder how well this runs on an AMD A8-7600 APU. I plan to build a small gaming box once it's out for sale.

 

[GHG]

Looks like a lot of the stuttering has nothing to do with VRAM.
I have been playing with MSI Afterburner running and I can see no "bus" (which I am pretty sure is the PCIE bus) usage spikes when it stutters, the game is also not filling the VRAM (few hundred MB left).

Yep ive come to this conclusion as well from reading around. People with Titans seem to be reporting the same issues, even at 1080p, so it cant be vram related.

I'll report back later to see if locking it at 30fps goes some way to solving the issue. It may be something similar to the ussue we had with saints row 2 back in the day where the engine was set to load in assets at a certain rate (30 fps because of the consolses) and when you try to go above that rate it causes hitching/stuttering problems.

 

[Dennis]

I feel like people are crazy for not using Ultra textures even if they have to settle for like 30 fps. I don't think I have ever in my life played a game with less than maximum possible texture resolution.

All I would think of is what I would be missing out on.

 

[SapientWolf]

I feel like people are crazy for not using Ultra textures even if they have to settle for like 30 fps. I don't think I have ever in my life played a game with less than maximum possible texture resolution.

All I would think of is what I would be missing out on.

Mind comparing high and ultra?

 

[renegade_dewitt]

Mind comparing high and ultra?

As has been mentioned before (even in this thread), there is really no difference. Sorry I can't provide pics to justify my answer

 

[VisceralBowl]

As has been mentioned before (even in this thread), there is really no difference. Sorry I can't provide pics to justify my answer

I remember different. The comparison picture was in front of a door and brick wall. The Ultra textures were much better in some aspects and similar in others. I will dig them up from the other thread tomorrow morning.

 

[Zacillac]

So after getting home I ended up deciding to see if possibly increasing my pagefile size could help, from the default that it had already been set to at about 2GB. I decided to up it to about 5.25GB, just for the hell of it. To my surprise, don't know if there was a patch that was auto downloaded or something as I did see a quick installer run before starting it up this time, but now I'm able to play the game with MUCH less stuttering.There's still some stuttering from time to time, but it's actually playable now!

Not sure if this actually helps at all but maybe it'll be worth a shot for someone else out there.

Everything is at ultra, including textures, and I'm using TXAA x2. Running at 1080p, fullscreen, and v-sync is off. I am also running with "-disablepagefilecheck" on my shortcut (counter-intuitive, I know, with the pagefile change I did but I was willing to try anything).

 

[Sword Of Doom]

Looks like a lot of the stuttering has nothing to do with VRAM.
I have been playing with MSI Afterburner running and I can see no "bus" (which I am pretty sure is the PCIE bus) usage spikes when it stutters, the game is also not filling the VRAM (few hundred MB left).

Whatever it is this game should not have been released on PC as it's clearly not ready. I can't believe the stuff I've been reading in this thread. Seriously Ubisoft WTF???

So we still haven't solved the mystery of the stutter?

I'm sure someone will figure it out. Just don't understand how this can get passed Ubisoft QC

 

[TheD]

Yep ive come to this conclusion as well from reading around. People with Titans seem to be reporting the same issues, even at 1080p, so it cant be vram related.

I'll report back later to see if locking it at 30fps goes some way to solving the issue. It may be something similar to the ussue we had with saints row 2 back in the day where the engine was set to load in assets at a certain rate (30 fps because of the consolses) and when you try to go above that rate it causes hitching/stuttering problems.

Tried locking at 30FPS (adaptive), does not help.

 

[Gaz_RB]

So we still haven't solved the mystery of the stutter?

 

[Hazaro]

Mind comparing high and ultra?

As has been mentioned before (even in this thread), there is really no difference. Sorry I can't provide pics to justify my answer

I remember different. The comparison picture was in front of a door and brick wall. The Ultra textures were much better in some aspects and similar in others. I will dig them up from the other thread tomorrow morning.

http://international.download.nvidi...dogs-textures-comparison-1-ultra-vs-high.html

 

[sirap]

Getting a solid 45fps with everything on Ultra @ 1440p with a single Titan.

