Assassin's Creed Valhalla

Just read on Tweak Town 4k and 60fps isnt possible on a 3090 RTX if you can afford both 3090 and this game at full price.

If it's like the other ones, you can probably lower 1-2 settings and get a 30% performance boost. With Odyssey the damn clouds (+ cloud shadows) were the culprit and you'd never notice them unless someone pointed it out. Still, it's not the only game like that. RDR2 with high 16x MSAA can bring a 3909 to its knees. Whether it needs MSAA at 4K is a different story, but it definitely can't handle it if you try.
 
I went to Uplay to look at the pre-order packages and noticed that the Gold edition (Base game + DLC) is $100 and the Ultimate edition (Base game + DLC + cosmetics) is $120. Then I noticed that apparently you get the Ultimate edition and can play it 3 days early if you sub to their subscription service for $15/m. I think I'll just sub right before the game drops and save a ton of money for the month or two that I play it.
Jesus, wtf? How much bullshit can ubi fit into one launch.
 
Just read on Tweak Town 4k and 60fps isnt possible on a 3090 RTX if you can afford both 3090 and this game at full price.

Yeah I saw that too. Yikes. Kind of a bummer. I almost pulled the trigger on overpaying for one too to max this game out, but if it's not even going to perform that well eff it.
 
Jesus, wtf? How much bullshit can ubi fit into one launch.

Yeah wow, knowing that I just went ahead and subbed. I'll be done with everything within 60 days and that's a lot less than $120.
 
Yeah wow, knowing that I just went ahead and subbed. I'll be done with everything within 60 days and that's a lot less than $120.
So you can play the game for 15? Is it like M$ where you sub and get all the games?
 
So you can play the game for 15? Is it like M$ where you sub and get all the games?
Yes. Worth it in the short run. If they were smart they'd keep a steady stream of DLC coming to keep people subbed but as it's usually months between DLC drops you'll be able to safely unsub and resub later if you want to play them and still never end up paying $120.
 
Yes. Worth it in the short run. If they were smart they'd keep a steady stream of DLC coming to keep people subbed but as it's usually months between DLC drops you'll be able to safely unsub and resub later if you want to play them and still never end up paying $120.
Ok cool, thanks for the info!
 
Just read on Tweak Town 4k and 60fps isnt possible on a 3090 RTX if you can afford both 3090 and this game at full price.

I can't imagine this is very accurate. I just ran a benchmark at 4K with all settings on Ultra aside from antialiasing set to low (off) and these are the results (running 3080). This even includes volumetric clouds on Ultra which was the performance killer in Odyssey.

We haven't even received a game ready driver from nVidia yet so this should only improve along with game optimization patches.

Assassin's Creed Valhalla Screenshot 2020.11.10 - 09.13.08.45.png


Assassin's Creed Valhalla Screenshot 2020.11.10 - 09.13.12.86.png
 
Ok so a couple of things to note here. First run of the benchmark from a cold boot is a horrible hitching, stuttery mess. But the second run is much much smoother and consistent. I would say the performance of the game ready driver is about on par with the previous drivers. I'd hazard a guess the game ready drivers are more focused on fixing the reported lighting issues of the previous driver.

The 18 min FPS of the 457.09 driver was due to me taking a screenshot so would probably be similar to the 457.30 drivers in reality. Not sure why the guy with the 3090 is having such terrible performance comparatively.

Just to reiterate, the benchmarks below are with everything on Ultra settings aside from antialiasing set to low (off). For gameplay, I will probably take volumetric clouds and shadows down a notch just to get more consistent above 60fps performance.

457.09 Drivers

Assassin's Creed Valhalla Screenshot 2020.11.10 - 09.13.21.72.png


457.30 Drivers (Game Ready)

Assassin's Creed Valhalla Screenshot 2020.11.10 - 10.02.46.07.png
 
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Went ahead and signed up for Ubisoft+ and started the download. I'm surprised that it's only 45GB; that's like 1/2 the storage space of Origins and 1/3 of Odyssey. And my god does Uplay suck. I've never had a problem with it before but with the latest update it just randomly becomes unresponsive and always shows that I have Ghost Recon Wildlands and Star Trek Bridge Commander installed even though they're not.
 
