Support NeoGAF

[Handy Fake]

It already happened for different reasons - Dark Souls and DP, but there are always ways around this. So most people would be annoyed, but spend extra 5 mins installing work around.

Indeed, so I assume people weren't happy with it...

 

[BlackBuzzard]

Then blame the devs making the games.

Did you not read like any of the previous posts?

 

[KeanuReeves]

"We were quickly bottlenecked by that and it was a bit frustrating, because we thought that this was going to be a tenfold improvement over everything AI-wise, and we realised it was going to be pretty hard. It's not the number of polygons that affect the framerate. We could be running at 100fps if it was just graphics, but because of AI, we're still limited to 30 frames per second."

I call bullshit.
So they chose AI over 60fps with potentially 1080p?

 

[EventHorizon]

See, I don't think it's reasonable to expect that just because something runs at 900p on one console instantly means it can run at 1080p at the other. If you look at the actual quote, not a word was said about resolution anyway.

Umm.. So if it's not about resolution, then why did the difference between 1080p and 900p resolutions make a big enough difference to solve the problem they were having?

There's a huge difference between criticizing art and the technical ability of graphic engines running on two sophisticated pieces of hardware. Anybody with a pair of eyes can have an opinion on Michelangelo's David. When it comes to technical shit I don't know about, I'd rather go with the guy that's actually done the work. Not some guy on a forum.

Or as been pointed out repeatedly, we could go by what that guy actually said as to why there is parity. Instead of making up phantom artistic differences.

"We decided to lock them at the same specs to avoid all the debates and stuff,"

Look, you don't have to be an electrician to know that if you have an 80 watt bulb and a 100 watt bulb both putting out the same amount of light then someone has probably turned down the dimmer switch on the 100 watt bulb.

 

[MeshuggahMan]

You know if this becomes the norm for 3rd parties then Sony 1st parties are going to put them all to shame.

I wish ubi would come clean on everything.. Whether they increased Xbone or restricted ps4. I feel like the truth will come out when the game actually comes out (or at least have a pretty Damn good idea). Too bad we'll never get it from them though.

 

[Poly-Gons]

i can't imagine all the developers and designers spending 3 or 4 years of their life developing a game and at the end their boss say hey sorry guys it's gonna be 900p.

PS4NOPARITY

 

[leadbelly]

Not trying to defend these guys, in fact I'm kinda pissed at this situation but what if he meant the following:

PS4 version can run at 1080p with fluctuating framerate 25-30.

X1 version can run at 900, with the same exact problems.

So maybe they decided to exchange resolution for framerate stability (on the ps4) and at the same time achieve parity on the x1 at the expense of framerate and v-synch. Maybe they figured that res is the only number people care about these days (not gonna lie, I prefer 1080p with some dialed down effects than having them at 900p).

I'm just trying to make sense of this in my head, cause I still can't understand how someone can be so stupid to say what he said yesterday. Talk about a shot in the foot. Either money was involved or they really had some "good" intentions (as they probably tried to chew more than they could handle and decided to "downgrade" for the sake of fps stability) but some very poor wording made them look like idiots.

Hope they come clean on this matter. This game was definitely on my list but it isn't anymore. They need to stop treating us like idiots and stop lying to our faces.

All these maybes. They've yet to clarify the statement, and they probably won't.

 

[soul creator]

what a joke

like, this literally sounds like some random offhand piece of snark by the producer that ended up blowing up in his face, lol

 

[RowdyReverb]

Would you be happy if the PC version of AC:U is locked at 900p with the same graphical effects as its console siblings to "avoid debate"?

Why would that make me happy? I get that PS4 owners are upset by this turn of events, but if they aren't willing to accept developer-mandated graphics settings for their games, regardless of the developer's rationale (more cinematic, better AI, fewer arguments, etc.), then a console might not be the best platform for them.

 

[cheezcake]

Resolution is but a gauge people are using

This is asking about the overall performance of the game. If they had more graphic features on the PS4 they would have said so. It doesn't help that there have been people saying the X1 version runs like horse shit.

The people that only care about the resolution are the ones trying to play devil's advocate.

