Good settings for R9 290 with Watch Dogs

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PCunicorn

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So I got Watch Dogs and have a R9 290. I've been experimenting with settings, but can find something that gives a good FPS (I'm one of those guys who hates anything below 45 FPS). So, what do you guys reccomend?
 
You should be able to crank it without cracking a sweat. To give yourself some easy headroom: Put shadows at high instead of ultra and if you're going to use MSAA cap it at 4 otherwise you're better off using SMAA or Temporal SMAA.

Other than that: Crank it.
 
Q-BZ said:
You should be able to crank it without cracking a sweat. To give yourself some easy headroom: Put shadows at high instead of ultra and if you're going to use MSAA cap it at 4 otherwise you're better off using SMAA or Temporal SMAA.

Other than that: Crank it.
Click to expand...

I have it on medium settings and Im still dropping to 40 FPS in some situations. Does it have anything to do with my 4GB of RAM? I'm planning on getting 8GB later today.

Durvelle27 said:
With my 290X I'm running at

2560X1080

All Ultra Settings
HBAO+High
2xMSAA
Click to expand...


Well a 290X is signifigantly more powerful then a 290 right?
 
PCunicorn said:
I have it on medium settings and Im still dropping to 40 FPS in some situations. Does it have anything to do with my 4GB of RAM? I'm planning on getting 8GB later today.




Well a 290X is signifigantly more powerful then a 290 right?
Click to expand...

No a 290X is only 5-10% faster than a 290

Yes thats the problem. This game requires more than 4GB of RAM
 
Okay,, I got 8 GB of RAM. It's for sure running better, but even on only High settings, I'm getting 45 FPS (2x MSAA). Also, I'm getting artifacting (At least, I think that's what it is) when motion blur is on. This doesn't happen in any other game.
 
This game will dip framerates no matter what kind of hardware you're running or what settings you use. You can mitigate the dips by playing with the settings, though. Temporal SMAA makes weird glitches happen on my system, so I would recommend regular SMAA. Turning shadows down didn't really help in my case. DoF, motion blur, and ambient occlusion settings would make the biggest difference aside from textures.
 
I turned off Motion Blur, put shadows to high, but all other settings to the max. Also, I put AA in game to off and set 8X SSAA in CCC. It looks better then any of the AA in game (besides MSAA), and performs better.

I'm getting a decent FPS with these settings.
 
Wildace said:
motion blur is one of those things i always turn off, makes games look horrible in motion.
Click to expand...
I've locked mine to 30fps, soooooooo motion blur is a necessity.

8X SSAA
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Probably doesn't work.
I tried forcing EQ MSAA through RadeonPro and it didn't work. I assume CCC also doesn't work.

And doesn't SSAA use more vram than MSAA?
 
Well I'm certainly noticing a difference between SSAA and off, so unless it;s my imagination, it's working.

It might use more vRam, but it certainly performs better.
 
I actually think it was my imagination lol, sorry guys.

What FPS are you guys getting at ultra settings with FXAA (ultra textures) with a R9 290? I want to compare, to make sure nothings wrong with my GPU.
 
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Is 4x/8x MSAA even possible with Ultra textures?
It should be using close to 4 GB without any AA.
 
Domini said:
Why would you do that to yourself? Your on a PC not a console
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Because of the marketing speak that has been flying around about consoles recently I think people are starting to believe that locking a game at a low framerate will prevent performance issues, or at least minimize stuttering in the case of Watch Dogs. A 66% dip in framerate is still a 66% dip, whether it be 20 FPS for the game running at 30 FPS or 80 FPS for a game running at 120 FPS.
 
Domini said:
Why would you do that to yourself? Your on a PC not a console
Click to expand...
???
Because 30fps is more cinematic? And W_D is a cinematic experience.

A 66% dip in framerate is still a 66% dip
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My average frame rate while driving is around 40fps, my minimum somewhere in the low 30's.
I figure locking to 30fps at least keeps things consistent. I'd rather have a constant 30fps than have to deal with bouncing between 30 and 50 over and over.
 
PCunicorn said:
I actually think it was my imagination lol, sorry guys.

What FPS are you guys getting at ultra settings with FXAA (ultra textures) with a R9 290? I want to compare, to make sure nothings wrong with my GPU.
Click to expand...

Anybody?
 
It barely goes below 30 for me. Ultra textures everything maxed MSAA 4x with one 290 (crossfire disabled.) However, it barely reaches 60 either. It uses about 3.5GB of VRAM at 1440p.
 
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TaintedSquirrel said:
???
Because 30fps is more cinematic? And W_D is a cinematic experience.

I really hope you are kidding


My average frame rate while driving is around 40fps, my minimum somewhere in the low 30's.
I figure locking to 30fps at least keeps things consistent. I'd rather have a constant 30fps than have to deal with bouncing between 30 and 50 over and over.

Why not lower some settings then? That low of FPS would give me a headache
Click to expand...

.....
 
Min, Max, Avg
20, 67, 41.

Does this look good? It was at night, I did a burnout (smoke), walked around, and drove moderatly fast. Settings are 4xMSAA, Ultra Textures, and High Settings with no motion blur and HBAO+ low.
 
PCunicorn, I just swapped a GTX 680 for a R9 290, so I'm still trying to figure out what settings work best for me. I've been having horrible slowdowns & lag after the swap. :(
 
Anything less than an i7, your average fps will fluctuate between 40fps and 50fps depending on your overclock.

Resolution doesn't matter.
Settings don't matter (except Level of Detail).
There's nothing else you can do about it.
 
I'd say stick with the FXAA instead of MSAA to get better frame rate PCunicorn.
 
I've maxed out settings through the Watch_Dogs Config Utility. The game has runned great so far & looks pretty good, too.

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