andago said:
J Tyran said:
I cannot do anything about your obvious refusal to see something placed right in front of you, sorry but there is nothing I can do to help. I gave you quotes that came straight from the Watch Dogs dev team saying he was making the PS4 version the "best" version and highlighted the marketing campaign from Sony claiming that they would have the "best" version of the game, Lo and Behold the PC version is mysteriously and purposefully nerfed. There is also proof positive that they pulled a similar stunt with Nvidia, Nvidia where heavily involved during the development of the game and they collaborated on the marketing of the game. Same kind of PR lines "plays best with Nvidia!" and lo and behold once again it did and AMD users faced additional performance problems, Ubisoft are pre disposed to these kinds of deals and corporate relationships.
The only problem with this is that arguably the PC version is still the best version core experience of Watch Dogs available, as it can run at a higher resolution with higher detail while maintaining a higher frame rate. Ubisoft allowed the game to be optimised for nvidia cards, but that's not the same as saying they deliberately designed their game to not work with AMD (and it should be noted anecdotally that a lot of people using AMD branded tech can still play and run the game well enough.)
The other point is that saying that the definitive experience is on the ps4 does not mean they were claiming that it would look better than the PC version. Looking at the link you provided, it seems they have based this claim on the existence of exclusive ps4 content, best graphical experience on any console and sound quality provided by a Sony headset. None of these claims rely on it looking better and running smoother than the PC version and would point to any sort of collusion with Ubisoft.
The problem is you cannot explain the deliberately nerfed PC settings, there is no good reason for that at all. The marketing claims can be explained away, like you point out the PC version does run slightly better anyway (for those that have no issues) and I will agree it looks pretty good, not ground breaking or anything but the textures are nice and the lighting and effects are nice and the higher frame rate seals the deal.
With the hidden settings enabled it goes way beyond looking a little nicer and running smoother, it pretty much transcends that. Its damn close to the 2012 footage we saw, now I will ask a code monkey to confirm this because I am not a programmer but some of the disabled features and effects seem to be part of the Nvidia "Gameworks" package.
Nvidia Gameworks is a toolkit/SDK provided by Nvidia, it contains all kinds of graphical effects. To give a simple example imagine if a developer wants a fire effect in their game, they could obtain one in many ways but gameworks offers a series of tools and resources that could make a fire effect. Nvidia developers would have spent huge amounts of time making and patching and updating that effect, this way a developer can get a great AAA quality fire effect easily. There are many other SDKs/engines and ways to do that and get those effects and Nvida isn't unique here, its just another way to do it.
If my suspicions are correct some of those disabled features contain content from Nvidia Gameworks, there was no real reason to include them and then disable them. They purposefully went out of their way to do it.
Why?
Don't you think its incredibly suspicious that Ubisoft disabled graphical features that would get the game looking almost as good as the 2012 "bullshots", it cannot be because they thought people couldn't run it because by all accounts it makes the game run even better. Perhaps because the chunks of the Nvidia Gameworks content they chopped out have been put back? Maybe, again I ask a programmer to look into that possibility.
So on one hand you have a publisher in a collaborative PR campaign that is claiming that the definitive version of the game will be on a particular platform, on the other you have a vastly more powerful platform and the game looks like the earlier footage we saw that was both running and playable. Additionally there is a huge backlash about the game not looking like the earlier footage, lets speculate here.
-You have the game on one platform looking and playing almost as the earlier promos and demos
-The graphics on the platform the you have marketed as the "definitive" version are very noticeable "worse".
-Your company is in bed with the owner of the platform that will have the "definitive" release
So after the fact the modders and code monkeys have discovered a bunch of working settings and features that when enabled will allow the 2012 level of graphical fidelity, which reportedly fixes some of the performance issues people are having with the game (I guess thats what happens when you chop out chunks of a SDK package...)
Yeah it doesnt take much to see whats going on here, like I said I wont claim to know
why it was done. Maybe Sony asked/encouraged/enticed Ubisoft to do it, maybe Ubisift didn't want to embarrass Sony after working with them on the advertising for the "definitve" version which wouldn't have been so "definitive" with people running around playing something which looked like the 2012 promo.