Turning SLI on actually makes it worse, getting terrible stuttering and fps barely seems to improve at all.

What the fuck ubi, should have just bought the PS4 version because I do enjoy the game.

 

[Hazaro]

Getting a solid 45fps with everything on Ultra @ 1440p with a single Titan.

Turning SLI on actually makes it worse, getting terrible stuttering and fps barely seems to improve at all.

What the fuck ubi, should have just bought the PS4 version because I do enjoy the game.

I have 3770k@4.4GHz, 3 Titan SLI setup and even for me it's stuttering like a mofo. Frustrating as hell.

You both downloaded the newnew driver right? I think yesterday it was only on Guru3D or whatever.

 

[Vuze]

I'm sure someone will figure it out. Just don't understand how this can get passed Ubisoft QC

Which QC?

I think I will put this game on hold until further patches arrive. I enjoy it quite a lot but all the technical mess as in stuttering and inconsistent framerate around it annoys me just too much.

 

[ktroopa]

I can 2nd the screen mode toggle thing, i discovered the same thing as mentioned in my earlier post. fps def is better once you done it. i played for 2 hours last night and fps remained solid with no stutters avg 45fps. i72600K @ 4.2Ghz, 8GB RAM GTX 760 2GB

on another note how are you guys getting those broken DOF screens. do they appear like that in game or only when you take a screenshot?

PROTIP: Toggle Borderless, then set fullscreen to make the game settle at a higher FPS range. I have no idea why this works but it does on my end.

Alright, here are my PC specs
i3770k: oc'd to 4.2ghz on turbo
Radeon HD 7950 boost oc'd to 1ghz from 925 mhz.
16 gb of 1600mhz ram
running off a Mushkin Chronos Deluxe 240gb SSD

Running the game at 1080p, everything set to high (including textures), MHBAO, Temporal SMAA and removing depth of field gives me an fps range of about 55 - 35, usually settling at about 45 fps. Adding a custom radeon pro profile doesn't seem to do much.

 

[AndyBNV]

Mind comparing high and ultra?

As has been mentioned before (even in this thread), there is really no difference. Sorry I can't provide pics to justify my answer

http://international.download.nvidi...dogs-textures-comparison-1-ultra-vs-high.html

It's mostly graffiti, posters, billboards, and similar items that are noticeably worse. If you go press the camera into a wall then yea, you are going to see some difference, just not a huge one.

 

[Dennis]

If you go press the camera into a wall then yea, you are going to see some difference, just not a huge one.

Is there any other way to play?

 

[Dennis]

Getting a solid 45fps with everything on Ultra @ 1440p with a single Titan.

Turning SLI on actually makes it worse, getting terrible stuttering and fps barely seems to improve at all.

What the fuck ubi, should have just bought the PS4 version because I do enjoy the game.

SLI was broken before the newest drivers but now it works.

 

[NBtoaster]

I don't get stuttering on a 650.

720p, 30fps, mix of medium and high. Basically looks like GTA5.

 

[MrBali]

i7 4770k
7970 3GB
16GB RAM

Everything at max, textures at High, Temporal MSAA. 1920x1200. Decided to lock it at 30 FPS. Absolutely loving the game so far.

Same system AA completely off and I'm getting around 30 frames with occasional drops. I'm gonna try locking it to 30 fps today. Game only runs smooth with medium settings what a shame.

 

[Hawk269]

I have a I73930x OC to 4.8, Titan's in SLI and get a lot of stuttering. Turned off SLI and still have rough performance. Driving around the city is a real bitch because of the stutter and hick-ups. On foot it seems fine, but damn is this game not very optimized. I also have the Xbox One version and while it does not have the IQ of the PC version (I am playing on max settings) it plays really good and no stutter. Yeah, I have a lot more aliasing issues and it is not as clean, but overall, the Xbox One version holds up well.

Of course, I would rather play the PC version at Ultra if Ubi can fix the stuttering issues.

