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Assassin's Creed Unity -- The graphics "leap" we've all been waiting for.

All:

I'm posting this thread because we've already got threads on how shitty the gameplay/bugs/glitches/framerate are in the game. I thought I'd steer away from that conversation and focus on what the game does do right -- producing the most stunning imagery of any game this generation IMO.

I'd like to specifically talk about it's artistic/technical achievements as this game is an absolute marvel to experience on a high-end PC.

I'll start with a lot of screenshots that I have marked as 'indicators' of what I see the team has implemented really well. Whether the solutions are baked or not -- that doesn't really matter. What matters is how it's displayed for the player.

NOTE: All Images were rendered on my PC @1440p and downsampled to 1024x768 for thread purposes:

Res: 1440p
Shadows: High
AO: HBAO+
Textures: Ultra
Enviornment: Very High
AA: FXAA

Hardware:
GTX 980
i7-920
16G RAM
256 Samsung SSD-HDD
49" 4K LG TV

Avg Framerate during actual gameplay: 40fps
Avg Framerate during cutscenes: 30fps


UPDATE: Added higher res images (1440p).

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BnIMMr.png

t2p8ki.png

D1YjcE.png

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BEobrP.png

inrOhS.png


The physically-based shading and rendering is unmatched IMO. Never before have I seen such accuracy in lighting that almost rivals that of film -- and I own every single game that boasts "next-gen" graphics except Ryse. None of them even compares to AC:U in graphical fidelity.

This is what we've wanted GAFers! Ubisoft went a little overboard with the scope of this game for the next-gen consoles and they will probably have to pair things back a little to get that magical 30FPS. Let's hope that Ubisoft can fix the problems and create a more stabilized game for everyone.

-M
 

Sini

Member
I'm most impressed by human faces (at least in cutscenes). Their skin shader with SSS looks superb.
Shame about image quality on consoles and pop-in/lod issues though.
 

Corgi

Banned
Yep. the game is gorgeous, really like the floor texture and lighting in the fancier indoor environments.

Wish they could tweak the lighting at night though. It looks fantastic but is often too dark which makes navigation/combat a pain.
 
Does the game have an object motionblur at all? I think that would make people much more approachable to its obviously low performance.

THe game is quite uncompromising with its scale and graphical settings. The only thing I do not like are the citizen NPC faces. They have that weird exaggerated proportion neanderthal look that the other AC games have had.
 

Kezen

Banned
Game looks amazing on PC I agree. On the right spec it also happens to run at 30fps locked, and much more unlocked.
It's not a 60fps on my system but I can deal with 35-55fps.
 

Skux

Member
You can hold down R3 (or whatever you have right stick button bound to) to hide the HUD for better screenshots.
 

RoboPlato

I'd be in the dick
Lighting and materials are top notch but I find the characters tend to look off. Waxy skin and poor hair stands out more against the nicely detailed environments.

I still don't know why they decided to murder performance with such huge crowds. They could have worked with smaller NPC scale and made a significant impact with this game on the tech side.
 
How so? I've seen cutscenes and the hair looks really good. Are you talking about actual gameplay (Arno's hair)?

Yes, during the gameplay. It looks..fake. Don't know if it is the color, the lighting or the strands of hair, but it looks weird. The redhead girl hair looks nice, that's why I said "on most people", though.
 
Does the game have an object motionblur at all? I think that would make people much more approachable to its obviously low performance.

THe game is quite uncompromising with its scale and graphical settings. The only thing I do not like are the citizen NPC faces. They have that weird exaggerated proportion neanderthal look that the other AC games have had.

Yea, the art direction could have definitely been better on the NPCs.

Ironically enough though, the NPCs clothing has the same PBR shaders on them. I think that's why they went very aggressive with the LOD.. it pops too much. The game feels designed for hardware that's non-existent right now and the team just thought up some last minute solutions to bring the FPS back.
 
Yes, during the gameplay. It looks..fake. Don't know if it is the color, the lighting or the strands of hair, but it looks weird. The redhead girl hair looks nice, that's why I said "on most people", though.

Yea.. well, all I can say is that they definitely couldn't afford a Lara Croft hair sim with everything else that's been done. Sacrifices had to be made.. ;)
 

EhoaVash

Member
I really dislike the hud ...the mini map is just ..too fucking big and takes away from the immersion ....I try to turn off the minimap to see visuals but i hate having to constantly pause tolook at map ._.

but yeah game looks really great during morning and daylight. I'm not a fan of night time in this game. though. too grimm for my taste.
 

luca_29_bg

Member
Sorry but the order destroy this game, at least for me, unity is open world, yes, so just for this reason it's not so next gen for me. Open world games can't touch linear games on technical level, and will be in this way for… er.. some time.
 

drotahorror

Member
All of those screenshots look really fuzzy and soft. Like, those screens are horrible no offense. I've seen way better AC Unity screens.
 

Peterthumpa

Member
Are those effects also present on the PS4 version? In other words, besides the bugs and glitches, is the resolution the only difference?
 

Anion

Member
We weren't ready for the graphics
/s
I'm not sure if it's just me but your screenshots looks a bit fuzzy to me?
Nonetheless it does look beautiful from the streams I watched
 
All of those screenshots look really fuzzy and soft. Like, those screens are horrible no offense. I've seen way better AC Unity screens.

