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[parabolee]

It's also possible that with v-sync off, the framerate is fairly variable but staying well above 60 so that overall it still looks reasonably smooth and is masking the stuttering. After all, a 4770 + 780 should be barely breaking a sweat at 1080p with undemanding AA.

No I don't think so. No combination of any settings seemed to mitigate the stuttering for me (other than textures on medium). Lowest settings with Vsync off and 800x600 resolution should mean no stuttering at all since my fame rate was in the high 200's rate, right?

Nope. The problem is the stuttering occurs due to a slow down in frame rendering and then throwing the held back ones out really fast to catch up.

So your FPS can remain really really high, but the stuttering still utterly spoils the driving.

Also anyone else see this video studying how badly the game has been downgraded since the E3 reveal? It's comparing the PS4 version to the reveal but the PC version is barely different and suffers from the same level of downgrade as seen in this video -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDQem9-ghc4

Embarrassing Ubisoft!

 

[sirap]

It's also possible that with v-sync off, the framerate is fairly variable but staying well above 60 so that overall it still looks reasonably smooth and is masking the stuttering. After all, a 4770 + 780 should be barely breaking a sweat at 1080p with undemanding AA.

With SLI on my fps shoots well above 60, but the stuttering can dip it down to 15-20. Goddamn frustrating knowing that my titans are useless with this game.

 

[Dries]

My fps doesn't change when I switch between temporal SSAA and TXAA x2. Seems strange to me, but I'm not complaining since TXAA looks fine.

 

[ktroopa]

The extent of my stuttering at the moment is seen at the 6 second mark of this webm:

http://a.pomf.se/nhzlba.webm

It can dip a little more than that, but that's generally my experience. It's not great, but it's playable at Ultra.

How did you create this video plz?

 

[Brofist]

ok, in my games settings, this is what everything is set to:

Graphics quality
Level of Detail: Ultra
Shadows: Ultra
Reflections: Ultra
Ambient Occulusion: HBAO+ High
Motion Blur: On
Depth of Field :On
Water: Ultra
Shader: High

Display
Resolution: 1920 x 1080
Refresh rate: 60
Aspect Ratio: Auto
Window Mode: Fullscreen
VSync: Off
GPU Max Buffed Frames: 1
Textures: Ultra
Anti-Aliasing: Temporal SMAA
Widescreen Letterbox: Off

I didn't change ANYTHING. this is what the game was already set to when I opened up the settings for the first time. This is my first gaming PC, so I have no idea what half that shit in the settings even mean, so I aint touching them, thus why I LOVE this Nvidia GeForce Experience.

Like I said so far, this shit is running SUPER smooth, no drops in frame rates, no shuttering, edges look really smooth with no jadges, texture quality is high, it just looks good and runs good. Still don't look like the 2012 E3 showing though.

Have you done driving yet. That's when it stutters mostly.

 

[Qassim]

How did you create this video plz?

I recorded it in ShadowPlay (NVIDIA) - then used this:

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=107330048&postcount=1471

to create the webm video.

 

[Setsuna]

Is it possible to get Riva Tuner to show while playing

 

[Ploid 3.0]

The extent of my stuttering at the moment is seen at the 6 second mark of this webm:

http://a.pomf.se/nhzlba.webm

It can dip a little more than that, but that's generally my experience. It's not great, but it's playable at Ultra.

That webm is heartbreaking, soul crushing, and so true. This is how sadness looks. All of the stutters look like this. In a fast moving vehicle and breaks the experience. It don't help that some of the missions seem to be heavily reliant on fast car chases.

Edit: Correction, the webm isn't as bad as I thought. I was viewing it as it was loading (play on link mouse over).

