Junior Member
Specs:
i7 975@4.3 ghz (comparable to an i5 3570k)
EVGA Titan Black SC edition
12gb Corsair Dominator GT ram @1600mhz
Resolution @ 2560x1600
I can run the game with everything at ultra except textures. I get no micro stutters while driving when I'm on medium, when textures are at high or ultra I get micro stutters. Keep in mind that I have the latest gpu from NVidia which has 6gb of vram...
Junior Member
Greetings folks.
I noticed many people reported stuttering and seemed to focus heavily on CPU performance.
However, stuttering with patches of smooth gameplay is a common symptom of an overtaxed VRAM setting, and combined with the fact that Ubisoft had some poorly coded VRAM handling (which they are pushing out a fix to), that is likely your issue.
If you have not done so already, dropping settings that state you need VRAM (mostly in DISPLAY, not just GRAPHICS options) will salvage your FPS.
I had been running this game on ULTRA settings using an underclocked i5-750 (2.66 > 2.33) albeit with 770 GTX and 12 GB Ram.
I had silky smooth gameplay (except with motion blur), but every few seconds the game would start stuttering.
That suggested the VRAM issue.
My 770 GTX has 2 gigs of ram, and on ultra texture settings Watch Dogs will attempt to use 3+ Gigs of ram EVEN IF YOUR CARD DOES NOT HAVE THE VRAM.
After I went into DISPLAY and dropped my textures, I was able to raise settings and get 50~60+ FPS (locked by VSYNC) easily.
Eventually, I dropped VSYNC and raised all my settings except textures and AA (basic FXAA looks good enough to me on a 1920x1080) and I have no stuttering issues at all.
How I arrived at my diagnosis:
I ran MSI Afterburner and monitored individual core usage (CPU performance without looking at the individual cores cannot reliable locate bottlenecks) and realized that my CPU only had one core at 80~90%.
This meant that my brand spanking new 770 GTX was the culprit, and the only real "limitation" on that card was the VRAM...
Suggestions:
If lowering textures saved your FPS, but you want the maximum graphical oohs and aahs, you can offload the "work" from VRAM and to processing power by downloading something like SweetFX. These are highly reliant on your specific system specs, so just Google for people who have succeeded and adjust your settings.
Cheers!
And for those who still suffer stuttering, I guess just wait for the next patch!
Junior Member
Is anyone else getting these errors in the System Event logs when the freezes occur?
A corrected hardware error has occurred.
Reported by component: Processor Core
Error Source: Corrected Machine Check
Error Type: Cache Hierarchy Error
Processor ID: 0
I've been doing some reading, seems like these are the cause of my freezes... Lots of other people get short system hangs while these logs are written. Might be related to an underpowered PSU, I'm running an 850W.
Junior Member
Why can't these gigantic companies optimize their games before releasing them? Is it just me or are more and more PC games launching, and then running absolutely god awful on high-end rigs? I have a GTX 780 Classified, 16 gigs of Corsair Vengeance, and an i7 4930k and I have frame issues with many games.... First it was Thief which had micro stuttering, and now this game runs like crap..... These companies need to figure out a way to fix the horrific optimization before being allowed to sell them on the market... Gamers/consumers are getting sick and tired of paying 60-70 bucks for games that just flat out don't work.
