• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Watch_Dogs PC Performance Thread

J

JoeMartin

Member
i7-4770k @ 4.4 (NH-D14)
16gb DDR3-1600
R9 290 @ 1100/6000 (Vapor-X, can get stable clocks higher but I figure this is fine for wear and tear) using 14.6 beta drivers
1440p (Qnix 2710)

I played with settings to the wall, with the exception of TSMAA vice MSAA because the performance drop no where near justifies the IQ gain.

Average over the course of a one hour fraps benchmark was 44 min/58 avg.
 
R

R_Deckard

Member
schennmu said:
Maybe you should check your setup then. The PC version comes very close to the 2012 demo. PS4? Not a chance.
Click to expand...

nicolascageconfusedemotions.gif
 
R

Robobandit

Member
SLI makes a noticeable difference in performance for me.

SLI enabled -

2014-05-27 20:55:33 - Watch_Dogs
Frames: 20355 - Time: 318735ms - Avg: 63.862 - Min: 32 - Max: 89


SLI Disabled -

2014-05-27 20:42:43 - Watch_Dogs
Frames: 9393 - Time: 237703ms - Avg: 39.516 - Min: 29 - Max: 48

This is running around the same area of the map, crashing cars into anything and everything, exploding steam pipes, etc.

I get less stuttering with SLI disabled, but the frame rate numbers are quite a bit higher with SLI

This is at 2560x1440

I've read people saying SLI doesn't help at 1920x1080 or lower for this game, which is pretty weird, but I definitely see a performance increase.
 
O

Overdoziz

Banned
Is there a way to fix the constant stuttering while driving around? (not small stutters, sometimes it straight-up freezes for a second) I have everything on low and it's still a big issue, even when trying the high setting stutter fix in the OP. Framerate-wise the game runs fine, so this is getting a bit annoying.

Specs:
HD 7850
i5 4670k
8GB RAM

Would moving it to my SSD help?
 
cyberheater

cyberheater

PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 Xbone PS4 PS4
Ploid 3.0 said:
There is a video out, there are a lot of effects that seem straight missing in the final version. Especially in that club scene. The smoke for example.

http://youtu.be/L_A6Z3gkXlk
Click to expand...

Yep. There's a massive difference in tone, lighting, shadow and environmental effects like smoke, wind and the way the water sprays off the tyres on cars.
Would it have been different if it was next gen and PC only?
 
Windom Earle

Windom Earle

Member
Ploid 3.0 said:
There is a video out, there are a lot of effects that seem straight missing in the final version. Especially in that club scene. The smoke for example.

http://youtu.be/L_A6Z3gkXlk
Click to expand...

This video is bullshit as it covers different times of day.
Anyway, game looks amazing on my rig and I don't know why people want to convince PC gamers that the PS4 version is superior. Take that console war bullshit to another thread please.
 
D

Dark Octave

Banned
SalsaShark said:
found my settings for it to run fine and without looking bad

now the problem is that the game is just boring
Click to expand...

Options>settings>gameplay>turn "awesome" slider all the way up and the "jaded" slider as far down as you can.

If that doesn't work try start>shutdown>confirm shutdown.
 
K

KojiKnight

Member
Smokey said:
But tweaking is the fun part of PC gaming. The fact that I can decide what to do with my game and how it is presented to me. Now WD is unoptimized in places obviously, but there are tons of options for you to dig in and mess around with.
Click to expand...

This... not sure why some people feel "sorry" about this. Can it be frustrating sometimes? Yeah... but the results (even on mid-end hardware) usually nets better results than the consoles and it is sort of a puzzle/side game to the game itself.

For every complaint you see on the forum, you're missing that 5+ other times when you see someone finally get the mix just perfect. It's a good feel.
 
O

OrangeOak

Member
Seanspeed said:
That's what I suspected. But can such a minor downsample really have a noticeable effect?
Click to expand...

