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Watch_Dogs original graphical effects (E3 2012/13) found in game files [PC]

Hawkian

The Cryptarch's Bane
Max Steele said:
If I want to shift my focus to a block away, I can't. The game has decided to keep it blurry for me. I do not like this.
Whatever the reason for disabling it completely, my point still stands that I don't think it makes the game look better.
Forgive me, these seemed like completely distinct and unrelated points.
This is a daytime comparison, courtesy of Rock, Paper, Shotgun.
Imgur ruined any hope of comparing the two. Was that the original shot RPS used?
 

epmode

Member
Good luck spotting an invading player one block away with that DOF filter on.

I do not like DOF in gaming. When my eyes focus on an object in real life, the other objects around me go out of focus. As soon as I shift my eyes to another object, that object snaps into focus and the rest go out of focus.

In a game, the DOF is putting objects closest to the camera in focus and the scene in the background is blurred. If I want to shift my focus to a block away, I can't. The game has decided to keep it blurry for me. I do not like this.

Yep. DOF is great for screenshots, cutscenes and times when the game REALLY wants you to focus on a particular area of the screen but it's a big mistake for most situations. It'll be nice when we get accurate eye tracking though!
 

shogunduk

Member
I feel a lot of companies do this with multiplatform games on PC. What's the point of doing this? For parity? What a slap in the face of PC gamers who have the platform for better fidelity and performance (on top of everything else). As for people saying that they didn't include it because they wanted it to run on more PC configurations.... That's what graphics settings are for. If a developer has a very scale-able engine then something like this isn't a problem.

I really hope this isn't the case for games like The Witcher 3. I don't think CDPR would do this, but I'm sure they've probably been asked to do it.

I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if they were paid off to do this. Gotta sell those consoles.

As for CDPR, they're one of the most trustworthy developers out there right now. No way they'd pull something like this.
 
I have a 765m and a i7-42702HQ. Without the mod and with the first version, my framerate with everything set to high and temporal SMAA I got high 20's/low 30's, which I was fine with. With 0.7b, though, I get the same framerate with random stutters and drops. It's really odd because it's happening more (halfway through Act II minor spoiler)
at that marina where you tail the briefcase
than anywhere else in the game. First world problems, I guess.

Edit: In the map overlay as well.
 
This is a daytime comparison, courtesy of Rock, Paper, Shotgun.
XKoYqxx.jpg
Not a good comparison - different time of day.
 

Morrigan Stark

Arrogant Smirk
The comment thing should probably be taken out of the OP, it's obviously out of context. It actually pretty much says that the PC is strong enough to not require special tweaks, unlike the PS360 versions.
 

Branson

Member
Usually PC games don't get this sort of content left in. It's usually left over voices or half finished quests or something. This is all cool.
 

spannicus

Member
Damn I wished it looked like that on x1
Fucking ubisoft. I asked myself why watchdogs doesnt have that AC polish and detail, maybe this is why.
 
Guys, clearly this is why Ubisoft likes to delay all of their Assassin's Creed titles on PC. It just takes so long to fix these things, and random three month delays allows them to really put in that extra love you can just feel in any ubisoft PC port.
 

Nokterian

Member
Guys, clearly this is why Ubisoft likes to delay all of their Assassin's Creed titles on PC. It just takes so long to fix these things, and random three month delays allows them to really put in that extra love you can just feel in any ubisoft PC port.

Yup locking everything up behind a code to look like a downgrade.
 

Pimpbaa

Member
And to you second question; apparently, for some technical reasons I don't understand, Watch_Dogs loads all texture twice:

Surreal texture implementation indeed. With no apparent benefit of this shown in game, this implementation seems quite frankly...stupid. All we get is a game that PC graphic drivers aren't optimized for and a game that runs at below the norm in regards to resolution on consoles. Not to mention inconsistent anisotropic filtering for the latter.
 

Gaz_RB

Member
The DOF looks awesome at times, but it's hard to do in a 3rd person game, and comes across as a little too strong. Loving this mod though. Nighttime is outrageous.
 

Garcia

Member
Guess Ubisoft is trying to figure out what to say about this.

At best they will emit a brief PR statement still trying to gaslight the issue. The important thing here is that this is all over the internet and people are already beginning to tweak the game accordingly.
 

Herne

Member
GTA V comes out in the Fall. You can uninstall Watch_Dogs and replace its files with GTA V and that will be kind of like modding in the good gameplay.

Zing! Hehe.

I dunno... they were both trying different things with different worlds. They invite comparison but there's not much that's similar.
 

spannicus

Member
At best they will emit a brief PR statement still trying to gaslight the issue. The important thing here is that this is all over the internet and people are already beginning to tweak the game accordingly.
I hear u. Did this effect the current gen consoles in any way? Are the PS4 and X1 not capable of doing close to what this mod does? Or is it just some poor development work?
 

Hawk269

Member
Does anyone know if these mods fix some of the audio issues some people have been having? When I load into the game, I get my Dolby Digital 5.1 sound from the Ubi Soft intro music, I also get sound when sitting in the menu, but as soon as I click "continue game" and the game loads I have no audio. I did a search on Google and others have reported this as well and the only way for me to get audio is to change my sound card to only output 2.0 sound instead of 5.1.
 
GTA V comes out in the Fall. You can uninstall Watch_Dogs and replace its files with GTA V and that will be kind of like modding in the good gameplay.
But gameplay is the only part watch dogs does ok. Shooting and stealth is way better than anything rockstar has done. Everything else about watch dogs is bad.
 
