Watch dogs 2- multiplatform action game developed by the studio Ubisoft, which is known for the series of games, and.
The studio recently released its Q3 2015-16 earnings report and is officially targeting the April 2017 release of Watch Dogs 2. It is highly likely that the game will be released later than the target date, given the big plans of the developers of the franchise.
The first game Watch dogs received significant critical acclaim, with much of the press highlighting the quality of the game's storyline and open world. But the critics' flattering reviews were at odds with many users who consider the game a disappointment and not quite standard from such a studio.
Recall that Watch Dogs plot is built on the basis of the concept of information war: the use of advanced technologies has increased in the world, and all data have become interconnected. The game takes place in an alternate version of reality in San Francisco. It is one of many cities using the "ctOS" operating system.
This OS exercises control over almost the entire city and contains data about the entire population and all events held in the city, which can be used for various purposes. To spur the development of ctOS, the hackers caused a power grid accident in the United States and Canada. The main character of the game is Aiden Pearce, who is characterized as a highly skilled hacker and a person who uses not only his intellect, but also his fists.
Watch Dogs gameplay focused on the player's ability to hack into various electronic devices, as well as on obtaining and controlling information.
Ubisoft Montreal almost got its own GTA. Even on the second try. And only for those who find funny "humorous" publics on social networks. But if you are not satisfied with the principle of "entertain yourself" and are enraged by youthful "rasping", it is better to stay in Los Santos.
Was Watch Dogs 2 a success? Definitely. This may not be the main game of this year, but it fixes the mistakes of the last part, looks great and gives an impressive freedom of action. I would like to believe that by the third part the game is evolving in the same way as the Saints Row series did at one time, when Volition decided to leave the pseudo-criminal drama in the direction of the insane satirical tent. It can be seen that Watch Dogs will be very comfortable on this field.
KG-Portal
The main characters are also good for selection: hickey, autistic, graffiti girl, office plankton, the legendary old hacker and you are a black guy who does not whine because of his race, does not worry about oppression, but just lives, has fun, jokes about "Alien vs. Predator" and fluffy penises, and when he does business, then with the maximum fervor and beauty. “Hello, Mafia 3? Imagine, you can make a black protagonist a nice person! Who would have thought, huh? "
Everyone wants to recommend Watch Dogs 2. It can be safely called the best open world of the year, the best game in its own series (although it is still small) and one of the best games from Ubisoft itself. Yes, there are definitely some unpleasant moments in it - the parkour system is at times awkward, sometimes Marcus gets stuck in the textures, the driving system still needs to be worked on, the beginning of the game is rather weak (you don't immediately begin to sympathize with the heroes, for some time you faintly feel your involvement in what is happening). But, nevertheless, we have before us one of the best games of the year - and this is not enough.
No one expected Watch Dogs 2 to take on a level comparable to GTA 5, but it doesn't need to be that way to be a cool game. Ubisoft has fixed many of the bugs in the first part. Finally, hacking has gone beyond marketing and has become the main "feature" of the game, which drags along the entire gameplay. Thanks to this, you can forgive the project and mediocre shooting, and all the same arcade car controls, and even a completely ordinary open world.
Catonauts
I wonder if "rehabilitating" sequels will become a trend for Ubisoft. Watch Dogs 2 is just such a case. The studio understood which parts of the concept worked, what needed to be changed, and performed exemplary work on the errors. After that, several developers, apparently, offered one more crazy mission for the final part, and then the game was sent to print. A riot of ideas came together in an amazing way, making up one of the most fun games of the year, full of constant surprises. So alive that you even believe in hackers who convince their followers to download an application that connects the device to the botnet army of good. And people who agree to it.
World of fiction
The developers at Ubisoft Montreal have done a tremendous amount of work to bring back interest in the Watch Dogs series. Now this is not a routine city sandbox in the spirit of GTA, but a stealth-action hacking-theme with unique mechanics, albeit not outstanding, but worthy of attention.
IGN Russia
Regarding the enthusiasm for Watch_Dogs 2, I was literally told the following: "Low expectations work wonders." They really were nowhere lower (and not only me - it seems that in all ru.ign there were no more people willing to take the game for review). I basically don't like Ubisoft's open world games. Reasonably considering them as the standard of boredom, emptiness and copy-paste, where something interesting literally flashes out with rare sparks and then repeats itself many times, smeared with a thin layer, until completely emasculated. Therefore, the result of acquaintance with the next game cannot be called anything other than a miracle. For objective reasons, unfortunately, she cannot receive (and will not receive) the highest mark. But subjectively, the second part of "Watchdogs" is perhaps the best that the French internationalists have ever been able to do in the genre. Of course, not "Game of the Year", but "Open World of the Year" - most likely, and "Surprise of the Year" - one hundred percent.
I admit that there were a lot of references to the first part in the text, but there is simply no other way to describe Watch Dogs 2. The sequel is a huge step forward. The most thorough work on errors was carried out in it - the developers went through all the failed moments of the original. Of course, some roughness remained in some places. The plot is ragged and the only motivation for the struggle of the heroes with the evil corporation is the idea of "peeping, they say, is not good." On the other hand, this is perfectly offset by well-presented humor with pop culture references. The world is big and alive, however, after the completion of the story missions, the game does not throw up any additional entertainment. The most stubborn can, of course, continue to mine secret data to discover all of Marcus's skills and shoot with other players, but this is unlikely to delay someone for long. However, I am sure of one thing - if Ubisoft decides on Watch Dogs 3, then it will be possible to buy it without hesitation.
But the single component of Watch Dogs 2 turned out to be excellent. During the passage, you will never get bored, and not a single mission will seem tortured or ill-considered. Yes, stealth requires minor improvements (if someone notices Marcus and dies in a split second, everyone around him will somehow instantly know about his presence), but even in its current form, you get a lot of pleasure from secret passage. It is a pity that the not entirely successful Watch Dogs scared many away from the second part, but we can safely say that it turned out to be better than its predecessor in all respects.
Watch Dogs 2 is better than the first part, but this is again not the game that everyone has been waiting for since 2012. The topic of hackers is interesting, and the idea of total surveillance makes you think seriously. But how can you be serious when you have an autistic, adult woman on your team, dressing like a 15-year-old teenager, and a lover of spikes and latex?
Of course, Marcus, like Aiden Pearce, knows how to hack city communications, instantly reconfigure traffic lights on the streets and arrange a complete blackout in the city. And it is also possible to hack any passer-by after learning something funny about him or by sending him a fake SMS supposedly from an angry mother. In general, speaking dryly - everything for which one could love the first part remained in the continuation, and the main ideas of the series received a worthy development. Watch Dogs 2 falls in love with its rebellious spirit and bright colors. A living world, a sense of freedom and an endless carefree summer. The players trampled the first part, trying to compare it with GTA, and the second withstands this comparison with dignity.
