Watch Dogs PC Requirements Recommend 8 Core CPU

[Alex Co]

Watch Dogs PC Requirements Recommend 8 Core CPU

Steam has outed Watch Dogs' requirements for PC, and it recommends an eight core CPU.

While the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions of Ubisoft's Watch Dogs will be "identical in almost every way," [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/133530-Watch-Dogs-PS4-Xbox-One-Identical-in-Almost-Every-Way] graphics aficionados who own a capable gaming PC will undoubtedly want to get the open-world action game on that platform to see all the bells and whistles the title has to offer. But before you pre-order the game, you might want to check the recommended requirements first, since gamers will need a relatively beefy rig to play Watch Dogs on recommended settings.

Listed below are the minimum and recommended requirements straight from Steam, and for the latter, it asks that you have an eight core CPU.


Minimum:
OS: Windows Vista (SP2), Windows 7 (SP1) or Windows 8 (Please note that we only support 64 bit OSs.)
Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad Q8400 @ 2.66Ghz or AMD Phenom II X4 940 @ 3.0Ghz
Memory: 6 GB RAM
Graphics: DirectX 11 graphics card with 1 GB Video RAM - Nvidia Geforce GTX 460 or AMD Radeon HD 5770
DirectX: Version 11
Hard Drive: 25 GB available space
Sound Card: DirectX 9.0c Compatible Sound Card with Latest Drivers
Additional Notes: Broadband connection and service required for multiplayer mode. Supported Video Cards at Time of Release: nVidia GeForce GTX460 or better, GT500, GT600, GT700 series; AMD Radeon HD5850 or better, HD6000, HD7000, R7 and R9 series Intel® Iris™ Pro HD 5200

Recommended:
OS: Windows Vista (SP2), Windows 7 (SP1) or Windows 8 (Please note that we only support 64 bit OSs.)
Processor: Eight core - Intel Core i7-3770 @3.5 GHz or AMD FX-8350 X8 @ 4 GHz
Memory: 8 GB RAM
Graphics: DirectX 11 graphics card with 2 GB Video RAM - Nvidia Geforce GTX 560 ti or AMD Radeon HD 7850
DirectX: Version 11
Hard Drive: 25 GB available space
Sound Card: DirectX 9.0c Compatible Sound Card with Latest Drivers
Additional Notes: Broadband connection and service required for multiplayer mode. Supported Video Cards at Time of Release: nVidia GeForce GTX460 or better, GT500, GT600, GT700 series; AMD Radeon HD5850 or better, HD6000, HD7000, R7 and R9 series Intel® Iris™ Pro HD 5200


With Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed 3 on PC having a less-than-stellar PC showing, one might wonder if we should expect the same from Watch Dogs. Hopefully, Ubisoft manages to optimize the PC version, or more than a handful of players will need to open their wallets to get the most out of the game visually; either that, or they'll have to play it on next-gen consoles instead.

Does this mean eight core CPUs will be the norm for AAA PC games this generation? If so, will you rather buy the same games on consoles instead?

Source: NeoGAF [http://store.steampowered.com/app/243470/]


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[Metalrocks]

wow, besides my CPU that is a i5 2400 intel chip, i actually are slightly above the recommended requirements.

 

[wooty]

Phhhh, too much trouble to check and double check and hope that my non-console can run this thing smoothly.

Peace of mind takes priority, so PS4 it is for me.

 

[noobium]

I have a 3770k and I am sure pretty sure that it is a quad core processor.

 

[verindae]

I have a 3770k and I am sure pretty sure that it is a quad core processor.

http://ark.intel.com/products/65523/Intel-Core-i7-3770K-Processor-8M-Cache-up-to-3_90-GHz

Quad Core Hyper Thread. 4 Physical, 8 logical.

Edit: Also as far as I am aware the AMD FX-8350 isn't technically 8 core either, though it can be argued as such because of the weird way it's constructed; 4 modules each containing 2 cores that share the first couple of pipeline stages. It's odd.

