Watch Dogs - Ubisoft's Third Person Shooter
- Thread starter Neil79
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Right, spent the last 2 days messing around with this game. Until some patches and/ or driver fixes are issued, this is the ONLY way I can get a really smooth, stutter free gaming experience in WD...
(Note - I'm on Nvidia so may not apply for AMD users)
1. Overclock your monitor to 75hz if you can
2. Set "vsync 2" option in the game menu (half refresh rate). I know, but bear with me!....
3. Don't run SLI. It does work, but has the potential to introduce occasional stutter vs using just one card, and the scaling is not currently that beneficial
4. Textures at high. (Ultra not viable on *any* cards even 6GB Titans according to many reports)
5. AA no higher than Temporal SMAA. Again, *seems* to be all about the Vram, though even at high textures I can't run MSAA, just a stuttering mess if do. And, monitoring my Vram usage by testing in certain part of the game over and over with textures on high and MSAA on, it's only at about 2880, well under the 3GB capacity of my card(s), so I don't think it is just a Vram problem.
6. All other settings to the max
7. Window mode - fullscreen (important).
On my system (See sig) gaming at 2560 x 1080 ultra wide, and using just one card, I get a rock solid 37 fps with absolutely no stutter at all.
The extra 7 fps by overclocking my monitor achieves a vsynced (vital for smoothness in this game) 37 fps, which in game actually feels really smooth. V similar/ slightly better to a good PS4 'locked' 30fps gaming feel, like Killzone for example, on a decent TV.
Without overclocking my monitor, only a locked 30 fps can be achieved obviously, but this does feel pretty bad. I know 37 fps isn't a giant leap from 30, but it is noticeably better in game.
There is the unfortunate side effect of more motion blur of course, but you can make yourself feel better and 'pretend' you have motion blur set to on in the game options, or actually enable it if you like that kind of thing
Should also add I'm now running sweetFX too. Only using moderate lumasharpen at the moment, which helps to very subtly 'improve' the look of certain textures ever so slightly, and partly makes up for not using ultra textures. Not got past the first night section yet of the game as not played properly yet (due to all this fannying around), so will no doubt experiment with other settings for the slightly washed out daytime appearance many complain about.
I have a pretty strong sytem, especially GPU wise (SLI 780Ti) so I know it sucks balls to not be able to achieve at least 60fps, but whilst the game is in its current state, this really is the only way I can play it. The variable frame rate spikes and stutter with any other settings just make it unplayable for me unless I do the above.
I have SLI 780s and 1400p and Ive found that high textures with smaa and everything else max is getting me no stutter. Im not far into the game yet though but so far it seems pretty smooth
Still on the fence with this one?
I am looking to set sail to the high seas as I only have a GTX480 but a low 16x10 monitor.
Only problem is multiplayer as I am very intrigued, I killed left 4 dead 2 in
multi but did not touch single player. If I take to the high seas I wont see this element of gameplay????
Mind you it is Ubisoft...... hmmraise anchor boys we off... hehe
Yarr, tis a quandary indeed, me hearty. Me thinks ye should wait for it to be in a bargain bucket for less than 1 pieces of eight.
Pirating is not the right way to go about this.
Surely the options are:
1. Don't buy it, based on the warnings of others
2. Buy it, try and play it, but complain about crashes/aspects you don't like to Ubisoft and hope for a patch
3. Buy it and just leave it in your Uplay / Steam inventory unplayed for ages until you realise it's there several months later, by which time you won't care.
Personally I'm trying #2
Surely the options are:
1. Don't buy it, based on the warnings of others
2. Buy it, try and play it, but complain about crashes/aspects you don't like to Ubisoft and hope for a patch
3. Buy it and just leave it in your Uplay / Steam inventory unplayed for ages until you realise it's there several months later, by which time you won't care.
Personally I'm trying #2
Surely Ubisoft want people to do so, otherwise why would they make it so damn difficult to actually play it legitimately?
After all, how else would they justify the bull and expenditure on "Anti-piracy"?
No doubt they will just bring up a bunch of crap about how much Watchdogs was downloaded for free and then start copy-pasting their code into a new game to do it all over again.
After all, how else would they justify the bull and expenditure on "Anti-piracy"?
No doubt they will just bring up a bunch of crap about how much Watchdogs was downloaded for free and then start copy-pasting their code into a new game to do it all over again.
how about buy it and pirate it???
I've been on all night. Done plenty of online hacks and pvp stuff, all seems good? Ballache getting back into my old Uplay account though.
I was worried about all the AMD card bashing that has been going on with regards to this game but everything is epic. I'm running a ASUS 144mhz 27", 7950 iceQ boost 1100/1500 clock, I7 4770K @ 4.4 with no problems. Used autodetect and most things are in Ultra and it absolutely screams along. Spent the first twenty minutes gawping at the screen
Mafia II
Sleeping Dogs
GTA IV
Just Cause 2
Saints Row
Scarface
Prototype
LA Noire
Mercanaries
The Saboteur
These are just a few i can remember off the top of my head, plenty more I'm sure
Performance is actually pretty good for me.
The two settings that bring horrible stutters are ultra textures and ultra shadows. Presumably this is because i am running out of vram.
However, i play at 1080p and 4xMSAA with everything else maxed out (apart from textures and shadows which are on high) and runs very well with no stutters. I have vsync on and it seems to be at 60 most of the time with the odd dip into the high 40's every now and then.
Spec - 3770k at 4.5GHZ, 16gb 1866mhz ram and 2x 670's (2gb).
The two settings that bring horrible stutters are ultra textures and ultra shadows. Presumably this is because i am running out of vram.
However, i play at 1080p and 4xMSAA with everything else maxed out (apart from textures and shadows which are on high) and runs very well with no stutters. I have vsync on and it seems to be at 60 most of the time with the odd dip into the high 40's every now and then.
Spec - 3770k at 4.5GHZ, 16gb 1866mhz ram and 2x 670's (2gb).
Mafia II - not really open world as there poretty much 0 to do but still spent 90 hours on it so 8/10
Sleeping Dogs - 9.9/10
GTA IV 8/10
Just Cause 2 could get into this so 4/10
Saints Row 7.5/10
Scarface 3/10
Prototype 5/10
LA Noire not played it
Mercanaries not played it
The Saboteur not played it
These are just a few i can remember off the top of my head, plenty more I'm sure
Unfortunately I can't so your solution is out for me. I am also playing with everything Ultra except Textures which are High, but I am running at 2560x1440. I have been tweaking the various AA methods and found my max VRAM usage after 1 hour to be:
Temporal SMAA = 3029
SMAA = 2963
FXAA = 2932
Regardless of which AA method I use I get the regular periodic stutter when driver at high speed. I do have V-sync turned on as I hate screen tearing, but perhaps this is exaggerating the problem? Or perhaps I should try without Ultra shadows? Although I don't think it is a VRAM issue in my case.
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Are you enforcing triple buffering through Nvidia inspector?
Definitely try this. I found ultra shadows gave me stutter at 1080p with 2gb, 670's in sli. Once i turn off ultra shadows and textures, it is completely stutter free.
I have triple buffering turned on in game but not enforced.
I found this great video on the problem. The stutter is a V-Sync issue which according to the testers is still there even if you drop quality to Medium. I think I will try out the V-Sync 2 30fps option.
I found this great video on the problem. The stutter is a V-Sync issue which according to the testers is still there even if you drop quality to Medium. I think I will try out the V-Sync 2 30fps option.
Soldato
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I played a bit with v sync 2 and it actually seems ok tbh. Constant 30fps compared to drops from 60 to 40 makes it more consistent.