Well, Rock, Paper, Shotgun said that "the screenshots were both taken at approximately the same in-game time".
You can see from the angle of the shadows that this is not the case. When the sun is lower, as in the second image, the colour of the daylight becomes less harsh, with more warm tones. That is evident here. This mod also appears to change the lighting a bit overall, with more muted colours, so the same TOD would also look different, just not as significant as this comparison.
 

Brofist

Member
GTA V comes out in the Fall. You can uninstall Watch_Dogs and replace its files with GTA V and that will be kind of like modding in the good gameplay.

I haven't played GTA V, waiting for PC, but I think Watch Dog's gameplay stacks up favorably compared to earlier GTA games. I like the feel of the shooting much better in Watch Dogs.
 
I haven't played GTA V, waiting for PC, but I think Watch Dog's gameplay stacks up favorably compared to earlier GTA games. I like the feel of the shooting much better in Watch Dogs.

Aside from driving and Euphoria hit reactions, the rest of W_D's core mechanics are all way tighter than anything GTA's ever done. That comment was funny to me.
 

Authority

Banned
[E3 2012] Watch Dogs - E3 Gameplay Demo

All you people being pissed and mad here, while i am happy enough to play at least some games this year, I can't run this, can't run pretty much every new game that comes out, my computer sucks, and I don't cry about it, I play games on low settings if I can, games still look good to me and I play to have fun, I don't care if there's a can flying around and wind being all cool, I care if I have fun, looking and cans and particles is not exactly a part of gameplay.

After playing the game for 50 hours, I can definitely say the downgrade is there, but it's so fucking slight that we shouldn't give a shit. This demo definitely has a lot more effects, better physics and those fog effects are gorgeous, but should we really be so angry about this, going to the point of saying that GTA IV looks better? Because that's fucking stupid, and I'm being totally honest here when I say that if you think this looks worse than GTA IV then you're a fucking moron, plain and simple. Also, the explosion effects don't seem downgraded, more so just different. Explosions in the final game are astounding, same as in the demo, I don't think one looks better than the other, just different. The game still looks amazing on max settings on PC guys, and graphics don't make the game, they just add to it.

People bitching about the game's graphics. A good game is not born out of graphics only. A good storyline, deepness, and storytelling are the main topics of a good game. And a good gamer looks first at these 3 topics and not the graphics. Of course, graphics give you the immersion, but think with me: a good book is the one that makes you think about the possibillities of the story, makes you think about possible plot twists. A good gamer recognizes a good game by it's story, mechanics and a bit of graphics. Watch_Dogs may have disappointed us with the Downgrade BUT that doesn't mean it is a bad game. Gosh... Look at South Park: The Stick of Truth. That game has a cartoonish graphics BUT it makes you feel like you're in an episode of South Park, just because the story is similar to the series' and because the characters are so good. I don't care about a game's graphics, for me that's just a bonus, but the real thing to me is how the game envolves me and develops itself towards the end. That's how I look at it. I love Watch_Dogs, it's being amazing so far.

to all the people complaining about the downgrade i just want to say something about it...WHO CARES!! graphics don't make the goddamn game. yes it may not look like it did when the first showcased, it but to be honest that's how it is with most games. some people don't even notice the changes and yet some do, but the important thing here is to judge the game based on gameplay and storyline instead of having a massive hissy fit over the looks. they downgraded the graphics with Farcry 3 when they first show cased it and nobody had a heart attack over that so why should you have one over this. the game still looks great.

I am watching the E3 2012 and I feel like someone stripped of my clothes. It is like I was sleeping, woke up and realized my virginity was lost. I will never forget the feeling I had the first time seeing this game. It is so much more than just going from "low settings" to "X settings". How the hell this doesn't break immersion for them is beyond me. I remember when I played Mafia II and L.A Noire and the environment couldn't suck me in because it felt there was no "mood".

I mean I see this,

m9VJKPc.jpg

lkgQe0B.jpg


and the more I stare at them, the more I get sucked into this grim reality that send shivers down my spine...If I didn't know what was Watch_Dogs about I would have assumed it was a deep crime-thriller game. Take that away and you got your self no immersion. That is how I see it anyhow.
 

Dire

Member
Hmm, don't know if that excludes digital sales or not. Why would they exclude it, though, a sale is a sale.

It did seem kind of low to me, though. I was shocked to see it.

Steam is the biggest source for digital sales now a days. They don't release sales numbers.
 

Gibbo

Member
Does anyone know if these mods fix some of the audio issues some people have been having? When I load into the game, I get my Dolby Digital 5.1 sound from the Ubi Soft intro music, I also get sound when sitting in the menu, but as soon as I click "continue game" and the game loads I have no audio. I did a search on Google and others have reported this as well and the only way for me to get audio is to change my sound card to only output 2.0 sound instead of 5.1.

Getting the same issue as well. Just menu sounds. I tried both Dolby digital live and DTS.. Both do not work. A lot of people are having the same issue.. And it's pissing me off that the patch is taking so long.

I've tried the mods last night and it does not Fix the issue
 
How quickly people were quick to believe shows the state of consumer trust in Ubisoft.

But the line IS in there, the thing is that it was a single line taken out of context, since the entire file had to do with PS360 settings, and thus didn't apply to PCs at all (the developer LITERALLY saying "Who cares about this PC setting in our PS360 build.")
 

Wigglers

Neo Member
So I avoided Watch Dogs altogether after all of the stuttering issues. Does this mod now make it worth it to jump in?

Not for me it doesn't I never had really bad stuttering anyway but while driving around it always happens regardless of the mod or day 1 updates it's playable and once the textures and stuff get cached it's not very noticeable but the stuttering never truly went away. Do keep in mind I am using somewhat dated hardware but still relatively powerful.
 
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