It's a fun quirk of PC gaming that, going into a new game, you're never quite sure what will happen. Take Watch Dogs: I've had no issues with it, whereas, if Tom drives fast enough, this can happen. It can be hard to gauge exactly how prevalent a problem can be, but enough are experiencing lag and stuttering issues that Sebastien Viard, the game's graphics technical director, issued a series of tweets explaining the problem and committing to an upcoming performance patch.
Watch Dogs can use 3+ GB of RAM on NG consoles for graphics, your PC GPU needs enough VRAM for ultra options due to the lack of unified mem— Sebastien Viard (@SebViard) May 29, 2014
If you are having problems, Viard suggests reducing those settings that have a more dramatic effect on VRAM usage, including texture quality, anti-aliasing and resolution. It's not an ideal solution, but it should tide you over until a PC patch is deployed.
And finally, our PC progs are also currently working on a patch to improve your experience thanks to your reports, stay tuned :) #WatchDogs— Sebastien Viard (@SebViard) May 29, 2014
Of course, all that advice ignores the perverse excitement that veteran PC gamers may feel on encountering a game that doesn't work on their system. It's been a while since we've had a reason to upgrade our machines, and the call of a new, shiny graphics card is strong. What makes it somewhat disappointing is that, even on Ultra settings, Watch Dogs isn't the graphical tour-de-force you'd hope from the game upsetting your rig.
Thanks, PCGamesN.