Watch Dogs Legion recently released the other day, and whilst it did seem to be pretty demanding even on modern day hardware, Ubisoft issued a statement earlier today that they would be releasing a hotfix patch that promised to increase performance, especially on Nvidia's RTX GPUs.
So we decided to boot the game back up again and download the latest update to see if it really made any difference. Oh, and whilst we're at it, we also downloaded the latest Nvidia driver which is supposed to be optimized for Watch Dogs Legion.
After that, we thought about doing some more benchmarks to compare with our previous results and see if the latest Watch Dogs Legion update and Nvidia driver helped to improve performance. Since our last benchmark article was conducted using the in-game benchmarking tool, we also did the same again here in order to standardize the tests and get the most accurate results.
For these PC benchmark tests for Watch Dogs Legion below, we decided to use the mid-range GTX 1060 and RTX 2080 graphics cards, as the new update promised to increase performance on RTX GPUs specifically. So we chose an RTX and a GTX card to see if their was any significant differences between the two.
Additionally, we benchmarked only on the High and Ultra graphic settings to see if there was a major difference in performance at 1080p. 1440p, and 4K screen resolutions. We've provided both the graphs for the original results and newest results in comparison sliders, so hover your cursor over the graphs to see the difference in FPS.
And with all that said, let's jump straight into the PC performance benchmarks for Watch Dogs Legion after the latest game update and Nvidia driver.
Check your PC can run Watch Dogs Legion system requirements
Watch Dogs Legion PC performance report and graphics card benchmarks
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CLICK ANY IMAGE IN THIS PAGE TO EXPAND THE IMAGE
Watch Dogs Legion RTX 2080 benchmarks and frames per second analysis performed on Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 | Intel i9-9900K | 16GB
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[slide your cursor over the images to compare. Click to enlarge]
Average FPS for Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 in Watch Dogs Legion @ 1080p
| Watch Dogs Legion | High | High (after update) | Ultra | Ultra (after update) |
| Average FPS | 100.9 | 96.7 | 65.5 | 62.7 |
| Min FPS | 72.4 | 72.7 | 47.6 | 49.4 |
| Max FPS | 126.9 | 121.6 | 81.2 | 78.2 |
| 1% Low FPS | 64.9 | 67.9 | 23.2 | 22.4 |
| 0.1% Low FPS | 23.1 | 37.7 | 21.4 | 21.3 |
Average FPS for Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 in Watch Dogs Legion @ 1440p
| Watch Dogs Legion | High | High (after update) | Ultra | Ultra (after update) |
| Average FPS | 73.1 | 71 | 49 | 45.4 |
| Min FPS | 50.3 | 51.2 | 38.2 | 32.7 |
| Max FPS | 86.6 | 85.4 | 55.2 | 53.7 |
| 1% Low FPS | 25.6 | 24.6 | 18.5 | 17.9 |
| 0.1% Low FPS | 21.7 | 19.2 | 13.9 | 9.2 |
Average FPS for Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 in Watch Dogs Legion @ 4K
| Watch Dogs Legion | High | High (after update) | Ultra | Ultra (after update) |
| Average FPS | 42.7 | 42.7 | 25.8 | 25.6 |
| Min FPS | 24.8 | 28.9 | 19.2 | 17.8 |
| Max FPS | 48.8 | 47.7 | 30.7 | 29.9 |
| 1% Low FPS | 18.6 | 18.1 | 14 | 11.4 |
| 0.1% Low FPS | 13 | 14.7 | 10.2 | 8 |
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Watch Dogs Legion GTX 1060 benchmarks and frames per second analysis performed on Nvidia MSI GeForce GTX 1060 | Intel i7-5820K | 16GB
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[slide your cursor over the images to compare. Click to enlarge]
Average FPS for Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 in Watch Dogs Legion @ 1080p
| Watch Dogs Legion | High | High (after update) | Ultra | Ultra (after update) |
| Average FPS | 52.6 | 51.9 | 32.7 | 32.3 |
| Min FPS | 44.1 | 42.4 | 29.1 | 28.6 |
| Max FPS | 60.1 | 59.8 | 36.3 | 35.9 |
| 1% Low FPS | 41.8 | 39.1 | 27.5 | 27.1 |
