Benchmarked: How Well Does Watch Dogs Run On your PC?

[cleeve]

I'm kinda disappointed there are no benchmarks based on same CPU, different frequency, from both Intel and AMD, to see how the game scales.

Also talking both type of CPUs to see how the game properly scales with different number of cores.

I used to do that, but I had a lot of negative feedback. Our readers made it clear they'd prefer the real-world model vs. the theoretical.

I personally prefer to see scaling data points as you do, but I also understand the value in knowing what you can expect from a particular model, too. Especially since AMD and Intel's clock rates are so different.

 

[somebodyspecial]

Where did you see this?
Guru3D has lower results than Tom's and Techspot used even factory o/c HIS AMD Radeons and the results were barely better than Tom's...

After doing the rounds the only place I see AMD taking this is when you push the mem so NV has a crap attack. But as it was already pointed out at the top of this thread, it's a decimal point that plays there. The rest of us mere mortals play 1920x1200 or below which is why I never understand the 4K chants. I like seeing a 4K article here and there so I know what can be done and how close we're getting to it being reality, or what I'm after at some point down the line, but it's really a waste of the reviewers time to put it in every article when a decimal point of readers playing there. In the interest of the readers, it's better to aim at more cpus/gpu configs than resolutions so few are using and likely won't be using for ages. I'm about to replace my monitor, and 4K is not even on the menu (but I'm no fan of SLI/CF either).

As for the state of this game? :From Guru3d's review
"So after testing six cards we immediately halted testing. The game was a mess, the results all over the place with many anomalies and offsets, Ultra Quality settings at Ultra HD would even use up to 6+ GB on the graphics memory. Ultra HD became a stutter-fest especially in-game at road at crossings and with cars passing by."

LOL...Yet another beta game released...

 

[spookyman]

The question I want to know, will the game work with the new Titan Z?

 

[cleeve]

As for the state of this game? :From Guru3d's review
"So after testing six cards we immediately halted testing. The game was a mess, the results all over the place with many anomalies and offsets, Ultra Quality settings at Ultra HD would even use up to 6+ GB on the graphics memory. Ultra HD became a stutter-fest especially in-game at road at crossings and with cars passing by."

LOL...Yet another beta game released...

I'm curious what kind of benchmark run they invented. Ours was a surprisingly repeatable, consistent 90-second run. I wouldn't have done this article unless I found a consistent method.

 

[somebodyspecial]

As for the state of this game? :From Guru3d's review
"So after testing six cards we immediately halted testing. The game was a mess, the results all over the place with many anomalies and offsets, Ultra Quality settings at Ultra HD would even use up to 6+ GB on the graphics memory. Ultra HD became a stutter-fest especially in-game at road at crossings and with cars passing by."

LOL...Yet another beta game released...

I'm curious what kind of benchmark run they invented. Ours was a surprisingly repeatable, consistent 90-second run. I wouldn't have done this article unless I found a consistent method.

Not sure, he was running the same drivers. Well, he did say he bailed on the testing and concentrated on 780TI to figure out what was happening. I'm thinking maybe he's just saying the game is not running like it should. He notes it's not crisis3 type graphics but runs worse in many cases (beta I'd say). In the end he was claiming they'd be issuing patch after patch. Either way, I'd say the results here at toms are pretty verified. You don't have to look hard to get the exact results as here. They had a 780ti and it was tops. So your fake 780ti was pretty accurate basically right?

 

[lp231]

Intel Xeon E5 v2 ranges from 8, 10, and 12 cores. It would be nice if Tom's can test the game with them.
The E7 v2 goes up to 15 cores, but this uses a entirely different socket, unlike the E5, which uses the same socket 2011 as the Core i7 3960X

 

[cleeve]

Intel Xeon E5 v2 ranges from 8, 10, and 12 cores. It would be nice if Tom's can test the game with them.
The E7 v2 goes up to 15 cores, but this uses a entirely different socket, unlike the E5, which uses the same socket 2011 as the Core i7 3960X

I don't know if a significant amount of people are out there gaming with 10-core Xeons, it'd be an investment with probably little in the way of return.

I think with the new CPUs added, we have a pretty good idea what to expect from a processor perspective.

 

[qlum]

Hmm judging from these benchmarks this will surely be a game where I will bump my 3570k to 4.7ghz which is something I only really found useful with wii emulation and planetside 2 before.

 

[agentbb007]

FYI I played watch dogs last night for about 6 hours and had no stuttering or lag, everything was smooth at 1920x1080. Core i5 3570K | Asus GTX TITAN | OCZ-Vertex 2 SSD | 8 GB DDR3 | ASRock Z77 Extreme 4 | Windows 7 64-bit Pro

 

[youcanDUit]

why isnt the 770 on there?

