Watch Dogs

Sodapopjones said:
When was the last time you actually tried playing the "stuttering bag of dicks"? I can't pull up anything ubi related at work to read the links.
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I played after the 'preliminary patch' came out and it didn't make a difference. the dicks still stutter :(
 
After reading the last few comments about memory bandwidth, I decided to overclock just the memory on my R9 290 from 1250 effective 5000 to 1300 effective 5200. I have the Hynix memory on a reference card so no idea what my limits are. With just that little overclock, all stuttering ceased. I mean absolutely zero stuttering now. Before I would stutter every time that I drove a vehicle.

Thanks guys for the tips!
 
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cageymaru said:
After reading the last few comments about memory bandwidth, I decided to overclock just the memory on my R9 290 from 1250 effective 5000 to 1300 effective 5200. I have the Hynix memory on a reference card so no idea what my limits are. With just that little overclock, all stuttering ceased. I mean absolutely zero stuttering now. Before I would stutter every time that I drove a vehicle.

Thanks guys for the tips!
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So now that I'm home, I reset my settings to default on my R9 and indeed I do see stutter, not stuttering bag of dicks, but its there. Eek, I wont try that again. lol.
 
Sodapopjones said:
So now that I'm home, I reset my settings to default on my R9 and indeed I do see stutter, not stuttering bag of dicks, but its there. Eek, I wont try that again. lol.
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That's pretty awesome that a little memory speed boost makes such a big difference! Going to try your settings for your R9 290. Are they conservative or pushing the limit of your card? Is your card reference?
 
cageymaru said:
That's pretty awesome that a little memory speed boost makes such a big difference! Going to try your settings for your R9 290. Are they conservative or pushing the limit of your card? Is your card reference?
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It is kind of weird, but I honestly haven't run my card at default since I got it in March, I think it was.

My card is an XFX DD, its not reference and my OC is all done on stock voltage, no bumps as the VRM cooling sucks. You won't be able to hold a constant 1000+ on the core without throttling though.

Your memory should at least be good for 5400 on stock volts probably even higher since I have junk Elpida memory.
 
Tried messing with it a bit and changed too many variables at once so not sure which was too much. I think I am on the original shipping bios so the card runs at a fan speed of 20 instead of 47. I really need to upgrade that first I suspect. For some reason the overclock crashes when I change the default fan curve to something else. I need to read a good article on this thing I guess. :)
 
going to reformat tonight, re-install, and overclock the memory as you guys have suggested. hopefully looking forward to seeing some smooth dicks :D
 
I OC my memory with pretty much every game (I launch Afterburner with Steam) and I still have stuttering with the driving sequences. The game isn't unplayable, but when the rest of the game runs so well, it's a major distraction once you start driving around.
 
cageymaru said:
Tried messing with it a bit and changed too many variables at once so not sure which was too much. I think I am on the original shipping bios so the card runs at a fan speed of 20 instead of 47. I really need to upgrade that first I suspect. For some reason the overclock crashes when I change the default fan curve to something else. I need to read a good article on this thing I guess. :)
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It also helps to switch it to the uBer bios bank. If it's a 290, it should have a dipswitch for bank 1 and 2. Bank 1 is the "quiet, my ears are sensitive" mode. Bank 2 is the "let it roar" mode. It's set to bank 1 by default. I get a lot of heat-related crashes (at stock OC) on bank 1. Essentially, B1 keeps the fans dynamic throttling in check so it doesn't rev up. This can cause the card to under clock as heat rises.

This allows you to flash two BIOs to the card and switch between them (with a reboot). I'd recommend having GPU-Shark (or whatever the simple display app is called) open on another screen so you can watch what the card is doing.
 
Spidey329 said:
It also helps to switch it to the uBer bios bank. If it's a 290, it should have a dipswitch for bank 1 and 2. Bank 1 is the "quiet, my ears are sensitive" mode. Bank 2 is the "let it roar" mode. It's set to bank 1 by default. I get a lot of heat-related crashes (at stock OC) on bank 1. Essentially, B1 keeps the fans dynamic throttling in check so it doesn't rev up. This can cause the card to under clock as heat rises.

