Assassin's Creed Unity - PC Performance thread
- Thread starter MayMay
- Start date
So true. I've been thinking the same thing. People have unreasonable expectation based on the fact that for the past few years even people with mid-range PCs could basically max everything out. Assassin's Creed Unity is one of the first fully new generation games, not a cross-gen game like most of the games we've got so far this generation. Dragon Age Inquisition is also pretty damn demanding. So is Shadow of Mordor for that matter, despite being a cross-gen game.
I think some people are in for a rude awakening when they realize that all the upcoming demanding games are going to have similar requirements to AC Unity.
sobaka770
Banned
DON'T turn FXAA off. Decrease whatever else you want, put shadows on High, remove SSAO or anything, but don't go cheap on AA.
I did this mistake once and the jaggies murdered my eyes. Paris buildings are full of small sculptures, roof tiles etc. which all become a mess at a distance without alias. It's worth a 2 FPS decrease and the occasional blur. Don't fuck with FXAA in this game.
alexandros
Banned
Unreasonable expectations are an issue for both console and PC gaming because some people have problems grasping some very basic concepts. Examples:
1) "I bought a next gen console, it should be able to run everything at 1080p/60fps because of optimized metal Carmack!". No. This time around console hardware is rather weak and depending on how much developers are willing to push it you'll have to deal with lower than full HD resolutions and sub-30 framerates. Also, a midrange gaming PC will outperform both consoles and an entry-level one will match them.
2) "I paid $600 for a graphics card, I should be able to max out every game at 1080p/60fps!". No. The level of graphical quality differs from game to game and the fact that you run one maxed at that res and framerate doesn't mean that you will do so for every game. Also, the further you move up the power scale the bigger the price premium you have to pay for owning the absolute best, the level of performance you'll get doesn't scale linearly with price.
1) "I bought a next gen console, it should be able to run everything at 1080p/60fps because of optimized metal Carmack!". No. This time around console hardware is rather weak and depending on how much developers are willing to push it you'll have to deal with lower than full HD resolutions and sub-30 framerates. Also, a midrange gaming PC will outperform both consoles and an entry-level one will match them.
2) "I paid $600 for a graphics card, I should be able to max out every game at 1080p/60fps!". No. The level of graphical quality differs from game to game and the fact that you run one maxed at that res and framerate doesn't mean that you will do so for every game. Also, the further you move up the power scale the bigger the price premium you have to pay for owning the absolute best, the level of performance you'll get doesn't scale linearly with price.
Big difference Crysis is an FPS Unity is an open world game They both have different objectives
EDIT FPS games are usually about models and textures and particles. Open world games NPCs view distances while trying to keep textures and models as high as possible
luca_29_bg
Member
yeah take a look at the clock....7950 here, and i7 860 3.7 ghz....
i can't believe!
GHG
Gold Member
Did you ever actually play Crysis?
Crysis? Yes. AC:U makes great use of all 8 threads in my short time with the game, making it run and scale much better than ACIII/IV.
Actually, FXAA is "going cheap on AA"
What you are saying is "don't go no AA". Which is always good advice.
Gormenghast
Member
Use of threading and code efficiency are separate things.
Just because code is well threaded doesn't mean it's well written and efficient.
Just because code is well threaded doesn't mean it's well written and efficient.
ISee
Member
alexandros
Banned
Actually, FXAA is "going cheap on AA"
What you are saying is "don't go no AA". Which is always good advice.
Eh, I don't know guys. If my machine can't handle proper AA I often prefer running games without AA at all rather than blur the graphics even a little bit.
Injecting SMAA is usually an option, but I would easily opt for lowering graphics settings than a heavily aliased image.
Depends when they got the game watch dogs/shadow of mordor was released the day of release while alien isolation was like 3 or 4 days after
icecold1983
Member
depends on the symptoms the individual game displays with no AA. bf3 and 4 for example have white speckly dots everywhere so in that case fxaa is the lesser evil. you actually even need some with deferred aa on just to blur over all the white speckles anytime a surface displays some specular.
yeah take a look at the clock....7950 here, and i7 860 3.7 ghz....
i can't believe!
