GTA IV is still considered one of the best looking open-world games on the PC (thanks to all the graphical mods that have been released these past years). Therefore, it’s only natural to expect a comparison between Rockstar’s old title and Ubisoft’s Watch_Dogs. YouTube’s member ‘Eduard Mackarchew’ has created a video comparison between them. As we can see, GTA IV sports some effects that are not available on Watch_Dogs, such as shadows being casted by the headlights of your car. And while the visuals in Watch_Dogs are better (I mean, we’re comparing a game that was released almost 6 years ago with one that is coming out tomorrow), the attention to detail in GTA IV’s world is way beyond what Ubisoft has achieved. Also, while there are individual waves in GTA IV, I personally prefer the water effects in Watch_Dogs. Enjoy the video!
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
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GTA IV was released over 6 years ago (on consoles) and almost 6 on PC,
not 4.
Graphics though, GTA (attention to detail) indeed can
look better, that’s why it had so huge requirements (euphoria, destructible objects, vehicle physics etc)
hmm..even Sleeping Dogs dont have a lot of gta4 features, but looks better and have better fighting and shooting gameplay.
Yup Sleeping Dogs definitely doesnt… lol
Sleeping Dogs…damn what a great game and story
is gta 4 supposed to be a next gen or watch dog? its hilarious and the physics suck in watch dog its like the car doesnt have weight wtf are you driving a toy
im wonder what if rockstar release gta 5 this year what we can call watch dog? last gen game
The gameplay from watch dogs you see in the video, isn’t from the final version of the game. In the final version phisics are much better. And GTA IV graphics suck, while watch dogs really looks great. And for the car phisics, you should take a look at this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWjUh_FdKyM
It’s a shame that you don’t understand the difference.
See what you can do with a car in GTA IV.
I’m not talking about differences, i’m just saying that the car phisics of Watch Dogs are very good.
One thing Watch Dogs has over GTA IV is the way civilians interact with the world. Instead of just walking around I’ve seen things like gardeners trimming hedges, a homeless guy banging on buckets outside a store for money, a guy rapping, people sitting down inside coffee shops on their laptops, etc. Their behavior during car crashes and crimes is also more realistic.
OMG thank you, yes exactly, they actually do stuff lol! I have seen that too LMAO!!
A lot of things here show watchdogs to be better.
The water in watchdogs is amazing and the way the car sinks is much better.
Lol @ PC users having to compare watchdogs to GTA4 though. Even on consoles GTA5 overall looks better.
LOL @ Mr console who doesn’t realise PC owners play consoles too. I got GTA 5 on the xbox and the performance sucked so bad I decided to wait for a decent version that doesn’t run like shit.
Wow I did the same thing, I had GtaV on ps3 and I just couldn’t take how the game performed so i decided to wait until the pc/ps4 version of the game.
Not overall! R* cut a bunch of things of GTA4 to consoles be capable of running it at a decent framesps.
But still a great looking game, but too bad that it still a generic story and gameplay GTA game!
This has gone too far….The game does look like E3 2012 ,you got to tweak that deferredfxquality to pc and have set averything to ultra ,I TOOK this screenshot ,with the same weather in the same place as 2012.
http://i.imgur.com/KQyr0mC.png
in the option or you need to tweak some folder to look like that
I havent tested withouth the tweak but do this:
-Open the game
-Set the graphics to ultra presets
-Set the AO to hbao+
-turn off AA of leave it as fxaa
The preset should be layeled as “custom” now ,save ,exit and:
go to documents
>my games
>Watch_Dogs™
>look for the line
>once you find it read untill you find the “deferredfxquality”
>it will be setted to “console” ,change it to “pc”
It’ll make the color palete more alive and remove that washed out look ,add particle count and slightly improve lighting.
So how does this game handle fxaa? In some games it just makes the edges blurry and looks horrible.
Being a cheap post AA there’s not much you can do. One of the main reasons it’s popular is because devs have full control over it, unlike MSAA and post AA is not done during rendering the image like MSAA.
“it will be setted to “console” ,change it to “pc””
BAHAHAHAHAH proof right there that the game wa downgraded thanks to consoles.
Havent played it yet because I actually bought this game and im waiting for the release day like the rest of the none pirates. Anyway, people where posting before/after shots of that setting set to console and PC on Reddit and there was no difference at all. Placebo effect apparently. Hopefully the retail version will have a patch that increases the graphical fidelity but I doubt it.
