Performance Analysis: Assassin's Creed Unity (Digital Foundry)

godelsmetric said:
I can think of an excuse for it.

200px-Microsoft_logo_and_wordmark.svg.png
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Are you saying that Microsoft pushes and spends more money for code to be optimized by sending out ms employees to assist devs rather than Sony who lets devs only go for brute force instead of optimization?
 
If ubisoft had really 'maximised' both consoles to their limits as they claim, then using the more efficient gpgpu on ps4 would have helped overcome the cpu disadvantage. But then they were going for parity after all...
 
Matt said:
I only edited (within seconds BTW) because I wasn't there on dev team, so I can't really make that judgment. I don't know the situation they were working in, so I can't know for sure if there are "excuses" for this.

So I changed it to "wow," because that's what I said when I saw this.
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Wait, you worked for Ubisoft? :D
 
pixellated_man said:
If ubisoft had really 'maximised' both consoles to their limits as they claim, then using the more efficient gpgpu on ps4 would have helped overcome the cpu disadvantage. But then they were going for parity after all...
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Not to mention the fact that if their claim of being limited by the cpu was the case, they could have used the more powerful GPU to raise the resolution without a noticeable impact. It would have at least looked better while chugging at 20fps.
 
Matt said:
I only edited (within seconds BTW) because I wasn't there on dev team, so I can't really make that judgment. I don't know the situation they were working in, so I can't know for sure if there are "excuses" for this.

So I changed it to "wow," because that's what I said when I saw this.
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Fair enough. Although, releasing a big budget game in this state makes one wonder if the too many cooks in the kitchen approach to AAA game development is worth it after all (apparently there were 10+ teams/subcontracted firms all working on the game simultaneously).

I know the game is trying to be ambitious, but delay it if it is undercooked.
 
I already refunded my PC pre-order. Honestly I was burnt out with Assassins Creed but I feel it's been long enough since I played my last one (AC2) for my interest to rebuild, but it looks like I picked the wrong time to get back into this.
 
Pocky4Th3Win said:
But there are a lot of things you can do, like animation, collision detection and physics. All these tie to their 10K people crowds which would have put a lot less strain on the CPU when in large crowds. From what were seeing it looks like they did all that on the CPU and left the GPU to only draw stuff (which still doesn't explain the lower res than).
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Exactly. Maybe when ubisoft mentioned 'parity' they meant parity as in the amount of effort they would put into each version.
 
Amir0x said:
For the tinfoil hatters, I'm going to start keeping track of the games MS has a marketing deal with that perform better on XBO than PS4. If there's a pattern it should emerge.

I doubt there's anything to it, but it's a simple thing to check. Enough ducks in a row, coincidence stops being a likely answer. But I can't imagine there's anything here.
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It will emerge. Someone will talk sooner or later. Shu needs to stop being Mr nice guy to Microsoft since these dudes were ruthless as fuck towards the Sony camp last gen and pre DRM scandal.
 
Jburton said:
It has fuck all to do with a paltry I over clock, that's just Digital Foundry blindly speculating.



XB1 has had more development time and the PS4 less, all versions suffer from issues, PS4 is the worse of the two and it's lack of development time is a reflection of this.
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I still think that they should OC it if possible, it leaves no room for excuses when games under perform on PS4. Its 9% for the CPU and 6% for the GPU, the hardware definitely could handle it.

Sony has been so slow to do things with the PS4 that I think I'm just fooling myself thinking they'll ever get to do something like this.
 
SparkTR said:
I already refunded my PC pre-order. Honestly I was burnt out with Assassins Creed but I feel it's been long enough since I played my last one (AC2) for my interest to rebuild, but it looks like I picked the wrong time to get back into this.
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If you still feel the need to jump back into the series, Black Flag is an excellent entry.
 
Respawn said:
It will emerge. Someone will talk sooner or later. Shu needs to stop being Mr nice guy to Microsoft since these dudes were ruthless as fuck towards the Sony camp last gen and pre DRM scandal.
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Actually that would be Mr. House. And House already poked a jab at EA if I recall - a subtle one at that. Notwistanding saying to EA fuck you on EA Access. I am sure they would love that PS4 install base - which has been denied.
 
Wow, just an all around technical mess it seems.