 

[StHubi]

My system got 2 years old in January 2014 and it supersedes the recommended requirements. There is a 6 core CPU with hyper threading in it, so there are 12 logical cores. RAM is no issue anymore for anyone, I believe. But in the end: I am not even interested in this game. It just does not appeal to me in any way as it just seems like another open world game, that I did not ask for... But I am really interested in how the mass market will accept or react to it. It would also be interesting to know if these requirements can still be called "high" as the typical gaming PC is probably quite capable by now...

 

[ShakerSilver]

Seriously? An 8-core CPU? And with those recommended GPUs? There's going to be some serious graphical bottlenecking there. You need like 3 580 Tis just to get the most out of that CPU. Something tells me this isn't so much a case about high-end graphical requirements and more about Ubisoft putting out yet another poorly optimized game for PC. Or maybe they felt they need to make those people who foolishly bought an i7 for gaming feel better about themselves somehow.

Although if those truly are the recommended PC specs, I'm really worried about how the downgraded the Xbox One and PS4 versions are in comparison. Hell, the PS3 and X360 version must be practically unplayable.

 

[The Lunatic]

Metal Gear Rising also stated it required a "Intel Core i7 3770", it needed absolutely nothing of the sort. I imagine this will be a pretty similar case.

It's simply developers, or whoever posts this specifications simply not understanding how processors work, or even the kind of power their games will require. The fact they list graphics cards from 4 different generations, and even Intel Onboard cards is also a pretty clear show of this.


Consoles set the bar extremely low, so, really, as long as you have something that was made in the past 4 years, you should be fine.

 

[verindae]

Seriously? An 8-core CPU? And with those recommended GPUs? There's going to be some serious graphical bottlenecking there. You need like 3 580 Tis just to get the most out of that CPU. Something tells me this isn't so much a case about high-end graphical requirements and more about Ubisoft putting out yet another poorly optimized game for PC. Or maybe they felt they need to make those people who foolishly bought an i7 for gaming feel better about themselves somehow.

Although if those truly are the recommended PC specs, I'm really worried about how the downgraded the Xbox One and PS4 versions are in comparison. Hell, the PS3 and X360 version must be practically unplayable.

Maybe it's poorly optimised and thrashes the crap out of your processor. From the top of my head I remember Planetside 2 and Rift had serious problems with that at launch.

 

[ShakerSilver]

Maybe it's poorly optimised and thrashes the crap out of your processor. From the top of my head I remember Planetside 2 and Rift had serious problems with that at launch.

That's probably true. I mean Ubisoft isn't exactly known for constructing flawless PC ports.

 

[verindae]

I will sound like a broken record, and for some odd reason most escapists dont pay me attention but:
Dont. Listen. To. System. Requirements.
They almost ALWAYS lie in this day and age. Probably to aid AMD and Nvidia in selling their products.
.

Good advice but not entirely true; those minimum specs look close to the mark, though it probably will run on a bit less if they give you more graphics control options than low, medium, high or ultra.

 

[munx13]

I will sound like a broken record, and for some odd reason most escapists dont pay me attention but:
Dont. Listen. To. System. Requirements.
They almost ALWAYS lie in this day and age. Probably to aid AMD and Nvidia in selling their products.

The game WILL run on less. And if for some reason (very VERY VERY small chance) these prove to be real, then, the truth is, Ubisoft coders are noobs . ALMOST Infinity Ward Ghost level clueless noobs.

Example: Metal Gear Rising.
Even though the store page lists i5 as minimum, in reality it runs just fine on a Core 2 Duo.

 

[Under_your_bed]

Does this mean eight core CPUs will be the norm for AAA PC games this generation? If so, will you rather buy the same games on consoles instead?

I doubt it. I doubt it very much.

