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When I was in school at Westwood Online, I worked with a group that was learning UE3 and building a game from scratch.  We looked into ideas for real life cities, found out that if we wanted to use the Space Needle from Seattle, we had to pay royalties for it.

 

I'm still trying to figure out if some one from my team went to work for Sucker Punch.  Our game featured a Native American smart-ass protagonist going against a corporate-government entity that had taken over a near future dystopic Seattle.  Although it was more of a Half-Life-influenced FPS.

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I'm from Chicago and I don't care that much that it's 1:1, I understand Ubisofts reasoning behind it.  The fact is you have to pay to use landmarks and or buildings that are iconic, they aren't going to spend that much on it.  It's always why GTA makes up cities, maybe Ubisoft should've done so but they were going for a bit more realism. 

 

That said, if it was more like the real city it'd be pretty huge, I wouldn't complain though, bigger open world the better but even as it is there's so much to do actually.  I'm only around 38% done overall.

 

Didn't know you were from Chicago dude :) However, Rodity's not in Watch Dogs, just kidding :rofl:

 

The problem with Watch Dogs is that it's a mix of real and unreal, whereas Rockstar uses clear satire. They get away with stuff like Krapea furniture and Bean Machine, it's all fine. While i do love Watch Dogs as a game, what Ubi did with the Chicago name is perplexing, to the point where you wonder why they even did it. They have I-94 which is accurate, but then I-15, which is obviously not. They have the Willis Tower, which is even referred to in pedestrian conversations as the Sears Tower, but Chase is Vault Tower. Trump is Triomphe. John Dillinger was shot and killed outside the Ambrose theater or something, not the actual Biograph. And most of the Al Capone references are just made up. A statue of Lincoln along the river is stated to be in Grant Park, which is impossible, and Miller's Pub is in the wrong place...i could go on forever with these.

 

The problem this creates is that people who are not familiar may think these are somewhat accurate, when they're not. A satire or parody of a city is clearer cut, i mean if someone thinks Los Santos or Los Perdidos are real places then i don't know what to say to them, but in Watch Dogs it's clearly Chicago, Illinois, which is a real world place.

 

But the bottom line is that this is an excellent experience, really love this game.

The settings from the E3 demonstration back in 2012/2013 were found in the code. A mod restoring them, while improving the performance was released:

http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=390114

 

Enjoy if you were naive enough to buy this on PC and support the devil. Also "suck it, Chad" :D

http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/289v7w/watch_dogs_original_graphical_effects_e3_201213/

The settings from the E3 demonstration back in 2012/3 were found in the code. A mod restoring them, while improving the performance was released:

http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=390114

 

Enjoy if you were naive enough to buy this on PC and support the devil.

What a load. Why gimp the PC version deliberately?

The settings from the E3 demonstration back in 2012/2013 were found in the code. A mod restoring them, while improving the performance was released:

http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=390114

 

Enjoy if you were naive enough to buy this on PC and support the devil. Also "suck it, Chad" :D

http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/289v7w/watch_dogs_original_graphical_effects_e3_201213/

 

 

 

 

Performance is not the best on this version I already know that and has been fixed.

 

So... why not release the fixed version...

I bet Ubi just toned down the PC version so it was closer to the consoles, maybe something they asked them to do or they just wanted all versions to be closer, w/e.  It's clear that the game can look better on the PC with tweaks, the engine is more than capable of it from the looks of things.

ugh I always turn off stupid depth of field in games because it makes little sense, even if it softens up and makes it look "better". but seriously, the dud who made the patch really went overboard on the depth of field. It's like the game is filed with a full frame DSLR camera set to f1.2 aperture. 

So... why not release the fixed version...

Check the thread. It's a leftover from the previous version edit. You can also find in the thread that v0.7 soon to be released later today (don't know on what timezone).