| 0.1% Low FPS | 38.2 | 18.1 | 26.4 | 25.1 |
Average FPS for Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 in Watch Dogs Legion @ 1440p
| Watch Dogs Legion | High | High (after update) | Ultra | Ultra (after update) |
| Average FPS | 34.4 | 34.2 | 22.4 | 22.1 |
| Min FPS | 25.9 | 28.3 | 19.8 | 19.3 |
| Max FPS | 38.3 | 38 | 24.3 | 24.1 |
| 1% Low FPS | 27 | 28.1 | 19 | 18.8 |
| 0.1% Low FPS | 21.7 | 23.7 | 17.4 | 17 |
Average FPS for Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 in Watch Dogs Legion @ 4K
| Watch Dogs Legion | High | High (after update) | Ultra | Ultra (after update) |
| Average FPS | 18.1 | 17.8 | 11.9 | 11.9 |
| Min FPS | 14.2 | 13.4 | 9.7 | 9.8 |
| Max FPS | 19.8 | 19.6 | 12.9 | 12.9 |
| 1% Low FPS | 13.7 | 13.2 | 9.9 | 9.6 |
| 0.1% Low FPS | 11.6 | 11.5 | 8.7 | 6.2 |
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Conclusion
Did the latest update for Watch Dogs Legion improve performance? - In short, no, unfortunately it looks like the latest update for WD Legion does not actually increase performance at all. In fact, the latest hotfix actually may even decrease performance slightly.
In terms of percentages, the latest Watch Dogs 3 update decreased performance on the RTX 2080 by an average of 2% or 4% for High and Ultra graphics settings respectively. Whilst the GTX 1060 only saw a reduction of 1% in frame rate performance.
Now, whilst you can usually write these fluctuations in results as the benchmarking tool running ever so slightly different situations every time which can result in FPS not matching up exactly the same as previous results. However, here you can see that there is clearly a trend since every result and benchmark taken after the latest update is actually lower than the previous results. Not one result turned out to be better or higher than the original tests.
This leads us to believe that the recent WD Legion update may actually decrease performance. Though it is possible that this could be do with the latest Nvidia driver optimized for Watch Dogs 3.
Either way, if you're planning on playing Watch Dogs: Legion this weekend, it might be best to hold off on the hotfix update by staying offline until a proper patch is able to actually stabilize and increase performance.
Obviously, we would love to hear from you guys and see what you think! And if you've tried the latest update/Nvidia driver then do let us know what kind of results you got. Did your performance improve? Did it go down like ours? Or did it not change at all? Let us know!
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PC Specs
I've noticed a decrease in Cod Warzone and slightly in Horizon New Dawn with the latest driver (albeit on the laptop with 2070 on it). Could be worth checking with the latest Watch Dogs update and the driver v456.
PC Specs
First to say, i didn't play the game as i really don't care about it. But is it only me who doesn't see a performance issue there? I mean as an owner of 2080 it seems pretty expected for me to hit 100ish fps on high and around 60ish or bit more on ultra settings @ 1080p in latest big titles? I don't expect CP77 or any other latest/next gen game to run better.
PC Specs
I had to double check, cause I thought my mind was playing tricks on me when I was the lower FPS on the "AFTER UPDATE" benchmarks.
PC Specs
Oh yeah only Ubisoft can manage to do this. A true technical achievement!
PC Specs
indeed
PC Specs
Remember, kids: Don't buy games at launch. Love yourselves :)
PC Specs
Called it. I knew this would be a crappy-optimized game by crappy Ubisoft. And to boot they didn't even have enough shame to drop their crappy DRM sandwiches they keep bringing to their games. Mediocre game with crappy performance.
PC Specs
It did help performance though. It's just gd people couldn't be bothered to go past benchmark and test real game and drive around city.
PC Specs
Ubisoft...
PC Specs
I can't imagine what will be whit AC:Valhalla,nothing would surprise me if they delayed Valahalla after all,after the fiasco with Watch Dogs...