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Watch Dogs

From PCGamingWiki, the wiki about fixing PC games
Watch_Dogs
Watch_Dogs cover
Developers
Ubisoft Montreal
Ubisoft Quebec
Ubisoft Bucharest
Ubisoft Reflections
Bad Blood Ubisoft Paris
Bad Blood Ubisoft Annecy
Publishers
Ubisoft
Engines
Disrupt
Release dates
Windows May 27, 2014
Watch Dogs guide on StrategyWiki
Watch Dogs on Wikipedia
Watch Dogs
Watch Dogs 2014
Watch Dogs 2 2016
Watch Dogs: Legion 2020

General information

PC Report
Steam Community Discussions
Ubisoft Forums - Watch Dogs PC Discussion

Availability

All versions require Ubisoft Connect DRM.

DLC and expansion packs

Name Notes
Access Granted Pack
Windows
Bad Blood
Windows
Conspiracy
Windows
Season Pass
Windows

Version differences

Watch Dogs has six special editions, each with varying DLC. Refer to the Uplay Pre-Order Edition Comparison for details.

Essential improvements

Watch Dogs Settings Configuration Tool

Allows for extensive settings changes not available ingame in a convenient GUI.

An alternative download link can be found here.

Skip intro videos

Skip intros[citation needed]
  1. Install the No Intro Mod.

TheWorse Mod

Restores E3 2012/2013 visual effects.
Some of the restored effects may appear buggy, such as headlight shadows.
Significantly reduces Field of View. See Field of view (FOV) to change this.
Uses the built-in patch mechanism that Ubisoft provided and incorporates the version 1.3 patch.
The version with MalDo textures allows ultra textures on GPUs with less than 3GB of vram. It removes mipmaps, introducing aliasing on distant textures.

Game data

Configuration file location

System Location
Windows %USERPROFILE%\Documents\My Games\Watch_Dogs\<user-id>\GamerProfile.xml
Steam Play (Linux) <Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/243470/pfx/[Note 1]

Save game data location

System Location
Windows <Ubisoft-Connect-folder>\savegames\<user-id>\274\
Steam <Ubisoft-Connect-folder>\savegames\<user-id>\541\
Steam Play (Linux) <Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/243470/pfx/[Note 1]

Save game cloud syncing

System Native Notes
Origin
Steam Cloud
Ubisoft Connect

Video settings

Video settings.
Video settings.
Advanced video settings.
Advanced video settings.

Template:Video settings

Field of view (FOV)

Flawless Widescreen[citation needed]
  1. Go to Flawless Widescreen\PluginCache\FWS_Plugins\Modules\WatchDogs\Dependencies\Scripts\
  2. Open WatchDogs.LUA with Notepad
  3. Find fFOVMax and change Max to whatever desired.
Horizontal FOV is used. Recommend changing from 110 to 120 for 1080p, 16:9.

Input settings

Template:Input settings

DualShock Button Prompts

This mod adds PlayStation buttons, can be installed with Watch Dogs Mod Installer.

Mouse smoothing and aim assist

Disable mouse smoothing and aim assist[1]
  1. Go to the configuration file location.
  2. Open GamerProfile.xml with your text editor of choice.
  3. Find the following lines and set them to these values.
Sensitivity="1"
UseMouseSmooth="0" 
Smoothness="0"
selAimAssist="-"

Launch Watch Dogs, go to display settings in game and change "GPU Max Buffered Frames" to 1.

Audio settings

Language, subtitles and volume control settings.
Language, subtitles and volume control settings.

Template:Audio settings

Localizations

Language UI Audio Sub Notes
English
Traditional Chinese
Czech
Danish
Dutch
Finnish
French
German
Hungarian
Italian
Japanese
Korean
Norwegian
Polish
Portuguese
Brazilian Portuguese
Russian
Spanish
Swedish

Network

Network settings.
Network settings.

Multiplayer types

Type Native Players Notes
Local play
LAN play
Online play
8 Versus
Drop in and drop out invasion mode for the singleplayer. Freeroam, online decryption (deathmatch), online race.

Connection types

VR support

Issues fixed

Stuttering, even on PCs greatly exceeding recommended requirements

Increase priority of the process
  1. When the game is running, press Alt+Tab to minimize it
  2. Open Task Manager and go to the Details tab
  3. Right-click on watch_dogs.exe and set the priority to High
  4. Close Task Manager, and click on Watch Dogs in the taskbar to continue playing
  5. Optional: Set Textures to High or below, as Ultra seems to be bugged and incapable of running smoothly on any PC

Worse performance on the latest patch

Remove patch[2]
  1. Disable the automatic Uplay updates, also on Steam if possible.
  2. Go to <path-to-game>\data_win64\, then delete patch.dat and patch.fat

Low GPU Usage/low FPS in SLI

Don't use SMAA, use MSAA instead[citation needed]

Continue button greyed out

Revert to cloud saves[3]
  1. Go to the save game data location and backup the .save files.
  2. Launch Uplay, click on the Gear icon in the upper right corner and go to Settings.
  3. Check Enable Cloud Saves.
  4. Start the game. A prompt should announce that the cloud and local saves are not in sync.
  5. Select the cloud save game then play.