Went ahead and signed up for Ubisoft+ and started the download. I'm surprised that it's only 45GB; that's like 1/2 the storage space of Origins and 1/3 of Odyssey.
lol thats just the initial setup i bet...
 
How can you already download it? It's still locked for me.
 
Are you using the subscription service? It looks like pre-load might only be available through it.
Yes, I just signed up for ubisoft+, thought it was worth it even for €15 = $19 for Watchdogs legion and this game. I'll probably cancel it after being done with them. It looks like EU getting the short stick again as usual.
 
Yes, I just signed up for ubisoft+, thought it was worth it even for €15 = $19 for Watchdogs legion and this game. I'll probably cancel it after being done with them. It looks like EU getting the short stick again as usual.
i downloaded yesterday from EU. must be your subscription not having gone through yet?
 
Those game subscription services are a really good deal if you have some time on your hands. New games are at least $40 even with deals like CDKeys.
You can keep your save games (they're saved locally along with the cloud in nearly every instance), so you can always cancel and re-up as new games hit later.
I plan on doing that with Far Cry 6. There's no way I'm paying for it as a full game, but $15 for a month of it (and whatever random other titles Ubi has) works for me. I just about never replay games like that anyway.
 
Yes, I just signed up for ubisoft+, thought it was worth it even for €15 = $19 for Watchdogs legion and this game. I'll probably cancel it after being done with them. It looks like EU getting the short stick again as usual.
I signed up as soon as I got home from work today and the next screen had a 'Download Valhalla' button.
 
Is there a link to skill trees anywhere? I am mostly just curious if there is a ranged path like there was in Origins and Odyssey.
 
Considering I own almost every AS game $15 to play the latest one is an easy call. Watch Dogs isn't nearly as good but I did play the first 2 so I can try the 3rd as well. Plus they have Anno which I love. Thanks for the tip on this.
 
scores are all over the place...some sites calling it the best AC game, others saying it's average
 
scores are all over the place...some sites calling it the best AC game, others saying it's average
its AC:x, more of the same that everyone is used to and some of us love playing. put in 6 hours. it runs surprisingly well on my ageing 1080. 15 bucks for at least 4 weeks of dicking around. couldnt be happier
 
its AC:x, more of the same that everyone is used to and some of us love playing. put in 6 hours. it runs surprisingly well on my ageing 1080. 15 bucks for at least 4 weeks of dicking around. couldnt be happier
This is my take as well as to why some reviews are so low. It's the same basic game we've been playing for the past 10 years and people (reviewers) included are burnt out. A lot of people have moved on. I'll pick it up in a few months on sale, or maybe give it a whirl on the subscription.
 
I've played through a couple hours so far.

Honestly, i'm just not feeling this one. Something about it just doesn't make it as fun as Origins or Odyssey. Maybe it will get a little better the further I get in, but something is off here. I'll wait to judge the game more until I get to England, but I can easily say at this point that Odyssey is a better game.
 
Got about 90 minutes in, I don’t know just doesn’t seem as polished as Odyssey. I do like the Viking setting, but I agree something seems odd in a way? Eh I paid for 1 month of Ubisoft+. So kind of glad i didn’t have to buy it.

I’ll play it, just seems like AC is just rinse repeat to me
 
I've not given it a try yet, but I figure that - especially with Ubi trying to lock down the discounts on this one etc - I've got a few months of UPlay+ I can give as the best way to try out the game. It sounds from many of the reviews some of the biggest issues are potentially technical - which is a good thing. Bugs can be fixed, patches can come etc. I've been playing AC games long enough that people falling over themselves to talk about strange feeling this or buggy that, losing points on reviews etc... (ie Unity being probably the most visible ) can later on be patched and fixed so they're essentially non-issues.

