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[Tahnit]

Wow. So i was kinda dreading the performance I was going to get out of watch dogs with my system. Its a great system but my CPU is a little old.

I am very pleasantly surprised that my core i7 920 OC to 3.2 and geforce 770 4gb is running this game just fine on ultra. Granted its not 60 fps all the time but it is perfectly playable. There is a minor hitching bug which i think ubisoft is aware of. Hopefully that will be fixed soon.

I ordered a closed loop water cooling system as well and it will be here monday to help maybe push it to 3.6 or even better 4 ghz.

I have to say this game runs much better than ac 4 did.

 

[SaberEdge]

I don't have it enabled though?



Go to "C:\Users\UserName\Documents\My Games\Watch_Dogs\*\GameProfile.xml" (Or figure out where GameProfile.xml is stored in your PC) and open this GameProfile.xml in text editor like Notepad.

In '<GameProfile....</GameProfile>' change :

UseCompassMiniMap="1" UseRoadSignHilight="1" UseSubtitles="1" UseReticle="1" UseWaypoint="1" UseHintsAndTutorial="1" UsePdaNotification="1" UseMinimap="1" UseDynamicMission="1" UseItemAndRewards="1" UseMissionUpdate="1" UseFelony="1" UseEquipmentAndTools="1" UseAmbx="0"

to

UseCompassMiniMap="0" UseRoadSignHilight="0" UseSubtitles="0" UseReticle="0" UseWaypoint="0" UseHintsAndTutorial="0" UsePdaNotification="0" UseMinimap="0" UseDynamicMission="0" UseItemAndRewards="0" UseMissionUpdate="0" UseFelony="0" UseEquipmentAndTools="0" UseAmbx="0"

Will any of these settings get rid of the highlighting of hackable objects? I don't need that, since I generally already know which objects can be hacked and I would be fine with just the button icon (I don't need the whole damn L-train to be highlighted every time it goes by, for example). This hurts immersion for me.

So, any way to do that? Is it the "UseRoadSignHilight" option?

 

[red731]

So yeah, I am pretty "happy" with my fps between 30-60 (avg 45). Game is perfectly playable (but still, no excuse for Ubi)

i7 3770k 3.5@4.4
16GB RAM - pagefile in win 7 64 disabled
7970 3GB GHz - 14.6

1920x1080 w/ everything on ultra, fs windowed, gpu preframe 2, temporal smaa and HBAO+ low
AF 16x, sweet FX, mipmap and texture filtering highest set in RadeonPro

 

[plumpblumpkin]

Does Ubisoft even acknowledge the stuttering problem at all??

I hope they don't treat it like the AC series and just not fix the performance issues...-_-

 

[senahorse]

Does Ubisoft even acknowledge the stuttering problem at all??

I hope they don't treat it like the AC series and just not fix the performance issues...-_-

It has been acknowledged on their official forums, though whether that translates into anything being done about it is another thing entirely, this is Ubisoft we are talking about.

 

[Mattenth]

It has been acknowledged on their official forums, though whether that translates into anything being done about it is another thing entirely, this is Ubisoft we are talking about.

Link?

 

[Uff duh]

I have to say this game runs much better than ac 4 did.

Ac 4 ran much better for me that this does by quite a bit. The game runs great for me as long as I am not driving. Witch is odd. Its just that stutter that most other people are getting. Makes me think its something that can be fixed with a patch. Ultra to high textures help but whatever. Ill wait until its patched to see if there is any improvement. Its really no loss to me cause the game didn't light my pants on fire from the fist 4 hours I played it anyway. Not worth the headache at this point.

 

[senahorse]

Link?

PC - Frame rate stutter on high end GPU

Game stutters on ultra textures and other lower settings on certain hardware.

http://forums.ubi.com/showthread.php/882517-Stuttering-gtx690-unplayable

[Status] Issue reported - updates to follow

http://forums.ubi.com/showthread.php/882353-READ-FIRST-Watch_Dogs-Known-issues-updated-28th-May?

