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Watchdogs on PS4 or my PC

Tags:
  • Video Games
  • Playstation 4
  • DDR3
  • Motherboards
  • Windows 7
  • Dual Channel
Last response: in Video Games
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May 16, 2014 9:03:30 PM

Hello all. I'm trying to decide how much (If at all) better Watchdogs would run on my PC vs my PS4.
I would like to get some opinions from all you good and knowledgeable folks. Here is my pc setup:

- Windows 7 64 Bit OS
- MSI 970A-G46 (MS-7693) Motherboard
- 16 Gigs G.SKILL Ripjaws 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 RAM
AMD FX-6200 Zambezi 3.8GHz Socket AM3+ 125W 6 Core Desktop Processor
overclocked to a 4.084Ghz
- Two GTX-580's 3GB DDR5 in SLI (Split Frame Rendering)
- 120 GB SSD Drive (OS)
- 250 GB SSD Drive (Game Drive)
- CORSAIR HX Series HX850 850W ATX12V 2.3 / EPS12V 2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80
PLUS GOLD Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply
- ARCTIC COOLING Freezer 64 Pro 92mm Ceramic CPU Cooler(Oldie but goodie)
- Acer H6 H276HLbmid Black 27" 5ms HDMI IPS panel Widescreen LED Backlight Monitor

I don't think I missed anything pertinent to running the game. Look at these specs, and let me know what you guys think. I appreciate any input you guys might have.

More about : watchdogs ps4

May 16, 2014 9:16:42 PM

Well I don't doubt that you will be able to make the game look alot better on your PC with much more GPU power, I kind of worry about that CPU. The recommended CPU is either an 8350 at 4.0 GHz or a 3770, and seeing that your CPU is not only less powerful than the 8350, but also has fewer cores and a lower clock speed, I feel as though you may have trouble maintaining an acceptable framerate. Also, keep in mind that meeting the recommended requirements does not mean that you will max the game and get 60 FPS. In fact, I meet even the optimal requirements for Crysis 3(the highest requirements, the tier above recommended), yet it is proven that in optimal conditions my GPU only get 40 ish FPS in the game.

I would wait for the game to come out and hear about the optimization grade, but even with all of this being said, PC is probably going to be more fun, higher graphical fidelity, and pretty solid frame rate as well.
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a b V Motherboard
a b $ Windows 7
May 16, 2014 11:36:10 PM

I think his CPU is fine actually.

But watchdogs IS a console dual release, so it might be shitty on the PC for no reason besides developer laziness.
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a b V Motherboard
May 16, 2014 11:38:40 PM

Your specs are still much higher than the PS4's (by almost exactly double), so it should run better on your PC.
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May 17, 2014 11:13:41 AM

Thanks for the helpful answers guys. My question is about the CPU. I find it very hard to believe that my 6 Core FX-6200 isn't enough to run at Recommended Specs. I think either Ubisoft is being lazy with Hardware Optimization, or the specs are overestimated by Ubisoft, hard to tell right now.
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a b V Motherboard
May 17, 2014 3:06:30 PM

apcs13 said:
Well I don't doubt that you will be able to make the game look alot better on your PC with much more GPU power, I kind of worry about that CPU. The recommended CPU is either an 8350 at 4.0 GHz or a 3770, and seeing that your CPU is not only less powerful than the 8350, but also has fewer cores and a lower clock speed, I feel as though you may have trouble maintaining an acceptable framerate. Also, keep in mind that meeting the recommended requirements does not mean that you will max the game and get 60 FPS. In fact, I meet even the optimal requirements for Crysis 3(the highest requirements, the tier above recommended), yet it is proven that in optimal conditions my GPU only get 40 ish FPS in the game.

I would wait for the game to come out and hear about the optimization grade, but even with all of this being said, PC is probably going to be more fun, higher graphical fidelity, and pretty solid frame rate as well.


Crysis is never a great game to use for comparison. Crysis 1 was actually horribly optimized. It launched with a very bad memory leak. I had 4GB back then and after an hour play session it loaded up all my memory then when I closed the game my system crashed due to insufficient resources, the game didn't let go of the memory.

It will by no means need a i7 or a 8 core CPU. If it is truly multithreaded then the FX 8350 would have a slight advantage since it has about 180% of a dual core while HT only gives 20% better performance at best.
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May 18, 2014 11:54:00 AM

jimmysmitty said:
apcs13 said:
Well I don't doubt that you will be able to make the game look alot better on your PC with much more GPU power, I kind of worry about that CPU. The recommended CPU is either an 8350 at 4.0 GHz or a 3770, and seeing that your CPU is not only less powerful than the 8350, but also has fewer cores and a lower clock speed, I feel as though you may have trouble maintaining an acceptable framerate. Also, keep in mind that meeting the recommended requirements does not mean that you will max the game and get 60 FPS. In fact, I meet even the optimal requirements for Crysis 3(the highest requirements, the tier above recommended), yet it is proven that in optimal conditions my GPU only get 40 ish FPS in the game.

I would wait for the game to come out and hear about the optimization grade, but even with all of this being said, PC is probably going to be more fun, higher graphical fidelity, and pretty solid frame rate as well.


Crysis is never a great game to use for comparison. Crysis 1 was actually horribly optimized. It launched with a very bad memory leak. I had 4GB back then and after an hour play session it loaded up all my memory then when I closed the game my system crashed due to insufficient resources, the game didn't let go of the memory.

It will by no means need a i7 or a 8 core CPU. If it is truly multithreaded then the FX 8350 would have a slight advantage since it has about 180% of a dual core while HT only gives 20% better performance at best.