Corporate relationships are important, something like that could hurt those relationships. Finally maybe Ubisoft didn't want to risk hurting sales on the PS4 version, the current gen of consoles will be Ubisofts bread and butter as they shift more and more units. There is the possibility of releasing a far "superior" version might hurt their bottom line in the long run.
Its no use trying to divide the market and claim they are just battling the other consoles, they are not. Microsoft and Sony are not just battling each other they are fighting the PC market as well.
Look at the marketing by both of them, they have take shot after shot at PCs. Microsoft claim their APU is a supercomputer and Sony where running around trumpeting that the PS4 is a "supercharged PC". Well they where until the real world performance benchmarks rolled in, this console gen more than any other in recent times is a four way brawl. The PC market as a whole now makes more money than the consoles, the revenues are higher and spread around with a few points of focus like League of Legends but overall the revenue is higher. Most of the industry wants a slice of that big juicy pie, all those consumers to be milked, sheep to be hynpotised into buying map packs and roster updates, all that DLC to sell and people to con into buying season passes. Games that you can port backwards and forwards because of the shared architecture, software engineers working their arses off to create unified APIs like DX-12 and Mantle making it even easier to create mulitplatform games.
Make no mistake PC gaming is in this fight as much as Microsoft and Sony.
Now I am point this out not to claim "PC is betta!" and I am only highlighting that there is another 180KG Gorilla in the ring for Sony and Microsoft to wrestle with, Nintendo are doing their own thing and being Nintendo which makes sense for them. PCs are cheaper and more convenient than ever before, they
are direct competitors now.
But back to the nerfing of the PC version, like I said I do not claim to know
why it happened/ Whether it was bribery, back scratching/reach-arounds, wanting to avoid the potential embarrassment to a business partner, protecting future potential markets. Whatever the cause I don't know and can only speculate but we have evidence that they
did do it.
The disabled code is all the proof you need that they did do it, Ubisoft deliberately, purposefully, intentionally went out of their way to stop the PC release of the game having the highest graphical fidelity.
Charcharo said:
I never claimed that Ubisoft had a "plot" with Nvidia, just pointing out another example of them having a closer working relationship with one partner that leaves another like a 5th wheel or the 3rd person at a date. Nowhere did I claim there was a "plot", that only happened in your imagination.
You are very good at filling in the blanks and injecting things that you claim I am saying when I never said things like that at all.
The AMD issue wasn't as bad as Forbes claimed, Forbes is reputable so I would hold back from calling bullshit but those benchmarks where.... well not right.
No details on methodology or settings so we didn't know how they tested, no details on the drivers and software versions. All they did was post a selected part of a benchmarks graph that showed AMD where behind, according to their tests. Did they repeat the same section of game? Did they account for variables and repeat each test several times to get several benchmarks they could aggregate? Did they calculate the margin of error for the tests and account for it?Did they use a pre defined benchmark test that favoured or disfavoured a particular GPU? Did they try several drivers? Was it even the same machine? Who actually did the tests? We have no idea and where just presented with a disembodied chart showing an AMD GPU apocalypse.... That never happened.
The basis of the article was the defensive and possibly butt hurt AMD software engineer who would have every reason to try and defend himself and his teams work by pointing the finger elsewhere, he would face the possibility of a horde of angry customers wanting an explanation because they faced performance issues and maybe angry corporate suits asking him why they where facing angry fans as well. I can see why someone in that position would want an excuse, both Ubisoft and Nvidia pointed out the code was distributed and nothing was hidden in their rebuttals. So we had a "he said she said that she said to him" situation with no evidence either way. Both companies pull the same bullshit all the time so both could be guilty, I have little sympathy or patience for excuses from either manufacturer.
(I should add here that I am referring to fortunate people that had the game running well for them, not the people that had to face and put up with the issues)
In the end the performance issues where not that bad, they where within the usual tolerance and margin for error of any other GPU brand optimised game. In my opinion they where not as bad as the issues Nvidia users had with Sleeping Dogs, that was another open world game and Nvidia had to play catch up and eventually managed to claw back around a 20% performance increase.