Noob question: how do you display your PCs statistics like in the screenshot you posted?
Use MSI Afterburner.
UnrealEck
Member
I go no AA. The game's FXAA takes a pretty noticeable chunk of performance. I'm even running it at 1820x1024 too.
sobaka770
Banned
I'm not saying that you should always have some AA in all games based on what performance you want out of it, but in AC: Unity specifically, it's quite mandatory.
Obviously you can go SMAA and TXAA for great picture quality but instead of 2 FPS drop you'll have 30-40% performance hog.
luca_29_bg
Member
Exatly!
Specs: i5 4670K @ 4.5, R9 290 @ 1007/1400, 8 GB of ram, playing at 1920x1200 borderless
Okay, so I ran the game this morning and it runs fine out of the cut scenes (40~60 fps). The game uses a VERY heavy DoF effect in the cut scenes that effectively brings my frames to around 30 fps. Like others have mentioned, the visuals of this game are a mixed bag but overall I think it looks great, especially the character models. I wonder how the game will run for me when Ubi patches in tessellation :/.
Edit: Oh yeah, as for the graphics, everything is maxed out except for shadows (high) and environmental quality (second highest setting) with SMAA injected via RadeonPro (thinking of forcing 2x MSAA because SMAA doesn't kill enough of the jaggies).
Okay, so I ran the game this morning and it runs fine out of the cut scenes (40~60 fps). The game uses a VERY heavy DoF effect in the cut scenes that effectively brings my frames to around 30 fps. Like others have mentioned, the visuals of this game are a mixed bag but overall I think it looks great, especially the character models. I wonder how the game will run for me when Ubi patches in tessellation :/.
Edit: Oh yeah, as for the graphics, everything is maxed out except for shadows (high) and environmental quality (second highest setting) with SMAA injected via RadeonPro (thinking of forcing 2x MSAA because SMAA doesn't kill enough of the jaggies).
Thanks!
Dictator93
Member
The 280 series is much better at Tesselation than all other Radeons, so probably alright.
This game is seeming more and more like one that requires Gsync or a 30fps lock.
Thank you.
I find reports of people playing these games on lower end hardware MUCH more useful than those with i7s and 970s etc, no offence to those with higher end kit.
lordfuzzybutt
Member
I've been a red team guy for so long I don't know shits about TXAA, so what is the consensus? Love it? Hate it?
icecold1983
Member
love it, just not in this title. produces much worse results than whatever it is ubisoft is classifying as fxaa. heres a comparison i did
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2t0BsiVu0jpX0dKV011U3lNc1U/view?usp=sharing
outside of this and the crew beta, its the best form of aa ive ever seen.
AHA-Lambda
Member
Got my new pc parts coming on very soon, how well/poorly will Unity run on it? I'm wondering just how bad it is and maybe getting Far Cry 4 instead.
i7 4GHz
GTX 970
16GB Ram
i7 4GHz
GTX 970
16GB Ram
redblack85
Member
I have already raised the frequency @3.30Ghz,i have to push it even further ?
icecold1983
Member
you will be good to go 1080p with the highest settings and in game fxaa.
Once I got Unity running well on my PC, I thought it looked a bit better than Ryse on PC. Plus it's open world and has a lot more stuff on screen at any given time. The more and more areas I saw of Unity the more impressed I became.
? 3.3Ghz is the stock frequency, have you raised it above that?
4Ghz* is the magic number, 2500K's are excellent in overclocking (but not with the stock fans).
And maybe, just maybe, the game might give that 5-10FPS boost.
icecold1983
Member
theres too much shimmer and image instability to put this above ryse. also the lod is extremely noticeable, even worse than bf4, and the shadows have a lot of weirdness.
Yeah I might just go for a 30 fps lock (locking Watch_Dogs at 30 fps allowed me to play it @ 1600p with a mixture of high and ultra settings).
lol, damn.