The worst part is that it seems there could've been a technically-good game in there if it wasn't either poorly made or poorly thought out/managed.

I enjoyed BF last year, but looks like I was right to stay the hell away from this one.
 
Conduit said:
Xbone's CPU clock advantage is MEANINGLESS!
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Jburton said:
It has fuck all to do with a paltry I over clock, that's just Digital Foundry blindly speculating.



XB1 has had more development time and the PS4 less, all versions suffer from issues, PS4 is the worse of the two and it's lack of development time is a reflection of this.
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Pretty bold claim to say that an overclock from 1.6 GHz to 1.75 GHz has nothing to do with a 5 fps lead in a CPU-bound game.
 
wachie said:
Ok, so he said that the people who are up-in-arms over this are blowing it out of proportion because its "just videogames".
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I don't know if people are blowing it out of proportion.

Its not really up to me to decide whether or not something matters so much to somebody else that they should or shouldn't be upset about it.

All I'm saying is that I cant imagine myself getting so upset over video games and I'm glad I don't.

boeso said:
I don't think many people expect to pay $60 for an unfinished product. That's not how it works with anything else you can also buy in a store. A lot of parents aren't listening to PR companies for other things they buy, because they simply expect them to be fully finished. That what trading standards are for. What I'm trying to prize out of you is the notion that allowing this precedent of releasing an unfinished game and not worry too much about it because 'I'm not affected' hurts everyone: not only you the customer because more of your favourite games will drop in quality, but also rids everyone else of their value for money.

Standards man, set em.
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Since when is the game 'unfinished'? Being a technical mess doesn't mean its unfinished.

Either way, there's lots of things out there that don't work quite as advertised or break easily or whatever. Going around buying products north of $30 with the expectation that everything will always be perfectly great is incredibly naïve.

If we'd had this discussion 20 years ago, I might agree with you, but the resources we have at our fingertips nowadays makes making smart consumer choices *soooo easy*.

And I do have standards. That's why I'm not buying the game. :/
 
sony made the ps4 easier to dev for so devs won't repeat what they did on ps3 era of not being able to maximize hardware.

now devs don't have any excuse but instead they still choose to not maximize the available hardware.
 
It really takes something special to fuck up a game to run worse on similar but better hardware. Nicely done Ubi. Set that bar low enough and people will eventually stop caring.
 
Scanna said:
So there is a version worse than this?
AC Unity frame rate nightmare X1: http://youtu.be/-YdgnxdzE5g
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Omegabalmung9 said:
Yup it happens on the PS4 version also.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIlZZQdKizg

I can recreate the same fps dip every time I'm in the same area.
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I feel like I dodged a bullet today. Almost picked one of these versions up in the B2G1 deal at Target.

Will wait until it's cheap on PC.

UnrealEck said:
Just did a screenshot comparison then noticed DF has their comparison up.
Oh well here's the one I did anyway. Just a few screenshots (middle mouse click the links is best) :
(PS4 screens taken from console screenshot thread)

PS4 Screenshot 1
PC Screenshot 1

PS4 Screenshot 2
PC Screenshot 2

PS4 Screenshot 3
PC Screenshot 3
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why is there no AA or AF on these PC pics?
 
Muppet of a Man said:
The reason is probably pretty simple. Being a CPU-bound unoptimized mess of a game, Ubisoft did the easy thing by not leveraging any of the PS4's extra GPGPU Compute headroom and relying solely on the CPU, especially given that they didn't utilize those extra GPU resources for upping the resolution.

This gives the X1 a minor performance advantage, since their CPU is clocked 150 mhz faster than the PS4's, everything else pretty much being equal.
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Agreed. I think there is no 'conspiracy' as such. Just ubi being ubi.
 
Projectjustice said:
This is what happens when you use Chiclets as CPUs. Thanks Sony and MS!

The PC version is the only version thats a real option!
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Like I said before, how is this on anyone but Ubi? These consoles have been out for a year. If they couldn't handle these crowds, why not cut them back? If they could potentially but need more time in the oven to do it, why not delay the game?
 
The Llama said:
Maybe they weren't actually lying about it being CPU-bound? So weird.
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Again, no one really questioned this. What people questioned was that the CPU bottleneck was the reason the game couldn't run at 1080p.

That said, I think the PS4 would at least benefit a little by freeing one of the cores used by the OS.
 
