Support NeoGAF

[KojiKnight]

For those wanting to know how a lesser system does...

AMD FX6300@ 3.8ghz HD7870 24GB ram (irrelevant, but just posting for completion)

Settings

Have shadows on med because it gives me the greatest performance without loss of visual quality IMO.

Before

After

I saw zero change to my framerate. It's during the day though, I'll try and get another set of shots at night. And yes, it feels like there is less stuttering when I'm driving, but I'm not noticing much of a change in my actual FPS so it may be in my head.

And like others have said, the current DoF effect is all over the place... If you sit still it randomly shifts back and forth between closer and further depth, rather disorientating... but it's just a simple click away from being disabled... which I'll likely do since leaving DoF on contributes to my motion sickness.

 

[Faith]

So the 0.7 version will also be coming today right?

I hope, can't wait to see what the other improvements will be.

 

[SyntheCypher]

Were they holding these graphics options back for a "Remastered Edition" for extra cash?

 

[rashbeep]

Yep, those too. Lots of small dynamic details which add up to a big difference. I'm starting to worry now all people are going to see (or not because of it lol) is the daft 'DoF to the max' effect.

Once the DoF gets fixed, I'll be very interested to see another comparison of the 2012 demo to the modded game. I don't think it will look exactly the same, but it'll be as close as it can possibly be.

Were they holding these graphics options back for a "Remastered Edition" for extra cash?

Unlikely because then it wouldn't be this "easy" to unlock these settings. The new effects were probably just removed from the actual game settings because they were unrefined.

 

[RulkezX]

This guy did.

That video does a horrible job of showing anything.

 

[On Demand]

They're laughing all the way to the bank with how much they sold.

I don't get why they did it for parity if true. This isn't the first game that would of looked better on PC.

 

[Jibbed]

Once the DoF gets fixed, I'll be very interested to see another comparison of the 2012 demo to the modded game. I don't think it will look exactly the same, but it'll be as close as it can possibly be.

Yeah. It's just a little slow to adjust right now and needs a little nerf, but when it's like what we saw at E3, it's a beautiful little effect when done right.

Wouldn't surprise me if after a few weeks the game actually looks better than the E3 demo, even if it doesn't quite play as fluidly.

 

[JohnGrimm]

Pretty poor comparison, all we see is the DoF.

IMO the most important changes are lighting-based, like the dynamic shadows, lens flaring, raindrop glow etc.

Isn't that all that's been changed so far? You get the headlight shadows, the overbearing DOF and the adjusted bloom.

 

[omonimo]

What was the explanation? A lot of users are saying they're not noticing any performance issues.

It's not true at all. DOF not work properly, dynamic light seems glitchy with the rain. It's not just matter of fps. Could be those effects in different area/times of day/weather conditions cause notable artifact or glitch. It's a free roam with tons of dynamic variables. But if you feel better to call the console conspirancy whatever you want.

 

[Pavaloo]

They're laughing all the way to the bank with how much they sold.

I don't get why they did it for parity if true. This isn't the first game that would of looked better on PC.

It was the first "next-gen" game anyone saw at E3 2012, before PS4 or Xbone were even shown off - I feel like it was a tentpole for new consoles before the delay.

It's not true at all. DOF not work properly, dynamic light seems glitchy with the rain. It's not just matter of fps. Could be those effects in different area/times of day/weather conditions cause notable artifact or glitch. It's a free roam with tons of dynamic variables. But if you feel better to call the console conspirancy whatever you want.

Yeah sure DOF is overblown and the shadows from cars cut half way. One of those has already been fixed apparently (shadows) and the other is a togglable. This was done in like 2 days by one guy. The performance runs better and stuttering issues are improved too. Call it conspiracy all you want, but there has been no explanation from Ubi yet and the game looks and runs better, how else am I supposed to look at it?

 

[wanderingprostheyltite]

Wondering if we'll be able to get that e3 2012 tesselation back. Then I can play it in sub 20 fps glory XD

 

[a916]

The army of devs from Ubi put to shame by by one single guy.

They couldn't bother optimizing the game for PC and probably not even for consoles.

If the devs are the ones that created it, the engine, the game... how is one guy going in and changing numeric values "putting to shame the army of devs"?

 

[Dario ff]

Before

After

That draw distance and LOD levels look way lower in the modded shot to me, unless that's just fog due to the weather.

 

[RK128]

So, why did they cut out the better looking visuals for the PC version?

At this point, every console owner must know that the PC version, next generation or not, is going to have the best looking versions of games, so, they wouldn't get so irked by the PS4/X1 versions now having the E3 2012 visuals :l.

