Home Gaming Watch Dogs 2 to use DirectX 12 and be optimised for AMD

Watch Dogs 2 to use DirectX 12 and be optimised for AMD

1 min read
18

watchdog

Watch Dogs, I thought, was a better game than most people made it out to be. I rather enjoyed running around as one of the most uninteresting video game protagonists in the history of the medium, if only for the silly, Hollywood-esque take on hacking. Oh, and the infinitely more interesting Jordi Chin.

On PC though, Watch Dogs was a different story. Though it looked far superior to the PlayStation and Xbox One versions of the game, it featured Nvidia’s “unhealthy” Gameworks. Like many games featuring Nvidia’s graphics enhancing technology suite, it caused more problems than it was worth, especially for AMD users, many of whom had a degraded experience.

That shouldn’t happen with the inevitable Watch Dogs 2. AMD’s Corporate Vice President Alliances, Content & VR Roy Taylor has said that Watch Dogs 2 will utilise DirectX 12, and be made in close partnership with AMD. Ubisoft revealed the existence of the game at this year’s Game Developer’s Conference at AMD’s press conference, saying just that it would use DX12.

Ubisoft’s presence at AMD’s event suggests that Watch Dogs’ sequel will be optimised for AMD this time around, and showcase the Red Team’s graphical technologies instead. While we’ve really yet to see much real-world advantage to DX12, benchmarks do suggest that AMD’s got an early lead on Dx12 performance. It may be because AMD’s core technologies are better suited towards parallelism.

On top of that, last year AMD promised that most DX12 games would be made with AMD tech at the fore.

“You will find that the vast majority of DX12 titles in 2015/2016 are partnering with AMD,” Robert Hallock, Head of Global Technical Marketing at AMD said. “Mantle taught the development world how to work with a low-level API, the consoles use AMD and low-level APIs, and now those seeds are bearing fruit.”

He may have been right.

Last Updated: March 29, 2016

18 Comments

  1. Hammersteyn

    March 29, 2016 at 10:15

    The multiplayer was fun as well, hacking other players, trying to hide while they were frantically looking for you and escaping as quickly as possible once it was done.

    Reply

  2. Greylingad[CNFRMD]

    March 29, 2016 at 10:31

    “paralellalellalism” – nVidia

    Reply

  3. Stuart

    March 29, 2016 at 11:21

    love WD think that people where to focused on it being next gen to appreciate its good points, but going amd……maybe not the best option they have a hard time developing drivers for their own hardware.. either way im in but just not on amd

    Reply

    • Cat

      March 29, 2016 at 13:28

      DX11 was all about driver optimization but DX12 is not so far driver optimized dependent. it has more to do with the way the cards are designed and run.

      Reply

      • Stuart

        March 29, 2016 at 14:04

        sure thats true, but it will also be a lot more dependand on the combination of hardware you have due to the lower level access

        Reply

      • RustedFaith

        April 5, 2016 at 12:02

        They dont need to optimize drivers any more with dx12, they have direct access to the hardware. That is why AMD is faster currently because they support async compute and nvidia doesnt.

        DX12 relies much more on the actual hardware’s technology than playing around with drivers. AMD/ATI GPU’s was historically more advanced than Nvidia, their drivers was crap and holding them back however. But seeming directx 12 and 11.3 gives you direct access to the hardware now AMD starts to shine.

        Nvidia is in big trouble because none of their cards currently support async compute and they cant fix it with drivers. Thats why nvidia cards gets no performance increase from directx12 even though the 980ti is marketed as fully directx12 compliant but its hardly the case.

        Reply

  4. Kromas untamed

    March 29, 2016 at 12:22

    I already feel as though Snowdrop works better with AMD tech as my Nvidia friends have far more gfx complaints in Division than my Radeon friends.

    Reply

    • Stuart

      March 29, 2016 at 12:48

      not had a single issue on my gtx980 ti

      Reply

      • Kromas untamed

        March 29, 2016 at 12:58

        Just like with every game not everyone will be affected by the same issues. However it seems that more Nvidia issues in snowdrop are a thing based on the support forums.

        Reply

        • Stuart

          March 29, 2016 at 13:58

          can’t seem to find anything that backs what your saying up, there was an issue with a driver on launch but that has been fixed, i would say more likely that it’s people trying to run the game higher that what their pc’s can do

          Reply

          • RustedFaith

            April 5, 2016 at 12:16

            Cant see anything to back it up, I suggest you look at reddit …

            I have a Gigabyte 980ti with 1500mhz core clock and 8000mhz memory and I get frame drops to the high 40’s in certain areas. I am running on the Ultra preset with my 4770k running at 4.5ghz.

            I know 8 other people from our clan that also runs a 980ti and they have exactly the same problems. We will even walk to specific spots on the map and all look in a certain direction and get the exact same frame drops.

            http://www.gamespot.com/articles/nvidias-the-division-pc-graphics-guide-helps-impro/1100-6435481/
            http://gamerant.com/nvida-driver-division-crash/

            Shout if you want more links to back up my the theory …

            Your theory is quite interesting saying ppl are trying to run the game higher than they should, can you please provide proof to this as I ant find anything to back your theory up.

          • Stuart

            April 10, 2016 at 21:38

            Yeah no problem. Nvidia forums…. i could go onto soecifics but as you seem to be a reddit fan ill just say… there would be no point and i dont really have the consentration to read your novella length replys… love your passion.. just dont have the time for it.

            Also noted that your comment history is private so you know….

    • Andy White

      March 29, 2016 at 12:48

      You know people with a Radeon card?

      Reply

      • Kromas untamed

        March 29, 2016 at 12:55

        Plenty. The R9390 seems to be the most popular amongst them

        Reply

  5. Guava_Eater

    March 29, 2016 at 13:10

    I think this is a natural consequence of the Xbone running DX12 and an AMD APU

    Reply

  6. chimera_85

    March 29, 2016 at 14:38

    Weird, DMC for example runs like a mofo on my Nvidia GPU whereas Tomb Raider (not Rise of the) does not, both optimised for AMD

    Reply

  7. chimera_85

    March 29, 2016 at 14:39

    Oh and Watchdogs was a good, fun game and it looked pretty good too imo on my PS4

    Reply

  8. CodeDisQus

    March 29, 2016 at 20:57

    Whether its AMD or Nvidia, I really hope the game is actually good this time, the first one was so underwhelming

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Check Also

God of War Heads to PC Available January 14, 2022

Sony has been making moves in the PC market for a couple of years by re-releasing some of …