This allows you to flash two BIOs to the card and switch between them (with a reboot). I'd recommend having GPU-Shark (or whatever the simple display app is called) open on another screen so you can watch what the card is doing.
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The switch on a 290 does nothing, its stuck in Uber mode the whole time, the only thing I could think of would be enable the overdrive feature, or just flashing to a non reference bios.
Domingo said:
I OC my memory with pretty much every game (I launch Afterburner with Steam) and I still have stuttering with the driving sequences. The game isn't unplayable, but when the rest of the game runs so well, it's a major distraction once you start driving around.
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Lets be honest, the memory bandwidth and bus on the 6xx series wasn't even competitive with the 7xxx series, so I don't see how it would do you any good in Watch Dogs.

My 660Ti was probably the crappiest card I ever bought from Nvidia.
 
is there a way to customize the in-game map to only show certain icons?...for example if I only want to see Fixer contracts or Hotspots or Hideouts etc?...I don't see an option to customize it...other open world games allow customization
 
Also depends if they had any major overhyped to death buggy as shit launch titles at the same time last year
 
I'm halfway through Act 4 and damn the stuttering is making the missions a lot more difficult...Act 4 is pretty challenging without the stuttering but with it the challenge is crazy at times with all the driving, hacking puzzles and enemies
 
The last few missions are insane, especially the final one. It was probably one of the more hectic finales in recent memory.
If you have stuttering problems in the earlier acts then the game will be unplayable by then.

It's a shame the rest of the game was a boring shitfest.
 
During those last missions my reputation went from almost perfect to anarchist. The stuttering was so bad that I literally couldn't help but drive over tons of people trying to get around town. Really pissed me off because I really wanted to be squeaky clean.

Since I overclocked my memory a little bit the game never stutters. Wish I had thought about it on my own before. :)
 
cageymaru said:
During those last missions my reputation went from almost perfect to anarchist. The stuttering was so bad that I literally couldn't help but drive over tons of people trying to get around town. Really pissed me off because I really wanted to be squeaky clean.
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Yeah, the game makes it almost impossible to do that in the last few missions, especially the ones where you are constantly being chased by police with no chance to escape for more than 30 seconds or so. The whole "morality" system seemed pretty flimsy at best, anyway.
 
MavericK96 said:
Yeah, the game makes it almost impossible to do that in the last few missions, especially the ones where you are constantly being chased by police with no chance to escape for more than 30 seconds or so. The whole "morality" system seemed pretty flimsy at best, anyway.
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This I can agree with the morality system is garbage honestly, they would have been better not even implementing it.
 
MavericK96 said:
Yeah, the game makes it almost impossible to do that in the last few missions, especially the ones where you are constantly being chased by police with no chance to escape for more than 30 seconds or so. The whole "morality" system seemed pretty flimsy at best, anyway.
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I haven't finished the game yet but it seems that morality only comes into effect when you hear others talking about you on the street or in those news reports on the radio...if you're a 'good' guy they talk about giving you a place to hide and all the good deeds you are doing etc but if you're a 'bad' guy they talk about what a menace you are and how capturing you is important

does the endgame give you any different cutscene or ending based on your morality?
 
polonyc2 said:
I haven't finished the game yet but it seems that morality only comes into effect when you hear others talking about you on the street or in those news reports on the radio...if you're a 'good' guy they talk about giving you a place to hide and all the good deeds you are doing etc but if you're a 'bad' guy they talk about what a menace you are and how capturing you is important

does the endgame give you any different cutscene or ending based on your morality?
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Yeah, I think that is the only thing. I think that supposedly they are more likely to call the cops on you if you have negative morality as well.

I don't believe the ending is different either way, but I don't know for sure since I only finished the game once (with close to max positive morality but not max because of idiotic late-game missions).

