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Watch_Dogs PC Performance Thread

S

Seanspeed

Banned
Deepo said:
Starting to think I'm CPU limited here. Some small stutters.


  • i5-3570K @ 4.4Ghz
  • Low Settings
  • Medium Textures
  • No AA


Not much more to squeeze here.
Click to expand...
I think everybody is CPU limited with this game to some degree, but certainly the stuttering issue is coming from GPU/RAM-related issues?
 
Denton

Denton

Member
I think I must have some magical PC, because I get no stuttering whatsoever, before or after the patch. Performance seems exactly the same. Borderless windowed, 1080p, ultra, textures high. On 2500k/4ghz, 280x,8GBram.
 
B

Buburibon

Member
Denton said:
I think I must have some magical PC, because I get no stuttering whatsoever, before or after the patch. Performance seems exactly the same. Borderless windowed, 1080p, ultra, textures high. On 2500k/4ghz, 280x,8GBram.
Click to expand...

It might be an Nvidia thing, who knows. Digital Foundry did mention WD performed the best on a 290x during tests... and if you don't mind my asking, what's your operating system and virtual memory/page file configuration?

Come to think of it, AC4 runs perfectly smooth for me as long as PhysX is OFF. When it's enabled it behaves just like WD does. A complete stutter fest. Now, this is just speculation, but I'm wondering whether some form of PhysX is running in the background producing stutters as it does in AC4.
 
F

fade_

Member
I am irate at this new patch. Ive been sow playing the game hoping the new patch will solve the stuttering I get while driving and now I get stutting EVERYWHERE for even longer than a microsecond like it used to be. Horrible support from Ubisoft. They are on the same level of douchebaggery as EA in my book right now. Especially when it comes to PC. I guess it's my fault though for trusting they would get their act together after Assassins's Creed 3 and 4 on PC.
 
C

ChawlieTheFair

pip pip cheerio you slags!
Wait so the Worse mod doesn't work anymore?

I really wanna get the game, but i'm waiting till PC version is more ironed out, other wise i'll just get ps4.
 
Hawk269

Hawk269

Member
Aside from performance issues, I am still plagued that the game will not provide any audio if I set my PC to 5.1 audio. EVERY other game I have on my PC works perfectly fine at 5.1. Even he damn logo and menu screens in Watch Dogs plays in 5.1, but as soon as the game loads dead silence. The only way I am able to get audio is if I turn off my 5.1 setup and put it at 2.0 audio. Which really sucks because the sounds seems muted a bit.

This game is such a cluster fuck on PC. I can't believe they release a patch and we still have the stuttering. But for me, I have no audio as well. I have googled it and others have had this issue as well. The scary thing is that this did not happen initially, when I first got the game it worked fine in 5.1. I even un-installed and re-installed and that did not help.
 
W

watchdog

Member
ChawlieTheFair said:
Wait so the Worse mod doesn't work anymore?

I really wanna get the game, but i'm waiting till PC version is more ironed out, other wise i'll just get ps4.
Click to expand...

I think getting the PS4 version might be the way to go at this point. It doesn't seem to have all the performance issues of the PC version. Though you might be one of the lucky ones that doesn't get the stuttering.

Skyzard said:
Managed to get 50fps pretty stable but 1920x1200, shadowplay records it at 60fps though:

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

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

A hardlocked 30fps with very occasional slowdown with txaax4 is pretty sweet though, makes it more movie like:

http://a.pomf.se/ikckvk.webm
Click to expand...

Damn, that looks really smooth. I wish my system ran the game like that. :(
 
D

dawid

Member
Definitely getting less stuttering while driving. But it's not near perfect.
Overall framerate seems the same. Vsync is still broken. Pop-ins and overall graphics is terrible on High.
 
R

riflen

Member
At this point, with Ubisoft's failure to address the main concern of its customers, you can only conclude one of three things:

1. They do not know what causes the problem (highly unlikely).
2. They know the cause(s) of the problem and intend to fix it, but don't have a working solution yet.
3. The problem is inherent to their engine design and to fix it would cost them too much money.

To me it looks like the engine is not really designed to push frames at 16ms or less. As the consoles are the focus, a max 33ms frame time is also the focus. The game behaves itself much more on PC when you limit the frame rate to 30.
 