Now some of the other discussion - I'll have to give it a shot and see what I make of things. It seems from some of the reviews here it comes down to if people liked the direction that Valhalla has gone in the hopes to not simply just repeat Odyssey. For instance, the replace the "you get gear all the time" and leveing system to something more Destiny like means a way to ensure no more "WTF that area is entirely level gated" and make the ability system more comprehensive and open (Odyssey, unlike Origins was the first one where you couldnt' do "all the things" and having to spec into one, a limited number of ability slots that were haphazardly arranged etc... caused issues. For instance, putting "stealth only" abilities using up the same slots as open combat ones) means having to create a system some may feel is more boring with the expanded talent web containing passives etc.

I wonder how my old 1070 will handle 1440P (144hz w/ FreeSync) I had a good experience with Odyssey overall with most things set to maximum (except some of the unnecessary ones). It makes me wonder about picking up a 3090 (or 3080 "20gb version" should it arrive soon) or perhaps more ideally an AMD 6900XT (if they have a good DLSS implementation and raytracing that is at parity with NV and widely usable).
 
Well, this is fucked up. I get no dialogue whatsoever. Everyone is mute, I see their mouths move but there is only ambient sounds and music. Strangest of all I don't even get subtitles even though they are turned on in the menu.
 
I wonder how my old 1070 will handle 1440P (144hz w/ FreeSync) I had a good experience with Odyssey overall with most things set to maximum (except some of the unnecessary ones). It makes me wonder about picking up a 3090 (or 3080 "20gb version" should it arrive soon) or perhaps more ideally an AMD 6900XT (if they have a good DLSS implementation and raytracing that is at parity with NV and widely usable).
I haven't played yet but ran a couple of benchmark passes last night. My 3700x/2080ti averaged mid-50s at 3440x1440 with max settings. There might have been something going on though as it was stuttering all over the place and the CPU (ms) Max was somewhere around 150ms (first run was 650ms...) even though it was under 25% utilization. Hopefully it's just because of some leftover crap from installing the latest NV drivers and waking it up from sleep without rebooting before running the bench.
 
I got 56FPS average on 3700X/2080ti, running on 3840x1600, with everything on ultra antialiasing high, resolution scale 100% (the game defaults to 70% be sure to check that out before running the benchmark) Min fps was like 5, the game is just badly optimized with lots of hitching. FPS spikes to 120+ fps and so on.

I managed to get the audio fixed by switching the game to french ->still no audio then switching it back to english then force manual verification ->then there was audio. It also has the same bug as Odyssey, subtitles can't be turned off permanently. the game switches them back on each start.

The game so far is dreadfully boring. I played approximately 3 hours, there are no stats for this game on uplay for some reason. But it's nowhere near the quality of Odyssey so far.
 
Hmm... check your drivers and be sure it patched to the day1 (1.0.2 I think) patch variant? I will say there are some bugs though - most recently I've had crash-to-desktops more than anything else. Silent crashes, no lockup, easy restart etc... but crashes no the less. I'm using the Nov 9th Nvidia drivers by the way - until there's a specific Valhalla driver package (hotfix or otherwise ) I suggest NV users be sure to to get it as it is the latest.

A bit of my overview from the VERY preliminary start - First, the game has some incredible options and configuration tweaks. I mean really amazing, not just in terms of graphics and the like but accessibility , mechanics etc... everything! You can set the UI style with how many icons you see and at what distance (3 options), combat difficulty (4 options), sneak/assassination difficulty for guard perceptiveness (3 options) etc... among many other settings. There's even an "All assassinations are insta-kills" option separate from everything else (albeit, there is a note that "This is not the game experience as intended") so you can put the game on hardest combat and most perceptive enemies, but be able to assassinate them in one hit if you manage to sneak up on them . There are pretty granular settings for everything; I am wondering which of the graphics options are the "performance black hole" (I think Red Dead Redemption 2 on PC has quite a few of these) type where the Ultra High / Highest option has a huge penalty yet the step(s) below it like Very High look the same or very near to it without nearly the performance impact? So ultimately, kudos to them for the options.