 

[ktroopa]

I recorded it in ShadowPlay (NVIDIA) - then used this:

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=107330048&postcount=1471

to create the webm video.

nice one thanks dude. i will give it a try

 

[bastian]

Its kind natural for PC users to assume moving settings to the right makes everything better, but I'd recommend people don't go over 2 with GPU Max Buffer Frames. Really, 1 should be enough. This setting can consume more memory needlessly and may be related to why lots of people are having stutters (not saying the game doesn't need patches). By default this was set on my system to 3.

 

[Prophet Steve]

Its kind natural for PC users to assume moving settings to the right makes everything better, but I'd recommend people don't go over 2 with GPU Max Buffer Frames. Really, 1 should be enough. This setting can consume more memory needlessly and may be related to why lots of people are having stutters (not saying the game doesn't need patches). By default this was set on my system to 3.

All of this sounds very similar to my problems with Far Cry 3, which also had known stuttering but I think only on AMD cards. It didn't matter how many frames I used there sadly.

 

[Qassim]

That webm is heartbreaking, soul crushing, and so true. This is how sadness looks. All of the stutters look like this. In a fast moving vehicle and breaks the experience. It don't help that some of the missions seem to be heavily reliant on fast car chases.

People are describing much more severe stutters than this, however. They're talking about going from 60 down to 15-20fps. This was a momentary drop to about 50, really annoying because of how it does it, but I don't think, based off the stuttering I was getting when I first started playing and what others are describing, that this is what all the stuttering people are complaining about looks like.

 

[bastian]

All of this sounds very similar to my problems with Far Cry 3, which also had known stuttering but I think only on AMD cards. It didn't matter how many frames I used there sadly.

That game, ironically enough set that setting by default to 1. And Watchdogs shares aspect of that engine.

 

[Ploid 3.0]

People are describing much more severe stutters than this, however. They're talking about going from 60 down to 15-20fps. This was a momentary drop to about 50, really annoying because of how it does it, but I don't think, based off the stuttering I was getting when I first started playing and what others are describing, that this is what all the stuttering people are complaining about looks like.

Wow, ha I took another look at the webm I saw it while it was loading up the first time. It was much worse then. Sorry about that, yeah full speed it's tame compared to the others.

 

[nbthedude]

So this is weird. My game stuttered teh first couple of times I loaded it up during day one and day two.

But I played for several hours last night and three hours so far today and experienced almost no stuttering at all. Literally maybe a handful of cases in that time of brief stuttering. And I'm at ultra settings on a i7 4770 and Geforce 780 3GB.

Guys, maybe burn in is real.

 

[Qassim]

So this is weird. My game stuttered teh first couple of times I loaded it up during day one and day two.

But I played for several hours last night and three hours so far today and experienced almost no stuttering at all. Literally maybe a handful of cases in that time of brief stuttering. And I'm at ultra settings on a i7 4770 and Geforce 780 3GB.

Guys, maybe burn in is real.

I wonder if NVIDIA's on disk shader cache would have anything to do with this?

 

[Hawkian]

Quick questions re WebM:

1. At work everything with the a.pomf.se site url is blocked by our filter as "Malicious Sites" category. What gives?
2. Is there a plugin to have them play embedded in GAF like gifs?

 

[b0bbyJ03]

My fps doesn't change when I switch between temporal SSAA and TXAA x2. Seems strange to me, but I'm not complaining since TXAA looks fine.

i noticed the same. i wonder if it has to do with the fact the TXAA is hardware supported? i did notice more tear with TXAA tho.

 

[Skyzard]

That webm is heartbreaking, soul crushing, and so true. This is how sadness looks. All of the stutters look like this. In a fast moving vehicle and breaks the experience. It don't help that some of the missions seem to be heavily reliant on fast car chases.

Totally understand. I remember I had a similar problem with Saints Row the Third with my last build. Driving around is something I love doing in these games and stutterring every few seconds is too much. I ended up just waiting to play on my next rig after hours tweaking the settings files. Pretty sure that was when I sealed my decision to not dual card anymore too.

That webm doesn't seem tooo bad though.