It's not some big imrpovement over 1080p but from my experience it improves IQ to the point that it is noticable.Especially with SMAA which isn't as blurry as TXAA,I don't think I would see to much of a difference with TXAA.
Besides I play it locked at 30fps and there is still some headroom without supersampling so there is no point in wasting these frames :)
 
Dave_6

Dave_6

Member
These crashes/freezes I keep having are fucking infuriating. I haven't seen one mention of the same issue anywhere in this thread which makes me think something is wrong with my PC (though I'm not having issues with any of my other games, even Wolfenstein as bad as it runs).

On top of that, I still can't get the OSD for Afterburner to work (same with RadeonPro).
 
B

bastian

Banned
Ploid 3.0 said:
There is a video out, there are a lot of effects that seem straight missing in the final version. Especially in that club scene. The smoke for example.

http://youtu.be/L_A6Z3gkXlk
Click to expand...

But the final PC version also has effects the 2012 demo didn't.

I think what it mostly boils down to is the artists change in direction. Some considerations may have been technical, but I think mostly the changes the game had were designers changing their minds about things. And its their game, so there is no point arguing about it.

Sure, the smoke in the 2012 was cool, but an artist may go, you know what that is too much lets dial it down. I have to admit, seeing how much smoke is in the club in the 2012 demo is overboard.
 
C

CyberPunked

Member
cyberheater said:
Yep. There's a massive difference in tone, lighting, shadow and environmental effects like smoke, wind and the way the water sprays off the tyres on cars.
Would it have been different if it was next gen and PC only?
Click to expand...

Watch the Assassins Creed Unity trailer if you want to know what a next-gen exclusive and PC game looks like...
 
T

ToastyBanana

Member
More numbers for thought.

i7 920 at 3.9ghz
6GB RAM
R9 290
Some regular 7200rpm 1TB HDD

I play it full screen 2560x1440 after flicking to borderless and back which seems to let the forced triple buffering I set in Radeonpro to work properly. On ultra with SMAA, driving fast through the populated city areas dips down to 30 but it jumps around the 45-60 range usually. RAM use is ~4300mb, VRAM usage is ~3200mb and my pagefile hits ~8500mb. Turning textures down to high feels smoother with a higher min frame rate overall - RAM at ~4300mb, VRAM ~3000mb and pagefile ~7400mb.
 
C

CyberPunked

Member
bastian said:
But the final PC version also has effects the 2012 demo didn't.

I think what it mostly boils down to is the artists change in direction. Some considerations may have been technical, but I think mostly the changes the game had were designers changing their minds about things. And its their game, so there is no point arguing about it.

Sure, the smoke in the 2012 was cool, but an artist may go, you know what that is too much lets dial it down. I have to admit, seeing how much smoke is in the club in the 2012 demo is overboard.
Click to expand...

Well they completely removed POMs, and there's no "artists change in direction", justification for that.
 
S

SuperCambot

Banned
**Need advice**

Something went wrong with Aiden's leather coat. The leather and seams are all blurry. It seems like it happened after I "optimized" the game with the Nvidea Experience app. No texture setting seems to fix this.

Anyone else experience this?
 
T

Ty4on

Member
Overdoziz said:
Is there a way to fix the constant stuttering while driving around? (not small stutters, sometimes it straight-up freezes for a second) I have everything on low and it's still a big issue, even when trying the high setting stutter fix in the OP. Framerate-wise the game runs fine, so this is getting a bit annoying.

Specs:
HD 7850
i5 4670k
8GB RAM

Would moving it to my SSD help?
Click to expand...

Does the HDD activity light seem to indicate that you're bottlenecked by the HDD? You could try. It seems like the game has issues streaming assets.
 
R

riflen

Member
elektrixx said:
Is triple buffering the same as the max buffered frames in game?

I haven't tested properly, but I no longer have hitches when I drive fast in the city after enabling triple buffering.

Also I still had tearing with triple buffering on and VSync off.

If I've set the frame rate to 30, is there any benefit in setting VSync to 2?
Click to expand...

I'm fairly confident that the answer that question is yes. But I'd need to know how you are enabling this "triple buffering" setting.

DirectX only supports a render buffer queue, and forcing this queue to use 3 buffers (through some utilities for example) is mislabelled as triple buffering all over the place. Anyway, the naming is semantics in the context of this thread.

