Assassin's Creed Unity Performance Video Card Review @ [H]

FrgMstr

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Assassin's Creed Unity Performance Video Card Review - Assassin's Creed Unity is out, wrapped in a tortilla of bugs and garnished with graphical glitches, the fourth patch to this game has been released with some new beta drivers. We will look at performance and find out what it takes to enjoy this game on the PC. A cold beer, or two, will certainly help.
 
If this could run on my little brother's computer at 1,024x600 (i5-750, 1GB Radeon 7770) at >20fps I would be surprised.
 
Great review! I have buddies with the XB1 and PS4 versions who are also talking about the problems with this game. I was itching and hoping to see that big red Fail stamp at the end.

I find it seriously troubling that a game this bad can be released.
 
I think there won't be any more patches. There's really nothing more they can do. If a patch as big as the last can't fully fix the crappy performance then my god... And besides, they got more important things to worry about right now: getting Assassin Creed: Victory mvp-ready for a Q4 '15 release.
 
This massive drop just makes TXAA unusable. It's nice having the feature, but if you can't use it cause of performance, what's the point? This is why a 2X TXAA option would help.

Why have 2xTXAA if it performs worse than FXAA and looks about the same?

.
 
After really enjoying Black Flag, I had hopes that the next AC would be good. I may just pass on this entirely, or wait until it's $5 on a Steam sale.

I wonder how my 2 680s in SLI would work at 1600p?
 
is the problem ubisoft or nvidias gameworks?

how can tessellation not be working? its plug and play, part of gameworks.
 
They already announced their new game, so I don't expect many more patches for this title. Also everyone that elected for the free game signed away their rights to a refund or sue. I bet everyone that got burned by this one will buy Ass Creed:Victory and complain. I don't even blame UBISOFT as they are releasing games that their consumers expect from them. If the consumers didn't want their software in this state then they would refrain from buying it.
 
They already announced their new game, so I don't expect many more patches for this title. Also everyone that elected for the free game signed away their rights to a refund or sue. I bet everyone that got burned by this one will buy Ass Creed:Victory and complain. I don't even blame UBISOFT as they are releasing games that their consumers expect from them. If the consumers didn't want their software in this state then they would refrain from buying it.

Bingo! That is why I buy day one releases only from a select few developers that have earned my trust.
 
One request, when a game isn't playable at 1440 with a 980/290x could you include benches at 1080 with those 2 cards? The conclusion says it's more playable at 1080 with these cards but how much? Is it barely scraping by at 40 FPS or is it a more acceptable 50'ish? Not everybody with a 290x in 980 game at 1440. ;)
 
is the problem ubisoft or nvidias gameworks?

how can tessellation not be working? its plug and play, part of gameworks.

Well the developers can't see the GameWorks code as it is obfuscated by encryption. So Nvidia is in full control of the implementation as it is basically Plug n Play like you said. Since the other Plug and Play aspects of GameWorks in this title are broken, I assume that it's an Nvidia thing. I bet a 980 would experience another 54% drop in performance if you enable tessellation like it does with TXAA.
 
Ubisoft leads the industry in botched PC games publisig

Typo. I can feel the anguish when this part was written, probably loud clacking of keystrokes and tears rolling down cheeks lol.
 
any game this year that has Nvidia Gameworks seems to have major performance issues- Far Cry 4, AC: Unity, Lords of the Fallen etc...the sad part is that Unity can look gorgeous and is a contender for best looking game...hopefully they will fix the performance issues soon and add tessellation
 
Well the developers can't see the GameWorks code as it is obfuscated by encryption.

At this point, it serves ubi$oft right to get the criticism with them accepting going in "blind" with gameworks code they can't see. And even if they DO see issues in QA, they can't fix it themselves!

Should also serve as an example to other developers of the inherit problems with blind code, no matter how big the money that may come with it.
 
How many flops can a company release before collapsing? Or maybe is it a fail of the gaming community, us, who supports these companies, whatever they release?
 
I consider the R9 270X to be lower high end, I mean it is considered a R9 and not R7 but what you consider mainstream is a 280X? Mainstream is the R7 cards. I know the 270X is not super fast but I still think it should be part of these tests.
 
How many flops can a company release before collapsing? Or maybe is it a fail of the gaming community, us, who supports these companies, whatever they release?

between the money they got for using gameworks, bundling the games with nvidia card and sells, i think they are doing fine.
 
Typo. I can feel the anguish when this part was written, probably loud clacking of keystrokes and tears rolling down cheeks lol.

LOL. Typos happen. What is hilarious is that this game is so frustratingly bad that the reviewers are having a hard time typing the words to describe how bad it is. I'm impressed they didn't type "HULK SMASH KEYBOARD CUZ FUCK UBISOFT!" :p
 
How many flops can a company release before collapsing? Or maybe is it a fail of the gaming community, us, who supports these companies, whatever they release?

Ya, they can afford a lot of flops, cuz idiots still pre-order and buy them, even when reviews like this come out.
 
I consider the R9 270X to be lower high end, I mean it is considered a R9 and not R7 but what you consider mainstream is a 280X? Mainstream is the R7 cards. I know the 270X is not super fast but I still think it should be part of these tests.

the 270x, is now a low end card, 280x/285/290 would be mainstream, 290x enthusiast.

the 270x is what, $100 now?
 