I think that it will need an i7 or 8350 if you want to run it will all of the bells and whistles turned on at 60+ FPS, for a few reasons.

Usually, when developers set recommended specifications, the game usually never runs better than that. For example, if a dev said that you should have an 8-core CPU @ 3.5 GHz, it won't run better than recommended settings on a quad core at 3.0 GHz, if anything it will run worse.

To cite an example of this, ARMA II recommends an AMD Athlon X2 4400+ dual core CPU, which is 2.3 GHz on the clock speed. However, on my 6350, which is a 6-core processor which I have over clocked to 4.4 GHz, will only run the game at 60FPS in optimal conditions, usually closer to 30 FPS. I have 8GB of RAM and a GTX 770, so no issue there either because it persists on every graphical setting, lowest or highest.

Now, you will probably say that ARMA II is poorly optimized. I will agree that yes, it is a bad case of an optimized PC game. Now my question is, how do you know that Watch Dogs will be well optimized for the PC? My theory is that it will be very poorly optimized, because it is being developed for PC, PS4, XBox One, Wii U, PS3, and Xbox 360. That is spreading dev resources too thin over many varying hardware architectures. They're going to make it good on console first since they are one set of unchangeable hardware, so it is easier to optimize for. That means PC will get the short end of the stick. That's why I believe they are recommending such powerful CPUs, to excuse their lack of PC optimization.

Also, open world games are incredibly CPU taxing. Look at GTA IV and Saint's Row IV. Both were also poorly PC ported, but nonetheless, you can't yet judge on the same for Watch Dogs, and they were both sluggish open world games.

Remember, games don't run better than expected, they either run as well or worse.
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May 18, 2014 2:27:30 PM

Also want to point out that his CPU is a first generation FX CPU. Those were terrible CPU's. Horrible per thread performance. Seeing as Watchdogs will likely by a CPU intensive game, I doubt it will run all that good on that CPU. However I don't know if it will be better on PS4.

For this reason, I'd wait until the game comes out, and then see how it runs. After that make your decision OP.
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a b V Motherboard
May 19, 2014 12:05:56 PM

apcs13 said:
jimmysmitty said:
apcs13 said:
Well I don't doubt that you will be able to make the game look alot better on your PC with much more GPU power, I kind of worry about that CPU. The recommended CPU is either an 8350 at 4.0 GHz or a 3770, and seeing that your CPU is not only less powerful than the 8350, but also has fewer cores and a lower clock speed, I feel as though you may have trouble maintaining an acceptable framerate. Also, keep in mind that meeting the recommended requirements does not mean that you will max the game and get 60 FPS. In fact, I meet even the optimal requirements for Crysis 3(the highest requirements, the tier above recommended), yet it is proven that in optimal conditions my GPU only get 40 ish FPS in the game.

I would wait for the game to come out and hear about the optimization grade, but even with all of this being said, PC is probably going to be more fun, higher graphical fidelity, and pretty solid frame rate as well.


Crysis is never a great game to use for comparison. Crysis 1 was actually horribly optimized. It launched with a very bad memory leak. I had 4GB back then and after an hour play session it loaded up all my memory then when I closed the game my system crashed due to insufficient resources, the game didn't let go of the memory.

It will by no means need a i7 or a 8 core CPU. If it is truly multithreaded then the FX 8350 would have a slight advantage since it has about 180% of a dual core while HT only gives 20% better performance at best.


I think that it will need an i7 or 8350 if you want to run it will all of the bells and whistles turned on at 60+ FPS, for a few reasons.

Usually, when developers set recommended specifications, the game usually never runs better than that. For example, if a dev said that you should have an 8-core CPU @ 3.5 GHz, it won't run better than recommended settings on a quad core at 3.0 GHz, if anything it will run worse.

To cite an example of this, ARMA II recommends an AMD Athlon X2 4400+ dual core CPU, which is 2.3 GHz on the clock speed. However, on my 6350, which is a 6-core processor which I have over clocked to 4.4 GHz, will only run the game at 60FPS in optimal conditions, usually closer to 30 FPS. I have 8GB of RAM and a GTX 770, so no issue there either because it persists on every graphical setting, lowest or highest.

Now, you will probably say that ARMA II is poorly optimized. I will agree that yes, it is a bad case of an optimized PC game. Now my question is, how do you know that Watch Dogs will be well optimized for the PC? My theory is that it will be very poorly optimized, because it is being developed for PC, PS4, XBox One, Wii U, PS3, and Xbox 360. That is spreading dev resources too thin over many varying hardware architectures. They're going to make it good on console first since they are one set of unchangeable hardware, so it is easier to optimize for. That means PC will get the short end of the stick. That's why I believe they are recommending such powerful CPUs, to excuse their lack of PC optimization.

Also, open world games are incredibly CPU taxing. Look at GTA IV and Saint's Row IV. Both were also poorly PC ported, but nonetheless, you can't yet judge on the same for Watch Dogs, and they were both sluggish open world games.

Remember, games don't run better than expected, they either run as well or worse.


The majority of games are GPU bound unless they include a lot of physics (not PhysX) or tons of AI like a RTS game. Then it can become CPU bound. At higher resolutions, games become very CPU bound. Look up Crysis 3 reviews. There is one that tests it at 1080P and pits a 4670K against a 4770K. The difference is at best 5% which could be due to a number of things such as clock speed variances or the fact that the i7 has more L3 cache.

At lower resolutions or graphical settings a CPU can bottleneck. But once you push into 1080P with high graphical settings, the CPU makes very little difference.
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