I'm not sure what the Vsync frames setting in Watch Dogs is doing when set to "1", but the result feels like at least a 3-buffer-queue with Vsync. When it's set to "2", it appears to be enabling double-buffering with Vsync.

I believe the max buffered frames setting is manipulating the render buffer queue that DirectX utilises. The more frames in your queue, the smoother the delivery of frames to the display can be. However the downside of a queue like this is that it adds latency, as the render queue cannot drop frames and forces them all through to the display. So what you see might be rather an old frame. The result is sluggish response from the game. The longer the queue, the greater the latency.

It would be great for someone from Ubisoft to communicate what these settings are really doing, because how they relate to one-another could offer customers some insight into how best to configure the game.
 
G

GrazGamer

Member
riflen said:
I'm fairly confident that the answer that question is yes. But I'd need to know how you are enabling this "triple buffering" setting.

DirectX only supports a render buffer queue, and forcing this queue to use 3 buffers (through some utilities for example) is mislabelled as triple buffering all over the place. Anyway, the naming is semantics in the context of this thread.

I'm not sure what the Vsync frames setting in Watch Dogs is doing when set to "1", but the result feels like at least a 3-buffer-queue with Vsync. When it's set to "2", it appears to be enabling double-buffering with Vsync.

I believe the max buffered frames setting is manipulating the render buffer queue that DirectX utilises. The more frames in your queue, the smoother the delivery of frames to the display can be. However the downside of a queue like this is that it adds latency, as the render queue cannot drop frames and forces them all through to the display. So what you see might be rather an old frame. The result is sluggish response from the game. The longer the queue, the greater the latency.

It would be great for someone from Ubisoft to communicate what these settings are really doing, because how they relate to one-another could offer customers some insight into how best to configure the game.
Click to expand...

I have it set to 1 and I am getting triple buffering anyway.

I am fairly certain triple buffering is implemented in the game itself as I hover around 45fps, something that doesn't happen without triple buffering.

In the nvidia driver max gpu frames is defaulted to 3 and it has never made a difference in non triple buffered games for me.
 
C

Cannon Goose

Member
RadeonPro's triple buffering option does NOT work in Watch Dogs. With it on v-sync was still acting like regular ol' crummy v-sync, dropping to 30 almost immediately after the game loaded up.

Running the game in a borderless window works well though.
 
cripterion

cripterion

Member
CyberPunked said:
Watch the Assassins Creed Unity trailer if you want to know what a next-gen exclusive and PC game looks like...
Click to expand...

bastian said:
Or The Division.
Click to expand...

...Until the games don't match their original trailers and we're back again on the forums arguing about it.

In my opinion, this response by the Nvidia guy on the gameworks article, is a blatant admission that the early trailers are never really what we get in the final form (especially when it comes to Ubisoft games) :

Let’s go back to E3 2012 when Watch Dogs was announced. Nvidia is frequently involved in the development process before a reveal like that even occurs. “We’ll typically have a kick-off meeting with the developers and brainstorm cool new effects, show them a catalog of what we have in terms of libraries,” Cebenoyan explains. “We’ll prototype something outside of their engine to give them an idea what that effect might look like.” His team will speak with the developer’s artists as well, and generally provide insights into performance, features, and effects which may have been otherwise impossible — or at the very least restricted — by a developer’s budget, resources, or simply time.
Click to expand...
 
R

R_Deckard

Member
schennmu said:
Carry on with the quality trolling.
Click to expand...

I am not trolling dude, you just waved a blatant lie at me and dissed the PS4 which as we all know is incorrect, NO version looks like the reveal come on, gorgeous game in places truly but not the reveal.

LiquidNarwhal said:
dude owns it on both platforms, has played both and provided proof. This is his opinion, if you disagree with him that's one thing, but he is most certainly not trolling.
Click to expand...
Thanks man!
cyberheater said:
Yes. Thanks. I did find it.

I'm not sure looking at your other screen shot that high on PC looks that different from the PS4 version but as you've double dipped and can see them in motion then you'd know.
Click to expand...
Yeah it just looks like a combination of textures, if you look at the cabinet and the sheet nearest the screen on both you can see the PS4 is higher, but other textures appear only high on PS4..its like a mix.