N

Nethaniah

Member
riflen said:
At this point, with Ubisoft's failure to address the main concern of its customers, you can only conclude one of three things:

1. They do not know what causes the problem (highly unlikely).
2. They know the cause(s) of the problem and intend to fix it, but don't have a working solution yet.
3. The problem is inherent to their engine design and to fix it would cost them too much money.

To me it looks like the engine is not really designed to push frames at 16ms or less. As the consoles are the focus, a max 33ms frame time is also the focus. The game behaves itself much more on PC when you limit the frame rate to 30.
Click to expand...

Would not be suprised if it was the third option, game still does not support sli does it? Remember reading that it was because of the engine not supporting it though i could be mistaken.

The fact that they even bothered to at one point say that pc was lead platform was the biggest mistake they made.

Edit: I think it might be better for Ubisoft to invest in one engine for all games like EA did with Frostbite 3, make sure it's atleast somewhat optimized for all platforms (even pc) and you rarely have to worry about having shipped a terrible product for one platform, though i don't think they are worrying now anyway.....
 
L

LilJoka

Member
Deepo said:
Starting to think I'm CPU limited here. Some small stutters.


  • i5-3570K @ 4.4Ghz
  • Low Settings
  • Medium Textures
  • No AA


Not much more to squeeze here.
Click to expand...

Of course with those setting you are CPU limited as the GPU is working so fast as there is hardly any work to do.... You are CPU limited if dropping from the higher settings gains no fps increase, or you have CPU load like in your photo at the settings you play at.
 
LabouredSubterfuge

LabouredSubterfuge

Member
riflen said:
At this point, with Ubisoft's failure to address the main concern of its customers, you can only conclude one of three things:

1. They do not know what causes the problem (highly unlikely).
2. They know the cause(s) of the problem and intend to fix it, but don't have a working solution yet.
3. The problem is inherent to their engine design and to fix it would cost them too much money.

To me it looks like the engine is not really designed to push frames at 16ms or less. As the consoles are the focus, a max 33ms frame time is also the focus. The game behaves itself much more on PC when you limit the frame rate to 30.
Click to expand...

I think it's 3, based on what Maldo has said about how the texture streaming is set up. Basically double textures loading in on the fly. Idiotic.
 
R

riflen

Member
It's also possible that fixing the stuttering is possible, but only with close collaboration with GPU vendors, as there could be a need to alter driver behaviour.
This wouldn't surprise me at all, as nowadays PC gaming is not as simple as it once was, and each game (especially those with this kind of commercial profile) involves some kind of interaction and testing with the GPU vendors.

All that takes time and planning, so we could be waiting a long time if this is the case. It could also explain Ubisoft's fantastically non-committal attitude on this issue so far. It's still mind-boggling why the game shipped with this problem.

If anything this has taught me to never pre-order a game. It can only encourage the publisher to ship whatever they like because people are throwing money at them, irrespective of the quality of the product delivered. Some publishers have clearly demonstrated their disinterest in quality and polish recently.
 
N

Nethaniah

Member
riflen said:
It's also possible that fixing the stuttering is possible, but only with close collaboration with GPU vendors, as there could be a need to alter driver behaviour.
This wouldn't surprise me at all, as nowadays PC gaming is not as simple as it once was, and each game (especially those this kind of commercial profile) involves some kind of interaction and testing with the GPU vendors.
All that takes time and planning, so we could be waiting a long time if this is the case. It could also explain Ubisoft's fantastically non-committal attitude on this issue so far.
Click to expand...

I don't know, still waiting for that AC IV patch (or driver fix) that actually makes the game run decent, didn't help that nvidia just dropped those physx effects in there on an already bad running game.

I'll be waiting forever with this game too i think.
 
M

MaLDo

Member
LabouredSubterfuge said:
I think it's 3, based on what Maldo has said about how the texture streaming is set up. Basically double textures loading in on the fly. Idiotic.
Click to expand...

I've thought many times about writing a blog post about stuttering problems in gaming but I can't find the moment. Stutter was present in one way or another in games like Doom, Doom 3, Half Life 2, Oblivion, Fallout 3, Metro Last Light, Bioshock Infinity, Sine Mora, Gears of War, Fly'n, Fez, and a big bunch of other games. Every case with different causes. Some of them patched, but not all of them. Sometimes we can find a workaround.

http://www.jong.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/hl2/
https://getsatisfaction.com/polytron/topics/58_fps_in_60_hz_monitor_constant_judder
http://steamcommunity.com/app/43160/discussions/0/810925580022544879

and so on.


