PC Version of Watch Dogs Launch Issues: Update Drivers
Oh boy.
Ubisoft confirmed on Tuesday that the company is currently facing issues with the authentication services for Watch Dogs, the just-released open-world action-adventure game developed by Ubisoft Montreal. The company reports via Twitter that players will probably experience long delays when trying to log in.
Reports began to surface this morning saying that many players can't log in, they can't download the game, or they're getting an error from Uplay stating that it has "detected an unrecoverable error." Even one of our own sources trying to play the game was stuck on 100 percent download for about half an hour before download completion.
"We're still working on fixing our server authentication issues. Stay tuned," the company reported just an hour ago.
But downloading isn't the only issue Watch Dogs is having. According to our own Niels Broekhuijsen, he had missing textures after installing the game. All he saw were blank polygons that were fixed by turning the AA down to free up some of the VRAM, which also "drastically" improved performance.
"Aiden's face was [completely] black, like he was wearing a mask, but wasn't," he told me.
This report from Game Debate tells of a dreaded BSOD (0xa0000001). This happens on machines that may not have the latest AMD drivers installed on the machine. Other suggestions for this error include unplugging the gamepad before launching Watch Dogs, or disabling SLI mode if you're a GeForce customer.
Next is this report from SegmentNext, which has a longer list of problems plaguing the PC version. The list includes audio skipping, crashing after the logo screen, frame skipping while driving vehicles, a DirectX 11 error, sluggish controllers, a black screen with no audio, and more. There's even an error if you're playing the game on Windows Vista (SP1 needed).
To combat FPS drops, stuttering and frame skipping, players are encouraged to update their drivers to the following:
- Nvidia GeForce 337.88 WHQL (can also use GeForce Experience and update the profile too)
- AMD Catalyst 14.6 Beta (promises 25 percent boost in performance)

Do yourself a favor and boycott any game that uses DRM until they wake up. If you start affecting their wallet they will quit and go DRM free. They would have ZERO choice in the matter or just plain go bankrupt. Which is what I'd rather have anyway with all big devs, so we can get back to 5-30 person teams and MUCH more gameplay over graphics. Graphics are cool, but I'd rather have triple the gameplay time and less wasted on graphics. I don't know about you, but I'm sick of BF59, Crisis33, COD68...LOL. If you keep giving them money this is all we'll keep getting. Look at all the great teams making games on kickstarter etc. So many great ideas coming that are WORTH paying for by all the people who USED to make great games before EA/MS/Activision etc bought them all up and destroyed them. Now all we get is betas for $60 that last 10hrs instead of 30-100's of hours for $40 with nice boxes, manuals etc.
This is just another half baked release that will take another year before it is, dare I say, enjoyable? Welcome to Open Beta.
"But wait!" cries a frantic executive from Ubisoft; "Those are the most important for sales! We need the game to sell then, otherwise it will look terrible on our sales record and send our stock crashing down!"
I quite agree, Ubisoft. I quite agree.
Do yourself a favor and boycott any game that uses DRM until they wake up. If you start affecting their wallet they will quit and go DRM free. They would have ZERO choice in the matter or just plain go bankrupt. Which is what I'd rather have anyway with all big devs, so we can get back to 5-30 person teams and MUCH more gameplay over graphics. Graphics are cool, but I'd rather have triple the gameplay time and less wasted on graphics. I don't know about you, but I'm sick of BF59, Crisis33, COD68...LOL. If you keep giving them money this is all we'll keep getting. Look at all the great teams making games on kickstarter etc. So many great ideas coming that are WORTH paying for by all the people who USED to make great games before EA/MS/Activision etc bought them all up and destroyed them. Now all we get is betas for $60 that last 10hrs instead of 30-100's of hours for $40 with nice boxes, manuals etc.
The latest Nvidia driver as listed in the article was available Monday (day before release).
The latest Nvidia driver as listed in the article was available Monday (day before release).