Besides, Ubisoft could have made the PS4 and X1 versions look at least on par with the E3 2012 visuals if they didn't develop PS3/360 versions (that way more resources/developers could have worked on the PS4/X1 versions), but nope....they wanted all the money on the PS3/360 versions, so they didn't focus as much on the next-gen versions...

I'm not upset, as I don't really care about this game (still have other open world games to get through like Red Dead and GTA IV) but they really should have left this in the PC version natively; it would have made the PC version sell more for them AND give people who wanted to play the games 'original' vision a chance to do so.

 

[OldAsUrSock]

Looks like gaming journalists are downplaing this as a mod like Skyrim instead of actually bringing the original files.

 

[Durante]

just look at Ubisoft's financial report , Q4 2013/14 sales by platform

PC 24%
360 22%
PS3 20%
PS4 13%
XB1 7%

https://www.ubisoftgroup.com/en-US/investor_center/earnings_sales.aspx

Interesting, first time I see these numbers.

 

[Robert J. Sullivan]

Looks like gaming journalists are downplaing this as a mod like Skyrim instead of actually bringing the original files.

garne journalism

 

[Chariot]

Looks like gaming journalists are downplaing this as a mod like Skyrim instead of actually bringing the original files.

I smell money.

 

[Intheflorsh]

Looks like gaming journalists are downplaing this as a mod like Skyrim instead of actually bringing the original files.

It's worse than downplaying, it's factually wrong. This isn't a "recreation" of the effects, these are the actual effects.

 

[TheFNEffecT]

and the response!?

 

[Asgaro]

And on what device was the 2012 trailer shown? Supercomputer?

Cloud.


Ontopic: THIS is why I only buy games around a year after release.
IF people find any useful mods/tweaks/... you can use them from the very beginning.

I still have to get Skyrim. But I know when I'll buy it this year, I'm gonna have a hell of a time with all the mods.
Will be the same for Watch Dogs it seems.

 

[KojiKnight]

That draw distance and LOD levels look way lower in the modded shot to me, unless that's just fog due to the weather.

Another shot, same place with the DoF further back (because reasons? Not sure what causes the old DoF to switch so much)

The screen shots were all taken at the same point with the same settings, the only difference is the mod enabled/disabled. It's hard to tell if the draw distance is the same or not, it most likely is... but the fog DOES give it the appearance that it's much lower.

Haven't played around enough with the mod (literally just installed it and took those pics).

My 2GB 7870 still struggles/stutters hard with Ultra textures enabled unlike others who report that ultra textures work better (if it DOES work better, it's not enough on my rig to make a visible difference to me, I'll continue using high).

 

[omonimo]

It was the first "next-gen" game anyone saw at E3 2012 - I feel like it was a tentpole for new consoles before the delay.

Yeah sure DOF is overblown and the shadows from cars cut half way. One of those has already been fixed apparently (shadows) and the other is a togglable. This was done in like 2 days by one guy. The performance runs better and stuttering issues are improved too. I don't know how else to look at it.

So Ubisoft don't gives a fuck to the pc version. Like Skyrim, Dark Souls, their developers are not interested to push the pc hardware.

 

[RK128]

Looks like gaming journalists are downplaing this as a mod like Skyrim instead of actually bringing the original files.

Of course the media is going to downplay this; Ubisoft doesn't want any negative press or have to deal with explaining the situation to people.

It is messed up, as the PC Community is more or less doing Ubisoft's job (making the game better looking, giving people who own powerful PC's a reason to pick this up) but that is the press for gaming today; bias and messed up .

At least this will get a splash on the gaming forms, people then check them out and see what the news around this is.

 

[Jibbed]

And on what device was the 2012 trailer shown? Supercomputer?

I'm sure it was like a single GTX 680 or something along those lines, nothing silly.

Besides, that E3 demo would've been a very polished slice of a very early-in-development project.

 

[Armaros]

It was the first "next-gen" game anyone saw at E3 2012, before PS4 or Xbone were even shown off - I feel like it was a tentpole for new consoles before the delay.

Yeah sure DOF is overblown and the shadows from cars cut half way. One of those has already been fixed apparently (shadows) and the other is a togglable. This was done in like 2 days by one guy. The performance runs better and stuttering issues are improved too. Call it conspiracy all you want, but there has been no explanation from Ubi yet and the game looks and runs better, how else am I supposed to look at it?

The only way for the older and better graphics to have better performance then the release, is that the PC graphics at E3 were optimized for PC hardware and the consolized graphics that game released with, aren't.

 

[Mengy]

I smell money.

Nah, the journalists are just ignorant of what is really happening here. Most of them live in the world of official PR statements and press conferences, not modding sites and reddit news. They most likely just don't understand that Ubisoft simply turned all of this off and that the modder is simply turning it back on again. It sounds too ludicrous to be true when you really say it out loud, let alone publish it as official news.