I'm not so convinced. This smells like it could be that whole Witcher 3 parity nonsense all over again. Better shadow map resolution, AA, AO, texture filtering aren't really special graphical features which tend to be mentioned but nonetheless they can immensely improve how a game looks.

Of course if the games are at full parity then people have every right to be mad at Ubi.

 

[Handy Fake]

Why would that make me happy? I get that PS4 owners are upset by this turn of events, but if they aren't willing to accept developer-mandated graphics settings for their games, regardless of the developer's rationale (more cinematic, better AI, fewer arguments, etc.), then a console might not be the best platform for them.

Oh now no, you're missing the picture here.
For technical reasons - yes.
Aesthetic reasons - yes.
Fewer arguments - ye... wait, what?

 

[mave198]

Just curious. How many people that have posted on this thread are programmers? I ask because a lot of what these posts look like are speculation at best.

It would be one thing if someone who's actually worked on both platforms for a AAA title said, "yeah, we could have run it at 1080P at 60 FPS, but Microsoft paid for my car, blah blah blah". It's quite another when some guy reads something on a blog somewhere and says "YOU GUYS, PS4 VERSION IS GIMPED BECAUSE PS4 SPECS ARE BETTER!"

This would be like me, being a baseball fan, complaining that since my team didn't trade for a right-handed power bat, they didn't get into the playoffs. Never mind the fact that you need to identify whether or not you actually need that player, finding that player, determining his availability, determining what it would take to trade for that player, determining if you can live with the asking price, determining the potential for the player(s) you'd need to trade away, and if he'll sign a long term contract to stay.

I work in IT. What the fuck do I know about running a baseball franchise?

For all we know, Ubi's decision to run the PS4 version at the same rate as the Xbox may allow the PS4 version to look even better because it has the horsepower to run more features of the engine! IMO, this thread looks like one big circlejerk on why Ubisoft, and by extension, Microsoft, are awful entities despite knowing nothing about what goes into running a game development company.

tl;dr: Just because you're a fan of something doesn't make you an expert on the inner workings of a game development company.

Please tell me you're joking........................

 

[leadbelly]

All these maybes. They've yet to clarify the statement, and they probably won't.

I should point out the question is: Did you force parity to avoid debates, yes or no?

Could the PS4 SKU run at a better resolution than 900p?

 

[NickFire]

i can't imagine all the developers and designers spending 3 or 4 years of their life developing a game and at the end their boss say hey sorry guys it's gonna be 900p.

PS4NOPARITY

Probably would be something more like:

'So, we have partners helping advertise this game. And our partners are very concerned about paying to advertise something that may hurt their image in the process. So we need you to do everything you can to make the version on their system the exact same as the other system."

"But, there really is no way to do that. Their system can't run it as well."

"Hmmm. I don't think criticizing the partners is the best way to advance here."

"Well, we could always make their system the lead for design purposes I guess"

"Now that's a great idea. Make them the lead system. They'll love it. Great work Jenkins."

 

[Stone Ocean]

I'm not so convinced. This smells like it could be that whole Witcher 3 parity nonsense all over again. Better shadow map resolution, AA, AO, texture filtering aren't really special graphical features which tend to be mentioned but nonetheless they can immensely improve how a game looks.

Of course if the games are at full parity then people have every right to be mad at Ubi.

Can't wait for the DF Face off on this one.

 

[teckmonkey]

Why not? The percentage difference in number of pixels to be rendered is close to the percentage difference in PS4's shader advantage, not to mention that it has twice the number of ROPS and vastly better memory bandwidth.

Have you developed for both consoles before? Or are you pulling numbers off of the internet?

If it's the former, please enlighten all of us, in your professional opinion, if Ubisoft is throttling performance on the PS4. If it's the latter, I'm sure you're aware that stats can be used to "prove" anything. 86% of people know that.

 

[aindriu80]

I'm one of those people. There is no way I am going to deny myself this game because it is in 900p instead of 1080p.

Hopefully it will be a great game but 1080p is probably not a hardware problem, its a Ubisoft problem. Its a downgrade from the company due to some kind of slip up.