 

[SyntheCypher]

Watch Dogs compared to GTA IV

http://youtu.be/JGRsrFdwb2c

 

[Shrike Alvaron]

Well I got it earlier and played around for a few hours. My rig is:

i7-2600k (Stock, been meaning to overclock it)
GTX 780 Factory Overclocked (3GB VRAM)
8GB DDR3
830 Evo SSD

I'm running in a borderless window at 1440p with everything on ultra (including ultra textures and HBAO+) but AA is turned down to Temporal SMAA. Vsync is off (not really needed with my sub-60 framerate) along with motion blur due to personal preference. Based on Nvidia's performance guide I also enabled 16x high quality AF in the Nvidia control panel.

I don't get any stuttering (that I've noticed at least) and my FPS tends to range from 35-50, averaging around 45. May be a bit low to some people but it's completely playable to me. I tried TXAA at first but only got around 30FPS average with frequent dips below even at 1080p, so that seems to be VRAM limited. Temporal SMAA is the way to go with ultra textures and 3GB or less of VRAM in my opinion. Honestly, at 1440p aliasing isn't even that big of a deal.

 

[GHG]

Watch Dogs compared to GTA IV

http://youtu.be/JGRsrFdwb2c

Can people stop posting this now, its getting tiresome. Gta iv was an absolute mess when it released on the PC. A much bigger mess than Watch Dogs. It also has nothing to do with the topic at hand.

So from what I'm reading, locking to 30fps doesnt eliminate the driving stutter but pagefile or the fullscreen toggle does?

That would point towards a caching issue.

To those who have said locking to 30 doesnt solve it, are you getting a rock solid 30fps in the framerate counter but the stuttering is still there?

 

[SoulUnison]

Any way to boost the volume in this game, or something? An .ini to edit, or something?

With headphones on with everything at max volume this game is still really quiet. Way quieter than anything else on my computer, game or otherwise.

 

[Sword Of Doom]

Watch Dogs compared to GTA IV

That says a lot

Tbh pretty much everything looks different. The ground, the grass, you can even still see the difference on the building to the left, which is a bit further. The bottom part of the machine to the right shows much more detail. Sure in the distance you won't notice anything, but I'd say the difference is pretty noticeable.

From what I've seen it's noticeable

 

[Prophet Steve]

It's mostly graffiti, posters, billboards, and similar items that are noticeably worse. If you go press the camera into a wall then yea, you are going to see some difference, just not a huge one.

Tbh pretty much everything looks different. The ground, the grass, you can even still see the difference on the building to the left, which is a bit further. The bottom part of the machine to the right shows much more detail. Sure in the distance you won't notice anything, but I'd say the difference is pretty noticeable.

Talking about this comparison:

http://international.download.nvidi...dogs-textures-comparison-1-ultra-vs-high.html

As has been mentioned before (even in this thread), there is really no difference. Sorry I can't provide pics to justify my answer

And this is just plain wrong.

 

[KePoW]

Is there any other way to play?

In all seriousness bro, there is hardly any difference between High & Ultra in most games. Not worth it.

I have no idea why a lot of people in this thread insist on Ultra, but then complain about performance. Seems like something is obvious to me in those situations...

 

[GHG]

Tbh pretty much everything looks different. The ground, the grass, you can even still see the difference on the building to the left, which is a bit further. The bottom part of the machine to the right shows much more detail. Sure in the distance you won't notice anything, but I'd say the difference is pretty noticeable.

Talking about this comparison:

Yep the difference is big enough to warrant using ultra over high if you can.

I think I may try Temporal SMAA with downsampling later instead of TXAA and see what kind of difference that might make.

In all seriousness bro, there is hardly any difference between High & Ultra in most games. Not worth it.

I have no idea why a lot of people in this thread insist on Ultra, but then complain about performance. Seems like something is obvious to me in those situations...

To be fair, he's pretty much the only person in this thread not complaining about performance!

 

[maneil99]

Yep the difference is big enough to warrant using ultra over high if you can.

I think I may try Temporal SMAA with downsampling later instead of TXAA and see what kind of difference that might make.



To be fair, he's pretty much the only person in this thread not complaining about performance!