 

[Pavaloo]

So Ubisoft don't gives a fuck to the pc version. Like Skyrim, Dark Souls, their developers are not interested to push the pc hardware.

Okay and they will get called out on it. Just like any other developer.

The only way for the older and better graphics to have better performance then the release, is that the PC graphics at E3 were optimized for PC hardware and the consolized graphics that game released with, aren't.

Yeah, it kind of reads like they ran into optimization issues when they realized they had to scale everything back.

I'm actually really curious to what Ubisoft has to say about it, if anything.

 

[digita1alchemy]

I'm almost exlusively a console gamer, but stuff like this and the Dark Souls and GTA4 mods on PC are really awesome and make consider building a bad ass rig (if I could afford it).

 

[SketchTheArtist]

So can you play the game like normal, or it goes down to 5fps when there's a bit of action?

If it's just good to walk around and it's only doable on a monster PC rig, I don't see the point of this actually.

 

[MrGummy]

and the response!?

Wow..

 

[Zeliard]

and the response!?

The mistake isn't that the headline calls it a mod; it's that it says it "recreates" the E3 visual effects, which implies that the files are custom tweaks created by the modder in an effort to approximate the look.

It isn't recreating anything; it's unveiling.

 

[omonimo]

Okay and they will get called out on it. Just like any other developer.

Unfortunately most of the big AAA prefer to port from console to pc than otherwise.

 

[jim2point0]

From a Kotaku comment -

"A lot of what you're seeing in those screenshots is SweetFX"

Referencing my screenshots showing off the mod. I didn't use Sweetfx...

I mean SweetFX is nice but it's not going to add in effects like DYNAMIC FUCKING SHADOWS. Ugh.

 

[DataGhost]

Wow, why would they not enable this to begin with? I'm sure there would have been more PC sales if they done this.

 

[Chariot]

Nah, the journalists are just ignorant of what is really happening here. Most of them live in the world of official PR statements and press conferences, not modding sites and reddit news. They most likely just don't understand that Ubisoft simply turned all of this off and that the modder is simply turning it back on again. It sounds too ludicrous to be true when you really say it out loud, let alone publish it as official news.

That might be true and would be even worse.

 

[Deadbeat]

Lets make this more simple for everyone:

 

[DataGhost]

Lets make this more simple for everyone:

Wait, it was really that simple?

 

[Intheflorsh]

Lets make this more simple for everyone:

I wonder if this means those effects were created just for E3.

 

[Jibbed]

From a Kotaku comment -



Referencing my screenshots showing off the mod. I didn't use Sweetfx...

I mean SweetFX is nice but it's not going to add in effects like DYNAMIC FUCKING SHADOWS. Ugh.

SweetFX has got to that point now where enough people recognise it, but the vast majority have no idea what it actually does.

SweetFX = sweet grafix, yo.

 

[Windom Earle]

Being a sucker for DOF I love this mod. I always thought the game looks great but it's much nicer now, also runs like butter. Ultra textures is still a no-go for my 2gb card though.

I already finished the story but will definitely do more side content now.

 

[Deadbeat]

Wait, it was really that simple?

Simple enough for games journalists to start reporting this properly.

 

[Conkerkid11]

lol, would anybody be able to explain why this mod causes Watch_Dogs to make my monitor (Asus VG248, the 144hz one) make a buzzing sound?

It doesn't happen anywhere else, but in-game. I can tab out of Watch_Dogs and it will stop, but as soon as I tab back in, it starts making this loud buzzing sound again.

The graphics look great, and the performance is a lot better, but I don't want to blow my monitor up.

 

[Mengy]

That might be true and would be even worse.

Yes, yes it would be.

Wait, it was really that simple?

Yes, yes it was.

 

[Higgins113]

Lets make this more simple for everyone:

They actually called it E3 Rain and Theatre?

 

[GrizzNKev]

The is the most embarrassing thing I've seen haopen to an already released game in years.

And if makes me really fucking angry that I about the PS4 version because remote play seemed more valuable to me than a resolution and AA boost. If I could have gone back I'd have bought it on PC for this mod.

 

[Fracas]

Lets make this more simple for everyone:

It can't mean what it looks like...can it?

 

[Jibbed]

They actually called it E3 Rain and Theatre?

Yup.

It started of with those few values being changed to '1', and now TheWorse has dug up a few more effects by unpacking the files.

 

[rashbeep]

Referencing my screenshots showing off the mod. I didn't use Sweetfx...

I mean SweetFX is nice but it's not going to add in effects like DYNAMIC FUCKING SHADOWS. Ugh.

It's always funny how there are people who obviously know what SweetFX is but have no idea it's just used for simple tweaks like AA, colours, etc.

 

[RK9039]

Press "E3_Unlock =1" for magic.