Ultimately, Watch Dogs 2 is a soulful San Francisco guided tour with a prank guide, not with “murderous uncle” Aiden Pearce burning with vengeance. Memorable bright locations, carefree friends, a bit arcade (but absolutely not annoying) driving and significantly expanded hacking capabilities - all this clearly outweighs the crookedly running and fallen multiplayer, and already gives the coveted value for money, that is, a fan for earned blood and then a pretty penny. An easy narration and a warm Pacific breeze will distract you from the frost outside the window, and you can always get a dose of the gloomy one in some Heavy Rain bought at a sale.
Watch Dogs 2 has plenty of useful changes. This is an expanded list of opportunities for hacking systems, and the presence of several options for passing most missions without the obligatory skirmishes, and beautiful scenery, as well as boring secondary tasks with the participation of heroes familiar from the first part. The main positive change is the attractive atmosphere of a comedy adventure with hilarious characters who are not deprived of a sense of humor. This is a high-quality action movie in the open world, but ... the authors did not draw it out to the end. So in the end the game is puzzling with self-repetitions.
Overall, Watch Dogs 2 is the Assassin's Creed 2 of our time. The developers got rid of many sores of the original, making the game as enjoyable and fun as possible. However, unlike the series about assassins, with "Dogs" Ubisoft quite abruptly changed the vector of development, replacing the gloomy cyberpunk with a cheerful story about hipster hackers. Good or bad - you decide. Watch Dogs 2 could be called the ideal gamification of the series "Mr. Robot", if not for a too positive mood, which does not go too much for serious hacker intrigues.
Watch_Dogs 2 did a good job of fixing bugs. There is no need to compare it with the latest GTA, despite the general style and similar cynicism. Rather, it is a hundredfold improved Sleeping Dogs, and in the genre, sorry, secondary sandboxes, it will take a leading position. Because, despite the abundance of shortcomings, we still want to return to this world of crocs and Internet slang.
Instead of trivial work with fixing errors, the authors of Watch_Dogs 2 managed to make a cool, original, addictive game, which can now become a real reliable foundation for future sequels. This is not just "assassins in modern times", not a game about a "hackerman", not a collection of "memasiks", but a whole living world in which a person must either submit to the system and live under its constant supervision, or break out of the framework and hack everything that only possible to find freedom. Marcus made his choice, and you ?!
Igromania.ru
The game seems to be truly alive. It is a separate pleasure to watch how the hero moves, how he takes off his headphones or bends down during shooting, how the city of San Francisco lives. Each cafe has its own design and music, the local beaches are incredibly beautiful, and the nights are magical: the crickets are buzzing, the wind is blowing, someone is walking the dog, people in the background are constantly doing something and discussing something. And every conversation can be overheard. Watch Dogs 2 most of all resembles not even previous projects of Ubisoft, but Grand Theft Auto 5. For a direct clash, the game about hackers lacks the right direction and scale, but even in this form, Watch Dogs 2 is a real surprise and a great game.
Betriebssystemnur 64-bit-Versionen)
Prozessor: Intel Core i5-2400S @ 2.5 GHz / AMD FX 6120 @ 3.5 GHz (Beachten Sie bitte, dass Prozessoren mit weniger als 4 Kernen wahrscheinlich zu einem schwarzen Bildschirm beim Start des Spiels führen werden)
RAM: 6 GB
Grafikkarte: Nvidia GeForce GTX 660 (2GB) / AMD Radeon HD 7870 (2GB) oder besser
Festplattenspeicher: 50 GB verfügbarer Speicher
Soundkarte
Peripheriegeräte
Multiplayer
Empfohlene Systemvoraussetzungen
Betriebssystem: Windows 7 SP1, Windows 8.1, Windows 10 ( nur 64-bit-Versionen)
Prozessor: Intel Core i5-3470 @ 3.2 GHz / AMD FX 8120 @ 3.9 GHz
RAM: 8 GB
Grafikkarte: Nvidia GeForce GTX 780 (3GB) / GTX 970 (4GB) / NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 (3GB) oder besser / AMD Radeon R9 290 (4GB) oder besser
Festplattenspeicher: 50 GB verfügbarer Speicher
Soundkarte: DirectX-kompatible Soundkarte mit aktuellen Treibern
Peripheriegeräte: Windows-kompatibles Keyboard und Maus / Microsoft Xbox One Controller / DualShock 4 Controller
Multiplayer: 256 kbps oder schnellere Breitbandverbindung
Unterstützte Grafikkarten zum Zeitpunkt der Veröffentlichung:
NVIDIA GeForce GTX660 oder besser, GeForce GTX700, GTX900 series
AMD Radeon R9 270 oder besser, Radeon R9 300, Fury series
Nur Grafikkarten gleicher oder besserer Leistung als eine Nvidia GeForce GTX 660 / AMD Radeon R9 270 werden vom Spiel unterstützt. Laptopversionen der Grafikkarten können funktionieren, werden aber nicht offiziell unterstützt. Besuchen Sie bitte für weitere Informationen.
Damit das Spiel so gut wie möglich auf Ihrem System läuft, stellen Sie bitte sicher, dass Sie den aktuellsten Treiber für Ihre Grafikkarte installiert haben. Sie können den Treiber von der Seite des Herstellers herunterladen:
AMD
NVIDIA
Uplay PC:
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Benutzen Sie Ihren Ubisoft-Account (oder erstellen Sie einen neuen in der Uplay-Anwendung oder online) und den einzigartigen Schlüssel, den Sie mit Ihrem Spiel erhalten haben, um das Spiel an Ihren Account zu binden.
Nach dieser einmaligen Aktivierung können Sie das Spiel im Online- und Offlinemodus starten. Nicht alle Spielefunktionen stehen im Offlinemodus zur Verfügung.
UltraTexture-Paket
Für Ultra-Texturen benötigen Sie eine Grafikkarte mit 6GB VRAM und ein Minimum von 12GB System-RAM (16GB empfohlen).
based on solutions from Gigabyte
Watch Dogs 2 (WATCH_DOGS 2) is the second part of an action adventure game with hacks and other hacking activities in an open game world, continuing the story idea of its predecessor. This multiplatform game was released on the Sony PlayStation 4 and Microsoft Xbox One consoles in mid-November, and the game was released on personal computers a little later. Initially, it was announced that Watch Dogs 2 will be released on November 15, 2016 on all platforms, but in October the developers clarified that the PC version of the game will be released only on November 29 - in order to improve the PC version, add support for additional graphics capabilities and improve optimization ...
The start of work on the second part of Watch Dogs became known almost immediately after the release of the first game; Ubisoft hinted that they were thinking about a sequel to the hacker thriller, which was also due to good sales of the first part of the game. For a long time, there were very few details about the development of the game, until in April information appeared about the likely protagonist of the game - an unknown black hacker with a pistol, glasses and a baseball cap, who replaced Aiden Pearce, the hero of the original Watch Dogs.