 

[Funchameleon]

Splinter Cell Blacklist was literally the first and last good AAA PC release from Ubisoft in YEARS.

 

[SaberEdge]

Wow. So i was kinda dreading the performance I was going to get out of watch dogs with my system. Its a great system but my CPU is a little old.

I am very pleasantly surprised that my core i7 920 OC to 3.2 and geforce 770 4gb is running this game just fine on ultra. Granted its not 60 fps all the time but it is perfectly playable. There is a minor hitching bug which i think ubisoft is aware of. Hopefully that will be fixed soon.

I ordered a closed loop water cooling system as well and it will be here monday to help maybe push it to 3.6 or even better 4 ghz.

I have to say this game runs much better than ac 4 did.

You can get rid of the hitching aspect if you are willing to play at 30fps (which you would have to do if you settled for any of the console versions). If you use Nvidia Inspector, under the "Vertical Sync" option, choose "1/2 Refresh Rate" while keeping the "Vertical Sync Tear Control" option at "Standard". Then turn off vsync in the game menu. This will give you a steady 30fps with no screen tearing. Frame limiters aren't nearly as smooth in my experience.

In my opinion a solid 60fps is better than a solid 30fps, but a solid 30fps is still superior to a stuttery variable framerate.

Yes, this would mean we are choosing to play at the same framerate as the console versions. But if you already own a good gaming PC I'd say it's better to play at 30fps with much higher resolutions, much better anti-aliasing, and better graphics in general, than it is to choose the console version instead.

 

[EroticSushi]

i7-4770K 3.5GHz
GTX 780ti OC 3GB
16GB DDR3 2400Mhz (Currently clocked at 1600)
Windows 7 x64
Driver 337.88

1440p
Everything set on Ultra
Temporal SMAA
HBAO+ (High)
GPU Frame: 3
V-sync: Adaptive via NVIDIA Control

FPS via Foot: 60-75
GPS via Driving: 50-63

Switched over to 1440p and it practically ran the same as 1080p for me. There were slightly lower drops while driving and the stuttering is the only thing bring my FPS down to the 40's at times but only when there's a second of stutter. Still runs in the 60+ while on foot.

 

[Tahnit]

You can get rid of the hitching aspect if you are willing to play at 30fps (which you would have to do if you settled for any of the console versions). If you use Nvidia Inspector, under the "Vertical Sync" option, choose "1/2 Refresh Rate" while keeping the "Vertical Sync Tear Control" option at "Standard". Then turn off vsync in the game menu. This will give you a steady 30fps with no screen tearing. Frame limiters aren't nearly as smooth in my experience.

In my opinion a solid 60fps is better than a solid 30fps, but a solid 30fps is still superior to a stuttery variable framerate.

Yes, this would mean we are choosing to play at the same framerate as the console versions. But if you already own a good gaming PC I'd say it's better to play at 30fps with much higher resolutions, much better anti-aliasing, and better graphics in general, than it is to choose the console version instead.

If they could fix the hitching bug i dont mind running 45-60 fps. its playable and ill turn off the fps counter. i tried limiting it to 30 and still getting hitching.

 

[finalflame]

i7-4770K 3.5GHz
GTX 780ti OC 3GB
16GB DDR3 2400Mhz (Currently clocked at 1600)
Windows 7 x64
Driver 337.88

1440p
Everything set on Ultra
Temporal SMAA
HBAO+ (High)
GPU Frame: 3
V-sync: Adaptive via NVIDIA Control

FPS via Foot: 60-75
GPS via Driving: 50-63

Switched over to 1440p and it practically ran the same as 1080p for me. There were slightly lower drops while driving and the stuttering is the only thing bring my FPS down to the 40's at times but only when there's a second of stutter. Still runs in the 60+ while on foot.

Hm...so are you even running Ultra textures? I have a very similar setup to you, but with a very overclocked 780 Ti on watercooling and an i5-4670K @ 4.2ghz. Game is unplayable for me with Ultra textures.

