Watchdogs2 benchmarks

[Majcric]

MSAA aside, Shadows and Extra Details seem to be the biggest performance killers. Extra details is an easy sacrifice. Shadows on the other hand are what helps this game really shine. With a few adjustments and test runs you should be able to find the right balance for shadows/fps.

 

[tential]

MSAA aside, Shadows and Extra Details seem to be the biggest performance killers. Extra details is an easy sacrifice. Shadows on the other hand are what helps this game really shine. With a few adjustments and test runs you should be able to find the right balance for shadows/fps.

Extra Details are what make it seem real!!!

Just get 1080Ti SLIs at 50k worth of Nvidia stock and you'll have amazing performance.

 

[Majcric]

Extra Details is CPU related.

 

[escrow4]

MSAA aside, Shadows and Extra Details seem to be the biggest performance killers. Extra details is an easy sacrifice. Shadows on the other hand are what helps this game really shine. With a few adjustments and test runs you should be able to find the right balance for shadows/fps.

The default "Ultra" preset with "Ultra" high res textures seems to keep it around 50-60FPS for me. Will test it more today. That already is far beyond console settings, extra details aside.

 

[moonbogg]

Do you recall what GPU's were used? I know hardware unboxed was pegged with 2 Titan XP. I need to upgrade my i7 6700k

I believe it was 1080's in SLI. I just forgot what video it was. It might be one in this thread actually.

 

[escrow4]

Extra Details at 25% drops a few more FPS down to upper 40s, quality wise there is a difference:







The CPU usage is very interesting - just look at the first screenshot in a built up area - and people still think quads are sufficient?

 

[moonbogg]

What in the hell is the game doing to get 12 threads running at 85%???

If we look at watchdogs 2 as a possible example of where gaming is going, then even the fabled 6 core i5 that so many people hope for wouldn't cut it. It would likely be similar to a quad with HT, and even those aren't up to snuff for this game. Nope, its 8/16 or go home for this game with 6/12 being the next best thing. But 6 cores without HT? I can't see that working out well in this game.
I'd like to see the difference if escrow turned off HT to see how it affected the FPS and core usage. Its some work to do but would be interesting if they had the time and willingness.

 

[Majcric]

What in the hell is the game doing to get 12 threads running at 85%???

If we look at watchdogs 2 as a possible example of where gaming is going, then even the fabled 6 core i5 that so many people hope for wouldn't cut it. It would likely be similar to a quad with HT, and even those aren't up to snuff for this game. Nope, its 8/16 or go home for this game with 6/12 being the next best thing. But 6 cores without HT? I can't see that working out well in this game.
I'd like to see the difference if escrow turned off HT to see how it affected the FPS and core usage. Its some work to do but would be interesting if they had the time and willingness.

This is what makes PC gaming so interesting is the testing and I agree with your points.

 

[Majcric]

@Escrow. Did you by any chance get to do a CPU test at say 720p, extra detailed maxed. And see what the lowest mean is you can find.

I think I posted this in the other thread but the lowest I've seen on the i7 6700k is in the mid 40s

 

[escrow4]

@Escrow. Did you by any chance get to do a CPU test at say 720p, extra detailed maxed. And see what the lowest mean is you can find.

I think I posted this in the other thread but the lowest I've seen on the i7 6700k is in the mid 40s

Nope although its easy to see that will slaughter FPS. Extra details 25% @ 1080p drops the FPS down to just over 60FPS instead of just over 70FPS at 0% as a baseline before further dips. Some more screens, even at lower load areas all 12 threads are being hit, even at 30 ish percent:







If you are experiencing dips its your CPU. For me there are dips that crash to 40FPS at that bridge entrance where one of the extra info things are located as you upgrade your skills. It goes bridge -> tunnel with forest on top -> bridge at a highway intersection. Otherwise high 40s to upper 50s which is acceptable with those extra details enabled.

Very impressed with this game so far. No tower scaling for one, and the plot/writing is surprisingly well written. You do need a lot of resources though.

 

[tential]

Extra Details is essentially just downsampling from a higher resolution per the Nvidia tweak guide. Hence of course my obsession as I'm a resolution addict.

 

[Head1985]

Stock gtx1080 vs gtx1070 max oc.Its closer than usual.GTX1070 max oc is only 8-10% slower than stock GTX1080.In most games there is still 10-15% gap(i think he is cpu bottleneck in few first scenes with GTX1080-he using stock 6700k and only 98% gpu usage)

 

[dogen1]

Extra Details is essentially just downsampling from a higher resolution per the Nvidia tweak guide. Hence of course my obsession as I'm a resolution addict.

It's just higher draw distance for certain details.

 

[escrow4]

98% GPU usage isn't a CPU bottleneck. I've never seen that counter hit 100% consistently ever. 99% is rare too.

 

[Head1985]

98% GPU usage isn't a CPU bottleneck. I've never seen that counter hit 100% consistently ever. 99% is rare too.

then you are cpu bottleneck.I have 6700k 4.5ghz and i am at 99-100% whole time.

