Image Quality and System requirements
System requirements
Though all features are available on AMD's Radeon graphics cards as well, Watch Dog really is a Nvidia title. Nvidia worked hard and closely with Ubisoft to get some extra's into the game to enhance the PC gaming experience. And compared over the console version, that mission was very successful. There are two primary features added, the HBAO Plus light and shadow system and Nvidia's TXAA anti-aliasing technology will exclusively feature these graphical additions in the game, thanks to Ubisoft working closely with Nvidia.
This page contains the recommended specs, as well as the minimum requirements for running Watch Dogs on your PC. The PC System Requirements for Watch Dogs were posted on Ubisoft's Uplay network on October 3, 2013.
| Minimum System Requirements | |
|---|---|
| Operating System | Windows Vista (SP2) Windows 7 (SP1) Windows 8 and 8.1 Note that Watch Dogs only supports 64 bit OSs. |
| Processor (CPU) | 2.66 GHz Intel Core 2 Quad Q8400 3.0 GHz AMD Phenom II X4 940 |
| System Memory | 6GB RAM (4GB does work) |
| Video Card* (GPU) | nVidea GeForce GTX460 AMD Radeon HD5850 |
| Hard Drive Space | 25 GB |
| Sound Card | DirectX 9.0c Compatible Sound Card |
| DirectX Version | DirectX 11 |
| Internet | Broadband connection required for multiplayer mode |
| Recommended System Requirements | |
|---|---|
| Operating System | Windows Vista (SP2) Windows 7 (SP1) Windows 8 and 8.1 Note that Watch Dogs only supports 64 bit OSs. |
| Processor (CPU) | 3.5 GHz Intel Core i7 3700 4.0 GHz AMD FX-8350 |
| System Memory | 8GB RAM |
| Video Card* (GPU) | nVidea GeForce GT600-series AMD Radeon HD7000-series |
| Hard Drive Space | 25 GB |
| Sound Card | Surround Sound 5.1 |
| DirectX Version | DirectX 11 |
| Internet | Broadband connection required for multiplayer mode |
Note that Ubisoft's official system requirements do not specify a certain type or brand of graphics processor. The minimum GPU requirements are a card with "1,024 MB DirectX 11-compliant [and] Shader Model 5.0." The recommended requirement is a 2,048 MB card. We in fact say that this game horrendously eats away in the graphics card memory if you enable the really fun image quality settings, 3GB or better would be our recommendation. This is mainly due to the use of Ultra quality textures, these are costly on PC and require a lot of VRAM in order to run. But sure, 2GB minimum is recommended.
With such VRAM requirements are at the high-end for PC hardware and along with the confirmation of no support for Dual-Core CPUs and less than 6 GB of System memory, this game definitely warrants a high end to enthusiast class PC, if you want to play the game at the Ultra quality setting.
So for our reference baseline results we test with our image quality settings set at 2xMSAA enabled with the image quality settings maxed out, which is a really nice quality setting for PC gamers alright.