 

[Wag]

So I disabled 2 of my 3 Titans and the game seems to run much better now, although it still stutters while I drive.

I wish there was a way to adjust sensitivity of the controller. I'm all over the road. Floaty driving is awful. I can't seem to drive in a straight line.

 

[GHG]

Thought this would be the most appropiate thread to share our findings.
Those are the default render configurations that the dev team seemed to aim for on PS4/XO
They're contained in an internal engine config, that also allows for some interesting graphical enhancements on PC (see screenshots below taken by Vortex), but also causes some glitches w/ AA if modified as it seems.

Eventually this could help to tweak the performance, will keep you updated.

Vuze,

Any idea of when these settings or a tweak guide for these will be made public?

 

[Tahnit]

bah double post

 

[jediyoshi]

And people were speccing out $500 PC's a few months ago to compete with next-gen consoles. I feel bad for the people that fell for that BS.

Were these things supposed to be mutually exclusive?

 

[GHG]

If they could fix the hitching bug i dont mind running 45-60 fps. its playable and ill turn off the fps counter. i tried limiting it to 30 and still getting hitching.

Try using standard vsync, leave the refresh rate thing at default and then put the framerate limiter at 30fps in inspector.

I tried the 1/2 refresh rate thing last night but I got worse hitching/stuttering than I ever did before I messed with those settings. It was better for me to just use Nvidia's normal Vsync and use the framerate limiter.

 

[Mattenth]

Do we have any confirmation from Ubisoft that they will actually fix these issues (especially the stuttering)? This is my first PC Ubisoft game in a long time and I hear they have a history of doing this...

 

[Surfheart]

I, as many enjoy that aspect of it very much. There is nothing like staying up all night tweaking your settings, overclocking, etc all to gain just a little bit more performance. For me it feels like I enjoy that just as much as playing. I remember trying to play Crysis for the first time.....had no money for a killer gpu, so had to work with what I had.

I used to love that stuff too but I just got tired of it somewhere along the way.

 

[TopGun]

I talked back and forth with the graphical designer for WD about the game and I got some information from him. I asked him "how much optimization went into WD in the first place?"

Apparently the game is "heavily optimized" for XBO and PS4, and because they have 8 core CPUs, PC users should have 8 cores as a recommended hardware requirement. I'm extremely doubtful at the wording "heavily optimized". If the game as optimized, it would run at higher resolutions on consoles and have a better frame rate on PCs.

 

[CadetMahoney]

This hitching/studdering. Its getting harder and harder to buy ubi PC games, they just don't seem to give a fuck.

this.

 

[Dark Octave]

I just got the game free with a graphics card I bought for the wife. It redeemed through Uplay. Is there any way to get a Steam code as well and use that instead?

 

[Mattenth]

I talked back and forth with the graphical designer for WD about the game and I got some information from him. I asked him "how much optimization went into WD in the first place?"

Apparently the game is "heavily optimized" for XBO and PS4, and because they have 8 core CPUs, PC users should have 8 cores as a recommended hardware requirement. I'm extremely doubtful at the wording "heavily optimized". If the game as optimized, it would run at higher resolutions on consoles and have a better frame rate on PCs.

Huh? Recommended settings show i7 3770 (4 cores).

Tweet is interesting though. Purely anecdotal, but the stuttering seemed to happen when loading "alive" things (cars, people, etc.). Happened a lot when driving, but would sometimes happen when doing a 180 too.

I just got the game free with a graphics card I bought for the wife. It redeemed through Uplay. Is there any way to get a Steam code as well and use that instead?

No.

 

[JaseC]

I just got the game free with a graphics card I bought for the wife. It redeemed through Uplay. Is there any way to get a Steam code as well and use that instead?

You could sell your Uplay code and put the money towards buying the Steam version, but otherwise no.