 

[dreamfall]

After messing about with some of the settings, I ended up putting everything on Ultra (except Shadows), HBAO+High, Temporal SMAA, VSync on and locked it to 30FPS.

It's beautiful, and while I miss playing around 60FPS with some of the visual effects off - the the framerate jumping all over the place was driving me wild.

i7 3770K, GTX 680 2GB, 8GB RAM here.

 

[Dennis]

Quick questions re WebM:

1. At work everything with the a.pomf.se site url is blocked by our filter as "Malicious Sites" category. What gives?
2. Is there a plugin to have them play embedded in GAF like gifs?

There are plug-ins for Chrome and Firefox.

 

[Hawkian]

you're just so good-looking, dennis

 

[b0bbyJ03]

After messing about with some of the settings, I ended up putting everything on Ultra (except Shadows), HBAO+High, Temporal SMAA, VSync on and locked it to 30FPS.

It's beautiful, and while I miss playing around 60FPS with some of the visual effects off - the the framerate jumping all over the place was driving me wild.

i7 3770K, GTX 680 2GB, 8GB RAM here.

are you getting stuttering locked at 30? what did you use to vsync it?

 

[Wag]

Then you are in the minority. I think some people are just less perceptible. Because people with 6GB Titans still suffer from it!


According to Digital Foundry -

"what's very clear is that those pursuing 60fps gameplay are facing a challenge. Texture management seems to be the major culprit - streaming ultra-level assets into and out of RAM simply doesn't happen fast enough, resulting in noticeable stutter. It's not a RAM issue based on our testing - we replaced a 3GB GTX 780 Ti with a 6GB GTX Titan, producing the exact same result. Only by lowering texture quality from ultra to high did we improve matters, and even then the stutter wasn't completely eliminated. We also factored out graphical quality presets too by dropping down to medium settings - and yet still we saw dips in overall performance. Additionally, we were running the game from SSD on a SATA3 connection."


Only way to currently completely eliminate the issue is to drop textures to medium!

I'm telling you guys I have a 3 Titan SLI setup and the game runs like shit for me. I've pretty much thrown in the towel until they patch it or do something drastic to improve performance.

 

[Dre_G_Writer]

I'm happy for you, I really am. But if you truly are not having any stutters when driving fast you are in the minority. Digital Foundry tested a plethora of absolute top end hardware and everything they tested suffered from the issue.

If this is your first gaming PC, maybe you are just not accustomed enough to a smooth 60fps to notice frame rate stutter. It's something that exclusively console gamers that have been playing tons of games that can't handle a solid 30fps will likely barely notice.

hmm, maybe your right, but all I know is, im enjoying what Im seeing so far, or I could just be the minority like you've said.

 

[Dries]

Yeah, driving destroys my frame rate. What can you do I guess.

 

[JackHerer]

I'm telling you guys I have a 3 Titan SLI setup and the game runs like shit for me. I've pretty much thrown in the towel until they patch it or do something drastic to improve performance.

That is really ridiculous. Is there any rig out there that can run the game at max settings and get rock-solid 60 fps or is this game just utterly broken?

I was mad that I had to turn down textures to high with a GTX 690 let alone 3x Titan SLI.

 

[parabolee]

That is really ridiculous. Is there any rig out there that can run the game at max settings and get rock-solid 60 fps or is this game just utterly broken?

I was mad that I had to turn down textures to high with a GTX 690 let alone 3x Titan SLI.

Other than the rare exception of people that claim it runs smooth for them, which is possible but seems there is no reason why theirs would over others (and we have yet to see video proof showing a smooth 60fps without stuttering on PC)...

It seems the ONLY way to run the game with a rock solid 60fps is to turn textures down to medium (the poorly named lowest texture setting).

 

[nbthedude]

That is really ridiculous. Is there any rig out there that can run the game at max settings and get rock-solid 60 fps or is this game just u erly broken?

I was mad that I had to turn down textures to high with a GTX 690 let alone 3x Titan SLI.

