Download Watch Dogs Config Tool

[Meri Thilmony]

Asa product of the new generation of games, Disrupt features all of the technologies enthusiasts desire, such as deferred lighting, dynamic weather, real-time dynamic reflections, pre-baked Global Illumination, subsurface scattering, and multithreaded rendering across all CPU cores. SLI, 3D Vision, and 4K support is included, too.

Playing Watch Dogs on a geared-up PC grants you access to improved features and effects that the newest consoles are incapable of rendering. These include superior level of detail options for distant views, superior textures, models, water effects, reflections, vegetation, terrain, geometry, shadows, shaders, depth of field effects, and visual effects, to name but a few examples.

Furthermore, PC gamers benefit from the inclusion of NVIDIA HBAO+ Ambient Occlusion shadowing and NVIDIA TXAA Anti-Aliasing, which improve image quality significantly. For detailed explanations of each, and demonstrations of their capabilities, keep reading. For more on our work on the PC version, check out the video below:

As you can see, the image quality improvements when HBAO+ High is enabled are considerable, adding realistic shadowing across all scenes, characters and objects, without AO halos, dithering, or flickering.

Performance: Using our initial Ambient Occlusion test location we measured the performance of each AO setting on an i7-2600K, GeForce GTX TITAN SLI system at 1920x1080, with every other setting maxed out, and 4x TXAA enabled.

Anti-Aliasing removes jagged edges from objects, improving scene fidelity significantly. In Watch Dogs, Ubisoft Montreal gives gamers eight settings to choose from, including TXAA, a NVIDIA-developed hardware anti-aliasing solution that combines MSAA with temporal anti-aliasing resolves to minimize edge aliasing, and virtually eliminate temporal aliasing, the movement and flickering of anti-aliased edges. Here follows a summary of each setting, with accompanying comparison screenshots.

FXAA: High-performance post-process anti-aliasing that even the slowest systems should enable. As with other post-process techniques, FXAA is also capable of anti-aliasing alpha textures, which are used to cheaply render chain link fences, foliage, and other less visible game elements.

Temporal SMAA: Offers identical anti-aliasing properties as SMAA, with the addition of a temporal anti-aliasing filter, which reduces the unsightly movement of anti-aliased surfaces. Compared to TXAA the effect is understandably inferior, but for those without the necessary GPU performance Temporal SMAA is an excellent alternative.

At 4x, MSAA significantly improves edge anti-aliasing, in addition to improving clarity of distant detail, to the degree that the loss of temporal anti-aliasing and alpha texture anti-aliasing is offset. 8x improves matters further, though at the expense of performance and VRAM usage, demanding the need for at least 2GB of video memory.

Performance: The location highlighted in our screenshots features geometry, alpha textures, and surfaces that suffer from temporal aliasing, making it the perfect location for measuring the performance impact of each anti-aliasing option at 1920x1080.

Using the data above and our screenshot comparisons, there are three clear recommendations: low-to-medium systems should use Temporal SMAA; medium-to-high end systems should use MSAA 4x with optional post-process anti-aliasing, injected courtesy of SMAA or SweetFX; and medium-to-high end systems equipped with GeForce GTX 600 Series or better GPUs should opt for TXAA for the ultimate combination of edge and temporal anti-aliasing.

Most visibly, Level of Detail adjusts the number of visual flourishes visible on-screen. For example, looking over a street scene all non-essential detail is stripped back as the LoD setting is decreased, until only vital detail and the effects from other settings remain. Similarly, the number of buildings visible in the distance is also reduced, as is their fidelity and complexity.

In addition, the range at which these removed flourishes appear during gameplay is greatly decreased, and the distance at which the flourishes are shown at full detail is also adjusted to maximize performance.

Across each of these many game elements, minor changes are detected going from Ultra to High, followed by significant changes when switching from High to Medium. On Low, additional reductions are made, most noticeably to world detail.

Given the sizeable differences in image quality in most scenes between High and Medium, and the number of game elements LoD affects, High is recommended for the majority of systems where performance allows. For the optimum experience, manually tweak each element of the LoD setting.

On Ultra, geometry, lighting, and other game elements are reflected in puddles, on metallic surfaces such as the bonnets of cars, and on destructible glass (reflections on indestructible windows of inaccessible buildings appear to be generated via cubemaps). Most impressively, dynamic lights from flashing neon signs and other light-casting objects are also reflected at a high level of fidelity, increasing immersion significantly. On consoles, this performance-intensive dynamic reflection effect is entirely absent, and the number of reflected game elements and lights also appears to be reduced.