First of all, it seems that both Killzone Shadowfall [http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-ps3-system-software-memory] and InFamous: Second Son [http://www.gamepur.com/news/14201-infamous-second-son-used-ps4s-45-gb-ram-6-cpu-cores-only-comparison-screens.html] only use 6 of the PS4's 8 CPU cores for gaming, with the other 2 reserved for the OS. The same appears true for the XBOX one [http://kotaku.com/the-five-possible-states-of-xbox-one-games-are-strangel-509597078/all]. So really, there shouldn't be any benefit for having more than 6 cores, as any half-decent modern CPU can run windows in the background effortlessly and won't need an extra 2 cores for windows in the background. I've got an I5-3570K at stock settings, and the background tasks of windows and internet surfing almost never causes my CPU usage to crest above 10% in task manager.

Secondly, this never happened last generation. The XBOX 360 had 3 hyper-threaded CPUs [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenon_(processor)] and the PS3 had a 7-core "cell" CPU [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_3_technical_specifications]. Yes, admittedly, unlike current gen-consoles, these weren't x86, 64-bit CPUs that could be easily ported directly to PC's. But with each console being able to process 6 threads of computing simultaneously, you would have expected them to cause games ported to PC to require more cores over the course of their lifetimes. Nope. As late as 2012, A tom's hardware benchmark of CPU-demanding games found no reason to get a weak quad-core CPU over a slightly stronger dual-core CPU. [http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/gaming-fx-pentium-apu-benchmark,review-32368-10.html] It wasn't until 2013, with a new suite of CPU-demanding games, that they found that modern games were more suited to quad-core processors [http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/gaming-processor-frame-rate-performance,review-32628-9.html].

Spoiler

2012 test suite

2013 test suite

If we compare the two graphs, we note that while in the 2012 Benchmarks, the dual-core pentium G860 clearly beats the quad-core FX-4170 and falls just below the quad-core Phenom II X4 980. However, in 2013, the G860 falls to near the bottom and is soundly beaten by both the FX-4170 and Phenom II X4 980. As most of the games which caused this reversal were released in 2012, we can therefore reasonably assume that it wasn't until around 2012 that games began to take advantage of more than 2 cores, which was towards the very end of the last console's life cycle.

So, in a nutshell, I fail to see how an 8-core CPU is going to be a vital advantage in future games. If the last generation is anything to go by, it seems that consoles have almost no effect on the number of CPU cores that PC games require. And even if the more PC-friendly x86/64-bit CPU cores of the new consoles allow for more direct ports, with the exact same number of cores, it doesn't seem as though games made for them will need more than 6. I don't see MOAR CORES becoming the new big thing any time soon....

 

[verindae]

To be honest those recommended specs look like they were pulled from the ether. My rig is for the most part above what they're stating there and until I started running 2D surround (5760x1080) I only got close to the limit of my rig with everything on max in Metro Last Light. That game can really punish a graphics card lol

 

[Rodolphe Kourkenko]

Well, well, well... Imo their are two options: the game will be awesome or badly optimised. It's Ubisoft so the second options seem to be more logic, it don't see how 8 core can be needed for a single game.
My rig is six years old (i made it myself) and beside the graphic card, i didn't upgrade anything and only TW2 blow it (even if i agree about Metro Last Light ^^).

Since i lost almost all interest in this game, i don't see any reason (beside TW3) to upgrade now.

 

[AnthrSolidSnake]

So yeah, this game will either look gorgeous, or it will look kinda pretty with some bad optimization behind it.
Last I heard, Ubisoft hated PC, so my assumption is they are just taking advantage of the fact that PC has the capability to have vastly more powerful parts, and used that as a crutch while making the game.
I hope that's not true, and we just end up with one AMAZING looking game that really makes me think "This. This is current gen.", but I doubt it. No game has really done that yet except Crysis 3, and that didn't even come out this generation.

Other than that, I go a little bit above recommended, but that has never stopped a game from running like garbage on my system. According to this games recommend, I meet most of the specs exactly except in GPU. I still have 8GB of RAM, I have an AMD 8350, and I'm hoping my GTX 670 will carry me until I can afford the GTX 780ti I wanted.