PC Version of Watch Dogs Launch Issues: Update Drivers

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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:

Kevin Parrish
27 Comments Comment from the forums
  • rishiswaz
    Even with a high profile game like this, hardware and software doesn't always click or come together instantly. Good on both AMD and Nvidia for updating their drivers to remedy performance issues with driver updates so quickly. Ubisoft has to fix their server side issues too, shouldn't take too long.
    Reply
  • bemused_fred
    My advice here to everyone would be not to buy watchdogs for at least 2 or 3 weeks until Ubisoft can fix this shit and give everyone an at least playable experience.

    "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.
    Reply
  • somebodyspecial
    You get what you deserve Ubisoft. I hope you go down in flames for using DRM crap that kills your users fun. GOG FTW.

    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.
    Reply
  • I wonder where all those "I never have trouble with Uplay" people are now, ready to jump at you every time you mention that you boycott Ubisoft.
    Reply
  • ubercake
    Even with a high profile game like this, hardware and software doesn't always click or come together instantly. Good on both AMD and Nvidia for updating their drivers to remedy performance issues with driver updates so quickly. Ubisoft has to fix their server side issues too, shouldn't take too long.
    The latest Nvidia driver as listed in the article was available Monday (day before release).
    Reply
  • rishiswaz
    13381935 said:
    Even with a high profile game like this, hardware and software doesn't always click or come together instantly. Good on both AMD and Nvidia for updating their drivers to remedy performance issues with driver updates so quickly. Ubisoft has to fix their server side issues too, shouldn't take too long.
    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.

    Reply
  • rishiswaz
    13381892 said:
    You get what you deserve Ubisoft. I hope you go down in flames for using DRM crap that kills your users fun. GOG FTW.

    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
    Reply
  • iogbrideau
    rishiswas, I quite agree with what you are saying there, but pirating happens because of how exensive games are nowadays. Back in the day we would get game for less than $40 and they would last much longer and be bugfree. People bought them because they were worth the money. People pirate becasue it's now too expensive for the quality we get. Lower the prices of the games and the DRM won't be needed anymore. Also DRM is another reason that people pirate. DRM ruins some aspects of games and make people want to get the game without it.

    I personally didn't get any trouble with WatchDogs, but that's because I bought it for the Xbox One.
    Reply
  • skit75
    The suits see a pirated game as a lost sale. What they fail to understand is that person was never going to pay for the game in the first place.

    This is just another half baked release that will take another year before it is, dare I say, enjoyable? Welcome to Open Beta.
    Reply
  • ern88
    Glad I bought a physical copy of the game. I did have trouble though logging into UPlay. Updated my AMD drivers for my HD7950. I have had no ploblems playing on Ultra settings. But the controls can feel sluggish and the driving physics could be improvement as well. But all and all I am having fun playing.
    Reply