Watch Dogs 2 differs from the first series in a new setting and an updated atmosphere in the form of a place where everything happens - sunny or foggy San Francisco, which replaced the gloomy Chicago from the first part of Watch Dogs. The updated world is more than twice the size of the previous one, it was first shown in trailers on June 8, when a new protagonist was introduced - Marcus Holloway, a member of the DedSec hacker community, which in every way fights for citizens' rights to privacy and freedom of information.
Later, at E3 2016, the gameplay from Watch Dogs 2 was demonstrated with comments from its developers. In a demo mission, the main character, together with like-minded people from DedSec, conducted an operation to discredit the director of one of the social networks, who uses personal data of citizens to falsify votes. Markus, teamed up with a group of activists from DedSec, challenges corporations and the corrupt authorities of the city, taking control of the updated universal system ctOS 2.0.
The turning point in the life of Marcus is the ctOS error, which identified a particularly dangerous criminal in him, which negatively affected his future life, so he devoted his life to fighting the system. The new hero of Watch Dogs 2 is younger, faster in combat, possesses parkour skills, and uses a homemade weapon "meteor" as a weapon - a billiard ball on a rope made of woven wires, as well as a pistol assembled from parts printed on a 3D printer.
The first video presented new gameplay innovations, including a new hacking system, new gadgets and improved parkour capabilities. Various methods can be used to achieve the objectives of the game missions, choosing from a more aggressive combat approach, shooting enemies with firearms and using other lethal methods, or using a stealth approach in which you have to stun and paralyze enemies. You can also complete the game using Marcus's hacking abilities. The upgrade options are divided into three categories related to different methods of playing the game, and the player can choose them according to his taste.
The gameplay in Watch Dogs 2 is similar to that of the previous series, with a lot of stealth elements in this third-person action-adventure. The player can move around the world in various vehicles: motorcycles, cars, buses, trams, ATVs and motor boats. In addition to weapons, Marcus has at his disposal additional tools in the form of a quadcopter and a radio-controlled car, which can be used for hacking and reconnaissance. The protagonist of Watch Dogs 2 can hack various electronic devices connected to the ctOS system using his smartphone: control the smartphones of all characters in the game, disrupt the traffic management system, hack cars themselves, surveillance cameras, electrical equipment, etc.
Little is known about the game engine used in Watch Dogs 2. This is the second version of the Disrupt engine used in the first game in the series, and differs from the first in additional algorithms, effects and techniques, as well as optimization. The first version of the Disrupt engine was developed by Ubisoft Montreal over the course of four years in parallel with the creation of Watch Dogs, although initially it was assumed that it would use the AnvilNext engine, known for the Assassin's Creed 3 game.
Disrupt engines of both versions are based on the capabilities of DirectX 11, are multi-platform and differ from their counterparts in advanced dynamic simulation of various physical interactions: the behavior of water, wind and other weather effects is simulated when everything reacts to everything. The engine of the games in the series is quite flexible and efficient, and allows you to achieve a high level of detail in a seamless open world with a good depth of elaboration of a modern city. At the same time, the game world of Watch Dogs 2 is very dynamic, it reacts to all the player's actions, the engine has a high level of interactivity in physics, animation, artificial intelligence, etc.
From a graphical point of view, the engine is made at a very high modern level, there are also good algorithms for changing the level of detail, very important for an open world, and very high quality textures, and advanced lighting and shading techniques, rendering soft shadows, good looking dynamic water with realistic waves, modern post-processing effects: motion blur, imitation of depth of field, halo, etc.
Separately, it should be noted the joint work of Ubisoft with Nvidia. The engineers of the latter worked closely with the game developers in order to introduce Nvidia GameWorks technologies into the PC version of the game: the complex HBAO + global shading algorithm, the TXAA anti-aliasing method with a time component, the HFTS and PCSS soft shadow rendering techniques. In addition to TXAA, among the anti-aliasing methods there are both the usual multisampling and anti-aliasing algorithms using post-processing methods: SMAA and FXAA, which improve the overall image quality with less resource consumption.
Other features of the PC version of Watch Dogs 2 include: support for all kinds of screen resolutions, including 4K, optimization of loading and use of resources (textures, models, etc.) to reduce delays and jerky frame rates, full support for multi-chip SLI rendering and CrossFire, support for multi-monitor mode with advanced HUD placement settings, change of field of view (FOV), improved graphics: real-time reflections in screen space (Screen Space Reflections), support for multiple lights from car headlights, increased detail of all objects near and more detail away from the player, as well as an additional downloadable ultra-quality texture set, which is only in the PC version.
Minimum system requirements:
The obligation to use a 64-bit Windows operating system has become commonplace for a long time, it allows you to get away from the outdated limitation of 2 GB of RAM per process, which is clearly not enough for modern games that easily fill 6-8 GB. Since the game uses exclusively the capabilities of DirectX 11, there are no requirements in the form of using Windows 10 in this case. So Watch Dogs 2 can be run on all 64-bit Microsoft operating systems, starting from Windows 7 (by installing SP1).
The declared hardware requirements for the game are not too high, they are clearly below average by modern standards. Especially considering the supposedly sufficient 6 GB of memory and rather weak processors. Yes, and under the guise of minimally suitable video cards, rather old and not so powerful video cards of the GeForce GTX 660 and Radeon HD 7870 models are presented, which are really close to each other in performance. However, do not forget that this is only the minimum required to run the game at low graphics settings.
To run the game, a system with 6 GB of RAM and a processor is clearly not from the top line. Recommendations for using not particularly powerful CPUs are considered insufficiently thought out, since the game loads even a powerful test processor with work in many scenes, and this applies to both multithreading and the performance of individual cores, although it all depends on the choice of graphics settings and the graphics processor - but even not the most powerful GPUs can be limited by the capabilities of the CPU under certain conditions. Those who want to play at high graphics settings are recommended to equip the gaming system with 8 GB of memory and a more powerful processor.
To get a really high-quality image with an acceptable frame rate, the developers recommend running the game on a system with video cards like GeForce GTX 780, GTX 970, GTX 1060 or Radeon R9 290 (and more modern counterparts) with at least 3 or 4 GB of video memory. These solutions are also close to each other in terms of performance, except for the slightly lagging GeForce GTX 780, and they should provide good comfort in the game with high quality in Full HD-resolution.
We recognize the specified requirements for the GPU as more or less sane, but still Watch Dogs 2, in our opinion, actually makes somewhat more serious system requirements for the entire system, the game needs both a high-performance CPU and a powerful GPU. For example, the same company Nvidia recommends at least GTX 1060 for high settings in Full HD, GTX 1070 for very high settings, and GTX 1080 for 2560 × 1440. And now this is closer to the true needs of the game.
Watch Dogs 2 is part of Nvidia's marketing and technology program, and they partnered with Ubisoft to not only optimize and marketing support, but also to implement some additional effects and algorithms. Nvidia engineers worked with developers at Ubisoft to bring Nvidia GameWorks technologies to the PC version of the game, which we will write in more detail below. Also, buyers of top models of GeForce GTX 1080 and 1070 video cards, as well as laptops based on these GPUs, can get the Watch Dogs 2 game as a gift.