The biggest issue is the drops between sections and stutter that is just not present in the PS4 version at all, I need to play with the settings some more but I have 7950 and a 8350 so should be good for a solid 30 at High.
 
R

riflen

Member
jacksepticeye said:
I bet you The Division won't look like that by the time it releases, even on PC.
Click to expand...

It already looks like a game that could be released in 2014 to me. There are low-res shadows in places and aliasing in many screenshots as well as other tell-tale rendering glitches like shadows not meeting the objects casting them.

By the way, anyone using SLI is already getting a multi-buffer queue of some kind. It's inherent to how SLI functions. SLI users shouldn't be experiencing the sudden drop in frame-rate that happens when using a single GPU and double-buffered Vsync.
 
D

Dictator93

Member
cripterion said:
...Until the games don't match their original trailers and we're back again on the forums arguing about it.

In my opinion, this response by the Nvidia guy on the gameworks article, is a blatant admission that the early trailers are never really what we get in the final form (especially when it comes to Ubisoft games) :
Click to expand...

You are reading it incorrectly.

Nvidia demos effects outside of game engines that are "impossible" for a normal team with no large dedicated budget.#
Not that the 2012 thing was impossible.
 
B

Betta Lines

Member
cripterion said:
...Until the games don't match their original trailers and we're back again on the forums arguing about it.

In my opinion, this response by the Nvidia guy on the gameworks article, is a blatant admission that the early trailers are never really what we get in the final form (especially when it comes to Ubisoft games) :
Click to expand...
That doesn't explain why a feature like depth of field + bokeh is still in the game but doesn't behave as it did in the earlier footage.
 
cripterion

cripterion

Member
Dictator93 said:
You are reading it incorrectly.

Nvidia demos effects outside of game engines that are "impossible" for a normal team with no large dedicated budget.#
Not that the 2012 thing was impossible.
Click to expand...

I never said it was impossible to have graphics like that.
Just that they still focus on releasing a vision of what they would like to have, an indication of what we will get as a final game, not a perfect match. See Far Cry 3 for other examples.

What makes people believe AC : Unity and The Division will be any different?

Not saying any of the titles, Watch Dogs included aren't lookers though.

Pazuzu9 said:
That doesn't explain why a feature like depth of field + bokeh is still in the game but doesn't behave as it did in the earlier footage.
Click to expand...

Maybe cause it would make the framerate tank even more?
Difference between full game with all systems working and a cherry picked portion of the game released as an E3 trailer.
 
C

CyberPunked

Member
Should we entertain the possibility that Sony had something to do with the downgraded visuals? Their console can barely run the game (900p/30fps), let alone have the added features that were seen at 2012, even 2013 e3.
 
J

j0hnny_385

Member
Finally managed to get the settings for a decent performance.
Far from 60fps, but I'm hovering around 40-45, drops to 30 in the worst case scenario (so far).
Not satisfied, but considering the state this game is in and problems that people are having... *sigh*
At least not tearing or other crazy shit.

For comparison, I ran AC:IV close to 60fps (55-60) all the time on almost everything maxed out + triple buffering.

Oh, yea, RadeonPro doesn't work for me, at all. Tried Fullscreen, Borderless, game just crashes if RadeonPro is running. :(

ltU5DAH.jpg


QgW4Hp0.jpg


Specs:

Core i5 4670K @ default 3.4GHz
8GB RAM DDR3 @ default SPD
Samsung 840 Pro SSD
Win 7 x64

Radeon 7850 2GB:

90QvfDR.gif


I really ,REALLY hope Ubi will patch this and AMD will release even better drivers.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Assassin's Creed Shadows: PC & New-Gen Features Trailer + PC Spec Requirements Revealed
16
1K
HogIsland replied
Civilization 7 PC Specs Revealed
24
2K
amigastar replied
The official unofficial PC Gamer "I have X performance issue with Y game" F.A.Q.
0
312
Nickolaidas replied
DLSS 4 just made 4k and Path ray tracing obtainable for the masses
2 3
118
11K
clintar replied
Until Dawn PC features and specs revealed
News
27
2K
nial replied
Top Bottom