What drives me crazy is everytime developers are surprised to see those problems after launch when these problems are always problems that occur to ALL USERS.

I think one step in the right direction could be to add a new middleware to every game that analizes our computers in the first run that can show to the user something like:

Your connection is being used for those programs: X, Y, Z. Your ping and multiplayer experience will be affected. Best experience in this game requires blahblahblah
The HD where the game is installed has a performance of 000 and access time 0000, the best experience of this game requires blahaa.a.a
Your SO is running those services A,B,C that will affect performance in that way ........ click here to stop them while the game is running.
Your native refreshrate is XXXX and for that reason ......

.........
 
R

riflen

Member
Nethaniah said:
I don't know, still waiting for that AC IV patch (or driver fix) that actually makes the game run decent, didn't help that nvidia just dropped those physx effects in there on an already bad running game.

I'll be waiting forever with this game too i think.
Click to expand...

Sadly, I agree this is very probable based on track record. The only power we have as consumers really is buying power. We can make noise in forums, but it's all too easy for companies to ignore, once the money has changed hands.

I really want to enjoy Far Cry 4, because it's my kind of game, but unless the PC build delivers a certain standard of quality (and I'm not asking too much), I will spend my money elsewhere, because this behaviour has to stop.
 
N

Nethaniah

Member
riflen said:
Sadly, I agree this is very probable based on track record. The only power we have as consumers really is buying power. We can make noise in forums, but it's all too easy for companies to ignore, once the money has changed hands.

I really want to enjoy Far Cry 4, because it's my kind of game, but unless the PC build delivers a certain standard of quality (and I'm not asking too much), I will spend my money elsewhere, because this behaviour has to stop.
Click to expand...

It just suprises me that this port is so bad, it runs so bad and now they have released a patch after what felt like an eternity that makes the game run even worse then before and yet no gaming site is reporting on this, probably scared of not getting anymore ubisoft games sent to them.
 
C

chickdigger802

Banned
Nethaniah said:
It just suprises me that this port is so bad, it runs so bad and now they have released a patch after what felt like an eternity that makes the game run even worse then before and yet no gaming site is reporting on this, probably scared of not getting anymore ubisoft games sent to them.
Click to expand...

dont know many mainstream sites that cover pc game performance. Probably the only reason the patch was covered was because it fixed other console version issues too.
 
R

riflen

Member
MaLDo said:
I've thought many times about writing a blog post about stuttering problems in gaming but I can't find the moment. Stutter was present in one way or another in games like Doom, Doom 3, Half Life 2, Oblivion, Fallout 3, Metro Last Light, Bioshock Infinity, Sine Mora, Gears of War, Fly'n, Fez, and a big bunch of other games. Every case with different causes. Some of them patched, but not all of them. Sometimes we can find a workaround.

http://www.jong.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/hl2/
https://getsatisfaction.com/polytron/topics/58_fps_in_60_hz_monitor_constant_judder
http://steamcommunity.com/app/43160/discussions/0/810925580022544879

and so on.


What drives me crazy is everytime developers are surprised to see those problems after launch when these problems are always problems that occur to ALL USERS.

I think one step in the right direction could be to add a new middleware to every game that analizes our computers in the first run that can show to the user something like:

Your connection is being used for those programs: X, Y, Z. Your ping and multiplayer experience will be affected. Best experience in this game requires blahblahblah
The HD where the game is installed has a performance of 000 and access time 0000, the best experience of this game requires blahaa.a.a
Your SO is running those services A,B,C that will affect performance in that way ........ click here to stop them while the game is running.
Your native refreshrate is XXXX and for that reason ......

.........
Click to expand...

This would be nice, if it helped the issue. Steam performance index, maybe? Or perhaps Futuremark are in a position to sell a product that does this? It would be a large undertaking for whomever stood up and took on the responsibility, that's for sure.

I remember we've had similar discussions on gaf before on this topic. I think the reason it probably doesn't exist is because it really helps the consumer, but the benefit to the companies developing games is dubious. It could even lead to lost sales in some cases.

EDIT: I see you specifically suggest middleware as part of the game itself. For it to work, wouldn't it have to be a collaboration between many companies? I don't hold out much hope tbh. At a certain point it's just easier to just make your game for fixed-spec systems and bodge it on to PC for some extra sales.
 