It is quite natural that Nvidia released a special optimized version of the drivers for the release of the game project they support. In our today's tests of Gigabyte video cards, we used this very driver version 376.09 - WHQL from 11/28/2016, just designed specifically for the Watch Dogs 2 game.
Alas, like the first game in the series, Watch Dogs 2 lacks built-in performance testing, as well as the ability to play previously recorded gameplay. Therefore, as a test segment, we simply took one of the most demanding places in the city near the embankment, the load on the system in which is quite high, although not maximum. We measured the average frame rate in a small piece of gameplay using the Fraps utility. We tried to make the test as stable as possible so that the variation in the obtained frame rate between runs was not too large and we got a sufficiently high repeatability of results suitable for such express testing.
Experience shows that Watch Dogs 2's single player campaign becomes comfortable to play at a frame rate of about 40 FPS. For the most demanding players, you will need to provide at least about 60 FPS. Lower frame rates in our benchmark test will result in lack of fluidity in the game when the player response becomes too sluggish. We found out empirically that the test can be used for a rough estimate, setting the minimum playable bar at 40 FPS on average for most players and 60 FPS minimum for demanding enthusiasts.
Optimization for multi-core CPUs in Watch Dogs 2 is done quite well, the game works well on such CPUs, but due to its demanding requirements in the city center, even powerful CPUs will limit the rendering speed in the game at medium and high graphics settings. In our study, the test CPU was loaded with work by 65-75%, and at medium settings - up to 85 and even more! These are the highest values we have recorded in all games tested over the year. At the same time, the overall speed is not limited to any one core, all of them were loaded with work evenly - sometimes up to 90% and more, see the kernel load graph:
Moreover, if on the outskirts of the gaming San Francisco there will be enough CPU of average power, then in the center of the city with its rapid passage on one of the modes of transport, the load on the CPU will seriously increase, and for stable performance, rather top-end processor models will be needed, and even very it is desirable that they be overclocked. The game can use 16 threads of the most powerful CPU, evenly distributing the load between them. The best quad cores are easily 100% loaded with work, and the game happily uses six, or even better, eight physical CPU cores.
The video memory requirements for Watch Dogs 2 are not an easy question. It is difficult to assess them unambiguously, since the game sometimes fills up more memory than it needs to render frames. However, this is normal for modern games, especially with an open game world - the developers of such game engines configure them so that they fill the available video memory. Therefore, the figures for the use of video memory reach 8 GB on the most powerful solutions, but the game will work almost the same on a video card with 6 GB or 12 GB of memory.
But solutions with a small amount of memory (a couple of gigabytes) can show good performance in an average FPS, but with obvious jerks when loading data that is not included in the local video memory, and therefore, this will cause a low minimum frame rate and insufficient comfort when playing. In general, for the game in question, the minimum video memory for medium settings is 2 GB, for high settings 4 GB are needed, and for maximum settings, 6 GB or more are needed. The optimal amount of video memory for Watch Dogs 2 at a resolution of 1920 × 1080 is 4 GB, for a resolution of 2560 × 1440 pixels - 6 GB of video memory. If you enable additional Nvidia GameWorks and anti-aliasing techniques, you may need to further adjust these values upwards.
The graphic settings in the Watch Dogs 2 game are changed exclusively in the internal game menu, which can also be called up during the game process. Changes to most graphic settings, with the exception of texture resolution and the choice of the PCSS or HFTS shadow rendering method, are effective immediately and this does not require restarting the application, so adjusting the rendering quality in the game is quite convenient. Well, to change the quality of textures and the method of rendering shadows, you will have to go to the main menu of the game.
The graphics settings in the game have many parameters that make it possible to fine-tune for a specific system. There are also preset quality profiles to make setup easy for inexperienced users. For our tests, we used the settings profiles: Medium, High and Ultra without any changes:
Medium settings
High settings
Ultra settings
The difference between the values of the quality settings is best seen in dynamics, when the differences in the quality of drawing the landscape and objects, lighting and shading are clearly visible. This is most noticeable in the quality of shadows and lighting, as well as anti-aliasing and the presence of reflections and post-effects. In general, the settings in the game are well balanced, the lowest ones make it possible for owners of weak systems to play, and the maximum ones are suitable only for the most powerful video cards.
The most correct thing is to adjust the rendering quality and the final performance to your requirements, based on your own feelings and FPS indicators. Moreover, the influence of some parameters on the resulting rendering quality with different settings in the game is not always noticeable to the naked eye. It should be easier to notice different rendering quality from video clips corresponding to different levels of graphics settings:
Medium settings
Ultra (Ultra) settings
In total, there are two dozen graphical parameters in the Watch Dogs 2 game settings menu, which allows you to flexibly configure the game for any system that meets the minimum requirements. In addition to the console level, the PC has advanced features such as higher quality textures, detail and draw range settings, as well as advanced Nvidia technologies: HBAO +, HFTS, PCSS and TXAA.
In the main menu, you can select a screen mode (windowed or full screen), select a monitor in a multi-monitor configuration, adjust the screen resolution and refresh rate, enable vertical sync, and adjust the field of view. There is one more parameter in the main menu of graphic settings that significantly affects the quality of rendering - Pixel density.
At its core, this is the choice of the rendering resolution regardless of the selected screen resolution, but with some restrictions. This parameter allows you to choose either a lower rendering resolution to get better performance, or to improve the rendering quality by choosing a value greater than one, which will result in a higher rendering resolution and additional anti-aliasing of the image when it is output. The menus and HUD are rendered in real display resolution, which avoids artifacts.
True, the setting has limitations, especially from above - in Watch Dogs 2 you can increase the rendering resolution relative to the screen resolution by only 1.25x, as a maximum, that is, for Full HD the rendering resolution will be 2400 × 1350 pixels, and for 2560 × 1440 - 3200 × 1800, not higher. The advantage of a higher internal rendering resolution is that downsampling improves image quality and detail — the method works in a similar way to supersampling.
In terms of performance, on a sufficiently powerful system, the difference between 1.00 (by default, when the rendering resolution is equal to the selected screen resolution) and 0.50 (half the rendering resolution, for 1920 × 1080 it is 960 × 540 pixels) is only 15-20% due to emphasis on the capabilities of the CPU, and between 1.00 and 1.25 - about 25-30%. That is, the influence of the setting is very strong and must be changed with caution. However, this difference seriously depends on the selected scene and other graphic settings, especially the "Temporal filtering" (see below).
Let's take a look at the detailed graphical settings of Watch Dogs 2 in order, along with the speed gains they give on a system with a powerful GeForce GTX 1070 graphics card.