I'm running 1080p with everything on ultra on a i7 4770k and 3GB Geforce 780.

It ran like crap a few days ago but now I have almost no stuttering at all. No clue that I changed anything siginificant on my system or game settings. In fact I double checked my settings to make sure everything was still on ultra. Just glad I can play now. I'm kinda scared of some "fix" at this point that might undo the voodoo.

 

[b0bbyJ03]

I'm running 1080p with everything on ultra on a i7 4770k and 3GB Geforce 780.

It ran like crap a few days ago but now I have almost no stuttering at all. No clue that I changed anything siginificant on my system or game settings. In fact I double checked my settings to make sure everything was still on ultra. Just glad I can play now. I'm kinda scared of some "fix" at this point that might undo the voodoo.

your 780 beat the game into submission. maybe if i keep trying ultra with my 780 watch dogs will give up trying to be an asshole

 

[Dr Dogg]

Right excuse the messy and hacked together nature of this but I don't exactly have 2 grand kicking about for a FCAT setup and me and FRAPS aren't exactly getting along so it's crude (and probably not the most accurate) Afterburner shots!

So just for giggles I though I'd have a look at what minimum settings would produce on my setup (4670k@4.4Ghz, 16gb RAM@1600Mhz, 2x780 SLI @1097Mhz, Watch_Dogs installed on non OS SSD). Here's the settings.

In addition to this I also have the game restricted to 62fps via RivaTuner Stats Server.

So the results, which involved me spawning at the motel hideout, running around on foot the first block then getting in a car and driving around the block and finally driving to and area called The Loop and circulating that area (wish this had a fixed bench). I repeat this circuit in every test bellow.

All those spikes your seeing are where it's stuttering, sometimes latency is as high as 56ms.

Granted SLI isn't the best example for frametiming due to syncing over 2 or more cards so here's the same run but on a single 780

Better but it's still stuttering by quite a bit and this is as low as the game will go.

Maybe limiting the framerate is having an effect? Ok so lets set the game to run free.

It's having an effect alright, unlocked it feels more stuttery to me and the graph shows. Though fair enough all games can have stuttering issues, especially open world ones (Sleeping Dogs still does at max AA and 1920x1080) but I can't lower a single setting any more and there are only like 5 GPUs on the market right now more capable than mine, so yeah.

Still could be worse. I could go with what Nivida deems as the recommended settings.

[quote='Recomended' Settings - Single Card - Framerate Unlocked]

[/quote]

Yeeeaaaaahhh, I'm going to wait for a patch I think.

If you want to know why frametime is a better gauge of what's going on than framerate mkenyon wrote a great break down and a few posts in this thread. Also here's an article from PC Perspective about FCAT and why that is more acurate at recording the data

 

[ymmv]

poor performance with a i7 3930K, one core on that out does more then every single core on the PS4/Xbox One.

Ubi have work to do, this game is massively unoptimized.

It's a familiar story. Ubisoft's PC ports are generally awful.

 

[Serandur]

So, going by all these frame time variance measurements and accounts of Titans struggling, have we pretty much ruled out that the problem is VRAM and are back to the problem being Ubisoft?

 

[W Hudson]

So it seems like no matter what settings I use I get what looks like scan lines appearing when I'm looking around in game. Anybody else deal with this it all? I have a 780 with an i5 4570k as an fyi.

 

[jongkookie]

Can a 1GB HD7850 run this game even at medium settings?

For reference my PC has an FX-8320 and 8GB RAM.

I've been resisting the hype for this game but part of me still really wants to play it... I'm even debating if I should rent the game out for PS3 and just see if I like the gameplay before I buy it on PC lol.

