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Assassin's Creed Syndicate PC Performance Thread

Did they patch the cloth physics for Evie's cape or mention it at all?

There was supposed to be a day one patch but it was postponed for additional work, which bodes well for a cloth physics fix. No ETA yet, however my guess is that it'll arrive next week.
 
This is the game that has finally convinced me my R9 270 GB is past its best, been a great card but 25-45 fps on low with FXAA is the final nail in the coffin.
 
What performance should I expect on my PC?
i7 5820k @4.2
16 gb ddr4
gtx 980 ti

First, my specs:

OS: Windows 10 64-bit
Nvidia Driver: 359.00
Motherboard: ASRock Z87 Extreme4
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA 750W G2
CPU: i7-4770k @4.2GHz (HT Enabled)
Heatsink: Hyper 212 Evo w/2x Noctua NF-F12 Fans
GPU: GIGABYTE GTX 980 Ti G1 Gaming 6GB
RAM: 16GB G.SKILL Sniper DDR3 @1866MHz
SSD (OS): 256GB Samsung 850 Pro
HDD (Games): 1TB Western Digital Caviar Black 7200 RPM

With my rig (which is similar to yours), @1080p with everything maxed (but for AA set to FXAA), I'm getting an average of 50-55 fps. If I disable the PCSS shadows (bringing them down to "High"), and keep AA at FXAA, I can get a locked 60 fps.

With everything maxed @1080p (TXAA or MSAA 4x included), I'm averaging around 40-45 fps (though at nighttime in sparser areas with less NPCs, you can get 60 fps; daytime lighting/more on-screen NPCs is much more performance heavy). It's a surprisingly demanding game, even when compared to Unity with equivalent settings, with the newly introduced "HBAO+" and "PCSS Ultra" shadows appearing to be the main culprits.

EDIT: The official performance guide does a great job of breaking down every setting and it's performance impact: http://www.geforce.com/whats-new/guides/assassins-creed-syndicate-graphics-and-performance-guide
 
There was supposed to be a day one patch but it was postponed for additional work, which bodes well for a cloth physics fix. No ETA yet, however my guess is that it'll arrive next week.

Next week is what I'm hoping for v1.2+whatever PC specific fixes they slot there. Decided to shelve it for now because the cloth thing was starting to get on my nerves.
 
Picked up an Nvidia code for about $20. I have to lower the settings a lot more than I did on Unity just to get the game at 1080P/60 FPS. Looks like with these newer games, I may need to upgrade my graphics card to a 4 GB one.

Is there any way to fix Evie's cloak? It's weird seeing it at half the framerate.

BTW, what's the cheapest 4GB card that will run decently? I have a GTX 960 2 GB. If I get a GTX 960 4GB can I sync them up?
 
Picked up an Nvidia code for about $20. I have to lower the settings a lot more than I did on Unity just to get the game at 1080P/60 FPS. Looks like with these newer games, I may need to upgrade my graphics card to a 4 GB one.

Is there any way to fix Evie's cloak? It's weird seeing it at half the framerate.

BTW, what's the cheapest 4GB card that will run decently? I have a GTX 960 2 GB. If I get a GTX 960 4GB can I sync them up?

You would only be able to use it as a Physx card due to the different amounts of VRAM.
 
The clothing animation doesn't bother me so much but it's definitely noticeable in how not fluid it at 60FPS.

It looks like stop motion animation when compared to the rest of the game in 60 fps, which is mainly why I currently have it capped to 30 fps on my 980 Ti; I only get 40-45 with everything maxed anyway.

It further cements the fact that they were probably aiming for a 30 fps target, even on PC. That said, I'm betting It will more than likely be patched out soon.
 
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/152580

1448844516_1736902485.jpg


1448844516_6418327950.jpg
 
Looks like the patch is coming Dec 1, as per this thread.

No specific mention of the cloth thing, so here's hoping it's included in the generic "animation issues", or possibly PC specific "render issues".

I'm not hopeful to be honest.

PC
· Fixed infinite loading screen in Sequence 7.
· Fixed several geometry explosion and missing geometry issues.
· Fixed various render issues.
· Fixed several online issues.
· Minor UI improvements.

