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

cyberheater said:
I agree. That makes no sense. It should be 1080p on PS4 with a slightly lower framerate then the 900p Xbox One version.

What I really can't understand, given how relatively poor the cpu's are in Xbox One and PS4. Is why the decision to focus the game on so many crowds of people when the programmers would have known that it would have been a poor fit for those consoles. As a developer, you should architect a game with a view to using the strengths of a console. Not it's weaknesses.

Stupid Ubisoft.
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maybe when they targeted for the game cpu were supposed to be clocked higher (like the 2ghz rumor)
 
Azula said:
I bought the X1 version just because I was already on an X1 kick, and I love the controller. But also because I heard there would be no difference between the two. Normally I would get this on PS4. But this is insane. How can the PS4 version be worse, when clearly PS4 is the better technical system. I just don't get it.
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Its Ubisoft, clearly the Xbox One has more ounces of power.
 
LukasTaves said:
That doesn't even make much sense. How exactly can they optimize for xbone and not for Ps4?

They use similar cpus, gpus, etc. The only differences are actually against the xbone where you have to optimize esram usage (but even if you do, that would benefit the Ps4 build to some degree as well).

Unless they purposely made the game run like ass on Ps4 there's so little they could do to optimize to Xbone that wouldn't also be useful for Ps4.



This is a prime example on why the Ps4 isn't more powerful across the board, there are workloads where xbone will outperform it.



If the game is dropping frames it might mean the gpu already doesn't have enough time to render the whole scene.

In the cutscenes, which are largely gpu bound there are some drops on Ps4 as well, so they might not have that many gpu power to spare too.
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Pushed more in the 8 cores parallel cpu work and porting on ps4, for example, could penalize it.
 
A heap of aggressive compromises (none native resolution, dramatic LOD, ridiculous pop in) couldn't bring the frame rate remotely close to a solid 30 fps. Did they not claim that they were targeting 1080p60 at some point a few months ago? No developer on that team could have been that delusional that late in development.
 
Azula said:
I bought the X1 version just because I was already on an X1 kick, and I love the controller. But also because I heard there would be no difference between the two. Normally I would get this on PS4. But this is insane. How can the PS4 version be worse, when clearly PS4 is the better technical system. I just don't get it.
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It's just a hot mess of a game, Azula. It's not even really "better" on Xbox One; the game is ass all around.
 
Dragonborn said:
Well its a good thing I went with X1 then
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That's just adding to the problem. You get the version you always woukd have gotten so I can see why it's easy to accept. But I'd never feel comfortable with a brand who makes two versions and the more powerful version was for whatever reason gimped. I'd have trust issues and worries of incompetence and also question what they'd to do me down the line should things swing the other way.
 
LukasTaves said:
That doesn't even make much sense. How exactly can they optimize for xbone and not for Ps4?

They use similar cpus, gpus, etc. The only differences are actually against the xbone where you have to optimize esram usage (but even if you do, that would benefit the Ps4 build to some degree as well).

Unless they purposely made the game run like ass on Ps4 there's so little they could do to optimize to Xbone that wouldn't also be useful for Ps4.



This is a prime example on why the Ps4 isn't more powerful across the board, there are workloads where xbone will outperform it.
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DX?

Bolded: You what?
 
cyberheater said:
I agree. That makes no sense. It should be 1080p on PS4 with a slightly lower framerate then the 900p Xbox One version.

What I really can't understand, given how relatively poor the cpu's are in Xbox One and PS4. Is why the decision to focus the game on so many crowds of people when the programmers would have known that it would have been a poor fit for those consoles. As a developer, you should architect a game with a view to using the strengths of a console. Not it's weaknesses.

Stupid Ubisoft.
Click to expand...

Any reasonable developer would not start working on a major feature like massive crowds before knowing it was feasible on their own volition. This is most definitely a hard requirement from the product management.