 

[nbthedude]

your 780 beat the game into submission. maybe if i keep trying ultra with my 780 watch dogs will give up trying to be an asshole

I think I am just using the Nvidia optimizers defaults for the game but here are my settings if anyone wants to try to replicate it:

Resolution: 1920x1080
Refresh rate: 60
Window mode: Windowed (but it isn't; it is full screen so you got me)
Vsync: Off
GPU max frame buffer: 3
Textures: Ultra
Anti-Aliasing: Temporal SMAA


Graphics Quality: Custom
Level if Detail: Ultra
Shadows: Ultra
Refkections: Ultra
Ambient Occlusion: MHBAO
Motion Blur: On
Depth of Field: On
Water: Ultra
Shader: High


I get smooth frame rate and havent notced any tearing and very infrequent stuttering (like mahbe once every 5-10 minutes for half a second.

System specs (including everything just to be thorough)

I7 4770k @ default clock w/ water coolingr
AsRock z87 Extreme 4
Gigabyte 3GB GTX Geforce 780 OC
16 GB Kingston Hyperblu 1600mhz DDR3
250GB Samsung SSD
Windows 8.1


Running game through Steam BPM on a Plasma 50" Panasonic set as my primary screen with my Monitor as my secondary screen.

 

[scitek]

Can a 1GB HD7850 run this game even at medium settings?

For reference my PC has an FX-8320 and 8GB RAM.

I've been resisting the hype for this game but part of me still really wants to play it... I'm even debating if I should rent the game out for PS3 and just see if I like the gameplay before I buy it on PC lol.

I'd probably rent it first, then if you do like it enough to buy, look in the Buy/Sell/Trade thread for a key. Got mine for $35 from a GAFfer.

 

[xXBaconXx]

How bad is the stuttering for everyone? From the webms that I've been seeing it looks like everyone else has it a lot better than me.

Here a sample of what the game looks like for me after playing for a while:
http://a.pomf.se/cgmopz.webm

Settings:
1920x1080
Fullscreen
Vsync: Adaptive from control panel
GPU max frame buffer: 3
Temporal SMAA
Textures - High
Shadows - High
Everything else - Max

Specs:
3570k @ 4.3 GHz
GTX 680 @ 1126 MHz Core and 1572 MHz Memory
8 GB RAM

 

[LabouredSubterfuge]

How bad is the stuttering for everyone? From the webms that I've been seeing it looks like everyone else has it a lot better than me.

Here a sample of what the game looks like for me after playing for a while:
http://a.pomf.se/cgmopz.webm

Settings:
1920x1080
Fullscreen
Vsync: Adaptive from control panel
GPU max frame buffer: 3
Temporal SMAA
Textures - High
Shadows - High
Everything else - Max

Specs:
3570k @ 4.3 GHz
GTX 680 @ 1126 MHz Core and 1572 MHz Memory
8 GB RAM

Fucking hell. I thought it was bad for me.

 

[Coolade]

I found this video interesting. I was looking to build a PC for this game, now im not so sure.
Watch Dogs GPU Benchmark - AMD vs. NVidia

 

[scitek]

How bad is the stuttering for everyone? From the webms that I've been seeing it looks like everyone else has it a lot better than me.

Here a sample of what the game looks like for me after playing for a while:
http://a.pomf.se/cgmopz.webm

Settings:
1920x1080
Fullscreen
Vsync: Adaptive from control panel
GPU max frame buffer: 3
Temporal SMAA
Textures - High
Shadows - High
Everything else - Max

Specs:
3570k @ 4.3 GHz
GTX 680 @ 1126 MHz Core and 1572 MHz Memory
8 GB RAM

Mine will do that for a couple seconds every now and then, but nowhere near as badly as with texture to Ultra. My specs are:

i5 2500k @4.5GHz
2GB GTX 670
8GB RAM

Everything at max except textures and LOD at high, DOF OFF, and I'm using FXAA while downsampling from 1440p. I have it capped at 30fps with Afterburner, as well.

 

[riflen]

Some painful benches

Hey Doc, we have somewhat similar machines. I don't know if you saw my post from 10 pages back where I benched in a similar manner. Thought you'd appreciate some solidarity.
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=113819254&postcount=1159
If FRAPS is causing the game to crash, try disabling the overlay and/or running it after the game has loaded.

