[Multiple Sites] Watch Dogs GPU benchmark roundup

[Carfax83]

When the console specs were out we were discussing that future console ports would be GTA like, in that it will cripple GPUs with low vram, and here it is, the first big AAA console port and its exactly what happened.

I don't think the consoles necessarily have anything to do with this. The PS4 runs at 900p 30 FPS with the equivalent of high settings on the PC..

Most gaming PCs are at least going to be targeting 1080p with a much faster frame rate, plus the extra graphical options that are available on the PC such as HBAO+, enhanced LoD etcetera..

The LoD setting on ultra extends the draw distance out significantly further than what you find on the consoles, which will increase VRAM requirements even if the textures aren't on ultra.

 

[Deders]

Can confirm [H]ard's results. Game is a stutterfest with Ultra textures. You cannot even run High textures with MSAA, it still stutters. High textures+SMAA is the best you can manage at resolutions higher than 1080p with a 3GB card.

I wouldn't want to play this one on a 2GB card.

I find SMAA preferable to MSAA, does a better job of getting all the jaggies, without blurring like TXAA, plus this game has a temporal version!

 

[Carfax83]

Oh and I forgot one other thing. If you're running ultra settings (not just textures), it's best to put GPU Max buffered frames to 1 or 2. The higher the number, the more frames the CPU and GPU has to prepare in advance, the more resources are used (especially VRAM and CPU cycles) which could exacerbate stuttering..

I have mine set to 1.

 

[dn7309]

Oh and I forgot one other thing. If you're running ultra settings (not just textures), it's best to put GPU Max buffered frames to 1 or 2. The higher the number, the more frames the CPU and GPU has to prepare in advance, the more resources are used (especially VRAM and CPU cycles) which could exacerbate stuttering..

I have mine set to 1.

I was wondering what that setting does

 

[dn7309]

I find SMAA preferable to MSAA, does a better job of getting all the jaggies, without blurring like TXAA, plus this game has a temporal version!

What is the difference? which is smoother, nicer?

 

[2is]

Oh and I forgot one other thing. If you're running ultra settings (not just textures), it's best to put GPU Max buffered frames to 1 or 2. The higher the number, the more frames the CPU and GPU has to prepare in advance, the more resources are used (especially VRAM and CPU cycles) which could exacerbate stuttering..

I have mine set to 1.

I don't know if it's different in this game, but I wouldn't think so. Most games, the higher this setting is, the smoother everything gets, at the expense of having higher input lag. Maybe it's different when running close to or at the limit of your vram. Not sure.

 

[toyota]

I don't know if it's different in this game, but I wouldn't think so. Most games, the higher this setting is, the smoother everything gets, at the expense of having higher input lag. Maybe it's different when running close to or at the limit of your vram. Not sure.

lowering the setting is what fixes stutter in some games.

 

[dn7309]

real chicago vs watch dogs

http://www.ign.com/videos/2014/05/27/watch-dogs-real-chicago-vs-in-game-chicago-visual-comparison

 

[Deders]

What is the difference? which is smoother, nicer?

Check out this video from about halfway in....

http://vimeo.com/31247769

 

[Silverforce11]

real chicago vs watch dogs

http://www.ign.com/videos/2014/05/27/watch-dogs-real-chicago-vs-in-game-chicago-visual-comparison

The WD Chicago is a Lot cleaner. Not bad from PS graphics, on PC would definitely be heaps better for the comparison.

 

[escrow4]

RAM requirement seems to be missing here - that .ru site hit 5GB+ with 16GB and 4GB+ with 8GB. I suspect the stuttering will ease if you have a 16GB slab of RAM and an SSD. And Ultra seems to be playable with 3GB vRAM at 1200p or less with no AA. I'll see what I get with my 780 Ti GHz at 1200p.

 

[Carfax83]

I don't know if it's different in this game, but I wouldn't think so. Most games, the higher this setting is, the smoother everything gets, at the expense of having higher input lag. Maybe it's different when running close to or at the limit of your vram. Not sure.

Most games use nowhere near this much VRAM, or CPU cycles.. The higher the number, the more VRAM your GPU is going to use, which will cause more stuttering..

Here's another big tip I just found to increase performance in this game..

Disable the in game V-sync option. It's very buggy and doesn't work properly. If you want to use V-sync, force it via your driver control panel..