Geometry- a setting for changing the geometric detail of scene objects at close and medium distances, while control of the level of detail at a far distance from the player is carried out using another setting - Extra Details. The Geometry setting, on the other hand, changes the geometric complexity on objects close to the camera, and on the landscape with buildings a little further. This setting has little effect on performance, which is logical, given the small impact on geometric complexity. The difference between the Low and Ultra values, given a powerful system, turned out to be within 5%, which will give a few extra frames per second. However, on less powerful CPUs, its effect may be even higher.
This setting changes the level of detail for the entire scene depending on the distance from the camera. If you want to improve the geometric complexity of a scene by adding complex objects in the distance, then this setting is the one to go for. Increasing this parameter improves the detailing of the surface of the earth, vegetation, trees, cars, all street objects, houses, etc. Even car interiors and road markings will be drawn further at higher values, as well as shadows from objects.
It is important to understand that you need to touch this setting only when the load on the CPU and GPU allows you to increase the number of objects being drawn, since a significant increase in the number of draw calls can lead to a decrease in performance below a comfortable level. Even if you set the preset Ultra profile in the game, the Additional parameter remains at 0%, since this value has a very serious effect on the load on the CPU. Even on a fairly powerful test processor, the difference between 0% and 100% in rendering speed was more than 30%, so if you have a less powerful CPU with fewer cores and / or less clock speed, then you should not try to increase this setting.
Terrain- as the name implies, the setting is responsible for the rendering quality of the ground surface in the game. However, in this particular case, the difference between the extreme values of the setting is not large visually, and the quality of the landscape hardly changes at the Ultra and High values, only at Low is a noticeable deterioration visible. Accordingly, the setting has almost no effect on performance - the difference between Low and Ultra was less than 3%, which means only 1-2 additional FPS.
Vegetation- a parameter that changes the rendering quality of various vegetation in the game. To improve performance, you can reduce this setting and then less complex models of trees standing in the distance will be used when rendering, although the nearest ones will still look good. This setting also has little impact on the overall frame rate, and in the worst case, you can get a couple of additional FPS by switching from Ultra to Low quality vegetation.
Texture Resolution- the self-explanatory name of the setting. It allows you to choose the quality of the textures used for rendering in Watch Dogs 2, and is responsible for detailing absolutely all textures in the game. The most interesting is the Ultra parameter, added by an optional installable free extension of the game, which contains more than 10,000 textures in 4K resolution, as well as better normal maps and others. It adds detail and dimension to game textures compared to High Quality. However, the latter is not bad in itself, but already with the Medium value, many details of the textures will be blurred and lost.
With regard to the impact on performance, provided there is sufficient video memory (6-8 GB and more), the difference between the Low and Ultra values is about 7-8%, which can give several useful FPS if they are insufficient. However, since this parameter has a major impact on the overall image quality, we would not recommend dropping it below what your graphics card is capable of. In finding the optimal value, the internal counter of the required amount of video memory will help a lot, which shows the maximum amount of memory that the game plans to use.
Texture filtering- this setting changes the degree of anisotropic filtering that will be applied to the game textures. The setting seriously affects the detail and clarity of textures on surfaces at an angle to the camera. Without anisotropic filtering or using low levels of it, these surfaces will look blurry and the overall quality will suffer noticeably. In Watch Dogs 2, low settings have a significant impact, especially in trees and other objects in the scene.
But turning on any of the texture filtering levels practically does not affect the speed, as we have been taught by modern graphics processors. The difference between the extreme settings (Low and Ultra) on our test system was only 3%, which will give no more than a couple of additional frames per second. It is unlikely that they will help you much with a lack of speed, and it would be better to set the maximum possible value to improve the quality and clarity of the final picture.
Shadows- This setting changes the rendering quality of shadows, allowing you to choose an algorithm or level of detail. As possible options, there are not only the standard soft shadows algorithm, which has been familiar in most games for several years, but also more modern options: Percentage Closer Soft Shadows (PCSS) and Hybrid Frustum Traced Shadows (HFTS), which were developed by Nvidia and helped developers to implement them in the Watch Dogs 2 game.
Despite the fact that even PCSS significantly improves the rendering quality relative to the standard algorithm, the HFTS technique allows you to draw more realistic and geometrically accurate shadows, with neat edges and a soft shadow transition, depending on the distance from the object that casts the shadow to the object receiving it. This advanced algorithm uses several techniques in its work and is quite complex. At the moment, HFTS is the highest quality algorithm for rendering shadows, it allows you to get almost perfect geometrically realistic shadows without any artifacts inherent in less complex options. Also note that the HFTS and PCSS methods use shadow maps of even higher resolution and at a greater distance than the standard algorithm, so that the shadows are noticeably more detailed.
Alas, you have to pay for everything. PCSS and HFTS methods significantly improve the quality of shadows and the overall picture in the game, but the use of complex calculations and higher resolution shadow maps is not free. In particular, if the difference between the Low and Ultra values (the standard shadow rendering algorithm) turned out to be about 10-15%, depending on the scene, then the inclusion of PCSS and HFTS led to a drop in speed by as much as a third, compared to Ultra! So we leave the parameter change at your discretion. If you have a powerful modern Nvidia graphics card, it is advisable to enable HFTS for the best possible picture quality. Well, for everyone else, there is a choice between different quality of the standard algorithm, and here it is better to choose the Ultra value.
Headlight Shadows- the long name of this setting fully describes it. Enabling this option adds shadows from the headlights of vehicles, and you can select the number of cars from the headlights of which shadows will be calculated - up to four vehicles closest to the camera. Naturally, you can see it at night, and it looks especially impressive when chasing from several cars, with long shadows from several pairs of headlights, including policemen.
It is not easy to reliably assess the performance contribution of this setting, but in the conditions we chose, the Headlight Shadows parameter did not have a very significant effect on the overall rendering speed - the difference between the headlight shadows turned off and the headlight shadows turned on at maximum (for four cars) was less than 10%. Perhaps in some other scenes this difference will be much greater.
Water- a setting that changes the rendering quality of water surfaces in the game, which are extremely important, since the city of San Francisco is located on the peninsula of the same name and the bay of the same name occupies a significant place in the game. The setting allows you to disable and enable realistic reflections of the game world on the water surface. For example, the High setting enables reflections for boats, large objects and buildings, as well as other objects in the game, which significantly improves the quality of the picture. At the same time, the quality of reflections on water does not depend on the Reflection and SSLR settings (see below).
The quality of the water surface itself in the form of wave detailing, etc., practically does not change - we did not notice a decrease in the geometric complexity of the physical simulation of liquids. Changing this parameter on a powerful system affects rendering speed very insignificantly. Enabling High quality reflections versus Low costs only 2-3 FPS for any amount of water in the frame, therefore, on sufficiently powerful GPUs, we advise you to always enable the maximum possible value of this parameter.