No point playing Ultra with TXAA if it causes stutterng, TXAA blurs the game alot imho. SMAA might not be perfect but it doesn't blur the game as bad as FXAA and TXAA

 

[Angel Abaddon]

Any way to boost the volume in this game, or something? An .ini to edit, or something?

With headphones on with everything at max volume this game is still really quiet. Way quieter than anything else on my computer, game or otherwise.

I'm having the same issue with voices myself, had to stick subtitles on as I can barely hear the characters with the volume higher than normal.

 

[-bakalhau-]

Are people using anywhere in particular to benchmark? I set everything to ultra (1080p) except for AA which I set to 4xMSAA, and the lowest FPS I saw was 45ish. I was typically hovering around 60-90, but I didn't do anything crazy action wise. Just did the main story up to the birthday party. 3930k @ 4.7ghz, 3xGTX680 (4gb), 16gb RAM.

My 680s were maxed out on VRAM when I exited the game. I didn't notice any stuttering, but I was mostly paying attention to the framerate so I'm sure I just missed it. The screen tearing kills me though. Is there nothing that can be done about that? From what I understand enabling vsync is a no go. Is forcing it from the drivers possible?

I bench on The Loop, it appears to be a little bit more heavy on the GPU than other areas.

 

[SlickShoes]

Any way to boost the volume in this game, or something? An .ini to edit, or something?

With headphones on with everything at max volume this game is still really quiet. Way quieter than anything else on my computer, game or otherwise.

I noticed this too, game is at 100% but every other computer sound comes through way louder. If I turn the overall computer volume up everything else goes to ridiculous levels.

Surely not working as intended?

How many other people are having the game crash frequently? I had completed 5 missions I think and have had 5 crashes, not managed to play an hour without a crash, it's total garbage.

I'm using an i5 3570k, 8GB Ram, AMD 7950 3GB, game is running on my HDD now and not SSD. Playing at 1080p everything on the default High settings.

 

[GHG]

No point playing Ultra with TXAA if it causes stutterng, TXAA blurs the game alot imho. SMAA might not be perfect but it doesn't blur the game as bad as FXAA and TXAA

I'm pretty certain that the TXAA wont be the cause of stuttering. Its nothing to do with being VRAM limited.

I played the game for just over an hour last night (ultra, 1080p, txaa x2) and the max vram usage reported on my cards was about 2800mb.

The stuttering is nothing to do with VRAM, its a completely separate issue that needs solving. I'm just going to toy around with downsampling and AA settings to find the sweet spot for IQ considering I'm just going to lock it at 30fps.

 

[Pjsprojects]

I don't get stuttering on a 650.

720p, 30fps, mix of medium and high. Basically looks like GTA5.

Looks better than GTA 5 and if it plays smooth 100% of the time then fair play.

 

[renegade_dewitt]

I don't get stuttering on a 650.

720p, 30fps, mix of medium and high. Basically looks like GTA5.

What are your specs cuz I am considering running this on a 650 as well and at 720p.

Thanks,

 

[Cannon Goose]

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

To those of you with AMD cards, enable RadeonPro x64 by clicking the 32-bit icon under the AMD Radeon Graphics icon until 32/64bit appears. Then tweak to your hearts content .

Here are some screens with my settings (third image has the 32/64bit icon boxed in red):

Specs for anyone wondering:

i5 4670K @ 4.5
R9 270 OC
8 GB RAM
1400x900 monitor @ 75 Hz (thus the 38 fps lock)

With the new drivers I set the level of detail setting to high with no stuttering or ultra with occasional stuttering. When I don't have stittering the game is smoooooth as fuck, buttery .

Watch Dogs crashes at launch if I have RadeonPro running in the background. Doesn't matter if I toggle the 32/64 bit option or not, it crashes every time.

 

[1970 Chevelle SS]

Think i am going to stay away from this game until i read that it's more stable. Maybe it will lower in price to when they get all the stuttering fixed.

 

[UrSuLeTzU]

Watch Dogs compared to GTA IV

http://youtu.be/JGRsrFdwb2c

This makes me sad. I am very dissapointed in this game.. maybe next time Ubi, maybe next time...