 

[kehs]

Overclock your GPU to 1200/1800
Motion Blur Off
AA: TemporalSmaa or TXAA 2x

Change your XML file in documents/mygames/watchdogs
DeferredFXQuality=PC
PostFXQuality=Off (Unless you want it to look grainy like a film)
Reslution: 1920 x 1080

I can't believe these moist as mods permed netboi. One of the most trustworthy persons to ever be on gaf.

That's some shit.

 

[VisceralBowl]

I just got the game free with a graphics card I bought for the wife. It redeemed through Uplay. Is there any way to get a Steam code as well and use that instead?

No. But you could just add the exe to Steam.

 

[Dark Octave]

Huh? Recommended settings show i7 3770 (4 cores).

Tweet is interesting though. Purely anecdotal, but the stuttering seemed to happen when loading "alive" things (cars, people, etc.). Happened a lot when driving, but would sometimes happen when doing a 180 too.




No.

I can't believe these most as mods permed netboi. One of the most trustworthy persons to ever be on gaf.

That's some shit.

No. But you could just add the exe to Steam.

Thanks, I appreciate it.

Well what I want to do is have the game run on both our computers. I know Steam allows sharing of accounts. If I add the exe to Steam will this be the same as the game being on Steam, sharing and all? Does Uplay allow sharing of accounts?

Otherwise, I'll just let her have the code.

 

[frontieruk]

That's pretty reassuring for me. I have a very similar setup, except I have 2500k at 4.3Ghz.

Do you have oyur 290 overclocked at all? I have mine bumped up a bit to 1050/1350

Runs fine on my system which matches yours, my 290 has a factory OC, not watched my frame rates, but it's comfortably playable.

 

[JaseC]

Thanks, I appreciate it.

Well what I want to do is have the game run on both our computers. I know Steam allows sharing of accounts. If I add the exe to Steam will this be the same as the game being on Steam, sharing and all?

Adding a non-Steam game to your library is merely a feature of convenience. You can only share games that are actually tied to your account.

Does Uplay allow sharing of accounts?

Nope.

 

[Dennis]

Man I feel sorry for you guys. All this is why I got off the PC merry go round. Got tired of tweaking this, disabling that, benchmarking, trying this driver trying that driver, doing arcane things to my OS. I just want to stick the disk in and play. It's liberating.

I've... seen things you people wouldn't believe... 1 million-polygons ships on fire off the shoulder of HBAO. I watched HDR-beams glitter in the dark near the 4K Gate. All those... moments... will be lost in time, like tears... in... rain. Time... to go console...

 

[GHG]

Thanks, I appreciate it.

Well what I want to do is have the game run on both our computers. I know Steam allows sharing of accounts. If I add the exe to Steam will this be the same as the game being on Steam, sharing and all? Does Uplay allow sharing of accounts?

Otherwise, I'll just let her have the code.

No you can get your account banned for doing this. Just a heads up, so don't even try it if you plan on keeping any games you have tied to Uplay.

 

[SaberEdge]

If they could fix the hitching bug i dont mind running 45-60 fps. its playable and ill turn off the fps counter. i tried limiting it to 30 and still getting hitching.

Did you try the method I outlined? If you used the frame rate limiter in Nvidia Inspector or an external frame rate limiter you will still get regular stutter, albeit reduced and less noticeable.

 

[Dark Octave]

Adding a non-Steam game to your library is merely a feature of convenience. You can only share games that are actually tied to your account.



Nope.

Thanks for the clarification. I guess it's all hers.

No you can get your account banned for doing this. Just a heads up, so don't even try it if you plan on keeping any games you have tied to Uplay.

Wow. Also great to know. Thanks. I was actually thinking about sharing my account I was forced to make just now between our two PCs. If they can detect that and ban because of it, then I won't even bother. I appreciate the heads up, man.

 

[GHG]

Did you try the method I outlined? If you used the frame rate limiter in Nvidia Inspector or an external frame rate limiter you will still get regular stutter, albeit reduced and less noticeable.