 

[getochkn]

Why are your CPU benchmarks so different than here? http://www.techspot.com/review/827-watch-dogs-benchmarks/page5.html

 

[cleeve]

Why are your CPU benchmarks so different than here? http://www.techspot.com/review/827-watch-dogs-benchmarks/page5.html

That's very easy to answer: the game has no built-in benchmark, so every site will get different results based on how they test it.

I spend a lot of time finding a repeatable, but difficult on the hardware, way to test. I want to see the lowest frame rates the game will spit out.

Why? because there's no use testing in a way that gives all hardware really high frame rates. You want to know how your hardware will perform when the game has difficulty rendering, not when the workload is small.

The difficult times determine your experience.

That's not to say I went out of my way to recreate something the player will never see. On the contrary, my testing shows that some of the worst frame rates in this game tend to occur in the outskirts of the city while driving. So that's how I tested it. Driving is something every player will do a lot of.

 

[achoo2]

I usually use toms as my definitive sit for performance benchmarks but the lack of variety in both cpus and gpus here is really disappointing, especially for this being the first "next gen" game

Agreed 100%. This game runs like a dog on my system, and I can't determine an upgrade path from any of the benchmarks I've been able to find.

Please show us the effect of moving from 4GB->8GB->16GB as well as adding a much broader range of graphics cards.

 

[Onus]

For my part, at the risk of niggling, I'd like to see the HD7750 (and possibly GTX750) added as the minimum I'd likely suggest to anyone building a PC for any gaming; GDDR5 versions, of course.

Hmmm, also Don, is there a specific pairing of AMD/nVidia cards that can be reliably used to predict whether a given game prefers one architecture over the other?

 

[cleeve]

I usually use toms as my definitive sit for performance benchmarks but the lack of variety in both cpus and gpus here is really disappointing, especially for this being the first "next gen" game

Agreed 100%. This game runs like a dog on my system, and I can't determine an upgrade path from any of the benchmarks I've been able to find.

Please show us the effect of moving from 4GB->8GB->16GB as well as adding a much broader range of graphics cards.

4GB-8GB-16GB has zero effect in this game. System RAM rarely affects frame rates, it usually affects load times.

If you think you need more info, tell me your specs and monitor and I can tell you what you need to run it smoothly at max settings.

 

[6R1M01R3]

I wonder how this will run on a i7 4770k (oc to 4.5ghz?) and 2 gtx 760 in SLI @1080p

 

[Denis Stoikovski]

I wonder how this will run on a i7 4770k (oc to 4.5ghz?) and 2 gtx 760 in SLI @1080p

If you're showing your rig ''hey look at my oven its powerful'' it talks bad for you ultra lower the aa a bit 1920x1080p 50 fps and above.

 

[Onus]

Actually, it seems like a valid question. Since SLI wasn't tested, there's no way to know from this review how well his system will perform. If SLI works for this game in the current drivers, then I'm sure it will be good. If SLI is broken, then maybe not so good.

 

[Onus]

Harly, you might want to reference that pyramid before making further arguments. Inability to get off the first 4 levels will make people believe you are a troll. Is that your intention?

 

[ern88]

My i5 2500K at 4.6 and HD7950 O/C id playing at Ultra pretty good!!!!!

 

[eklipz330]

this is a joke right? this game does not look that good.

 

[ubercake]

Ok. Everything was fine in the stadium. The game looks great. Once I got out of the stadium, the choppiness began. I have a 3930k with 2 stock 780s in SLI on an Asus X79 Pro board with 16GB of RAM. My drivers are 337.88. I'm running on Ultra with 8x MSAA (which indicates 2GB of VRAM are required).

Switched to 4xMSAA. Still choppy. Then driving in the car the game went to black and I saw this:
http://i.imgur.com/aT2RT4m.gif

Anyone else familiar with this? Even task manager took a good minute to release the lock and let me close the watch dogs app.

Never had a problem like this choppiness; even with Crysis 3. They have some work to do on this beta release.

Have had this problem when BF3 or BF4 were first released. Maybe ubisoft is following the lead?

I'll try again with SLI off and report back.

 

[salgado18]

Why do you use FXAA on the lowest test? People with very low-end cards can't afford the luxury of enabling antialiasing. Could it make the 6450 at least a bit playable?

 

[neieus]

I've just finished playing Watch Dogs after a few hours and I can honestly say I had a very smooth experience with no stutters what so ever. I've been collecting status and noticed that it was using all my video memory and as for ram I have 16GB and I seen usage run up to about 7.5GB so for those with 8GB you're at your limit depending on what you have running in the back ground. This is at 1920*1080 7950 with an OC fx8320 Win 8.1 etc....

 

[neon neophyte]

i just finished it as well. smooth game play all the way through. no problems with screen tearing. vsync worked.

i did that with a 2500k@4.9ghz and a 6970. ultra detail no less. never went under 35 fps and sometimes had as much as 60. all smooth. something strange is going on here. beastily systems are stuttering where mine didnt.