Though it is somewhat predictable, one irritation is that there is already a "Store" with cosmetics to be purchased with real money. We knew this would arrrive given what was in AC Origins and Odyssey, but it is still a bit annoying. While most of the items are aesthetic in nature, if its anything like Origins/Odyssey sometimes certain equipment sets will have unique or desirable bonuses on them. In past titles the one thing that stopped this from being an outright travesty was the presence of a way to unlock these "paid" items in-game, without purchase. This was normally through a vendor with rotating stock for a high price and a "random box" for a low price, each using special in-game currency. I felt that Origins' implementation was a bit more accessible in this regard to Odyssey, where getting all pieces of an armor set was incredibly difficult; I guess we'll have to see what Valhalla does. I assume there's some system like this? However, the one thing that continues to irk me is the "utilities", where there are 4 / 5 types of collectibles map reveals that you can unlock either individually or all together for about $10 (1000 credits). Now perhaps these can be shown on the map via other methods (ie If you "reveal" an area from a viewing point etc. I'm sure you'll be able to go reveal them if you're almost on top of them and spot them with your bird, but that kind of misses the point of the map icons .) , but I can remember how in earlier generation AC games these collectible reveals were were available through in-game methods. I wouldn't object so much if it was an additional way to reveal these globally atop whatever in-game method, but at least for Origins/Odyssey it was exclusive more or less (unless you physically stumbled up to their location or spotted it with your bird); I guess we'll have to see about this implementation.

Oh one element of note - the Ubisoft Connect (aka UPlay's new name) Rewards feature offers a few items you can unlock with in-game earned points, but there are 2 items that are somewhat more restricted. One is an axe that seems to be related to going to some trade show or event (digital or physical), but the other is some armor reminiscent of Bayek's (AC Origins' protagonist) that is granted for those who watched the game's reveal or other stuff on Twitch. Note that the Connect "claim" button may not show it as able to claim, but if you go into the game Store and go the "owned" items, you may very well see Bayek's armor next to other DLC and stuff (in my UPlay+ case, there's the Season Pass, the pre-order Beowulf quest group, and the Ultimate pack Berserkr group etc) . I remember watching something about Valhalla and getting a Twitch "drop" from it long ago, which may be the cases for some of you as well.

Haven't really gotten into the game yet outside of the first prologue/cinematic, so updates to come...

Edit: Error-less quit/crash to desktop seems to be the major bug I've run into thus far. Seems to happen randomly yet with some frequency
 
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I mostly solved the massive frame drops on my 2080ti by lowering the power limit on my card to 91%. This game is very demanding, and my GPU was hitting the internal 88c temp limit wall constantly which would correlate with 100% fan speed and frame drops. Lowering the power limit is now preventing that, and the game funnily enough is running better. I never had this issue with any other game, to include Control or Metro. No clue why. Maybe it just doesn’t like GSync which I refuse to turn off. Odyssey ran fine with gsync.
 
I mostly solved the massive frame drops on my 2080ti by lowering the power limit on my card to 91%. This game is very demanding, and my GPU was hitting the internal 88c temp limit wall constantly which would correlate with 100% fan speed and frame drops. Lowering the power limit is now preventing that, and the game funnily enough is running better. I never had this issue with any other game, to include Control or Metro. No clue why. Maybe it just doesn’t like GSync which I refuse to turn off. Odyssey ran fine with gsync.
I have found that running in fullscreen with Gsync on with my 3090 was the sweet spot for 4k. By doing this, it make the game much smoother than when I tried to run in borderless mode.
 
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