Watch Dogs was intentionally hobbled on PC

S

ShamisOMally

[H]ard|Gawd
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http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=838538

http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=390114

http://kotaku.com/modder-finds-files-for-better-graphics-in-watch-dogs-p-1591448324

And video of it here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mbiOmWw6Ls

This has reached an all new low for gaming, now they're gimping the PC version of games just so they can sell more console versions, or not make the console versions look that bad.

And the funniest thing? The game runs FAR faster with all the super high detail etc stuff turned back on!

*EDIT* Oh and it gets better! Kotaku is the only article posting the truth about the fact all this data is still in the game but turned off, every other game journalist is reporting its a "Custom downloaded modification to the game"
 
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First off. Technically they left it out sure.. But being as the game is the biggest VRAM whore ever to grace a PC and runs like an ass chock full of laxatives as it is.. It's plenty obvious why most all of it is disabled..

Secondly. His mod is far from perfect. The stuff he enabled is glitchy and introduces more problems than it actually "solves"

I hate Ubisoft as much as the next game but they didn't create some grand plan to screw over players by disabling a ton of stuff. They did that well enough alone with what they did release..
 
Well, it's either they crippled it intentionally, or they simply shifted their development efforts to consoles. Why find shader bugs only on the PC when you can simply disable that shader? Like with last generation, large studios will develop for the lowest common denominator.

Instead of making a PC centric title and then optimizing-down for consoles. They do the the reverse and make a console centric title and then slap on PC stuff.
 
Hahahaha I just saw this on reddit... holy shit this is going to be a huge debacle/publicity nightmare for UBisoft.
 
the dof for the main camera is fucking awful and the headlight shadows do not work properly. if someone could point me in the direction of a version of his mod without the horrid main camera dof, i'd appreciate it.
 
Wonder if it's nvidia who might have requested this feature be removed because it is not "optimized" in their gameworks closed libraries.

Find it hard to believe even ubi$oft would remove their most boastered about feature from their game.
 
Odellus said:
the dof for the main camera is fucking awful and the headlight shadows do not work properly. if someone could point me in the direction of a version of his mod without the horrid main camera dof, i'd appreciate it.
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He's still tweaking the settings on the DOF, basically when he turned it back on its on full blast, but it can be fixed easily
 
wonderfield said:
Dubious. Has anyone actually run a competent set of benchmarks?
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I don't own it, my friend with a almost exact same rig as mine though owns the game and tried it

He said his framerate is down like 2FPS even with the ultra settings turned on, but the biggest improvement is there is now zero game lag and he's getting zero stuttering now
 
styckx said:
First off. Technically they left it out sure.. But being as the game is the biggest VRAM whore ever to grace a PC and runs like an ass chock full of laxatives as it is.. It's plenty obvious why most all of it is disabled..

Secondly. His mod is far from perfect. The stuff he enabled is glitchy and introduces more problems than it actually "solves"

I hate Ubisoft as much as the next game but they didn't create some grand plan to screw over players by disabling a ton of stuff. They did that well enough alone with what they did release..
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So basically Ubisoft chose to disable anything that wasn't working right instead of fixing them.
 
Hornet said:
So basically Ubisoft chose to disable anything that wasn't working right instead of fixing them.
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I'd say it's more along the lines of the Disrupt engine isn't feature complete yet. Probably all stuff reserved and still in development for future use in WD 2 or another game that will be using the Disrupt engine. It's a fairly new engine so I'm not surprised there is still technology that is half baked at the moment. Again.. Not defending them..
 
Hornet said:
So basically Ubisoft chose to disable anything that wasn't working right instead of fixing them.
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Yes. Some people that have used that mod and reactivated certain lighting, bloomm and other effects have seen noticeable glitches and other issues.
 
Apologies about the deleted post - but my point still stands on my disdain and my refusal to purchase until it gets discounted to price points similar to a cup of coffee.
 
ShamisOMally said:
He said his framerate is down like 2FPS even with the ultra settings turned on, but the biggest improvement is there is now zero game lag and he's getting zero stuttering now
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That may be, but it may just as easily be the placebo effect at play. It would be relatively easy to confirm one way or the other with benchmarking.
 
You know Ubi nerfed the PC version so PS4/Xbone versions wouldn't look horrible in comparison.

Didn't something similar happen with Rage? People figured out how to unlock higher rez graphics with just config file changes, no mods/hacks?
 
OH! What a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive!

I look forward to the lame corporate excuse. The gaming community is going to go nuts testing and reporting on this and making Ubi look like jerks.
 
cp_kirkley said:
Apologies about the deleted post - but my point still stands on my disdain and my refuse to purchase until it gets discounted to price points similar to a cup of coffee.
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If everyone shared that short sighted mentality, there would be no more PC titles being developed to be able to bitch about.

A little obtuse to build an expensive rig like in your Sig then have the sense of entitlement that games should be $5 if not pirated. That's just bottom feeding.
 