I bought almost all A.C games and Watch Dogs and for me Ubisoft doesn't do it.

 

[Resident_UA]

Was Eurogamer update posted here yet?

UPDATE: Final specs could still change, Ubisoft now says.

Ubisoft has told Eurogamer that Assassin's Creed Unity's final technical specifications for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One are actually still to be locked down.

With around six weeks to go until the game's launch, the developer revealed in a new expanded statement that there was still room for things to change.

"Final specs for Assassin's Creed Unity aren't cemented yet," a Ubisoft spokesperson explained, "but we can say we showed Assassin's Creed Unity at 900p during our hands-on preview event last week. We're confident that gamers will be thrilled with the gorgeous graphics and how Paris is brought to life in Assassin's Creed Unity.

"The development team has been hard at work delivering the best Assassin's Creed possible on next generation consoles. Regardless of which platform you're playing on, Assassin's Creed Unity will answer what an Assassin's Creed game built from the ground up for the next generation of gaming looks like and will be the best looking Assassin's Creed game ever developed."

 

[despire]

Was Eurogamer update posted here yet?

Maybe a dozen times. Doesn't mean anything.

 

[RoboPlato]

i can't imagine all the developers and designers spending 3 or 4 years of their life developing a game and at the end their boss say hey sorry guys it's gonna be 900p.

PS4NOPARITY

I can guarantee that there's not a single tech team in the industry that would be happy about not being able to debut the first next gen installment of a major franchise at 1080p when it's within the realm of possibility.

 

[twobear]

If it's the latter, I'm sure you're aware that stats can be used to "prove" anything. 86% of people know that.

 

[DustyVonEric]

Out of curiosity

How would people feel if the game released and both consoles ran it at 900p/30, but the PS4 used a variety of better graphical effects.

There have been a number of us to bring up this most likely fact, but nobody cares. People only care about resolution at this point. It doesn't matter that the XB1 version could be compromised in visual effects or performance, the resolution and the target framerate are the same, so it's forced parity.

No, people care that Ubi themselves said that they locked specs to "avoid debates and stuff".

If they said said "Hey, we kept it at x so we can add y and extra z," I doubt there would be as big of an issue.

But to outright admit locking specs for political reasons is alarming. You have to understand the difference, right?

And to state that they were always targeting 900p / 30, when Ubi previously stated they were targeting 1080p / 60, shows a lack of respect for their consumers' knowledge or memories. If they couldn't reach that goal, state it. Instead they lied and maybe hoped we forgot they previously told us their higher targets.

It's just a poor showing for Ubi. And an unfortunate time for this to happen during this crowded holiday season, with lots of good games to choose from.

 

[Resident_UA]

Maybe a dozen times. Doesn't mean anything.

Backpedaling a bit

 

[Handy Fake]

Was Eurogamer update posted here yet?

 

[aindriu80]

Was Eurogamer update posted here yet?

I think they were mentioned like 20 pages ago but its a good point, Ubisoft could still produce a patch post launch upgrading the PS4 version to 1080p. If so I will then order AC Unity.

 

[Ken Masters]

I can't get over black flag being 1080p but this being 900p

 

[Hendrick's]

So this is that open world game without a Nemesis system right?

So last gen.

 

[teckmonkey]

"We were quickly bottlenecked by that and it was a bit frustrating, because we thought that this was going to be a tenfold improvement over everything AI-wise, and we realised it was going to be pretty hard. It's not the number of polygons that affect the framerate. We could be running at 100fps if it was just graphics, but because of AI, we're still limited to 30 frames per second."

I call bullshit.
So they chose AI over 60fps with potentially 1080p?

So what I'm reading is that you'd rather stare at the fully rendered cloth curtains from 10 feet away on your couch at 1080P, while the enemy plays grabass around your character. Got it.

 

[jonnyp]

Hahha, oh Ubisoft - fucking morons.

 

[WaLlbaNg]

So what I'm reading is that you'd rather stare at the fully rendered cloth curtains from 10 feet away on your couch at 1080P, while the enemy plays grabass around your character. Got it.

I doubt that the enemy AI in an AC game will ever be impressive

 

[Elios83]

Was Eurogamer update posted here yet?