 

Now people are mad that Ubisoft crippled the PC version intentionally and the gaming media downplays it as just another mod like with Skyrim. Doesn't care at all that the code was only slightly modified from the original unpacked game's code:

1402943413586ngopq.jpg

 

The response to that is just hilarious.

nmmdrY0.png

 

You shouldn't explain if this is a mod, or not. You should write about why Ubisoft downgraded the graphics intentionally, without any boosts in performance at all (the mod proves it).

A hint to that answer can be found in "deferredambient.inc.fx":

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?p=116853350#post116853350

yGCQWdT.jpg

 

 

 

ugh I always turn off stupid depth of field in games because it makes little sense, even if it softens up and makes it look "better". but seriously, the dud who made the patch really went overboard on the depth of field. It's like the game is filed with a full frame DSLR camera set to f1.2 aperture.

I agree that the DOF is a bit over kill. Even in motion and night time.

http://a.pomf.se/amkeaz.webm

http://a.pomf.se/jbwyci.webm

 

But you can turn it off in the video settings and still get much better graphics that in the unmodified version.

edit: And while I was writing that, version 0.7 was released.

Having played with this it's obvious why a lot of this was left out. 

 

the DOF, it's just horrible and doesn't work to game with, it might look cool, but it's useless.

 

a lot of the other functions are buggy, like the headlight shadows they're buggy, also it looks stupid, as I expected. two headlights act as a single ray traced shadow casting light(which is sort of what they are), while in the real world, you wouldn't cast shadow like that when walking in front of a headlight, you either wouldn't cast any shadows, or you'd just slightly dim the light, or you'd be so far ahead that the game doesn't have a visible light cone anymore anyway. 

 

Also it was obvious that the engine supported all these features as the cut scenes use a lot of them. 

Try the 0.7 version. I'm reading completely opposite things on reddit, neogaf, guru3d and other sources.

edit: Also try the closer or far camera version to get proper DOF.

edit2: Also 0.7b was released fixing DOF problem on normal camera.

https://mega.co.nz/#!HJYh1TqZ!r5ADSsTxI27nTMxHyhsmmPWLANuaOCl8ScHFCyte3eQ

Try the 0.7 version. I'm reading completely opposite things on reddit, neogaf, guru3d and other sources.

 

They can't change the fact that the physics of the headlights are ... impossible :) Also I'm pretty sure no amount of "ini" file tweaking will remove artefacts from the headlight shadows.

 

I'll install it to see if it's possible to drive cars without performance taking a nosedive anymore. but as it is, it's seems obvious why hey left a lot of these things out. 

And they used to call me obsessed with graphics...look at you guys :D

 

That Ubi intentionally dialed back the PC version doesn't surprise me at all. Wanted to make console versions look better, wanted to make game run better on more PCs. Let's not forget the average GPU out there is from 2010 or something, it's not exactly a GTX 890 from the future.

 

Have lots of respect and love for Ubi Montreal, they make excellent experiences, but Watch Dogs stands as just strange for so many reasons. From the odd insistence on setting it in a ridiculously inaccurate Chicago to this nonsense with ini. files...just looks like the work of people who don't really know what they're doing.


I hopped in a train. Police just stayed at the station I left it from.

 

That sounds about right for the real CPD, though the real CTA would delay at the station for 30 minutes "due to signals".

game causes the graphics driver to crash again.

 

 

nope, this is definitely caused by the game, as it ONLY happens in this game and ONLY with this "patch" applied.

I can understand why would the gpu drivers crash, but the network drivers? Just doesn't makes sense and you're the only one that reporting that.

 

And if you are (not talking to you HawkMan) looking for a job in the PR business, it might be a good time to apply to Ubisoft.

Someone might be fired, because they're terrible at their job: https://twitter.com/UbiTessa/status/478622295662297088 :no:

game causes the graphics driver to crash again.

nope, this is definitely caused by the game, as it ONLY happens in this game and ONLY with this "patch" applied.

What network card do you have? It is possibly crashing due to excessive load causing it to become unstable. Consumer grade cards offload their processing to the CPU.

This topic is now closed to further replies.
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