On that note, a reasonable manager would realize that this particular feature wasn't going to work out and allow development to scale back rather than throwing more bodies at a selling point that means very little to people.
 
This is the first time I've ever watched one of these DF framrate videos and opened my mouth in shock while saying "Oh my God".

Ubisoft are a fucking joke. How the hell did they think that it would be ok to ship a game that runs in the 20's so often? Like, surely someone noticed how bad that looked and felt to play? Do they even CARE anymore?

Clearly not...
 
KKRT00 said:
Off-loading to GPGPU is not an easy task, especially if You wrote Your code for CPUs already.
Its a solution, but its not easy solution.
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It's not a difficult task either, a small team of engineers could have had it done while they were developing the engine for the years the game was in development. Many exclusive games did that during the PS3 era to make engines that would take advantage of the SPUs of the cell, once its done you use similar code for all games going forward. It's not like its a one and done job that is never used ever again.
 
Wow, did I just see 18fps on the PS4 in that video? And its not even 1080p... Geesh. It also looks like a major downgrade from E3. No wonder Jade Raymond left.
 
Eww. Watching that entire youtube video pretty much cemented my decision to return the game. It drops below 20fps at times! Yeah. No thank you.
 
SwiftDeath said:
Really seems like a technical mess all around. I'm not sure why they would push for such high crowds and AI assuming that's what's causing the issues. Just turn it down. Solid performance comes before everything else
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Not really. Creative vision comes before anything else in a lot of entertainment endeavors.
It's the same post I made awhile back about Ice Climbers not making Wii U version of Smash because Sakurai's design document/vision for the game called for character parity.

The tech side of developments builds as closely to vision of the designers as possible.
That vision doesn't always get compromised... it's the engineers jobs to make it work, and the producers jobs to make it work on time.

Clearly this is a case where the creative team sold an idea to management that was ubiersally accepted interally as the right vision for the game. And bringing the brutality and crowded, teeming masses of the French Revolution was part of it. The producers probably sold it up as attainable and on budget. The engineers busted their ass off to make it happen, but either the hardware itself failed them (i.e. even as Vincent says, they were originally planning for stronger processes or whatever for their AI) or they didn't have enough time to optimize (the game was delayed 2 weeks if you recall, perhaps that wasn't enough).

But anyway, seems like a case where creative vision comes first, and that's not entirely abnormal. After all, that's what most people buy into.
 
And yet some reviews don't even mention the technical issues. (IGN)

Absolutely ridiculous, both versions.
 
LukasTaves said:
That doesn't even make much sense. How exactly can they optimize for xbone and not for Ps4?

They use similar cpus, gpus, etc. The only differences are actually against the xbone where you have to optimize esram usage (but even if you do, that would benefit the Ps4 build to some degree as well).

Unless they purposely made the game run like ass on Ps4 there's so little they could do to optimize to Xbone that wouldn't also be useful for Ps4.



This is a prime example on why the Ps4 isn't more powerful across the board, there are workloads where xbone will outperform it.



If the game is dropping frames it might mean the gpu already doesn't have enough time to render the whole scene.

In the cutscenes, which are largely gpu bound there are some drops on Ps4 as well, so they might not have that many gpu power to spare too.
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lol, I hope for your sake you work for MS.
 
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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In theory whatever platform is the lead should have the better performance, especially if the other versions have been farmed out on the cheap.
 
GSG Flash said:
That's really disgusting, I hope no one touches the PS4 version with a 10 foot pole. Totally unacceptable on Ubi's part.
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Nobody should touch either version XB1 is pretty shitty too - certainly below a decent threshold for a game with this budget.

The game needs to take a serious sales hit for the betterment of the industry long term.
 
LOL!!

Wait, wait, wait...

Where are those "You people are over-reacting. Parity doesn't necessarily mean just resolution, guys. I fully expect the PS4 version to out-perform the XB1" people now? ;)

C'mon, Man!!