The opposite is true for me. 1/2 refresh rate introduces even more stutter than just using the regular in-game vsync. The only solution was to go with the regular nvidia vsync and then use the framerate limiter in Inspector (I couldn't get MSI afterburner to work with this game for some reason). I'm on SLI if that makes a difference.

On that note, how do you get afterburner working with this game? I can't even get the OSD to work. What settings do I need to use?

 

[SaberEdge]

I've... seen things you people wouldn't believe... 1 million-polygons ships on fire off the shoulder of HBAO. I watched HDR-beams glitter in the dark near the 4K Gate. All those... moments... will be lost in time, like tears... in... rain. Time... to go console...

Love the Blade Runner reference. One of my all time favorites.

 

[SaberEdge]

The opposite is true for me. 1/2 refresh rate introduces even more stutter than just using the regular in-game vsync. The only solution was to go with the regular nvidia vsync and then use the framerate limiter in Inspector (I couldn't get MSI afterburner to work with this game for some reason). I'm on SLI if that makes a difference.

On that note, how do you get afterburner working with this game? I can't even get the OSD to work. What settings do I need to use?

Hmm...based on how each method works and my own experience in many games it's hard for me to understand how that could be the case. It could be that "1/2 refresh rate" vsync breaks the SLI frame pacing or they are somehow incompatible.

Using the frame limiter do you still get some minor hitching/stutter while slowly panning the camera around?

Also, did you disable the in-game vsync? This sometimes causes conflicts. I also found that the pre-rendered frames needed to be set to "1" to provide the smoothest performance. Setting it to "3" causes too much of a strain on the vram and results in some stutter, but that's because I only have 2GB.

In any case, if the "frame rate limiter" option is working well for you, that's great.

 

[GHG]

Hmm...based on how each method works and my own experience in many games it's hard for me to understand how that could be the case. It could be that "1/2 refresh rate" vsync breaks the SLI frame pacing or they are somehow incompatible.

Using the frame limiter do you still get some minor hitching/stutter while slowly panning the camera around?

Also, did you disable the in-game vsync? This sometimes causes conflicts. I also found that the pre-rendered frames needed to be set to "1" to provide the smoothest performance. Setting it to "3" causes too much of a strain on the vram and results in some stutter, but that's because I only have 2GB.

In any case, if the "frame rate limiter" option is working well for you, that's great.

Yep, I made sure the in-game vsync was off when testing everything. No hitching/stutter when panning the camera (but I never had that issue before, it was only the random driving hitches which would drop the framerate from about 50 to 40 for a second).

I also have the pre rendered frames on the default setting of 3.

My cards have 3GB VRam if that also makes a difference.

 

[LegendX48]

Decided to go ahead and pick this game up and.... I'm kinda surprised how it runs on my pc especially after reading some of the posts in this thread o_o

a few specs:

i7 3770k @4.5ghz
AMD 7950 @1050/1500 w/3gb vram
8gb DDR3 ram

and I'm running the newest beta AMD drivers

I spent an hour playing on high settings but decided to crank everything to ultra including textures, with V-sync off and the gpu frame thing set to 1 and with temporal SMAA and everything ran pretty smoothly even while speeding across a freeway and another part of the city but this was during the daytime (not sure if it'll be the same during other times of day). I'm kinda confused by this stuttering I keep reading about here *knock on wood* Also, the first thing I did before even starting the game was turn off the online connectivity junk if that means anything.

 

[Renekton]

https://i.imgur.com/FsAuL77.png

Apparently the game is "heavily optimized" for XBO and PS4, and because they have 8 core CPUs, PC users should have 8 cores as a recommended hardware requirement. I'm extremely doubtful at the wording "heavily optimized". If the game as optimized, it would run at higher resolutions on consoles and have a better frame rate on PCs.

I'm taking an educated guess that they don't specially code for 6-8 cores (or X number of threads). Most likely it has a ongoing queue of jobs to hand out to a number of threads depending on hardware profile.