TaintedSquirrel said:
There was no cliff hanger whatsoever.
Ubi has already said Watch Dogs 2 may not even be about Aiden.
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Other than, you know, the huge, glaring unresolved issues at the end...
 
finished Watch Dogs last night...didn't find the last mission to be as hard as most people hyped it up to be...didn't experience that much stuttering either...overall I found the game very entertaining...storyline was nothing amazing but was good...I found Aiden to be much more interesting then any of the Ubisoft AC main characters except for Ezio...and there were quite a few memorable characters and voice acting (Lucky Quinn, Jordi)

the open world setting is the star of the game...very well done...I thought the graphics were excellent...character models didn't look that great and there were low res textures around but overall the game looked fantastic...the lighting and water effects in particular...at night with the rain falling and the lights reflecting off was spectacular

the controls with KB/M were fine...the side missions and online pvp in particular were excellent...stuttering was annoying but it didn't get in the way of most missions in my experience...it was just something that was there...my GTX 580 handled the game fine with everything except for Textures maxed out at 1920 x 1200

the end credits mentioned ctOS 2.0 with a new city so I'm assuming just like with Assassin's Creed WD2 will move to a new location...not sure if it'll work quite as good as AC because they can't mess with different historical time periods but I'm looking forward to seeing what they come up with

overall grade: B+
 
Watch Dogs had some funny conversations you could listen in on...there was one where a bunch of girls were discussing whether or not a girl was still a virgin even though she only had 'butt sex'...and another one was an Assassin's Creed easter egg/inside joke where you eavesdrop on a guy and his father playing a video game and the father is wondering what the point was of the killer talking to the guy he just killed (in the AC games the assassin always engages his victim in a sort of final conversation as he is dying)... :D
 
There was one conversation where the girl says "I love the smell of it" and "it's like making soap".
I still don't get it. I assume it's a reference to getting a guy off, though.
 
Man the Invasions are getting ridiculous, I've learned that if I get a bounty put on my to clear out the area or get to an empty open area and I can just watch the poor SOB appear right in front of me. Watching them scramble for a car when they spawn because they know they are screwed is the funniest thing in the world, I think at that point I would have just pulled out a gun and gone down fighting, instead I either shoot them as they try to escape or blow them up.
 
polonyc2 said:
CtOS 2.0
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I wouldn't mind seeing them do something different then GTA and other open-world games. Go abroad. Give us different cities. Since as you mentioned, they can't play too much with the timeline like in AC.

London or Toronto could be fun. Seattle would be cool as well (but I'm biased). Stay away from NY, LA. San Fran might work. But it has been done in a ton of games. Boston..

Chicago was a good choice, because outside of the Mafia series (iirc), it hasn't been highlighted.
 
Spidey329 said:
I wouldn't mind seeing them do something different then GTA and other open-world games. Go abroad. Give us different cities
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would also be nice to be able to drive helicopters, small planes etc...Battlefield meets open world hacking...just moving to a new city won't feel too different...unless it's a future setting like Blade Runner
 
Spidey329 said:
Go abroad. Give us different cities.
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To be honest, although it is neat to visit a 'real' city (particularly if you are intimately familiar with the city), it is ludicrously expensive/time consuming for the developer to replicate these places. Personally, I would have been happy with a caricature of Chicago or another city and more time/money spent taking risks with the game mechanics and providing a story that didn't feel so bland.

For the majority of groups, developers and publishers are less willing to push the envelope due to the size budgets these types of games require. I think in part this has contributed to the vacuum of space that indies seem to be filling nowadays.
 
polonyc2 said:
so another Desmond Miles AC cliffhanger
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Not at all. A fairly predictable lay up. CtOS being the central element. You said it yourself:
CtOS 2.0 <- That says it all.


I agree with what others have said in that Aiden really isn't terribly likable or sympathetic. I wouldn't mind moving on to a new character.