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LOL. Typos happen. What is hilarious is that this game is so frustratingly bad that the reviewers are having a hard time typing the words to describe how bad it is. I'm impressed they didn't type "HULK SMASH KEYBOARD CUZ FUCK UBISOFT!" :p

LMAO Now I got that visual stuck in my head. Thanks.
 
Great Review. :D

I passed on Watch Dogs due to the bad reviews, I should have trusted my gut and stayed away from this game.

Thankfully AMEX charged back Ubi$hit and I sent their crap to the Recycle Bin.

No more games from Ubi$hit for me.
 
The shame about this debacle is if Ubisoft could get the game optimized, remove the (what I assume was forced on devs by the suits) constant pokes at micro purchases, and clean up the controls a bit, this would be one helluva title. When it runs well and I'm not getting poked to buy add-ons, it's a great game -- unfortunately this is rare.

Currently, it stands as a prime example of what happens when a game is over-monetized and rushed out the door.
 
Not really a PC gamer any more, except for Diablo 3 from time to time. I do however play a lot on consoles and this is the first time since the series started that I have not got it yet. I almost pre ordered it but held off due to the whole mess with Watch Dogs. Really glad I did and while I want to play it on my XBOne I will wait till it is bargain bin price to buy it!
 
Ubisoft and Gameworks seem to always be the perfect combination for unoptimized garbage.

Yeah when I see "gameworks" I assume a game that's gonna be hard to optimize properly under that black box, a recipe for disaster. 9 times out of 10 that seems to be the case so far.
 
Why have 2xTXAA if it performs worse than FXAA and looks about the same?

.

I think the current implementation is 4X TXAA, so 2X TXAA would at least perform better, not having the option doesn't make a lot of sense, TXAA is very flexible.

is the problem ubisoft or nvidias gameworks?

how can tessellation not be working? its plug and play, part of gameworks.

The developers have to put it in there, and I suspect the game was launched before it was ready. They wanted to capitalize on money, rather than wait and get all the features in there. I put this squarely on Ubi.

One request, when a game isn't playable at 1440 with a 980/290x could you include benches at 1080 with those 2 cards? The conclusion says it's more playable at 1080 with these cards but how much? Is it barely scraping by at 40 FPS or is it a more acceptable 50'ish? Not everybody with a 290x in 980 game at 1440. ;)

Noted, thanks

I consider the R9 270X to be lower high end, I mean it is considered a R9 and not R7 but what you consider mainstream is a 280X? Mainstream is the R7 cards. I know the 270X is not super fast but I still think it should be part of these tests.

Due to the price of 280X around $250 right now
 
Jeebus... :eek: I've read various posts here and there about performance issues yet I didn't know it was so widely spread.

My nephew wants Unity yet after reading the review there is no way in hell I'm going to spend hard earned money on this piece of garbage. Thanks for the review, [H]. Greatly appreciated.
 
So it is playable at Maxwell SLI's, but 290x's gets totally shafted...

As much as I like to see my rig being able to handle this, I prefer to have this done without the expense of the red team, this is a totally botched program, let alone game... if this is nVidia's doing (I really hope not), I'd feel pretty embarrassed...
 
Well the developers can't see the GameWorks code as it is obfuscated by encryption. So Nvidia is in full control of the implementation as it is basically Plug n Play like you said. Since the other Plug and Play aspects of GameWorks in this title are broken, I assume that it's an Nvidia thing. I bet a 980 would experience another 54% drop in performance if you enable tessellation like it does with TXAA.
Developers CAN see the GameWorks code, but it requires additional money and licensing as far as I am aware. Whether or not Ubisoft ponied up for that or if NVIDIA provided it, I don't know. I can't imagine that NVIDIA is thrilled to have their premier sponsored games run so poorly - even on their own hardware - so hopefully if there is anything they can do to improve the situation, they do so.
 
Game is smooth @ 1080p Nvidia Beta drivers with a single 970, All maxed, Fxaa.
 
After really enjoying Black Flag, I had hopes that the next AC would be good. I may just pass on this entirely, or wait until it's $5 on a Steam sale.

I wonder how my 2 680s in SLI would work at 1600p?

I'd completely forget about that. The new patch added some SLI issues (there's a workaround to get around them, but...)

Anyway, you'd be playing on low @ 1080p, let alone 1600p.
 
Wow. Thank you for your hard work here. I've seen AC widely panned but you set it out nicely in text and charts.

Can you please elaborate on one thing? In your conclusion, you write:

Turning down the environment quality to "Medium" can help with performance a lot on any GPU. However, turning that option down does cause the image quality to lessen quite dramatically. Dropping resolution is probably your best bet to maintain higher settings.

Granted this article was about performance not quality, but does not the converse hold true? Can you not maintain visual quality by moving to a higher resolution on a higher DPI monitor (e.g. the 24" and 28" 4K monitors) and dropping settings? You might compare the visual quality of a 28" 4K monitor vs a 27" 1440p monitor and compare a 24" 4K monitor with a 24" 1080p monitor.
 
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I consider the R9 270X to be lower high end, I mean it is considered a R9 and not R7 but what you consider mainstream is a 280X? Mainstream is the R7 cards. I know the 270X is not super fast but I still think it should be part of these tests.

280X is mainstream at today's prices. R7 is low end.
 
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