I did that and it made the game play much smoother and increased my GPU usage as well..

 

[thilanliyan]

So is the game any good?

 

[EJSLP]

Wow i am confused?
I am pretty much a noob with the technical aspects of GPU's and am getting ready to buy a evga gtx 780.
From reading this thread i better go with the gtx780 sc with 6g vram rather than get the 780 ftw 3g i originally had my eye on?
I game at 1920x1080p on a single monitor but i am starting to think that even 3g of Vram is not really enough for watch dogs and possibly other games to come at max texture settings?

 

[Attic]

Wow i am confused?
I am pretty much a noob with the technical aspects of GPU's and am getting ready to buy a evga gtx 780.
From reading this thread i better go with the gtx780 sc with 6g vram rather than get the 780 ftw 3g i originally had my eye on?
I game at 1920x1080p on a single monitor but i am starting to think that even 3g of Vram is not really enough for watch dogs and possibly other games to come at max texture settings?

Problem is that Watch Dogs is an outlier right now. It may signal whats to come and in that case it would be a mistake to plunk down over 400 hundred for a card with only 3gb VRAM at this time.

But Watch Dogs doesn't look as good as it should for what it's demanding from hardware IMO. That being said, 1080P with Ultra Textures, Ultra Settings looks good/great. In some cases it will blow you away. And for that you'll want 3gb minimum, if going high end GPU I wouldnt be looking to get the minimum, i'd want 4-6gb VRAM from nVidia and 4gb+ from AMD.

 

[EJSLP]

Problem is that Watch Dogs is an outlier right now. It may signal whats to come and in that case it would be a mistake to plunk down over 400 hundred for a card with only 3gb VRAM at this time.

But Watch Dogs doesn't look as good as it should for what it's demanding from hardware IMO. That being said, 1080P with Ultra Textures, Ultra Settings looks good/great. In some cases it will blow you away. And for that you'll want 3gb minimum, if going high end GPU I would be looking to get the minimum, i'd want 4-6gb VRAM from nVidia and 4gb+ from AMD.

Yeah i understand, even though i am just learning about all these things my gut is telling me that it is wiser to go with the extra 3g's of vram for $40 more and dont worry about the slightly faster clock speed of the 780 ftw edition with 3g vram.
I suppose i could OC the 780 super clocked version more if i needed to, right?
here there are,
http://www.evga.com/Products/Product.aspx?pn=03G-P4-3784-KR
http://www.evga.com/Products/Product.aspx?pn=06G-P4-3787-KR

 

[Attic]

Yeah i understand, even though i am just learning about all these things my gut is telling me that it is wiser to go with the extra 3g's of vram for $40 more and dont worry about the slightly faster clock speed of the 780 ftw edition with 3g vram.
I suppose i could OC the 780 super clocked version more if i needed to, right?
here there are,
http://www.evga.com/Products/Product.aspx?pn=03G-P4-3784-KR
http://www.evga.com/Products/Product.aspx?pn=06G-P4-3787-KR

For ~$40 i'd say the 6gb version is the one to get.

In VRAM limited situations the 6gb will be a big bonus, in GPU limited situations the extra clock speed of the FTW edition will be a small bonus.

The SC version can be OC'd too and definately OC it, that's where the 780's shine.

 

[EJSLP]

For ~$40 i'd say the 6gb version is the one to get.

In VRAM limited situations the 6gb will be a big bonus, in GPU limited situations the extra clock speed of the FTW edition will be a small bonus.

The SC version can be OC'd too and definately OC it, that's where the 780's shine.

thanks attic! I am going with the 6g

 

[Deders]

Wow i am confused?
I am pretty much a noob with the technical aspects of GPU's and am getting ready to buy a evga gtx 780.
From reading this thread i better go with the gtx780 sc with 6g vram rather than get the 780 ftw 3g i originally had my eye on?
I game at 1920x1080p on a single monitor but i am starting to think that even 3g of Vram is not really enough for watch dogs and possibly other games to come at max texture settings?

As far as I'm aware, there are 4 games so far that run optimally with 3GB at full detail @1920x1080:

Rage
Wolfenstein: New Order
Watch Dogs
Rome II: Total War

Rage and Wolfenstein run on the same engine which uses Megatexture streaming which is unique to this engine. At the time Rage needed 3GB to run the highest resolution textures, but you couldn't configure it to do this inside the game.

