As befitting a game that has proved itself notorious for generating sturm und drang among gamers more reliably than a herd of Peter Molyneuxes (Or to use the correct terminology, ‘a waffle of Molyneuii’) Watch Dogs launched last week in a refreshed storm of controversy regarding the game, its specs, its graphics, its 18,000 pre-order editions, its alleged then denied then re-alleged favouring of Nvidia GPUs over AMD, and anything else left standing. Of particular concern was the game’s performance on PC, with even those with rigs matching its hefty recommended requirements – including an i7 processor and a graphics card with at least 2GB of dedicated RAM – reporting performance issues.
Thankfully help is on the way, with the game’s technical director Sebastien Viard posting several tweets promising performance-related patches: “Our PC progs are… currently working on a patch to improve your experience thanks to your reports, stay tuned” Viard tweeted on Thursday.
He also went on to explain the cause of these problems: “Watch Dogs can use 3+ GB of RAM on consoles for graphics, your PC needs enough VRAM for ultra options due to the lack of unified (memory)”. A date has not yet been confirmed for the patch, though in the interim Viard recommends adjusting texture quality, anti-aliasing and resolution options if you’re having slowdown issues.
Hopefully while they’re at it they’ll fix the Uplay cloud sync issues that have made the game unplayable for many people (myself included) since late last week. It has to be said though, the word ‘progs’ tickles me. Maybe the game’s being worked on by a room full of Rick Wakemen? Or propped up with a stack of ethically sensitive issues of 2000AD?
Me? Bored shitless of hearing about Watch Dogs? Naaah.
Meanwhile at Ubisoft…