Edit

Here's one.

Yoday said:
Exactly. Everyone is freaking the hell out over complete parity when the only information we have is on resolution and target framerate. There are a hell of a lot more effects that go into making a game look good than just resolution. Even with Watchdogs there were graphical differences apart from resolution. We have no idea what graphical settings were lowered, or how performance was effected by getting unity to 900p on the XB1. Everyone is looking at this issue backwards. It shouldn't be about what the PS4 version isn't getting by being at 900p, it should be about what the XB1 version is losing by being at 900p.

How does reaching resolution parity bring it up to PS4's level? This is my entire point, we have no idea what is going on beyond resolution. There is no way in hell they got the XB1 version to 900p without making sacrifices to performance, graphical settings, or both. The recent preview from Videogamer where they got hands on with the XB1 900p build talks about how poorly the game was running with dips into the low twenties. That alone is a clear sign that sacrifices were made to reach that resolution, and further sacrifices may need to be made in order to smooth out the framerate. Even if all other things are equal, is it still parity if the two version are at 900p, but one of them performs significantly worse than the other?
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Weaker, supposedly harder to develop for system with the co-marketing deal performs better? Hmmmm. Well, you're right about one thing. It ain't Parity. :D
 
I hope Ubi releases a patch to remove 10% of the PS4 crowds. Get dat framerate parity in play, so we can get back to talking about how un-fun Ubi collect-o-thons are.
 
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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Do you have any info on they not using the GPU for non graphical tasks? If I recall, that cloth slides showed just that, that they were using the gpu for compute.

Also, the performance advantage xbone has ingame is bigger than the clock delta, curiously, one of the biggest gap is when the smoke bomb is used, where PS4 hits a 18fps low, so it's not entirely the cpu either.
 
Boy, I remember when Ubisoft mentioned the whole parity to avoid argument thing. Great thread. Lots of people pointing out PS4 being held back because of exclusive marketing deal with Microsoft (most favored nation and such). Not to be that guy, and even Digital Foundry seems to hint at it, but is that not the case here? Because of the exclusivity stuff, Ubisoft seemed to have only focused on the Xbox One version (and even then couldnt deliver something of quality). Ah well, bargain bin GOTY it is...
 
Fucking knew my eyes were not deceiving me....A few hours with both versions and the bone seemed to run better

The ps4 appeared sharper in areas by my eye but it has some horrendous bugs

The opening level where you chase the blacksmith through the house he got stuck in a wall and his brother was flying around the air like a witch....on my first play.....ass creed 3 at least let me get past the first level before the bugs came out
 
InsaneZero said:
Any reasonable developer would not start working on a major feature like massive crowds before knowing it was feasible on their own volition. This is most definitely a hard requirement from the product management.
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Yep. I agree with that.

InsaneZero said:
On that note, a reasonable manager would realize that this particular feature wasn't going to work out and allow development to scale back rather than throwing more bodies at a selling point that means very little to people.
Click to expand...
And I agree with that as well. Stupid Ubisoft.
 
Beysus said:
Ps3's CPU is better than Ps4's?
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Nothing new or special. Ubisoft utilised entire Cell power, with all SPEs, which were normally used by devs to offload tasks from RSX.
If they programmed Cell in a normal, CPU-way (so to speak), they would achieve 1/3 performance of X360 CPU.
 
Like a lot of you guys I have PS4,Xbox one & PC, was really worried when I ordered it on PC due to high system specs but if this is what the console version turned out like then thank god I didn't pay the fifty quid console price tag.

All very sad.
 
TEH-CJ said:
Damn. The PS4 has a really crap CPU. Its slower than PS3 and xbox one?

surely the PS4 has other advantages other than a better GPU?

wonder why Cerny went with a slow CPU for PS4...
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It has huma tech and 8 aces. Cpu difference with xbone are ridiculous in comparison to the other advantages.
 
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