Reflections is another (of three in Watch Dogs 2) setting related to reflections. Specifically, this setting changes the rendering quality of reflections on small water surfaces, building windows, cars, and other mirrored surfaces. But in some cases it becomes unclear which of the two reflection settings affects the appearance of those very reflections in one case or another. In some cases like wet roads and floors, the next setting needs to be changed - SSLR. And if the reservoir is deep enough, then the reflections in it are included by the previously considered Water parameter.
The second setting for reflections includes large approximated reflections, which seriously affect the rendering quality of large objects such as buildings and cars, which will lose detail when this parameter is lowered. And in addition to reflections, pre-calculated indirect lighting is also added to the scene, which also improves the rendering quality. By the way, even with the real-time reflections disabled by the third parameter (SSLR), some reflections are added using this setting, which allows you to keep the overall rendering quality at a good level even at low settings.
It is all the more good that changing the setting between the extreme (Low and High) values has a very weak effect on the rendering speed - about 3-4%, that is, 2-3 FPS. Even though a high value adds a lot of detail to the scene, these reflections are only approximate and not calculated in real time. That is why it is so "inexpensive". So it's best to keep this setting at a High value at all times.
SSLR (Screen Space Reflections)- the third setting related to various reflections. It has the greatest impact on image quality and adds real-time high-quality reflections to wet roads, mirrored surfaces, and similar objects. These are the very same screen-space reflections that have become so popular in the last couple of years and are now used in every first game when rendering puddles and metal surfaces.
The adjustment level changes the distance at which the reflection will be superimposed on the object. Not surprisingly, the value of this parameter is high enough to obtain a comfortable frame rate, especially in rain and at night, when a huge number of reflections are rendered in real time. In such difficult conditions, the difference between disabled SSLR reflections and Ultra is 20%, which is quite a lot. Alas, this means that many users will have to lower this setting. While SSLR reflections are disabled, some reflections from the previously discussed setting remain, but overall they look less impressive.
San Francisco Fog is one of the most interesting and resource-intensive parameters in the game. Until the last update, it was very rare to see such fog, but this was fixed with a patch. Exclusive to the PC version of the game, this rare effect looks impressive and mimics the realistic volumetric fog often seen in San Francisco, especially in the morning near the Golden Gate Bridge. The setting allows you to enable or disable this fog and we advise you to leave it, and only when the brakes appear due to its rendering, you can change the setting to enjoy its appearance and continue to play at normal speed.
The effect on rendering speed when volumetric fog is enabled can cost up to 30-40% performance! However, most often the fog is clearly visible not in the city center, but in the area of the Golden Gate Bridge and the frame rate is generally higher, so that the owners of modern GPUs can enjoy the famous foggy view of the city. I am glad that with the latest update, the likelihood of his appearance has increased significantly.
Depth of Field- a parameter familiar from most modern games, responsible for the inclusion of the post-processing effect, simulating the depth of field inherent in optical devices such as photographic and cine lenses. This post-processing effect is especially noticeable in scripted scenes on the engine or when the player is aiming at the enemy. At these moments, the objects closest to the camera, along with the farthest ones, go out of focus and blur. The algorithm used in Watch Dogs 2 has little effect on performance - even in scenes on the engine it “costs” no more than 5%, and here everyone is free to decide for himself, because some people don't like such blur in principle.
Blur and Glow (Bloom)- one more parameters associated with the inclusion of the appropriate post-processing effects: motion blur and imitation of the effect of glowing objects, known from most game projects. In most cases, these effects in Watch Dogs 2 have little or no effect on overall performance, and disabling any of them would be more of a taste issue. Enabling these effects will slow down the rendering speed by a maximum of one frame per second, so it is best to leave them on in a normal relationship with these postfilters.
Ambient Occlusion- this setting allows you to choose one of several available algorithms for simulating global shading. By the way, the Russian-language translation is not entirely correct, usually by "volumetric light" something else is meant - visible rays of light such as God rays. Ambient Occlusion (AO) adds shadows where conventional shadow rendering algorithms do not render them, which gives the scene a more voluminous look, whereas without imitation of global shading, surfaces and objects will be too flat, and often as if floating in the air.
There are three Ambient Occlusion techniques to choose from in Watch Dogs 2: HMSSAO, SSBC, and HBAO +. HMSSAO is a modified SSAO technique by Ubisoft programmers that was in the first part of Watch Dogs, Assassin's Creed Syndicate and other Ubisoft games. Later development of the company - SSBC, is an improved technique seen earlier in Far Cry 4, Rainbow Six Siege and But for the PC version of Watch Dogs 2, a third technique was introduced in conjunction with Nvidia - HBAO +, the most advanced of the three available.
The HBAO + method allows you to use the capabilities of modern GPUs and render more correct and detailed Ambient Occlusion shadows, adding small details with greater accuracy and the absence of past artifacts. In general, we can say that the HBAO + technique copes a little worse with large AO shadows, but it draws shadows much better at small and medium distances, which is most important precisely when imitating global shading.
The inclusion of techniques has an average effect on performance, and strongly depends on the scene. In the second version of the Disrupt engine, the inclusion of Ambient Occlusion costs relatively small losses in speed (10-15%) and all three available techniques work at similar performance, so you should choose one of them according to the resulting picture, based on your own preferences. Owners of weak systems may prefer an extra 5-7 FPS, while those with powerful GPUs have to choose from three techniques. In our opinion, HBAO + looks slightly better than HMSSAO in general, while SSBC has its own advantages - the choice is up to the player. It is also important to note that with the Temporal filtering enabled, which we will look at next, the performance of the HBAO + and SSBC effects is higher, so it is better to choose between them.
Temporal Filtering- a setting that includes a new and rather complicated technique for explaining, designed to significantly increase productivity with practically no loss in quality. This special trick, called "checkerboard rendering", for obtaining high-resolution images with less resources and using multisampling - one of the most famous uses of this technique has become the Sony PlayStation 4 Pro game console, which uses this trick when rendering in 4K resolution. The render resolution is scaled from 1920 × 1080 to 3840 × 2160, using the data from the previous frame to fill in the pixels that were scaled to get rid of blur. The result is then further smoothed and improved using special techniques.
A similar method was used in the Ubisoft Rainbow Six Siege game, where Temporal Filtering was implemented. The main idea of the method is to render full resolution for depth values of pixels, but only for half of them the color is calculated, which significantly improves performance with some losses in the quality of lighting and shading, a decrease in the quality of many effects, such as Ambient Occlusion, loss of detail in such elements like grass, leaves, small stones, etc.
Over the past year, the developers at Ubisoft have significantly improved their technique, eliminating many of the visual flaws. But the difference in speed between modes with enabled and disabled Temporal filtering reaches 60-70% at high resolution! And now you can get even better image quality and higher frame rates by turning on Temporal Filtering and upscaling from 1920 × 1080 to 2560 × 1440 - that is, this option allows you to add performance in almost "free"! It is a sin not to take advantage of this opportunity. Of course, when looking at pictures by pixel, you can find flaws and artifacts introduced when using such a trick, but during normal play from a familiar distance, you simply will not notice them on the screen.