Well, glad I went with the Xbone version then.

I wanted to make someone happy with the Xbox version so we could play the co-op parts, but it looks like I make myself happy too with the best console version.
Who would have thought....
 
RoboPlato said:
Like I said before, how is this on anyone but Ubi? These consoles have been out for a year. If they couldn't handle these crowds, why not cut them back? If they could potentially but need more time in the oven to do it, why not delay the game?
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Maybe they couldn't afford to delay the game any longer.
 
leadbelly said:
Again, no one really questioned this. What people questioned was that the CPU bottleneck was the reason the game couldn't run at 1080p.

That said, I think the PS4 would at least benefit a little by freeing one of the cores used by the OS.
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No, it would benefit from optimization and GPGPU usage, both things that don't require Sony to bend over backwards for a shit entry in a mostly shit franchise.
 
For the more technically inclined, if MS is sending out their own in-house devs to assist with optimization of code for the xb1, and Sony is not sending out in-house devs to assist devs with code optimization for the ps4, what kind of effect does that when you throw in dev time constraints and the ps4's better hardware?

Is the ps4 powerful enough for a brute force approach similar to a pc to have superior games than its counter part?
 
For the more technically inclined, if MS is sending out their own in-house devs to assist with optimization of code for the xb1, and Sony is not sending out in-house devs to assist devs with code optimization for the ps4, what kind of effect does that have when you throw in dev time constraints and the ps4's better hardware?

Is the ps4 powerful enough for a brute force approach similar to a pc to have superior games than its counter part?
 
Lemondish said:
No, it would benefit from optimization and GPGPU usage, both things that don't require Sony to bend over backwards for a shit entry in a mostly shit franchise.
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I'm not really talking about this game specifically, just in general. The CPU is weak as shit as it is. It may not give a hugely significant advantage but it would surely be better off with an extra core than without it.
 
I seriously sympatize with the guys who worked on this game. It's not easy at all to work for Ubi in these days ...

Anyway, I returned this game to my local BestBuy mainly because some suits' choices that I will never support.

I can stand some framerate problems (well, there are limits of course), but I can't accept some marketing choices.

Also, I'm not sure if some people are just trolling about the cpu "advantages" that the X1 have or are serious ...

Anyway, my worries are about The Division ...

In the meanwhile I'm really hyped for DA:Inquisition !
 
Seanspeed said:
Since when is the game 'unfinished'? Being a technical mess doesn't mean its unfinished.

Either way, there's lots of things out there that don't work quite as advertised or break easily or whatever. Going around buying products north of $30 with the expectation that everything will always be perfectly great is incredibly naïve.

If we'd had this discussion 20 years ago, I might agree with you, but the resources we have at our fingertips nowadays makes making smart consumer choices *soooo easy*.

And I do have standards. That's why I'm not buying the game. :/
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haha I think we'll have to agree to disagree on that one.

But there shouldn't be lots of things that don't work as advertised. People get together and make a stand then changes happen. Why are you not supporting this? Its fucking great.

What I'm saying is IF you cared more about the masses, those who don't educate themselves on the stuff they buy, you'd be better off. This is why compassion is so important in this discussion. I get the impression you've definitely got your own back, which is a shame because if you cared about others more you might be playing this game.
 
RoboPlato said:
Like I said before, how is this on anyone but Ubi? These consoles have been out for a year. If they couldn't handle these crowds, why not cut them back? If they could potentially but need more time in the oven to do it, why not delay the game?
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Because theres a PC platform that will run the game properly. AC games in the past have ran at low 20 FPS which enjoy great sales.
 
Byron Bluth said:
I intend to buy all the games I want this crazy season. I liked what I played and the store will just give me a PS4 or Xbox one version since it's open.
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Successfully got the Xbox One version. I can already notice the cutscenes being more janky but performance I'm the open world and crowds much better.
 
With all the Ubisoft threads we clearly lack of data and facts to understand what happened and who is to blame for the mysterious optimization or the lack of polish. We don't have official responses (which would be probably waffle anyway) and no insiders/devs talking to medias and journalists (they should try to contact devs).
We can make hypothesis (fucked up management and unqualified producers or lead xx, not enough time etc.) but it's hard to really explain what happened. Especially here with the XBO outperfoming the PS4
 
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