 

[Dygaza]

There appears to be slight cpu cap bottleneck, but nothing major. People really should use process hacker more often to show the actual threads and see if any are maxing one core, intead of just showing how much each cores are used in average. You can easily spot reasons for cpu cap there (usually cpu bottlenecks are caused by driver overhead, or game logic thread being nearly maxed out)

 

[PhonakV30]

then you are cpu bottleneck.I have 6700k 4.5ghz and i am at 99-100% whole time.

so 6700K Is not enough for heavy preset? whoa..... then I guess I should buy Zen or at least Core i7-6820

 

[Majcric]

so 6700K Is not enough for heavy preset? whoa..... then I guess I should buy Zen or at least Core i7-6820

The jury is still out on what processor is needed or if this is just a fault of the game when extra details is at 100%. From the testing so far it doesn't appear the 6c/6t processors are doing any better on the min fps. i7 5820k had min of 39 fps in a cpu test.

 

[escrow4]

Fat RAM usage - just under 8GB alone subtracting Win 10 usage after near 6 hours:

Have experienced heavy dips to sub 40s in grassy areas as well as up high with the drone. Will be dropping off extra details entirely, the cost is too high. Still game technically is fairly impressive.

 

[Bacon1]

There any reviews that have covered the patches and performance impact from them? They mentioned fixing bugs and performance issues in their recent patch notes today but haven't seen any reviews that cover launch vs now performance updates.

 

[psolord]

I just finished uploading the first part of my benchmarks. Maybe I will do the 7950 and 5850 at lower settings later just for fun.

I benchmarked a lengthy session of the Cyberdriver mission at straight ultra preset, which is not the highest. You can fiddle around with 3-4 more settings and give them even higher values. Maybe I will do a maxed out version of the same run later.

Watchdogs 2 1920x1080 Ultra GTX 1070 @2Ghz Core i5 2500k @4.8GHz
- 70fps

Watchdogs 2 1920X1080 Ultra GTX 970 @1.5Ghz CORE i7-860 @4GHz - 42fps

Now I have to say that is one of the bigger deltas I have see between the 1070 and the 970. A devilish 66.666666% lol My results seem to be closer to the Guru3D's review. Maybe we used a similar location.

Both runs exhibited mild cpu limits of equal measure. GPU Usage was at 98-99% for the most part.

Both systems did not provide stellar performance however.





The bright side is that with the 1070, you can have a decent gaming experience and if you don't analyze performance numbers too much, the game is enjoyable.

In the cpu side, my 2500k cried, once again. It is a trend lately to see my cpu usage sky high. Crazy for a quad 4.8GHz sandy. But at least it was enough to keep the 1070 properly engaged.



You can see how cpu heavy this game is however, because my gaming cpu frequency is much lower for the 2500k and the game was struggling to break 50fps.

The 860 was more relaxed but you can never know with stupid hyperthreading switching threads all around.

The video ram usage climbed up to 6GBs for the 1070 and when you see that, you can safely assume that it's not spelling any good news for the 970. Maybe I will have to tone down things a bit, to see what kind of settings it can handle at 60fps. Not to mention the 7950.

Decent game overall. Quite beautiful but quite heavy. Maybe even disproportionately so.

Ok I finished uploading my AMD cards benchmarks.

Watchdogs2 1920x1080 Very High 7950 @1.1Ghz CORE i7-860 @4GHz - 38fps

Watchdogs 2 1920x1080 Medium (-) 5850 @900Mhz CORE i7 860 @4GHz - 30fps

(medium minus means medium settings with low textures)

Considering the age of the cards, they run the game pretty well. The 5850 is not exactly playable, but if you consider that many current games run below 20fps at low settings, this one is a welcome exception and Watchdogs 2 is considered a heavy game too. Using low settings did not help at all, other than making the game uglier. The 5850 is hitting a vram wall that is the first performance limit this card meets. A 5850 with 2GBs would do a lot better. Also it is a dead card that was brought back to life through baking, lol.

The 7950 on the other hand is a whole other story. It is a very capable card still, if you are reasonable with the settings. Very high was a bit too much I think, but it was a benchmark. For real life gaming the straight high preset is a much better choice. Or maybe a combination of settings.

I also did a quick performance test on the 7950 with all presets.

Watchdogs2 - Radeon 7950 quick performance and quality comparison from ultra to low

Eyeballing it, the ultra preset gives around 30fps, very high preset gives around 40-45fps (easier area than the above benchmark), high preset gives around 50-55fps, medium preset gives 60-65fps and low preset gives around 80fps. After the high preset the image quality seems to take a considerable hit, so high is a very nice preset for older cards.

 

[escrow4]

Dips vastly reduced with Extra Details disabled, especially up high with the drone. Surprised how well made this is for Ubisoft the plotting and writing is pretty good approaching 30 hours in. Disappointing there isn't a Android vs iOS knockoff mission yet. Nudle and !nvite are already in the game . . . . still a huge improvement over WD1.