Legit really odd fix for stuttering (tested on Nvidia)
Heres the steps:
1) downsample your resolution in nvidia control panel (2560x1440 if using a 1920x1080 monitor)
2) delete the GamerProfile.xml file in the Documents/My Games/Watch_Dogs/ a bunch of numbers file/ GamerProfile.xml
3) run Watch Dogs
4) Change settings to what you want, and texture detail to ultra (since this is whats causing the problem)
5) Then play the game for a min or two (it will stutter worse than usual, ignore that)
6) Alt out of the game again and change back the resolution in Nvidia Control Panel (undo the downsampling completely)- look up how to properly downsample, its not just changing resolution higher
7) Then alt tab back into the game (you can change your resolution again to what you want) and then good to go! - I personally use 2240x1260, for a better image quality and less performance hit than 2560x1440
8) do this each time you play, its annoying but until they fix it we have no choice.
:) below is just the thought process I went through so it is a mess hahahahaah
EDIT: you must delete the gameprofile found in mu games/watdogs/bunch of numbers and letters each time before starting the game, then set your setting ingame before following the steps iat the end of this post.
Also you do not need to have UPlay in offline mode
Hey guys.
so my system is:
Nvidia GTX Titan 6gb
i7 3770
16 GB ram
SSD
Windows 8.1 64 bit
And ever since the game released I have had terrible stuttering on ultra textures, and after the patch? 10x WORSE.
So.
the first step was I emailed support. they recommended the usual, latest drivers blah blah. but they also recommended I use TXAA as my AA and use offline mode on uplay(not entirely sure if this is necessary)
These 2 fixes alone did nothing.
then lately I have been downsampling so that I bumped up my monitor from 1920x1080 to 2560x1440 (game looks a lot better this way)
- I was still getting lag
SO what did I do?
I started up watchdogs, put everything maximum and downsampled in the nvidia control panel to 2560x1440
I played for a couple min (laggy as hell-worse than anything before) then after driving for a bit I alt-tabbed out and disabled downsampling in the control panel
(I set my resolution back to the default 1920x1080, I set it back to display and unchecked override setting.
I alt-tabbed back into the game and changed NOTHING in game. clicked continue and BAM no more stuttering. at all.
The only thing is you must do this EACH time you load the game.
I would be interested in knowing if this works for anyone else! It was really weird but hey it works for me at least.
It seems like it may be tricking the game into using more gpu power, while not actually needing it or something I do not know
Thanks!
p.s I also use 2240x1260 for less of a performance hit