This is a very important technique for real-time rendering, allowing you to achieve significant performance improvements without significantly degrading quality. We really hope that all other developers will follow the same path and introduce similar features in their games. Alas, it also has disadvantages - firstly, it does not work in conjunction with MSAA, and secondly, it is incompatible with all multi-chip configurations, be it SLI or CrossFire.
MSAA (Multisample Anti-Aliasing)- the ability to change the applied method of full-screen anti-aliasing by multisampling. Alas, the excellent Temporal filtering that we just discussed does not work in conjunction with multisampling, and if you want to use MSAA, you will have to turn it off by choosing one of the possible hardware anti-aliasing options: MSAA 2x, 4x and 8x or similar options using temporary component for Nvidia graphics cards - TXAA.
It was for the release of Watch Dogs 2 that the company improved TXAA to the third version. Compared to previous methods, the updated algorithm does not use Gaussian blur, but a different filtering method that significantly reduces image blur. Also, TXAA 3.0 increased the maximum possible quality from 4x to 8x, improving the quality of anti-aliasing and temporary anti-aliasing. The TXAA method eliminates almost all the drawbacks, but the combination of hardware MSAA with post-filtering SMAA (see below) will be even closer to ideal, giving excellent anti-aliasing of polygons along with translucent textures and other effects.
As for performance, multisampling is a rather resource-intensive effect, enabling MSAA 2x reduces the speed by about a third, and 4x almost halves the frame rate. So this type of anti-aliasing is only available to owners of high-performance systems with top-end GPUs. All others should include Temporal filtering from the previous paragraph and Post-smoothing from the next. In general, we do not recommend using MSAA - its price is too high in Watch Dogs 2.
Post-Process Anti-Aliasing- much less resource-intensive post-processing anti-aliasing methods are included here. If multisampling is too demanding, then post-processing anti-aliasing is usually much less expensive and leads to quite decent results. Moreover, it is post-processing that allows smoothing not only the edges of polygons, but also translucent textures, particle effects and, in general, the entire frame, which is not at all capable of MSAA.
Watch Dogs 2 has two post-processing anti-aliasing methods: FXAA and SMAA. The first method smoothes polygons and other sharp edges better, but SMAA, in turn, does it a little worse, but with less blurring of the image, which is most important at relatively low screen resolutions. The best part is the performance of both methods. Enabling FXAA results in the loss of one frame per second, while SMAA costs a little more - 1.5-2 FPS. Great result for decent quality anti-aliasing. We advise you to constantly use SMAA or FXAA - whichever you prefer.
Note that Watch Dogs 2 is a very demanding game, especially at maximum settings, and we were very pleased with the possibility of a serious increase in performance using the clever Temporal Filtering technique, which allows you to get about 60 FPS on modern medium-power video cards like the GeForce GTX. 1060. Therefore, the most important recommendation for players will be to improve performance by enabling the Time filtering setting. The second important tip will be to pay attention to the available CPU, because Watch Dogs 2 loads the CPU more than in any other game. We will even allow ourselves to give advice to overclock the existing processor, since in the game there are often situations when the speed is limited by its performance - especially in the center of San Francisco.
We have tested the performance of four Gigabyte graphics cards based on Nvidia GeForce GPUs in different price ranges and even GPU generations from this company. During testing, we used the two most common screen resolutions (1920 × 1080 and 2560 × 1440), as well as three preset settings profiles - Medium, High and Ultra.
We do not consider settings below the average level, since even the weakest video card of our comparison, the GeForce GTX 960, must cope with such graphics quality at least in Full HD resolution. Traditionally, for our site, we will also check the mode close to the maximum rendering quality (without including MSAA and advanced methods for rendering shadows), as the most popular setting option among gaming enthusiasts. First, let's take a look at the most popular Full HD resolution with a medium quality profile.
Resolution 1920 × 1080 (Full HD)
It is clearly seen that the rendering speed in the simplest conditions was limited by the performance of the central processor, and the three powerful video cards could not reveal all their abilities. Although the overall optimization of the game is not bad, given that one of the most difficult scenes was chosen for the tests, and even the younger model of our comparison, the GeForce GTX 960 at medium graphics settings in the most common resolution, easily coped with providing almost perfectly smooth frame changes when the average their frequency turned out to be 64 FPS, and the minimum value dropped just below 60 FPS.
Three more powerful GeForce video cards from our comparison in such simple conditions were able to show maximum comfort and smooth frame rates in Watch Dogs 2 at a speed of 84-89 FPS on average, being limited by the speed capabilities of the CPU. More importantly, with these three cards, at medium settings, the frame rate never dropped below 60 FPS, which gives the best possible smoothness when playing on a typical monitor.
At high quality settings, the frame rate for all video cards dropped, and now none of them is completely limited by the CPU power. The younger model of the previous generation, the GeForce GTX 960, was able to reach our minimum limit of 40 FPS, which is acceptable for most players, showing 46 FPS on average with 40 FPS minimum. So even the junior comparison video card coped with the task, providing acceptable playability. But up to 60 FPS it is already far away.
But the rest of the video cards were able to provide at least 60 FPS at high settings. The gradually aging GeForce GTX 970 showed 64 FPS in such conditions on average with drops of at least 56 FPS in our test, which is very close to a comfortable value even for demanding gamers. However, those who want to get from 60 FPS in this game would be better off using video cards based on GPUs of the Pascal family. Video cards based on the next generation GPU were able to show an average frame rate of 70 and 80 FPS with a minimum of 61 and 69 FPS, respectively, which is within the framework of the maximum possible comfort. Let's see if they can handle the daunting task of setting up an Ultra quality profile.
Rendering speed in the case of setting almost the maximum possible graphic settings has seriously decreased for all video cards. And here the difference between all solutions is already clearly visible - weak GPUs do not pull such settings, but the top-end GeForce GTX 1070 showed excellent performance. The performance of the younger GeForce GTX 960 in such conditions absolutely definitely does not provide playability, because the average frame rate on this video card dropped to 29 FPS, which is definitely unplayable in Watch Dogs 2.
The GeForce GTX 970 also fell slightly short of 40 FPS on average - although this video card will not allow playing with sufficient comfort for most players at high settings, after reducing a couple of them, the desired smoothness will still be obtained. As for the most powerful solutions, the difference between them is quite large: the GeForce GTX 1060 easily provided the minimum playability and sufficient comfort, but the GTX 1070 was very close to giving from 60 FPS on average, which we consider sufficient performance for demanding players. ... And the older Gigabyte video card did not reach the desired 60 FPS limit quite a bit.
2560 × 1440 resolution (WQHD)
When setting a higher rendering resolution, the performance of Gigabyte video cards in Watch Dogs 2 noticeably decreased, except for the older model, for which there is still a CPU power limitation even at WQHD resolution. The younger model of the last generation GeForce GTX 960 in medium settings was able to cope with the task of providing 40 FPS, showing 47 frames per second at 40 minimum, which will seem quite playable for most people.