There are always modifications to lighting or commands that can be issued to the engine that affect image quality and performance.

I'm at work now, but I assume this details editing the engine file to introduce new or different cvars.

I'll bring up an example that no one has talked about yet -- Skyrim. Remember how shadows were not enabled on trees by default? Simply had to turn on that setting in the .ini file. The pre-rendered grid that drew far away objects? Just raise the value. Even before the official HD texture pack came out, people figured out how to make the game look better than its default setting -- moreso than just changing graphics options in the configuration. Even HardOCP did an article on these changes, iirc.

The bottom line was that Skyrim was a joke when it first came out on PC. It just didn't look as polished as it could have, and most people realized this and went to work adjusting settings to get what was deemed the best looking and most-playable. Of course, the Nexus modding community (as well as steamworks) has just completely taken that to a whole other level.

But here's the difference -- Bethesda more or less embraced these changes. They didn't necessarily stand by to watch the PC release become just a console port. They released an official HD texture pack.

It will be interesting to see how Ubi responds.
 
Ray-Ban said:
There are always modifications to lighting or commands that can be issued to the engine that affect image quality and performance.

I'm at work now, but I assume this details editing the engine file to introduce new or different cvars.

I'll bring up an example that no one has talked about yet -- Skyrim. Remember how shadows were not enabled on trees by default? Simply had to turn on that setting in the .ini file. The pre-rendered grid that drew far away objects? Just raise the value. Even before the official HD texture pack came out, people figured out how to make the game look better than its default setting -- moreso than just changing graphics options in the configuration. Even HardOCP did an article on these changes, iirc.

The bottom line was that Skyrim was a joke when it first came out on PC. It just didn't look as polished as it could have, and most people realized this and went to work adjusting settings to get what was deemed the best looking and most-playable. Of course, the Nexus modding community (as well as steamworks) has just completely taken that to a whole other level.

But here's the difference -- Bethesda more or less embraced these changes. They didn't necessarily stand by to watch the PC release become just a console port. They released an official HD texture pack.

It will be interesting to see how Ubi responds.
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Cease and desist.
 
Wow. Shit just got real.

Was thinking of grabbing this if it was part of the Steam sale. Now I'm VERY curious what will happen,
 
Ubi probably wont say anything because this is being reported by *most* as a mod unlocking ultra mode and not as Ubi intentionally gimping the game.

Typical
 
Ray-Ban said:
Uh?
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He's saying that's how they Ubisoft will respond, with an C&D.

I got a chance to try this out on a friends machine that is similar to mine, i5 660gtx sli. As far as I can tell, sli is broken? The game engine seriously looks alpha stage. There are so many problems with lighting.
 
Gweenz said:
He's saying that's how they Ubisoft will respond, with an C&D.
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Ah, thanks. The pleasures of working in a call center and getting distracted.

Yes, I have had little-to-no faith in Ubi for pretty much anything anymore. As a Crossfire owner, I have felt that rope burn both ways from them and AMD. And for good measure, I fired up AC3 yesterday, decided to turn on 8xMSAA ("very high" on the AA setting), and was greeted with graphical texture corruption everywhere. Fixed when going to 4xMSAA. Yay! Supposedly the problem was fixed with an older driver release, but I'm done with Catalyst mindgames and will just stick with 14.6 betas anyway.

Sorry for OT, continue!

BTW, the comment inside that file is hilarious. And I mean hilarious in the obnoxious way where it always gets overused by anyone and everyone.
 
Has the director of this game been hanged yet? I just remember him spewing all sorts of BS on Twitter about how great the PC version would look, etc.
 
What sort of game is this? It looks *horrible* and incredibly boring--well, maybe not if I was 15 again and couldn't wait to get my driver's license...! Walking around and ripping people out of cars and driving through town at 100mph and being chased and shot at by police? Can't see the "fun" there...looks like the game itself is worse than the graphics. Yea, I guess it really and truly sucks to be a console owner....;/
 
So basically they soup the game for e3 with settings that are never going to be in the game, then they run it on a PC because nothing else can actually run it.They show this to you and tell you to buy it on a console. Thats pretty much what is going on all the time now
 
WaltC said:
What sort of game is this? It looks *horrible* and incredibly boring--well, maybe not if I was 15 again and couldn't wait to get my driver's license...! Walking around and ripping people out of cars and driving through town at 100mph and being chased and shot at by police? Can't see the "fun" there...looks like the game itself is worse than the graphics. Yea, I guess it really and truly sucks to be a console owner....;/
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Those are the worst parts of the game. The driving is arcade like and the cops seem to have homing missile AI. This isn't like GTA where you're supposed to do stuff like that to get as many stars as you can for the sake of it.

I'm almost finished and I drove as little as possible because it's so not fun to do.
 
Driving has been a blast for me... though I prefer arcade style driving rather than being so serious. I already do serious driving in real life... *edited*
 
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