LOL smells like post launch patch.

 

[RowdyReverb]

Oh now no, you're missing the picture here.
For technical reasons - yes.
Aesthetic reasons - yes.
Fewer arguments - ye... wait, what?

I must not be making myself clear. I'm not saying that these reasons are justified, I'm just giving examples of the reasons developers give for their graphical option decisions on console releases. Regardless of the reason, justifiable or not, console players are resigned to play the game at the settings the developer deems best. This becomes less of an issue for people who play games on PC because they now have control the settings. They don't have to worry helplessly about whether the developer will make the settings to their taste.

 

[Ken Masters]

"We were quickly bottlenecked by that and it was a bit frustrating, because we thought that this was going to be a tenfold improvement over everything AI-wise, and we realised it was going to be pretty hard. It's not the number of polygons that affect the framerate. We could be running at 100fps if it was just graphics, but because of AI, we're still limited to 30 frames per second."

I call bullshit.
So they chose AI over 60fps with potentially 1080p?

Right, it's called bullshit lie

 

[teckmonkey]

I doubt that the enemy AI in an AC game will ever be impressive

So rather than devoting more system resources to possibly help with that, you'd rather stare at the fully rendered cloth curtains from 10 feet away on your couch at 1080P, while the enemy plays grabass around your character. Got it.

 

[NickFire]

I doubt that the enemy AI in an AC game will ever be impressive

The AI is being programmed by a company who decided they could avoid debates by not trying to make the PS4 version the best it could be, and then admitted such.

Yep, I also doubt the AI will be very intelligent.

 

[Impeccable]

So rather than devoting more system resources to possibly help with that, you'd rather stare at the fully rendered cloth curtains from 10 feet away on your couch at 1080P, while the enemy plays grabass around your character. Got it.

You said that already.

 

[TimmiT]

Maybe a dozen times. Doesn't mean anything.

It means that Ubisoft noticed that backlash.

 

[aindriu80]

I doubt that the enemy AI in an AC game will ever be impressive

They mentioned doing something to improve it on Unity but it would need serious work to make it interesting to play. Still I don't know how that would effect the resolution.

 

[Loakum]

Hi guys. Boogie here.

I did a little research on the CPU's in both systems and found a benchmark that pointed towards the cpu for the xb1 actually clocking slower. This the article that I was referencing:

http://www.cinemablend.com/games/PS...x-One-CPU-According-Benchmark-Test-61203.html

In the case that this article was wrong, as many have asserted, I apologize. I'll redact that statement both in the youtube comments, an annotation, and on twitter.

Ultimately this should not devolve into another ps4 vs xb1 debate because of my stupid and simple mistake. Its more important than ever to let Ubisoft know you expect them to create the most important version of a game on whichever platform you choose to play it on. Please do that instead of arguing over this pointless console war, or my ignorant mistake.

Thank you.

Much respect Boogie, for admitting you made a error. The majority of comments are doing the very thing you requested. This isn't about console war stuff, this is about intentionally forcing parity, to "end debate and stuff". Epic Fail for that way of thinking.

 

[Handy Fake]

I must not be making myself clear. I'm not saying that these reasons are justified, I'm just giving examples of the reasons developers give for their graphical option decisions on console releases. Regardless of the reason, justifiable or not, console players are resigned to play the game at the settings the developer deems best. This becomes less of an issue for people who play games on PC because they now have control the settings. They don't have to worry helplessly about whether the developer will make the settings to their taste.

Oh I understood your point, don't get me wrong. I understand that due to the closed-nature of console gaming we're pretty much at the whim of devs.
However for me, gimping a system "to avoid debates" does not come under the acceptable list of reasons for a dev to make a decision about a game.

If you get me.

 

[RowdyReverb]

Oh I understood your point, don't get me wrong. I understand that due to the closed-nature of console gaming we're pretty much at the whim of devs.
However for me, gimping a system "to avoid debates" does not come under the acceptable list of reasons for a dev to make a decision about a game.

If you get me.

I get you. Different, parallel arguments I think.

 

[Handy Fake]

I get you. Different, parallel arguments I think.

Aye.