The situation is even better with the other three video cards. The speed of the previous generation GeForce GTX 970 was enough to get over 60 FPS on average - 64 FPS at 55 FPS minimum, which means it will provide almost perfect comfort and smoothness even for demanding gamers in such conditions. Well, the two older solutions of the current generation in the form of the GeForce GTX 1060 and GTX 1070 all the more managed to ensure maximum comfort when the average frame rate was 73 and 83 FPS, and the minimum during the test was not lower than 63 and 71 FPS, respectively.
When playing with high quality settings in a higher resolution, the younger GeForce GTX 960 provided only 32 FPS on average, and this level of performance no longer meets the minimum allowable indicator. So the owners of WQHD monitors and such a video card will have to limit themselves to medium settings or take high ones as a basis, but lower the most important ones to an average level (we gave advice on specific settings earlier). But the GeForce GTX 970 coped with the task, showing 47 FPS on average with a minimum of 41 FPS - such a frame rate will be acceptable for almost all players.
The power of the GPUs of the Pascal family, on different models of which the GeForce GTX 1060 and GTX 1070 are based, is enough to ensure a smooth game, and the older one was even able to show more than 60 FPS on average. GTX 1070 noticeably breaks away from its little sister, providing a frame rate of 64 FPS on average with drops of at least 56, and this corresponds to the most comfortable level of performance. But we already understand that choosing Ultra-quality will be very difficult even for this most powerful video card.
When installing the Ultra-profile of quality settings in WQHD-resolution, three Gigabyte video cards at once could not cope with providing the minimum acceptable comfort and smoothness. Even not-so-weak graphics cards like the GTX 970 and GTX 1060 lack the performance for these settings. You don't even need to look at the frame rate of the GeForce GTX 960 - 20 FPS is no good, and the 27 FPS of the GeForce GTX 970 will clearly not provide acceptable gaming comfort. By the way, it is likely that in such conditions this video card is no longer enough for its 4 GB (in fact, even 3.5 GB) of local video memory, and the resources of the game do not fit into it.
Even the youngest of the current generation video cards, Pascal, provided only 34 FPS on average at 28 FPS minimum, which is far from being comfortable in Watch Dogs 2. In our experience, this is unplayable, given the difficult test scene, but clearly not the most extreme one. At this rendering speed, the image is not fast enough to keep up with the actions of the player, and you will have to lower some of the settings. And only the most powerful GeForce GTX 1070 was able to show more than 40 FPS on average with a minimum value of 35 FPS, which will give most players the required smoothness and comfort in the game, albeit not ideal, for which the power of the GTX 1080 may not be enough.
Judging by the results of our tests, although Watch Dogs 2 is optimized for modern gaming PCs, the Ultra settings (and even more so the maximum settings that we have not tested) allow you to get a sufficiently high frame rate only on the most powerful video cards, starting with GeForce GTX 1060. But this video card did not cope with ultra-settings in WQHD-resolution, leaving it for even more powerful GPUs. However, the image quality is not bad even at medium settings, and at high settings it is generally excellent. The game actively uses the capabilities of multi-core processors, not limiting itself to the speed of individual cores, but limiting itself to the overall performance of the CPU at medium quality settings. Although the frame rate remains at an acceptable level, without dropping below 60 FPS.
The quality of the graphics in Watch Dogs 2 is generally very high, and the picture rendered by the game is excellent. But the game seemed overly demanding to us at the ultra-picture quality settings - they are clearly aimed at the most powerful GPUs. With ultra-settings in Full HD resolution, only video cards such as GeForce GTX 970, GTX 1060 and higher were able to provide a comfortable frame rate of 40 FPS, and only GTX 1070 is capable of stable 60 frames per second. If you use WHQD resolution, then those who want to get 60 FPS will have to limit themselves to high settings even with the most powerful GPU, which, with ultra-quality, provides only the minimum required smoothness.
The popular model of the previous generation in the form of the GeForce GTX 960 provides acceptable comfort in this game at Full HD-resolution and high settings, but at a higher resolution it pulls only average quality. But the GeForce GTX 970, in turn, was able to show an acceptable speed even at high settings in WQHD-resolution. But the owners of less powerful video cards will be forced to customize the game to suit their requirements using a variety of settings, which we examined in detail in our material.
When it comes to central processing units, Watch Dogs 2 desires powerful and at least quad-core processors. Our powerful test processor during the research was loaded with work at an average level of 80-90% at medium settings and 60-70% at ultra settings, which is a lot. And although the rendering speed was not limited by the capabilities of only one of the processing cores of the CPU, the frame rate at medium settings with a powerful graphics processor in the system was limited by the CPU. So the game really needs a powerful processor, although not as much as a powerful GPU, provided that the ultra-settings are set.
The requirements for the amount of RAM for the game by the standards of modern games are average - the system memory is desirable for it at least 8 GB, although the developers claim that 6 GB is sufficient, we would not recommend playing with this amount of memory, since Watch Dogs 2 itself easily consumes 8 gigabytes of RAM memory and more. There is no room for background processes at all, and therefore it is recommended to have 12-16 GB of system memory, while the game will use up to 9-10 GB. The video memory requirements for the game are also average - at medium settings in a Full HD game, 2 GB may be enough, but for a higher picture quality at maximum settings, a minimum volume of 3-4 GB is required, which we consider to be minimally comfortable. Well, for maximum settings with anti-aliasing enabled in 4K resolution, according to our observations, 8 GB of video memory will already be needed.
Whatever it was, but the first part of Watch Dogs introduced very interesting game elements (hacking infrastructure, "people", etc. was really new and very interesting).
But the game had significant drawbacks that Ubisoft intends to fix in Watch Dogs 2 (release date is known). But, what is also interesting, what are the system requirements for Watch Dogs 2, because the success of the entire game will largely depend on them, plus, of course, the optimization of the release version.
What can I say, the minimal "systems" are pretty standard, given the latest major releases. But, I wonder why they have grown significantly in comparison with the first part, because the graphics have not gone far, and in general it is not yet clear whether it will improve at all in the sequel.
In game trailers, you can observe a completely ordinary modern picture without obvious excesses, but although they do not promise an impossible revolution, as in the case of the first part, and that's good.
The recommended system requirements for Watch Dogs 2 are not that exorbitant, on the contrary, they are quite standard, but given the not entirely advanced level of graphics, it may even be somewhat overestimated. Well, everything will be decided by optimization for the PC version, because it depends on it how stable and without "jambs" the release version will work, even on a PC that meets the requirements.
By the way, it is worth recalling that the PC version of Watch Dogs 2 was postponed to November 29, on consoles, as planned, the release will take place on November 15... What can I say, the transfer does not seem to be large and, it is quite possible that it will only benefit the PC version of the game, otherwise it might still have to wait as long for the first patches, as it is now customary for major game releases.