I wonder if i can keep decent 30 with TXAA and HBAO+, everything else up for grabs.
(970&2500k stock)
No idea how reputable these guys are (I've had a quick skim through and some of the charts had me scratching my head) but it's the only set of benches I've seen so far. I'll just post the link and let you folks have a read rather than cutting stuff out of the article. There's also a overview vid in there going through their testing methodology and a summary of the game.
http://www.gamersnexus.net/game-bench/1692-assassins-creed-unity-gpu-benchmark
http://www.gamersnexus.net/game-bench/1692-assassins-creed-unity-gpu-benchmark
redblack85
Member
oops thanks, i thought u meant ACU ran on two, which would blow my mind
What is so difficult to understand? Me turning down a setting from Ultra to High so I can run at 1080p/60fps is *not* the same thing as you turning down a setting from High to Medium so you can run 762p/30fps or whatever your laptop res is. Now, don't get me wrong, I have *nothing* against people who game on lower end PC hardware, but 1080p/60fps is a far more impressive experience, all else being equal. That is a large part of why people pay for nice PC hardware. But just because I have to turn down a setting here and there doesn't mean that suddenly 1080p/60fps isn't impressive anymore and that its all been a massive waste of money. It will *still* look great and way better than 762p or 900p/30fps.Ok, that is your opinion. Personally, I don't think that justifies it.
No, no I know that. There are many uneccessary settings which are just eating FPS and do nothing to visual quality and that's something I like on PC Gaming, I can turn that lower and get more FPS with the same quality, but the thing is I do that already with my laptop. I know what my hardware can do and what not and thats fascinating and the key reason why I play on PC, but why should I do that on a high end PC build for gaming, why shouldn't a energy eating monster that is way more powerful than my laptop max games at 1080p60? That's something I don't understand.
Im not trolling or anything like some of you are saying (NeoGAF is the last board I would do that, for that I have some different boards!)
My last Gaming PC was one with a 8800GT and a AMD X2 4200+ heh
I realize its a conflict of interest for you and that the more console versions of games sacrifice performance for graphics, the better the potential gains on PC will be if you've got a good PC, but I'm willing to be unselfish here in the name of people finally getting that framerate and playability should be treated as a high priority. That might actually stimulate the popularity for 120hz gaming as well.
And yes, it would mean that games should hit 1080p/60fps easier on PC, as well. Extra GPU power can go into even higher resolutions, extra PC-specific settings, mods or even higher framerates. It would also mean that you could probably spend less if you didn't need all that and just wanted something that will perform solidly, opening up PC gaming to more people.
VR would certainly benefit with more games being designed to run at appropriate levels for VR headsets, too. That's a biggie for me.
Graphics will always get better and better. That will not change. It doesn't mean that games will stop being impressive. Its not as if 60fps for a console game necessarily has to be 'ugly', either, ya know? It would be a mere temporary step back before we get back to where we were and then could move forward again. I would gladly take that step back for all the advantages it would bring.
Dude, buy a bigger heatsink and overclock the shit out of your processor, it's begging for it.
The 2500K is still one of the best out there @ 4.5Ghz, I can't believe it's still so relevant after all these years.
lordfuzzybutt
Member
No kidding, I knew I should have chosen Far Cry 4. But we shall see.
Yeah you've got it clocked at 4.2ghz. But you didn't say that in this thread. When you say 2500k @ 3.3ghz people will think you're running it at factory clock settings.
I've got my 2500k at 4.5ghz with a £25 aftermarket cooler, I love this cpu so much.
Yea, you're overclocked there, running at 4.2Ghz.
You can maybe do a bit better than that, but your performance wont get a whole lot better than what it is now.
redblack85
Member
Personally, I would recommend you download Nvidia Inspector and use the "half refresh rate" vsync option, since this allows you to use "standard" vsync to avoid screen tearing but capped at half your display's refresh rate.
If you don't care about screen tearing you can use the adaptive half refresh rate vsync option in the control panel though.
Those are the only ways I have found to avoid the micro-stutters that I get with any other kind of frame limiter.
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