T

Toski

Member
Buburibon said:
It might be an Nvidia thing, who knows. Digital Foundry did mention WD performed the best on a 290x during tests... and if you don't mind my asking, what's your operating system and virtual memory/page file configuration?

Come to think of it, AC4 runs perfectly smooth for me as long as PhysX is OFF. When it's enabled it behaves just like WD does. A complete stutter fest. Now, this is just speculation, but I'm wondering whether some form of PhysX is running in the background producing stutters as it does in AC4.
Click to expand...

As an i7-4770k/HD7970/Win 8.1 user, I haven't experienced any of the gamebreaking stuttering many are mentioning. I wonder who experiences more stutter: Windows 7 vs Windows 8/8.1 users or Nvidia vs AMD GCN users, or is there some combination of the two?
 
B

Buburibon

Member
Toski said:
As an i7-4770k/HD7970/Win 8.1 user, I haven't experienced any of the gamebreaking stuttering many are mentioning. I wonder who experiences more stutter: Windows 7 vs Windows 8/8.1 users or Nvidia vs AMD GCN users, or is there some combination of the two?
Click to expand...

AMD users are probably better off, and I have no idea what impact the many versions of Windows might have on this. That being said, MaLDo is spot on with his findings, and I'd wager the intermittent stuttering is likely inherent to the engine Ubi cooked up for WD.

The following supposed PS4 "vertical slice" from September last year shows that Ubi definitely knew about the stutter long before release. The frame rate of the source was probably locked to 30fps which lessens the (d)effect, but now that most of us know exactly what to look for, it's fairly easy to spot the hitches at least a dozen times between 6:40-8:00 as he's driving into downtown Chicago. Some of it is quite bad too, and yet it seems no one who's had access to preview builds cared to report on these most annoying frame-rate inconsistencies.

http://youtu.be/8z3iG2QlJXk?t=6m40s
 
S

Skyzard

Banned
lmbotiva said:
framerate?
Click to expand...

35 locked pretty hard, with nvidia inspector.

Sometimes when driving fast near area like CTOS buildings (it loads people walking around inside or something I think) it will drop to 27-28. But this is only like 0.01% of the time. Driving around fast is mostly fantastic.

More frequently it may drop about 4 or 5 frames if there is a lot of physics stuff and the odd short freeze when driving. Watch the longer youtube video, lots of driving.
 
iNvid02

iNvid02

Member
my game is very stable now, getting a smooth 60 with ultra/2gb textures on a 690 and 2600k, very rare drops.. stuttering is pretty much gone, and i was able to continue my supposedly corrupted save file.
 
Wag

Wag

Member
I just moved on to some other game until the issues get sorted out. Last time I ever pre-order a Ubi game, that's for sure.
 
S

Skyzard

Banned
iNvid02 said:
my game is very stable now, getting a smooth 60 with ultra/2gb textures on a 690 and 2600k, very rare drops.. stuttering is pretty much gone, and i was able to continue my supposedly corrupted save file.
Click to expand...

wut?

Is this maldo mod and does it work with the official patch?
 
P

PFD

Member
Phil0sophy said:
I feel like Ubisoft should be on an episode of catfish...

Basically you get all these pictures that promise you some hot looking girl/guy (bullshots) then you find out that what you are really getting is some fat sweaty old man/girl with a 4 year beard that has half eaten oreo's stuffed in it.

He/she cannot run and what makes matters worse, no amount of work will fix him/her, the more you try to fix him/her, the worse he/she becomes.

The best you can do is accept him/her, then realise if you do accept him/her, you will get no foreplay whatsoever, you just a unlubed and uninspired fuck that lied and will probably leave you nothing more than a voicemail every once in a while that fixes nothing and makes you feel worse in the process (patches), he/she will take your money and you will come back for more.

And that's real talk lol.
Click to expand...

What the fuck? lol
 
Denton

Denton

Member
Buburibon said:
It might be an Nvidia thing, who knows. Digital Foundry did mention WD performed the best on a 290x during tests... and if you don't mind my asking, what's your operating system and virtual memory/page file configuration?

Come to think of it, AC4 runs perfectly smooth for me as long as PhysX is OFF. When it's enabled it behaves just like WD does. A complete stutter fest. Now, this is just speculation, but I'm wondering whether some form of PhysX is running in the background producing stutters as it does in AC4.
Click to expand...

I have Windows 7 64bit, 8GB RAM, 4GB page file on SSD, game installed on SSD.
 
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