I don't have an Nvidia card so I wasn't aware of that, well kudos to Nvidia for getting that out before launch.
Do yourself a favor and boycott any game that uses DRM until they wake up. If you start affecting their wallet they will quit and go DRM free. They would have ZERO choice in the matter or just plain go bankrupt. Which is what I'd rather have anyway with all big devs, so we can get back to 5-30 person teams and MUCH more gameplay over graphics. Graphics are cool, but I'd rather have triple the gameplay time and less wasted on graphics. I don't know about you, but I'm sick of BF59, Crisis33, COD68...LOL. If you keep giving them money this is all we'll keep getting. Look at all the great teams making games on kickstarter etc. So many great ideas coming that are WORTH paying for by all the people who USED to make great games before EA/MS/Activision etc bought them all up and destroyed them. Now all we get is betas for $60 that last 10hrs instead of 30-100's of hours for $40 with nice boxes, manuals etc.
IF people didn't pirate games we wouldn't need DRM. I dislike DRM in terms of the implementation, but the concept of making sure that the game developers and publishers get their fair share is fair. DRM does get cracked, is that fair to the developers, no; is it fair to the publishers, again no; is it legal, no. I think we should stop looking at DRM as the problem and take care of the piracy first. Some companies like Greenheart Games, makers of Game Dev Tycoon, have great DRM where if the game was pirated then your game development studio would stop making money because of rampant piracy and you would not be able to finish a game because you would go bankrupt before the end of the time you have in the game
I personally didn't get any trouble with WatchDogs, but that's because I bought it for the Xbox One.
This is just another half baked release that will take another year before it is, dare I say, enjoyable? Welcome to Open Beta.
It isn't your hardware's fault. That much is clear at this point. They have a lot of dusting and cleaning to do, still.
Hold on... I would think more than just Vista SP1 is required since we're talking about a DirectX 11-only title... Perhaps the Vista Platform Update that added DX11 support to Vista, which released as and is technically DX10-capable OS without the Platform Update is what's actually needed. Vista SP1 was released in March of 2008, and the Platform Update came in October of 2009, AFTER the release of Windows 7, which introduced us to DirectX 11.
I have a crossfire config with 7950's and I'm getting some getting some graphical ghosting with the 14.6 beta drivers installed. I suppose I should try with just one card, since most benchmarks show there is no real performance increase in either sli or crossfire config.
Other specs
I7 2600k
16gb ram
2x 512 SSD
W 8.1
This is just another half baked release that will take another year before it is, dare I say, enjoyable? Welcome to Open Beta.
This is just another half baked release that will take another year before it is, dare I say, enjoyable? Welcome to Open Beta.
Francis agrees with you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AsvW9YK5lM
"But wait!" cries a frantic executive from Ubisoft; "Those are the most important for sales! We need the game to sell then, otherwise it will look terrible on our sales record and send our stock crashing down!"
I quite agree, Ubisoft. I quite agree.
It's what I've come to learn from Ubisoft lately. Bad enough dealing with random issues stemming from UPlay.
As excited as I am to try out Watch Dogs and eventually The Division, I'll hold off a month or two after release.
Your main problem is likely QUAD SLI. Any time you deviate from a typical setup you're more likely to have issues. That's why consoles are easier to code for with a known hardware configuration.
It's a new game with a lot of new code implementations so it was prone to have issues.
In your case I suggest either waiting or taking out one of your 690's. Considering there are OTHER issues I think you should just put it aside for a month then try again.
Personally, I do understand the issues with coding for a wide variation of PC configurations (both hardware and software) so as long as the game gets fixed in a reasonable length of time I'm satisfied.
This is just another half baked release that will take another year before it is, dare I say, enjoyable? Welcome to Open Beta.
This is just another half baked release that will take another year before it is, dare I say, enjoyable? Welcome to Open Beta.
Francis agrees with you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AsvW9YK5lM
You weren't kidding.