Online

· Fixed an issue where there was no rating for the final mission

Audio

· Fixed an issue where the lip-sync was not synchronized with the cinematics
· Fixed an issue where the subtitles weren't exactly matching the audio
· Fixed some issues with some audio missing or being played incorrectly

Vehicles

· Fixed some collisions issues for carriages and trains
· Fixed some spawning issues with the vehicles

AI/NPC

· Fixed some popping issues
· Improved reactions for the allies
· Improved reactions for NPC on the ground
· Improved reactions for NPC on carts and trains
· Improved navigation for NPC

Game System

· Fixed some issues with the replay system
· Fixed some balancing issues
· Fixed an issue where the gun might be missing in the inventory after acquiring it in the "Whitechapel Conquest" mission
· Fixed an unlocking issue with the Train Raids
· Fixed an issue with the "Artisan" Trophy/Achievement

World/3D/Menu/HUD

· The Time Anomaly icon was increased to have a better visibility on the map
· Fixed some issues with the messages for the mission in the HUD
· Fixed some icon issues
· Fixed some lighting issues
· Fixed some low resolution and corrupted texture issues
· Fixed some level of detail issues
· Fixed issues with props in the world

Fight

· Fixed some issues during fights with NPCs
· Fixed issues with counter attacks
· Fixed some camera issues

Mission

· Fixed an issue in the Fight Club
· Fixed an issue where the player could not enter the Time Anomaly mission
· Fixed some issues with the mission objectives and secondary constraints not updating properly
· Fixed issues with the fast travel
· Fixed some issues where the missions could be blocked after some cinematics
· Fixed some issues with Crawford Starrick in the last mission, "A Night To Remember"

Behavior

· Fixed some issues with the coerce system
· Fixed some issues with the cover system
· Fixed some issues with the parkour and navigation
· Fixed some animation issues
· Fixed some camera issues
· Fixed some issues with the rope launcher
· Fixed an issue where the player could sometimes fall under the map

Stability/Performance

· Improved performance and stability
 
Can't stand looking at these blurry walls, but only have a 2 GB card. Does going past the recommended VRAM use damage the card or just affect performance? I'd rather drop the framerate and have decent looking textures.
 
Can't stand looking at these blurry walls, but only have a 2 GB card. Does going past the recommended VRAM use damage the card or just affect performance? I'd rather drop the framerate and have decent looking textures.

Won't damage your card but performance is absolutely going to be unbearable.
 
I skimmed the thread, but didn't see anything...

Is 3440x1440 resolution just not supported? In 2015? How?

It's werid cause Unity had excellent 21:9 support.

For Syndicate you have to edit the .ini file to get the resolution working and the HUD is positioned as if the game is still in 16:9.
 
Can't stand looking at these blurry walls, but only have a 2 GB card. Does going past the recommended VRAM use damage the card or just affect performance? I'd rather drop the framerate and have decent looking textures.
If you have a 2GB card you'd probably be fine with Medium textures, even though it says that requires 3GB. Someone else with a 2GB card posted in either this thread, the OT, or on a reddit thread (don't remember which, sorry) and they had fine performance on Medium.
 
For those of you with slightly older CPUs, I'm running an i5-2500k @ 4.0ghz, and I found that lowering Environment Quality to Very High from Ultra has been a huge help.

With EQ on Ultra, all of my cores were at 100% when running around London. I also noticed my GTX 970 was only at around 70% usage. Dropped EQ to Very High and my cores have gone down to 85-90%, GPU usage has jumped a bit and I'm able to turn other things up.

Shadows still need to stay on High (PCSS is a killer, let alone PCSS Ultra). However with EQ at Very High I can now enable HBAO+ Ultra and still maintain a 60fps lock @ 1080p. AA is also on FXAA.

Seems like all you really sacrifice by dropping EQ is distant foliage and small details, which I'm fine sacrificing for betteral overall IQ with HBAO+ Ultra enabled.

Now Ubi please, fix the damn cloak physics. Driving me nuts...
 
Was there a PC update? I've played probably 10-15 hours with no issues. Now tonight I've had two hard freezes that I've hard to reset my PC for. Once every hour or so it freezes for a good 20-30 seconds too.
 
Was there a PC update? I've played probably 10-15 hours with no issues. Now tonight I've had two hard freezes that I've hard to reset my PC for. Once every hour or so it freezes for a good 20-30 seconds too.

The Steam version was patched about 20 minutes ago.