 

[Grumbul]

Here a sample of what the game looks like for me after playing for a while:
http://a.pomf.se/cgmopz.webm

....bloody hell, that is just ridiculous.

 

[Dr Dogg]

Hey Doc, we have somewhat similar machines. I don't know if you saw my post from 10 pages back where I benched in a similar manner. Thought you'd appreciate some solidarity.
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=113819254&postcount=1159
If FRAPS is causing the game to crash, try disabling the overlay and/or running it after the game has loaded.

Hahaha yeah I saw them which is kind of what prompted me to have a look as I was feeling I was getting no where near the same experience. Don't know how Afterburner/RTSS polls it's results but I assume at the driver level so no idea how accurate they are but will try and get FRAPS working tomorrow. I've tried with both the Steam and Uplay overlays disabled and FRAPS still hangs on me. Only does it with DX11 titles and not exclusive to Watch_Dogs. Going to fiddle around on my second BIOS tomorrow and do a clean install and see what I get.

 

[Dr Dogg]

Game crashes whenever I hack a billboard when driving, anybody else getting this issue? Like it literally instantly crashes the game.

This has got to be one of Ubi's worst PC ports yet, not only is the stuttering and performance issues ruining the game, it also has major game breaking bugs revolving around the main gameplay mechanic...GREAT JOB UBI!

Only when in a vehicle and yeah it's every time. On foot they seem to be fine.

 

[Fried Food]

stuttering sucks in the this game, forget stuttering this is down right freezing

 

[air jordans for dogs]

stuttering sucks in the this game, forget stuttering this is down right freezing

Yeah its real bad, im waiting for a patch before i play this game.

 

[Applebite]

stuttering sucks in the this game, forget stuttering this is down right freezing

I experienced that too, along with some pretty nasty screentearing despite the fact that I was right around 60fps for most of the time. Is this common? My specs are like this and I have most things on medium, 1080p and one of the less demanding AA options:

 

[TheD]

How bad is the stuttering for everyone? From the webms that I've been seeing it looks like everyone else has it a lot better than me.

Here a sample of what the game looks like for me after playing for a while:
http://a.pomf.se/cgmopz.webm

Settings:
1920x1080
Fullscreen
Vsync: Adaptive from control panel
GPU max frame buffer: 3
Temporal SMAA
Textures - High
Shadows - High
Everything else - Max

Specs:
3570k @ 4.3 GHz
GTX 680 @ 1126 MHz Core and 1572 MHz Memory
8 GB RAM

That kind of stuttering is way too extreme for running out of VRAM, an 16X PCIe 3.0 bus should take less than 130ms to transfer enough data to fill the VRAM with assets.

 

[Denton]

How bad is the stuttering for everyone? From the webms that I've been seeing it looks like everyone else has it a lot better than me.

Here a sample of what the game looks like for me after playing for a while:
http://a.pomf.se/cgmopz.webm

Settings:
1920x1080
Fullscreen
Vsync: Adaptive from control panel
GPU max frame buffer: 3
Temporal SMAA
Textures - High
Shadows - High
Everything else - Max

Specs:
3570k @ 4.3 GHz
GTX 680 @ 1126 MHz Core and 1572 MHz Memory
8 GB RAM

Granted, it never stuttered this hard for me, but anyway have you tried borderless window? The game is completely stutter-free for me, on ultra with textures high.

Game crashes whenever I hack a billboard when driving, anybody else getting this issue? Like it literally instantly crashes the game.

This has got to be one of Ubi's worst PC ports yet, not only is the stuttering and performance issues ruining the game, it also has major game breaking bugs revolving around the main gameplay mechanic...GREAT JOB UBI!

Not a single crash here. Rock stable, and that is with overclocked CPU on stock box cooler and overclocked GPU as well.