Dude….i paid 70$ for the steam deluxe edition (steam id: juanme555) ,i haven’t cancelled my pre-order and i’ll play it day one.
But the pirate version is like a demo for me ,and there is a couple of screenshots that proof you wrong in the placebo effect part…
Dude… its prove*. If you dont mind posting those screenshots, id like to see the difference.
http://www.dsogaming.com/news/watch_dogs-hidden-deferredfxquality-option-improves-significantly-visuals/#comment-1403302656
These arent comparison images. These are just screenshots that are apparently taken with the deferredfxquality setting set to PC. Those images could have the setting set to console and noone would never know the difference.
Until you can show me some screenshots showing before and after with a noticeable difference in graphical fidelity then you havent proven anything.
In fact, ill make it easy for you, since you arent ever going to admit you are wrong: Tell me which one of the following two sreenshots has deferredfxquality set to PC and explain just a couple of the differences between the two that helped you reach that decision:
A) http://oi61.tinypic.com/10qxe9d.jpg
B) http://oi61.tinypic.com/2z9iowm.jpg
A or B?
It’s rather pointless if the pictures aren’t the same but if there is any difference you should still be able to tell. I see some really small differences in details but that could be just the different angle. Could be that the change to ”pc” does absolutely nothing. EDIT: one other guy posted two screenshots in the news article posted just above by juanme555 and there is a difference in the effect. But still basically nothing as a whole.
Looks great, but still it isn’t E3. Fog must thicker, no lens flare, lack of shadows, etc.
Indeed ,anamorphic lens flares ,dinamic fog and reflections are mostly removed ,but the shadows and lighting are the same.
The problem is: they removed completly the postprocess and bokeh dof WHICH btw ,im almost sure they will add in a future with some patches.
wow that does infact look very close to E3.
As for driving and physics,GTA V can’t replicate most of the stuff from IV.
Oh god, not again… Details are important, lazy work makes me sad.
WTF!!!! even a 6 year old game got so many things that so called NextGen games don’t have????
Really disappointing
Just imagine what Rockstar can do if they will use the power of PC platform.
First video – 3:40. Water is even worse than GTA IV. Please tell me more about how it’s better than GTA V.
I can live (or should I say endure) without car damage, clipping issues and other stuff, but when I am playing a game with no effects in the water when I shoot… it’s so annoying for me ;(
Do you like shooting ducks?
So in the end Watch Dogs is slowly revealing itself for what it actually is: a bunch of marketing hot air speak.
The insane system requirements are’t due to amazing and innovate graphical effects but lazy optimization.
While I’m not going to defend watchdogs, these comparison videos are quite absurd if you ask me.
The shadow casting and vehicle deformation are the only valid comparison points imho…
Let’s not forget that GTA IV is one of the worst console ports to ever come to the PC.
And realistic water reaction, and world reactivity.
No wonder GTA IV ran like ass in 6 years old hardware, it has more advanced effects than Watch Dogs, lol.
sad but true, just like crysis.
You know i play old games now and they look ok, they got decent lighting and textures, on the other hand console games have low quality textures and lighting.
Thanks consoles.
gta iv with enb beats watchdogs, now watchdogs with enb???
For everyone who thinks Watch Dogs isn’t that good graphically, take a look at this PC screenshots from the final game.
http://i1.wp.com/gearnuke.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/watch-dogs-pc-night-4.png
http://i0.wp.com/gearnuke.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/watch-dogs-pc-night-2.png
http://i.imgur.com/BK3unTG.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/wQaSoUu.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/CbL7ak4.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/w9ARAii.jpg
http://i1.wp.com/gearnuke.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/watch-dogs-pc-night.png
http://i1.wp.com/gearnuke.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/watch-dogs-pc-night-7.png
http://i.imgur.com/3nZHC6G.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/st4SSw5.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/GbV5a0B.png
i want gta v to come to pc solely to compare it with this so i can figure out wherever this game is on par or we just talking out of our arses here.
In any case it is CLEARLY not a next gen game, i blame old consoles and i am cautious about far cry 4 now.
Whatever ubisoft shows in E3 i wont believe em.
lol remember how physical and reallistic watchdogs looked in e3 2012? like you can interact with everything, now i wonder if division will suffer the same fate.
I mean no offense or hurt the feelings of UBI lovers or people who already waste 50 bucks on this, but this comparison makes looks Watchdogs like a real piece of unfinished junk.