Edit:
################################################################################
Ubisoft Entertainment
Assassin's Creed® Syndicate v1.21
################################################################################

Fixed infinite loading screen in Sequence 7.
Fixed geometry explosion and missing geometry on Windows 10.
Fixed geometry explosion on multi-monitor.
Fixed image shaking in Train Hideout with enabled FXAA.
Fixed single-display resolutions in Surround/Eyefinity mode.
Fixed various render issues.
Fixed several online issues.
Minor UI improvements.
 
If i lock frames to 30fps i get input lag on my gamepad (xbox one controller), but not on mouse/keyboard. Reinstalled gamepad drivers already.
Locking to say, 40 fps is fine, no lag on gamepad, only @30fps ... weird.
Only noticed this on AC:Syndicate so far.

Any fix for this ?
 
I'm about 75% done with Black Flag, hoping Syndicate gets a few more patches soon. I'll maybe hold off until it does and break out another backlog title.
 
Dammit I'm so disappointed in this.

AC2 was really a fantastic PC game. Had nVidia Surround support, supported 3D even, ran incredibly well. And now, a few years later, we have this. It saddens me.

Despite its flaws, I still really enjoy the AC games. Guess I have to wait a while for more patches.
 
wahjyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

Is it just cloth though? Or does the whole physics engine update on 30 ticks per second? I can see how the latter may be the case here considering that the game has targetted 30 fps on both consoles. In that case it may not be a simple fix as upping the update to 60 or to actual fps rate may introduce a whole lot of game breaking bugs.
 
This game seems like a bad console port with some nVidia effects thrown in. It's as if the extra time spent was either unnecessary or they just spent it on adding in those effects.
 
This game seems like a bad console port with some nVidia effects thrown in. It's as if the extra time spent was either unnecessary or they just spent it on adding in those effects.

No, Koei Tecmo games on PC are bad console pots. AC Syndicate is ok console port.
 
What resolution?
I have been playing @ 2k
First, my specs:

OS: Windows 10 64-bit
Nvidia Driver: 359.00
Motherboard: ASRock Z87 Extreme4
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA 750W G2
CPU: i7-4770k @4.2GHz (HT Enabled)
Heatsink: Hyper 212 Evo w/2x Noctua NF-F12 Fans
GPU: GIGABYTE GTX 980 Ti G1 Gaming 6GB
RAM: 16GB G.SKILL Sniper DDR3 @1866MHz
SSD (OS): 256GB Samsung 850 Pro
HDD (Games): 1TB Western Digital Caviar Black 7200 RPM

With my rig (which is similar to yours), @1080p with everything maxed (but for AA set to FXAA), I'm getting an average of 50-55 fps. If I disable the PCSS shadows (bringing them down to "High"), and keep AA at FXAA, I can get a locked 60 fps.

With everything maxed @1080p (TXAA or MSAA 4x included), I'm averaging around 40-45 fps (though at nighttime in sparser areas with less NPCs, you can get 60 fps; daytime lighting/more on-screen NPCs is much more performance heavy). It's a surprisingly demanding game, even when compared to Unity with equivalent settings, with the newly introduced "HBAO+" and "PCSS Ultra" shadows appearing to be the main culprits.

EDIT: The official performance guide does a great job of breaking down every setting and it's performance impact: http://www.geforce.com/whats-new/guides/assassins-creed-syndicate-graphics-and-performance-guide

Dam that does not look good your specs are decent I would expect 1080p maxed out with fps above 60... WTF Ubisoft!
 
Is it just cloth though? Or does the whole physics engine update on 30 ticks per second? I can see how the latter may be the case here considering that the game has targetted 30 fps on both consoles. In that case it may not be a simple fix as upping the update to 60 or to actual fps rate may introduce a whole lot of game breaking bugs.

It seems all physics effects. I notice this when doing some of the multi kills. When the body ragdolls, its running at the same 30 fps as the cloth animations. Bizarre as hell, and quite jarring sometimes.

Despite that, still enjoyed the hell out of this, and it ran pretty good for me.
 
Dam that does not look good your specs are decent I would expect 1080p maxed out with fps above 60... WTF Ubisoft!

As Nvidia stated in their guide:
"With everything maxed, including 4xTXAA, the only playable config at 1920x1080 is the GeForce GTX 980 Ti, which hits just 33 frames per second in our intensive benchmark scene."

So my rig is performing as expected. In fact, with the factory OC, I'm getting 8-10 frames more on average than a stock 980 Ti.