Low frame rate

Generic fixes[citation needed]
  1. Close Uplay after fully loading the game, online play will still be available.
  2. Set the textures to Medium and the level of detail to High.
  3. Set GPU Max Buffered Frames to 1.
RAM usage fix (stuttering and high HDD usage fix)[citation needed]
Parameter most likely works as to not preallocate system's page file but write into it only when needed.
Enable Triple Buffering with V-Sync[citation needed]
  1. While in-game, press Escape, then go to Options - Display.
  2. Change Window Mode to Borderless, then press Enter.
  3. Immediately press Escape four times (Alt-tabbing out of the game will negate this effect)
Disable PostFX[citation needed]
  1. Go to GamerProfile.xml
  2. Find PostFXQuality
  3. Change PostFXQuality="x" to false
  4. Save GamerProfile.xml
  5. Set GamerProfile.xml to read only to prevent overwriting

Performance issues on AMD and Nvidia GPUs

Doing such will not fix stuttering issues, the frame rate gain from the latest drivers is relatively minor.
Download the latest drivers[citation needed]

Stuttering on 2GB VRAM cards with ultra textures

Use Maldo textures[4]
  • MaLDo has combined ultra textures without mipmaps used as high textures.
  • Players with 2 GB of VRAM, set high or medium shadows and reflections.
  • Setting max rendered frames = 2 (or 1) is recommended with this mod.
  • To use Maldo textures with other mod than TheWorse Mod, you can follow this instruction:

https://forums.guru3d.com/threads/kadzait24-watch-dogs-mod-game-files-xml-wip-and-download.390092/page-117#post-4859919 (created on purpose of kadzait24 mod - textures are in unpacked files in patch\graphics\_textures and textures)

Notes

Setting textures to high (ultra) cause stuttering on 4GB RAM configurations.
  • Reflections set to ultra can give FPS boost.

Audio

Voice audio not playing during cutscenes

Instructions[citation needed]
  1. Go to the speaker setup screen.
  2. Set your audio channels to anything below 7.1 Surround, then restart your game.

Gameplay

Minimap icons and crosshair dissapearing

Instructions[citation needed]
  1. Go to the configuration file location.
  2. Delete GamerProfile.xml.
  3. Disable any on-screen displays such as Fraps, MSI Afterburner, GeForce Experience, etc.

Frosting effect

Disable the MSAA antialiasing and the motion blur effect[citation needed]

Multiplayer

Unable to connect and play multiplayer

Instructions[5]
  1. Open the Start Menu, type ncpa.cpl and press Enter.
  2. Right click on any unused adapters and click on Disable.
  3. Restart Uplay.

Frequent Crashes

Increase page file size[citation needed]
  • Increase the size of the Windows page file to be as twice as big over your current RAM. See this.
  • Do so on a drive where the game isn't installed if possible.

Notes

Windows uses page file if system is running out of RAM thus increasing amount of RAM in the system is highly recommended.

Bedbug got killed on Mission "Not a Job for Tyrone" when you begin to hack the house

Instructions[6][7]
  • Before hacking the house, shoot at the wall of Bedbug's house until everyone is screaming and run away.
  • When everyone has left, start hacking.

Notes

There is a bug in-game that makes the ground of Bedbug's house disappear so he will fall out of the map during hacking. After shooting at the wall, the ground won't disappear or Bedbug will reposition.

Other information

API

Technical specs Supported Notes
Direct3D 11
Shader Model support 5
Executable 32-bit 64-bit Notes
Windows

Middleware

Middleware Notes
Cutscenes Bink

ctOS app

ctOS app is available for Android and iOS.

System requirements

Windows
Minimum Recommended
Operating system (OS) Vista SP2
Processor (CPU) AMD Phenom II X4 940 3.0 GHz
Intel Core 2 Quad Q8400 2.66 GHz
System memory (RAM) 6 GB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 25 GB
Video card (GPU) AMD Radeon HD 5770
Nvidia GeForce GTX 460
1 GB of VRAM
DirectX 11 compatible
Shader model 5.0 support
64-bit OS required.
Supported Nvidia chipsets: GTX 460 and better, GT 500 series, GT 600 series, GT 700 series.
Supported AMD chipsets: Radeon HD 5850 or better, HD 6000 series, HD 7000 series, R7 and R9 series.
Supports the Intel Iris Pro HD 5200 chipset.

Notes

  1. 1.0 1.1 File/folder structure within this directory reflects the path(s) listed for Windows and/or Steam game data (use Wine regedit to access Windows registry paths). Games with Steam Cloud support may store data in ~/.steam/steam/userdata/<user-id>/243470/ in addition to or instead of this directory. The app ID (243470) may differ in some cases. Treat backslashes as forward slashes. See the glossary page for details.

References