 

[EventHorizon]

"We were quickly bottlenecked by that and it was a bit frustrating, because we thought that this was going to be a tenfold improvement over everything AI-wise, and we realised it was going to be pretty hard. It's not the number of polygons that affect the framerate. We could be running at 100fps if it was just graphics, but because of AI, we're still limited to 30 frames per second."

I call bullshit.
So they chose AI over 60fps with potentially 1080p?

Actually I would choose AI over 60fps and 1080p, but none of that explains why the XB1 would have the same specs as the PS4. The difference between the hardware doesn't go away as the specs decrease. It just gets shifted down.

 

[RoboPlato]

So what I'm reading is that you'd rather stare at the fully rendered cloth curtains from 10 feet away on your couch at 1080P, while the enemy plays grabass around your character. Got it.

Considering AI is done on the CPU you can get that at 1080p AND have improvements to enemy behavior. Everyone wins. The CPU bottleneck is for going above 30fps.

 

[KeanuReeves]

So what I'm reading is that you'd rather stare at the fully rendered cloth curtains from 10 feet away on your couch at 1080P, while the enemy plays grabass around your character. Got it.

So you are saying these 2 dimensional AI characters that only need plane-level z-axis awareness are somehow cloth curtains? Stop pretending that the AI will be different enough to other games that you agree to sacrifice 600k pixels and 30 extra fps.

It is literally inexcusable.

 

[Mengy]

I'm not sure why people are freaking out over a mere resolution. Ubisoft specifically stated CPU for both PS4 and Xbox One is the major bottleneck for this game. Yet they completely ignore the technical statement and rabble rabble on parity.

This generation of gamers really is embarrassing to be a part of.

I'm not embarrassed, I'm proud that gamers are standing up for what they want. As consumers we have every right to, I'd even go as far as to say we have a duty to.


EA said Simcity couldn't be played offline. Consumers spoke up, and now it is offline.

Microsoft said the Xone couldn't be changed to remove the online DRM. Again consumers spoke up, and it was removed.

Whenver anti-consumer polices are forced upon gamers we have a responsibility to speak out, or else we are just as guilty as the AAA studios mistreating us. There really is no justifiable reason for the PS4 version to be 900p other than Ubisoft didn't feel like making it 1080p. They have even stated as much, saying they kept both versions at 900p to make them equal. So the PS4 consumers will get an inferior product not because the console can't do better, but because the console they DIDN'T buy can't do better.

That's utter horseshit, and consumers should not be okay with it.

Nothing really to be ashamed about IMHO.

 

[Neuromancer]

Very well put, Mengy.

 

[despire]

It means that Ubisoft noticed that backlash.

True. I just meant that what they said doesn't really mean anything.

 

[The Llama]

I'm not embarrassed, I'm proud that gamers are standing up for what they want. As consumers we have every right to, I'd even go as far as to say we have a duty to.


EA said Simcity couldn't be played offline. Consumers spoke up, and now it is offline.

Microsoft said the Xone couldn't be changed to remove the online DRM. Again consumers spoke up, and it was removed.

Whenver anti-consumer polices are forced upon gamers we have a responsibility to speak out, or else we are just as guilty as the AAA studios mistreating us. There really is no justifiable reason for the PS4 version to be 900p other than Ubisoft didn't feel like making it 1080p. They have even stated as much, saying they kept both versions at 900p to make them equal. So the PS4 consumers will get an inferior product not because the console can't do better, but because the console they DIDN'T buy can't do better.

That's utter horseshit, and consumers should not be okay with it.

Nothing really to be ashamed about IMHO.

Amen. Thank god for the internet.

 

[Lockjaw333]

Ιn what sense? That gamers are demanding customer respect and solid products that exploit the potential of their hardware and that they dont want to be treated as fools?

Yeah, that's part of it. There are a multitude of things that make me sad for gaming these days. Its like focus on the actual game itself it so far down on the list.

So much shit flying around constantly. I just want to play good games. I'm not excusing Ubi for this either, because its definitely stupid. I just wish this crap wasn't an issue and we could just play awesome games without resolutiongates, console wars, etc. Got damn...