In the course of our testing, we found that our average framerate for the “high” preset increased by roughly 4 FPS since our 2500K revisit, which can be attributed to a combination of normal variation and a new optimization patch from Ubisoft. We continued to use the same methodology described in our GPU benchmark, logging framerates with FRAPS while walking down a short hill. From the settings menu, we chose geometry, extra detail, reflections, vegetation, and terrain as our test candidates. The purpose of this test was to find which settings have the greatest impact on the CPU, and which can be turned down to find the optimal balance between framerate and visual quality. This means the average user, even one without a GTX 1080, is in real danger of a CPU bottleneck. Unusually, there are major performance dips between (for example) the i7-6700K at 110.3 FPS and the i5-6600K at 78.7 FPS, and only the newest i7s level out around 110 FPS average in our benchmark course even after overclocking (indicating they’ve reached a GPU limitation).
This chart from our 2500K revisit shows Watch_Dogs 2 performance across a variety of CPUs using an EVGA GTX 1080 FTW. This is best known for FXAA, the most common implementation of Post-Process AA. Post-Process Anti-Aliasing: Simplistic anti-aliasing with limited impact to FPS. Temporal Filtering: Frame-to-frame calculation of filters, rather than calculating all at once. San Francisco Fog: Rolling fog that limits visibility, but appears voluminous.ĭepth of Field: Bokeh effect application/intensity when shifting focus to different objects.īloom: "Shimmering" effect for light when in hot environments or near bodies of water.Īmbient Occlusion: SSBC and HMSSAO modify the accuracy, depth, and presence of shadows created at points of contact between surfaces. If experiencing lag when it rains in Watch Dogs 2, try lowering this setting and the headlight shadows setting. Screenspace Reflections: Pixels are depth-sampled and crunched to determine screen space-aware reflections, e.g. This becomes performance intensive when it's dark, rainy, and heavily populated. Headlight Shadows: Maximum number of vehicles that will cast headlight shadows. We previously defined HFTS in depth here. Shadows: Can be configured to Low, Medium, High, Very High, Ultra, or PCSS (Percentage Closer Soft Shadows), or HFTS (High-Fidelity Frustum-Traced Shadows). Texture resolution impacts the pixel density and apparent grit in (obviously) object textures. Texture resolution changes necessitate a game restart to adequately apply.
Texture Resolution: With the base game, without texture DLC, this can be configured to Low, Medium, and High. Vegetation: LOD scaling of foliage, with additional impact to object complexity for certain vegetation elements (like high-detail tree models). Detail, definition, and smoothness of terrain as it grows distant from the player POV. This does not get applied with any of the presets and must be manually configured. Affects geometric complexity and mesh quality.Įxtra Details: Adds definition to geometry in game, including meshes (more smoothing, finer detail on vehicles, etc.). Geometry: Density of primitives / overall "smoothness" of objects and models within the game. Graphics Quality: A preset used to rapidly define the following settings. Above: “high” preset used for CPU benchmarkingīelow, we’ve re-pasted our graphics settings explanation from our Watch Dogs 2 GPU benchmark.