Watch Dogs really low fps, practically unplayable

[kpagcha]

I saw this post and OP was answered that Watch Dogs would run on his machine with low-medium graphic settings.

My PC is very similar to his/hers:

• 
  - Also Intel 2 Quad Core Q6600 2,4Ghz (although I don't know how to get OC working)
  - 4GB DDR2 RAM (I dropped from 6 GB after a couple of modules stopped working. bought another 2 GB one but my PC does not detect it)
  - GPU: ATI Radeon HD 6850

I am running the game on low graphic settings, and it looks terrible. I can run any Assassin's Creed on my machine: AC2 and its expansion with high/ultra settings, AC3 with high and AC4 with medium/high. I can also play BF3 with high settings and even ultra with maybe a bit lower fps. I have played some NFS games and I had no problems with driving. I have also played The Witcher 2.

But Watch Dogs with low settings looks terrible, way worse graphics than any game mentioned before and the worse thing is that it is almost unplayable: it freezes sometimes when running or turning the camera fastly. Driving is impossible, once the car hits a high speed or I turn it the screen normally freezes for a couple of secons and it's impossible to drive. I tried motorbikes once and I didn't have this problem, but I only drove for like 30 seconds.

Is there anything I can do to play with low graphics at least?

 

[SimplisticApps]

I'm not quite sure how well it plays it but even my dad's 520 works on Watch Dogs, i mean again i haven't seen how well it looks but he's running a Core 2 Quad Q9300 2.5Ghz (same as mine) so there might be something else playing up.

It might not do anything but have you checked for any patches or driver updates?

 

[sla70r]

Game is poorly optimized to begin with.. so you are probably going to need a major overhaul if you ever want to get competitive frame rates with good graphics.

 

[BlackPseudicide]

CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q8400 @ 2.66Ghz or AMD Phenom II X4 940 @ 3.0Ghz
RAM: 6 GB
OS: Windows Vista (SP2), Windows 7 (SP1) or Windows 8 (64 bit only)
Video Card: DirectX 11 graphics card with 1 GB Video RAM - Nvidia Geforce GTX 460 or AMD Radeon HD 5770 / Intel Iris Pro HD 5200
Sound Card: Yes
Free Disk Space: 25 GB
These are the minimum specs to run the game at a horrible framerate.
The only thing that you own that meets the requirements is your video card, which is barely able to run the game and your other components aren't helping it. If you re-read the post you linked, the OP was asking how the game would run if he upgraded to a 660, which is significantly better than the card that you currently have. I'm not exactly sure what is causing the game to run poorly compared to Assassins Creed, but it seems to definitely be a hardware problem.

 

[Dburnsx]

The previous post mentioned that your video card is the only component that meets requirements.

Now, idk if this is true or not (if it is, then its the absolute minimum)...but even if the rest of your setup was significantly more qualified, your graphics card is no where in the ball park in terms of supporting this game.

Your radeon 6850 only has 1GB. Most new games you'll need up to 2GB for smooth frames.
And this game in particular, from what I've read, has a necessity of up to 3GB memory on the graphics card if you want it to be real smooth with high settings...which is quite unnecessary for this era of gaming.

And again, as the previous poster suggested, this game is very poorly optimized atm.

Long story short, you'll see significant strides in performance with a video card upgrade. Not much else you can do without upgrading hardware in this situation.

 

[kpagcha]

I don't get how a game that looks way worse than some like those I mentioned which work perfectly in my computer has an unplayable performance. I guess I will have to forget about enjoying this game, or maybe wait for a fix?

 

[SimplisticApps]

Well there's only one of two things that you can do and that's either wait and see if there's some kind of fix or save a bit of money and get a decent Nvidia card because now'a days games like Watch Dogs could do with a top end card

 

[commentrobot]

I've got an i5-4670K and a GTX770, and I played Watch Dogs fine Tuesday to Friday last week, no problems with ultra/high graphics settings. Since the weekend, massive issues with frame rates dropping whilst driving (40+ down to 12!!)

My hypothesis is that the GeForce 337.88 driver that was installed is not optimised, despite what it says.

 

[Fida Gilani]

I don't think so that it is driver 337 issue because I installed that driver the first day game came out. It has been working fine and I really loved the game especially online decryption. I have MSI GT60 Dominator laptop with GTX 870M GPU. It worked flawlessly but since last week, it is horrible especially online decryption. I rarely find any match where there is no lag and sometimes my game stutters like hell and I get FPS like 40 then suddenly drops to 10 then to 20 to 30 to 5. I have played many games online but this Ubisoft is horrible. There is something horribly wrong with the game. So, stop cursing your gears and curse Ubisoft who made us spend $60 to become blood pressure patients 🙁.