The main culprits here are the extremely demanding PCSS Ultra shadows and the MSSA/TXAA 4x. With Environment Quality at Very High, FXAA, HBAO+, and normal PCSS shadows (not ultra), I can achieve 60 fps 95% of the time @1080p. But yeah, @2k, we're looking at the high 40's, low 50's (at most) on average with a single 980 Ti with several settings turned down.

I feel your pain though. Just a few months after the 980 Ti's release, and we're already seeing a game (AC no less) demanding a 30 fps target for max settings. One of the reasons I've been hesitant to upgrade to a 2k display. If I do, I'm definitely getting G-Sync.
 
Is there anyway to get the MSI Afterburner overlay to show during gameplay?
A little late on this, but I investigated this a bit more.

Just switch the OSD coordinate space to Framebuffer from RTSS settings, and everything seems to work fine. On the default coordinate space setting (Viewport), only upper left corner works correctly.
 
Don't expect anything too exciting with that setup. Probably get med-high settings at 900P. Also probably 2x AF and low AA to keep it stable at 30fps

Whaa? He could get way better performance than that.

What performance should I expect on my PC?
i7 5820k @4.2
16 gb ddr4
gtx 980 ti

for 1080p/ Average 60fps

Environment Quality - Very High
Texture - Very High
Shadows - Very High
AO - HBAO+
AA - 2XMSAA+FXAA

These are my settings and i locked the fps to 60 with a tuner.

i7 960
980ti
16 GB ram
Windows 7
 
For anyone interested, the latest patch did nothing to correct the MSAA/TXAA rendering issues when enabled with either PCSS setting (note the jagged white outline around Evie's lower body in the "after" screen):
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/152802

My posts with full details on the issue can be viewed on the official forum here:
http://forums.ubi.com/showthread.php/1333578-Visual-Artifacts-Caused-by-MSAA-TXAA?p=11157000

If anyone else has experienced any of the issues that I laid out in the above thread, it would be appreciated if they share it there to add validity to the issue, and hopefully give a better chance of it being fixed. That said, I won't hold my breath; it is Ubisoft ;p
 
As Nvidia stated in their guide:


So my rig is performing as expected. In fact, with the factory OC, I'm getting 8-10 frames more on average than a stock 980 Ti.

The main culprits here are the extremely demanding PCSS Ultra shadows and the MSSA/TXAA 4x. With Environment Quality at Very High, FXAA, HBAO+, and normal PCSS shadows (not ultra), I can achieve 60 fps 95% of the time @1080p. But yeah, @2k, we're looking at the high 40's, low 50's (at most) on average with a single 980 Ti with several settings turned down.

I feel your pain though. Just a few months after the 980 Ti's release, and we're already seeing a game (AC no less) demanding a 30 fps target for max settings. One of the reasons I've been hesitant to upgrade to a 2k display. If I do, I'm definitely getting G-Sync.

Don't expect anything too exciting with that setup. Probably get med-high settings at 900P. Also probably 2x AF and low AA to keep it stable at 30fps

Whaa? He could get way better performance than that.



for 1080p/ Average 60fps

Environment Quality - Very High
Texture - Very High
Shadows - Very High
AO - HBAO+
AA - 2XMSAA+FXAA

These are my settings and i locked the fps to 60 with a tuner.

i7 960
980ti
16 GB ram
Windows 7

That is pretty disappointing for my rig specs. I don't mind playing at 1080p but every game I tested so far I was able to maxed out at 2k and fps above 60. Considering Ubisoft track record on PC I am not surprised
 
That is pretty disappointing for my rig specs. I don't mind playing at 1080p but every game I tested so far I was able to maxed out at 2k and fps above 60. Considering Ubisoft track record on PC I am not surprised

You are wrong on this one, the game does not perform as it does without legit reasons when all settings are engaged.
PCSS ultra and HBAO+ ultra are meant to tax the strongest hardware available right now.

Blame your inflated expectations.

It's too easy to say X game is unoptimized because your hardware is stressed heavily.

Syndicate is a beautiful PC release aside from that 30fps cloth but it can't be "maxed out" at 60fps on a 980ti.

Syndicate is also far from being an exception in the sense that it can make your 980ti drop below 60fps at 1080p, GTA 5 and Project CARS among others.

Settings exist for a reason after all.
 
You are wrong on this one, the game does not perform as it does without legit reasons when all settings are engaged.
PCSS ultra and HBAO+ ultra are meant to tax the strongest hardware available right now.

