How about that… Ubisoft seems to have crippled Watch Dogs’ PC graphics – and there’s a way to fix that

I love a good scandal when I see it. Plus Ubisoft can’t catch a break lately. It seems that there’s a mod around that enables better graphics for Watch Dogs on PC, and – get this – faster performance!

A user over at the Guru3D forums has found a way to unpack the game files, and by digging around he has discovered that the PC version has been deliberately crippled. That’s the reason people were complaining that the final build’s graphics were not as beautiful as the E3 demo last year that floored everyone. All the mod does, is enable settings and files that are already in the game, no alterations, no nothing! Here’s the full release notes:

This is my modification for Watch Dogs.

First I’m going to tell you how I started.

-I’m a very obsessed person, with many things mainly graphics . Also i’m a fan of using sweetfx on every game I can use it. I like to make my own presets always.
After release and this stupid stuttering problems I started searching for fixes etc.
Then I saw many threads talking about the engine when I realized it was based on dunia 2 so I tried to unpack the files which obviously not worked.. so after searching so much for the unpacker I found it, started playing with it and after a long time of testing I ended up getting the E3 Bloom from 2012 working.
After studying how bin hex worked and downloading many tools to convert files etc, I was able to integrate and enable many effects. I told myself to keep trying and trying and that is what I have done.

This is the result of my obsession and my try to be like the greatest (iCEnhancer, MalDo, etc) those guys are genius, and I’ll always say the same thing: I’m just a novice.

Enough of history

Included in this mod(not all features are available yet):

-Changes to the default fog values
-Enabled bokeh DOF for the main cameras
-Stuttering Improvements
-E3 2012 Bloom
-Performance Improvements
-Enabled Headlight Shadows
-LoD Changes
-Reflection changes
-Added 3 new cameras to the game(closer, normal, further)
-Rain changes(High quality rain drops, properly reacting to light, etc)
-LensFlares(WIP)
-Lighting changes(TESTING AND WIP)
-Civilians density changes

And many more things.. SOON.

You can download the latest version of the mod (0.7 at the time of writing) here. You can check out the screenshots of the game after the mod; they look fantastic indeed.

Source: Guru3D Forums