Screens aren't raw shots. They've been compressed down from Imageshack (1440p --> 1024x768 compressed). I have the raw images on my desktop though.
 

UrbanRats

Member
There are a couple of glaring flaws (pop in, some LOD problems) but yeah, in motion the game looks stunning most of the times, i had to stop several times, to take in how gorgeous the city looked, under various time of day.
Also on PC with (almost) max settings though, not sure how it is on consoles, i bet the terrible IQ doesn't help.
 

TheMoon

Member
Makes thread about graphics, posts tiny blurry screenshots from PC (!) version. Why!

Screens aren't raw shots. They've been compressed down from Imageshack (1440p --> 1024x768 compressed). I have the raw images on my desktop though.

Why don't you use a site that doesn't suck, like abload or whatever the kids use these days! :)
 
Yes, it is an extremely graphically ambitious game.

The number of unique materials, the lighting, the hair physics (on some characters, and when it's not bugging the fuck out) are all incredible, doubly so when it hits you all at once and combined with the well done post processing.

And even with all this combined I get the feeling that it's unoptimized... that is, that given another four months of tuning, fixing the stuttering and tweaking LOD, we could have all this and still have really good performance.

That's the saddest part.

I'm definitely buying it if they fix the issues.
 
Yea.. well, all I can say is that they definitely couldn't afford a Lara Croft hair sim with everything else that's been done. Sacrifices had to be made.. ;)

Yeah, I understand that. But on some of those screenshots that you posted the background was very nice, then you look at the character and the immersion is kinda broken. The first picture, for an example, beautiful lighting but that brown blob in the middle of the screen is distracting.
 

Fox1966

Neo Member
VFX-Veteran, thanks for sharing this! I've got an I7-960 and a GTX 980, and had been wondering how this will run on my system. Now I've got a good idea what to expect, and am looking forward to it! (I didn't see you mention that your processor is overclocked, so I'm assuming it is not?)
 
Q

Queen of Hunting

Unconfirmed Member
climbing buildings for a gorgeous view. nope expect a block of shit
 

Parfait

Member
Yo the game is a fuckin wonder artistically

Like, it also blows my mind how many buildings I can also go inside of. The details on everything is ridiculous.

When/if the patch comes out to make the framerate not garbage, it's going to be about one of the top best lookin games I've looked at.
 

drotahorror

Member
Screens aren't raw shots. They've been compressed down from Imageshack (1440p --> 1024x768 compressed). I have the raw images on my desktop though.

You should upload them somewhere else maybe. Or were you trying to make this thread not so bandwidth intensive?
 

UrbanRats

Member
Are those effects also present on the PS4 version? In other words, besides the bugs and glitches, is the resolution the only difference?

HBAO+ makes a pretty big difference, unfortunately.
I don't think they have that on console, though i'm not sure if they have a third AO option or just the inferior PC AO alternative.
 
Sorry but the order destroy this game, at least for me, unity is open world, yes, so just for this reason it's not so next gen for me. Open world games can't touch linear games on technical level, and will be in this way for… er.. some time.

The Order isn't out yet. And I haven't seen any footage yet to make me agree with what you are saying. And yes, a game being linear and non-open world is a big factor in what you can get away with.
 

MarkV

Member
Does the game have an object motionblur at all? I think that would make people much more approachable to its obviously low performance.

No motion blur and this is really disappointing. Apart from that when everything work the game really look superb, somebody must post some screenshots of the cutscenes because there you can really see how they pushed on the graphics side for this game.
 

Struct09

Member
Technical issues aside, the game is absolutely gorgeous - even on PS4. I can't even imagine how much more awesome it would have looked if it had more time in the oven.
 

Denton

Member
It does look insane. I wish framerate wasn't so bad, but I must admit it looks amazing when it comes to lightning and characters and all that jazz.

Shame about the shots in OP being so small :(
 

RoboPlato

I'd be in the dick
HBAO+ makes a pretty big difference, unfortunately.
I don't think they have that on console, though i'm not sure if they have a third AO option or just the inferior PC AO alternative.

I'm surprised there hasn't been many attempts to get something like HBAO+ on consoles. It looks so natural and often ends up saving performance as well.
 

UrbanRats

Member
Also this is a game that, surprisingly, doesn't really work that well in stills.
In motion it really looks amazing, but when i try to take screenshots, it just doesn't translate well, for some reason.
 
Game looks amazing on PC I agree. On the right spec it also happens to run at 30fps locked, and much more unlocked.
It's not a 60fps on my system but I can deal with 35-55fps.

Kezen,

I wanted to let you know I followed a lot of your comments concerning this game (graphically) and agreed with everything you said. :)

Yes, I can deal with 30+FPS as well for what the game is doing.
 
And to see this amazing next-gen leap you only have to build a $1000 PC! everyone hop in!

And still doesn't really look all that special compared to Infamous.

Does look solid though. Like the shadow work
 
VFX-Veteran, thanks for sharing this! I've got an I7-960 and a GTX 980, and had been wondering how this will run on my system. Now I've got a good idea what to expect, and am looking forward to it! (I didn't see you mention that your processor is overclocked, so I'm assuming it is not?)

Nope. Stock processor. Those i7s just won't call it quits! They run really really well!
 
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