Blame your inflated expectations.

It's too easy to say X game is unoptimized because your hardware is stressed heavily.

Syndicate is a beautiful PC release aside from that 30fps cloth but it can't be "maxed out" at 60fps on a 980ti.

Syndicate is also far from being an exception in the sense that it can make your 980ti drop below 60fps at 1080p, GTA 5 and Project CARS among others.

Settings exist for a reason after all.

Good post. The PC will never catch a break.

Game gives extreme and expensive future proof graphical options? UNOPTIMIZED.

Game gives limited and cheap console-level graphical options? LAZY DEVS, LAZY PORT.

This game looks fucking ridiculous on max settings. What did people expect?
 
FX8320 @ 4ghz
8gb ddr3 1600
R9 280x 3gb
VX228 @ 1080p

Playing with

Environment Quality: Very high
Textures: High
Shadows: High
Ambient Occlusion: HBAO+ ULTRA
AA: FXAA

Using reshade to sharpen the image to get rid of the FXAA blur. Found fxaa removes jaggies the best.

Getting around 35fps outside during the day. Drops to 28-30 when im on top of a giant building looking at the entire city. Runs twice as good at night, i guess because there are no shadows really.
 
You are wrong on this one, the game does not perform as it does without legit reasons when all settings are engaged.
PCSS ultra and HBAO+ ultra are meant to tax the strongest hardware available right now.

Blame your inflated expectations.

It's too easy to say X game is unoptimized because your hardware is stressed heavily.

Syndicate is a beautiful PC release aside from that 30fps cloth but it can't be "maxed out" at 60fps on a 980ti.

Syndicate is also far from being an exception in the sense that it can make your 980ti drop below 60fps at 1080p, GTA 5 and Project CARS among others.

Settings exist for a reason after all.

This needs to be put first post in almost every PC gaming thread.
 
That is pretty disappointing for my rig specs. I don't mind playing at 1080p but every game I tested so far I was able to maxed out at 2k and fps above 60. Considering Ubisoft track record on PC I am not surprised

Lol! I was just joking because your PC will easily run Syndicate very well! Just lower the shadows to high.
 
Crazy that this is being called a bad PC port to me. It runs quite well on reasonable hardware for how good it looks.
 
I gave up, picked up the PS4 version on the flash sale.

Sucks. Very disappointing.

Why? I don't see any reason if you have a decent PC not to get this version, it is a good port. Instead you opt for 900p sub 30-FPS console version because of? What is so diappointing about the game ap[art from riddiculous expectations of 4K60FPS? I only see lack of SLI support as a negative and cloth bug, none of which are dealbreakers.

All I see in this thread is people whining of not able to max the game with riddiculous NVidia options enabled at crazy resolutions. Well, I still can't 60 FPS in the damn Black Flag, and if I enable PhysX the whole game stutters in mid 20s. I have 970GTX! NVidia options are not optimised and they always ruin performance. And for people who say it's poorly optimised, I don't think they understand how well this game runs for what it does. The only thing it requires is a videocard with more than 2Gb VRAM which is to be expected.

This game runs great on PC, well above the 30ish on console. Once the cloth bug is fixed, it will be one of the better console ports this gen along with MGS5. (Consider just this year: Batman:AK is a disaster and did people forget about the terrible controls in Witcher 3 for months (and those Hairworks)?)
 
Is it just me, or are the AA solutions in this port especially terrible? 4XMSAA is a total performance killer but it's the only way to get semi-acceptable image quality. I'm usually fine with 2XAA of some type but it looks gross here.

If i lock frames to 30fps i get input lag on my gamepad (xbox one controller), but not on mouse/keyboard. Reinstalled gamepad drivers already.
Locking to say, 40 fps is fine, no lag on gamepad, only @30fps ... weird.
Only noticed this on AC:Syndicate so far.

Any fix for this ?

I had the exact same issue. After the patch yesterday + updating to Crimson drivers, controller response has been completely fixed. Not sure which of those is responsible for fixing it, but all's good now.
 
Wall of stuff

Because the game doesn't support 3440x1440 resolution in a way I find appealing or want to play. I also find the PC port lacking in ways beyond the cloth. It is also hard to play this PC version of an AC game when I remember past AC games running wonderfully on the PC with all the options of the day incorporated. It is disappointing.

So I also bought the game on a platform that it was obviously designed for, and I'll play it there.

Who cares.
 
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