Watchdogs is very much like GTA 4 in the way it is open world and needs to stream a lot of texture data to be playable with high resolution textures. At the time there was a lot of controversy with GTA 4 as it was the only game that needed this, but now with consoles having around 6GB (if you take the OS out of the equation) to pool between the CPU and Graphics, this could become a more commonplace technique.

I would say if you were planning on sticking with 1080p the 3GB should be enough. Generally developers will aim for the mainstream and with most AMD cards (and the higher end of Nvidia ) having 3GB, it wouldn't be in their interest to develop for the minority.

There are going to be occasional exceptions, like rage and GTA4, or possibly Skyrim modded to excess but generally 3GB will be enough for 1080p.

How overclockable is the 6GB version of the EVGA you are looking at? Generally I'd say the 6BG version would be aimed at the multiscreen market.

 

[Attic]

thanks attic! I am going with the 6g

Nice!, the 6gb version will also give you a much better SLI option for upgrade possibilities down the road.

 

[narukun]

Hey guys should I buy this one?

http://www.amazon.com/PNY-GDDR5-Grap...CGGTX7704XPB-O

I don't know if this board maker use quality components or if is reliable, I live out of the US so I need the best reliability.

What's the difference with this one?
is 100$ more and same brand :/

Thanks.

 

[Leyawiin]

Seems lately I'm more of a game collector than a game player... My backlog currently stands at:

Skyrim (haven't started)
Witcher 2 (haven't started)
Sleeping Dogs (couple hours into it)
Arkham Origins (1 hour into it)
Tomb Raider (haven't started)
Rage (1 hour into it)

And these are just the games I do intend to play/finish at some point. If you're anything like me, waiting shouldn't be a problem. Watch Dogs and AC: Black Flag are two more that will be added to the list when the price is right. I'm in no rush.

This is pretty much my situation. Lots of quality games I've never started and don't have time for. Watch Dogs sounds like something I'd really like with its open world aspect, but I could work on other games for a year and get the use out of the 2GB GTX 670 and HD 7850 cards in my PCs. It just irks me that cards with still capable GPUs will choke because of this game's demands for VRAM.

 

[EJSLP]

Is this maxed? it is a gtx 780 3g
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vj0rmX_6BCA

 

[Attic]

Is this maxed? it is a gtx 780 3g
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vj0rmX_6BCA

For the most part yes. But that user is running 4xTXAA for his antialisasing choice.

Technically maxed will be 8x MSAA (overkill most would say).

[H] has a good look at what they believe are the best AntiAlising options in watchdogs.

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2014/05/28/watch_dogs_image_quality_preview/2#.U4YaJvldXVo

It seems, from the screenshots, the only AA methods that completely get rid of all the jaggies on every angle are the shader based ones, FXAA, SMAA and Temporal SMAA. You will note that MSAA and even TXAA are missing some of the angles on the metal pieces across the window. You can also see aliasing on the top of the garage door, except for FXAA/SMAA/Temporal SMAA. Clearly, SMAA/Temporal SMAA seems to be the better overall options. SMAA also does not suffer the blur that FXAA can add. TXAA also adds blur, it makes the textures blurry, more so than FXAA.

I don't see the point of running TXAA with ultra textures if TXAA is just going to blur up the whole image. TXAA does offer great performance, which is why nVidia has been pushing it so hard in this game as a "feature".

 

[EJSLP]

For the most part yes. But that user is running 4xTXAA for his antialisasing choice.

Technically maxed will be 8x MSAA (overkill most would say).

[H] has a good look at what they believe are the best AntiAlising options in watchdogs.

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2014/05/28/watch_dogs_image_quality_preview/2#.U4YaJvldXVo



I don't see the point of running TXAA with ultra textures if TXAA is just going to blur up the whole image. TXAA does offer great performance, which is why nVidia has been pushing it so hard in this game as a "feature".

Thanks attic you have been a big help understanding all this stuff.
Most if it is new to me. I am just now really getting into gaming before i was more of a "casual" gamer and did not care about graphics and such
but now it MATTERS! LOL!:biggrin:
I think i will go SMAA with ultra textures and HBAO+ i did not like what i saw TXAA doing to the graphic on the H site examples.