I do think we'll see wider scopes, different venues, and different characters ultimately.

I think the next game in this series will probably come close to meeting the expectations that first one was supposed to but didn't. Think Assassin's Creed 1 to 2 type progression. That's what I expect anyways.
 
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polonyc2 said:
would also be nice to be able to drive helicopters, small planes etc...Battlefield meets open world hacking...just moving to a new city won't feel too different...unless it's a future setting like Blade Runner
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I would hope for a city that feels more alive, where it's citizens actually react and respond somewhat realistically like in GTA. In Watch Dogs, most of the time you can ram other cars and they either just stop and sit there or just carry on driving like nothing happened, not counting the random scripted accidents.

I thought the crime prevention was a bit silly with how it worked. In a crowded plaza area, tons of people, but hey look there's a random dude staring down at his phone, better not commit that crime!
 
quadnad said:
To be honest, although it is neat to visit a 'real' city (particularly if you are intimately familiar with the city), it is ludicrously expensive/time consuming for the developer to replicate these places. Personally, I would have been happy with a caricature of Chicago or another city and more time/money spent taking risks with the game mechanics and providing a story that didn't feel so bland.

For the majority of groups, developers and publishers are less willing to push the envelope due to the size budgets these types of games require. I think in part this has contributed to the vacuum of space that indies seem to be filling nowadays.
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That depends. On the flip side, it saves in content creation because you're working off of a huge example (an actual city). They send photographers out to get texture photos from the buildings, saving time to make textures. They know what geometry is needed. What the city services look like (police force, fire, etc).

I'd say it takes less time to recreate something digitally then it does to come up with something creatively. There's a reason that almost all advances are based off prior things. Its very very rare to think outside the box without influence.
 
Spidey329 said:
I'd say it takes less time to recreate something digitally then it does to come up with something creatively. There's a reason that almost all advances are based off prior things. Its very very rare to think outside the box without influence.
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Remember, these guys aren't laser scanning buildings - they have to recreate the architecture. I have absolutely no experience in this, but just thinking intuitively about the process, it must be more difficult to attempt to approximate a real building than it is to build your own without constraint. Looking at photos to get an idea of what something looks like is a different story to requiring so many photos that you can replicate that building.

Having influence is just fine, I'm not saying it all has to be truly original (and if you think about it, wouldn't a fictional city composed of multiple other real-world influences be pretty awesome??), I just don't think developers should force themselves to spend the time and money recreating an existing city. Do what Saints Row did, and give us some innovation on what really matters: gameplay.
 
how accurate was Watch Dogs depiction of the city of Chicago in terms of actual geography?...I know they were missing a bunch of real world places like Soldier Field, O'Hare airport etc
 
quadnad said:
Remember, these guys aren't laser scanning buildings - they have to recreate the architecture. I have absolutely no experience in this, but just thinking intuitively about the process, it must be more difficult to attempt to approximate a real building than it is to build your own without constraint. Looking at photos to get an idea of what something looks like is a different story to requiring so many photos that you can replicate that building.

Having influence is just fine, I'm not saying it all has to be truly original (and if you think about it, wouldn't a fictional city composed of multiple other real-world influences be pretty awesome??), I just don't think developers should force themselves to spend the time and money recreating an existing city. Do what Saints Row did, and give us some innovation on what really matters: gameplay.
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I've done 3d modeling and I've found it way easier to copy something that exists in real life over doing some off the top of my head. In fact, most major models are done by importing two or more reference photos to model (front,side,top). Granted, I'm a perfectionist, so it helps reign that in as if you're copying you know the limit - if you're being creative, you can get stuck in a perfectionist tweaking cycle. For me, it takes longer to do a creative piece.

With regards to accuracy. I'm not sure (haven't been to Chicago) they do 1:1 scale. I think they usually do the streets and the major landmark/areas. But I don't know if all buildings are exact. It does help that Street view and Google Earth provides pretty accurate topography and reference photos/shapes.
 
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