Lowering the Reflections settings from Ultra to High results in reduced reflection fidelity, and the loss of the aforementioned real-time dynamic reflections generated from non-essential scenery and objects.

On Low, only pre-baked reflections and select cubemaps remain, reducing image quality greatly. Curiously, there are exceptions, allowing reflections from headlights, blockers, and other game elements to be displayed on wet surfaces, even with every single game setting on Low. An example of this can be seen below when looking at car headlights reflected on road surfaces, and in our final set of comparison images.

Downgrading to Medium, meanwhile, greatly reduces the amount of shader-related illumination, and has a high impact on the precision and fidelity of the reflective shine on the propeller. Not shown is a reduction in the number of rain splashes.

In our second set of screenshots you see how crucial the Shader option is for nighttime illumination: as the detail level is decreased it is as if Aiden were turning out the lights with his blackout gadget.

Performance: In a graphically intensive scene comprised of long range and close range shadows, as well as dynamic shadows cast by pedestrians and vehicles, we measured the performance impact of each setting.

AlphaToCoverage: Multisample Anti-Aliasing for alpha textures, such as those used for foliage. In our pre-release Gold Master build this setting was non-functional, disappointingly, as its activation would result in a considerable increase in image quality. Fingers crossed for the release version.

GameProfile Settings: Enables greater control over sensitivity, input device options, and mouse smoothing, and also enables the disabling of the minimap, reticule, and open world alerts notifying you of new missions, among other things. For keyboard and mouse users, as well as those intending to take screenshots, these are essential settings.

Admittedly, the loss of immersive physics effects is unfortunate, but we imagine gamers with slower systems would prefer improved graphics for the entirety of the game, rather than an occasional physics effect.

ShowFPS: Non-functional frame rate counter. Using debug tools and an in-game console, setting ShowFPS to 1 or 2 revealed useful frame rate statistics. For in-game CPU, GPU and memory monitoring that does work, we recommend the latest version of MSI Afterburner.

Aside from game and configuration file fiddling, there's one final tweak of note: the application of NVIDIA Control Panel Anisotropic Filtering (NVCPLAF). Compared to the game's AF implementation, distant textures and those viewed on an angle are clearer and sharper when NVCPLAF is enabled, as the interactive comparison below demonstrates.

The performance impact of NVCPLAF is a few frames at most, which is well worth the significant improvement in image quality seen in urban and street locations (sadly, capturing 1:1 shots between game restarts in such locations is nigh on impossible given the save system). To enable NVCPLAF, open your NVIDIA Control Panel, navigate to "Manage 3D Settings", locate "Watch Dogs" in the dropdown list, and apply the settings shown below.

For the best Watch Dogs experience we recommend installation of the new GeForce 337.88 WHQL, Game Ready drivers, which include a wealth of upgrades and optimizations that boost system performance and improve existing features. Namely, system-wide DirectX 11 and SLI performance optimizations of up to 75%, new technology that reduces game load times, new and updated SLI profiles, and 3D Vision enhancements that optimize DirectX 10 and DirectX 11 3D titles.

In addition to optimizing over 160 games, the free GeForce Experience application can automatically update drivers and profiles, record gameplay with ShadowPlay, and wirelessly stream PC games, including Watch Dogs, to NVIDIA SHIELD, the ultimate gaming and entertainment handheld.

With a host of advanced technologies, backed by NVIDIA HBAO+, NVIDIA TXAA and NVIDIA SLI, Watch Dogs offers PC gamers a highly detailed open world experience, full of activities, missions, and multiplayer shenanigans that will entertain for some time. As detailed in prior sections, the PC edition delivers the definitive Watch Dogs experience, with upgraded assets and effects across the board, resulting in unmatched image quality and fidelity.

As our performance testing shows, attaining this level of detail is no mean feat, however. At minimum, a GeForce GTX 770 is required for max setting gameplay, sans hardware anti-aliasing. Dialing down Level of Detail, Reflections, Shadows and Water by a single notch results in a near-identical experience on the GeForce GTX 760, 680, 670, and 660 Ti. Below this level, settings gradually have to be dialed back further, beginning with the rarely used Depth of Field effect and the important Shader setting. If you prefer, knocking back Reflections, Shadows and Water once more may allow you to retain the Shader setting's impressive nighttime illumination.

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