So a small number of strong cores will still win. An Ivy Bridge i5 might have less threads available than Jaguar but they will finish the jobs much faster so it's still far more effective.

 

[Salsa]

found my settings for it to run fine and without looking bad

now the problem is that the game is just boring

 

[Hazaro]

found my settings for it to run fine and without looking bad

now the problem is that the game is just boring

If the game was going to be good I would have bought it and done all the testing myself.

Instead I get to watch a circus for free that closes this weekend since everyone has seen everything.

 

[Windom Earle]

The opposite is true for me. 1/2 refresh rate introduces even more stutter than just using the regular in-game vsync. The only solution was to go with the regular nvidia vsync and then use the framerate limiter in Inspector (I couldn't get MSI afterburner to work with this game for some reason). I'm on SLI if that makes a difference.

On that note, how do you get afterburner working with this game? I can't even get the OSD to work. What settings do I need to use?

Same for me. The other method just introduces way too much input lag. Using Afterburner + Nvidia V-Sync is smooth for me and responsive.

You have to download the newest Afterburner version, it supports 64bit.

 

[riflen]

Yes it is. Well Ultra was pretty choppy but not nearly as bad as this morning. May have something to do with adding the disablepagefile line to the shortcut target. I just dropped textures down to High, but left everything else on Ultra and it was even smoother. Still choppy here and there but better. Was getting between 50-60fps with High Textures, SMAA, Ultra settings, and SLI. Still want to play around some more. Now I need to find out why my wired 360 controller spazzes out at times and doesn't allow me to properly control Aiden.

We're getting there though!

This happens to me too. The game got stuck aiming down sights and everything I pressed fired the weapon. Had to commit suicide by Cop.

 

[Gouda Jouji]

So I only have 4GB of RAM and I thought I'd share my experience.

Here are my specs:

i5 2500k @ 4GHz
4GB of RAM (1333MHz)
GTX 570 (1280MB)

The game settings:

I've also locked it at 30FPS using Nvidia Inspector.

I'm playing on my 26" HDTV, which is 1360x768. I've played for a bit on my 22" 1680x1050 monitor and it's similar in terms of performance. It's very much playable, the only problem is that the stuttering/temp freezing when loading in areas can get REALLY bad. It's not a constant occurrence though, not for me at least. Apart from that the frame rate is solid.

 

[ComputerMKII]

The game runs like shit on my PC. I should have bought it on PS4.

 

[Yoda]

Lol looking forward to playing this tomorrow (got it for free w/a new 780ti). Hopefully it manages to keep my attention for more than an hour... Hopes aren't too high though.

 

[Sword Of Doom]

Thought this would be the most appropiate thread to share our findings.
Those are the default render configurations that the dev team seemed to aim for on PS4/XO
They're contained in an internal engine config, that also allows for some interesting graphical enhancements on PC (see screenshots below taken by Vortex), but also causes some glitches w/ AA if modified as it seems.

Eventually this could help to tweak the performance, will keep you updated.

It's interesting to see which parameters are different between the ps4 and xb1

found my settings for it to run fine and without looking bad

now the problem is that the game is just boring

That sucks

 

[Gvaz]

Thought this would be the most appropiate thread to share our findings.
Those are the default render configurations that the dev team seemed to aim for on PS4/XO
They're contained in an internal engine config, that also allows for some interesting graphical enhancements on PC (see screenshots below taken by Vortex), but also causes some glitches w/ AA if modified as it seems.

Eventually this could help to tweak the performance, will keep you updated.

That looks great for settings if you're showing off something for E3 or making bullshots but knowing how the game plays that looks like fucking shit.

 

[GHG]

That looks great for settings if you're showing off something for E3 or making bullshots but knowing how the game plays that looks like fucking shit.

To be fair, you can't tell how the effects work just from screenshots, you'd need a video to judge that. Its the same thing a lot of people say about Skyrim's ENB mods, but when you actually see videos or even play it, it actually works well.