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[captainnapalm]

Yeah, some of these shots are truly amazing. The lighting is just incredible. You can be walking in one spot and literally just a few feet away the entire lighting environment reshapes and changes, just like in real life basically. It's totally dynamic, there's like an awesome new image around every corner. And the colours are beautiful, they complement everything perfectly.

I really want that tessellation patch to come through. It's another new Nvidia technology, so I'm really interested to see what it does.

 

[Mineshaft_Gap]

Only a matter of time before someone else, maybe Crytek, puts out something that looks significantly better and runs a WHOLE LOT better.

 

[Revengineer]

It does look nextgen, but it plays like AC1 in a lot of (bad, glitchy) ways.

Pretty to look at though.

 

[OverturePT]

The game looks absolutely incredible on PC. Some of these screenshots are amazing.

 

[Etnos]

This is what we've wanted GAFers!

Speak for yourself dude, I don't care that much about visual fidelity, it is just a marketing bullet point to sell games. I rather have innovative gameplay, good AI, interesting mission designs, good balance etc...

 

[ISee]

Wow, didn't realize the PS4 version was that blurry.

It's even more dramatic when you compare two pictures directly.
(I already posted this one in the Performance thread a while ago, but why not post it again, I guess).

click me for comparison with slider

And yes I agree. The game, at least on PC, looks fantastic. The one problem we have is Ubisoft's crowd density over performance decision. With less NPCs the game would run better, I assume. And we wouldn't have debat and stuff and more people would concentrate on AC:U's beautie.

 

[CentroXer]

it doesn't look better than BF4 on PC (campaign)

 

[UrbanRats]

For me the order is untouched and miles away from unity, it's a really next gen game graphically speaking, sure it's not yet, but 20 february it's close...

Ok, since we apply no context to comparisons, i'm gonna give a shout out to Guardian of the Galaxy, that movie's graphical fidelity is absolutely leaps and bounds above both Unity and The Order.

 

[iNvid02]

its incredible, especially when you consider this is a massive open world.

cannot wait to see what linear games from other devs will be pushing

 

[Damerman]

the GI and PBR are second to none.

 

[Bricky]

Is there a big difference between the highest graphical settings on PC and PS4/XONE?

Yes. High resolutions really make this game shine, but aside from that obvious difference the way higher level of detail and HBAO+ both elevate this game from great looking to absolutely stunning.

But to keep the framerate acceptable at the settings used in these screenshots you need deep pockets; only the latest and greatest GPU's are currently able to decently run this at best settings (and even on those enabling 'real' anti-aliasing, not FXAA, slows everything down to unplayable levels). Lower settings don't look bad, but even for those you need a fairly recent mid-range card and they're not nearly as impressive.

As an owner of a GTX 970 though, this game is absolutely gorgeous.

I have the feeling ACU was actually downgraded from what we've seen on E3, is this correct? Still a very good looking game though.

Nah, not really. Of course it was a slightly 'Ubisofted™' demo but the PC-version is nowhere near Watch_Dogs levels of downgraded (I mean, the internet would've immediately pointed that out with all the Ubisoft hate going on currently).

 

[Felix Lighter]

This is a demonstration of the performance I'm seeing at 1080p with everything highest detail, except, and it's a big except, I'm using FXAA for anti-aliasing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOs...bsorpsbdguus0k&google_view_type#gpluscomments

 

[Kezen]

I really want that tessellation patch to come through. It's another new Nvidia technology, so I'm really interested to see what it does.

You can find a tessellation comparison here :
http://www.geforce.com/whats-new/guides/assassins-creed-unity-graphics-and-performance-guide
No word on performance yet but we all know this is going to be expensive.

 

[RK9039]

It's even more dramatic when you compare two pictures directly.
(I already posted this one in the Performance thread a while ago, but why not post it again, I guess).

click me for comparison with slider
.

Daaamn, that's a huge difference.

 

[Refreshment.01]

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

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

Very well thought out post and thanks for the gesture of resizing the pictures, they are more than enough to prove the points of the topic withouth eating too much bandwidth.

Most impresive game so far in this cycle of consoles. Cloth simulation and animation is superb. The hair is somewhat behind in terms of look and simulation, as stated by someone else only Elise hair looks good to me.

Can't believe the game can run on a X1, even more so when its clearly a rushed product.

It's the light bounce enabled on consoles?

 

[VanWinkle]

The game in many ways looks amazing. It's just blurry unfortunately, and then there's the problem with performance, of course.

 

[Skyzard]

^ That blurryness is on PC as well if you want it to look smooth and less jagged. Or you use 4K resolution maybe. I haven't had any luck injecting smaa with sweetfx but others have.

The lighting is fantastic for an open world game. So much detail and well lit scenes. The colours are so perfect for the game too.

 

[K' Dash]

Dude pls, don't you know we're hating this game and looking extensively for bug to make stupid videos on youtube and make fun of Ubisoft?

Yeah, the game is gorgeous and I'm loving it, I hate what they did with the performance on PS4 and hate the bullshit they pulled, but I'm really impressed with the WHOLE game and besides some tech issues (framerate in some areas) I'm having a blast.

Yeah, this is the first really Next-Gen looking game, completely agree with you.

Now, if we could get Black Flag 2 with this engine, I'd cream my pants.

 

[Gareth Bale]

The thing about these screenshots is that they can't capture the swaps that are happening 5 metres away from you, which are impossible to ignore when they're happening every second because there's so many NPCs on screen.

 

[dex3108]

Also is it me or is this best implementation of HBAO+ in video game to date?

 

[DemonCleaner]

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

why excactly are you doing this?

The physically-based shading

what physical based shading?

 

[Ether_Snake]

I think Ryse is at least close, but it was a linear game. Considering that AC is a big open world game, the kind that usually have to make a lot of sacrifices on the graphical side due to draw distance, it's the best looking one. But quality needs to be improved for the models past a certain distance, the quality drops quickly. It doesn't bother me in general as I rarely look far away in this game, but the inconsistency in model and texture quality past around 100m is quite noticeable.

Still, I hope the big titles like the next Elders Scroll, GTA, etc., made specifically for the new gen will be as nice. I need my "next-gen" ES/Skyrim.

 

[Skyzard]

The thing about these screenshots is that they can't capture the swaps that are happening 5 metres away from you, which are impossible to ignore when they're happening every second because there's so many NPCs on screen.

Videos can though.

Trying to upload a higher quality version at the moment, may take a while.

 

[benzy]

This is how game looks like on my PC that is not high end anymore (i7 2600K + GTX760 2GB)



So you don't need monster PC to see beauty of this game.

You think my HD 7850 2gb with i5 4690k could run it well at your settings? I've read people have frames dropping to 15 even with low settings on a 7850, but I looked at comparisons to a GTX760 and it doesn't seem to be a huge downgrade compared to that gpu.

 

[Felix Lighter]

The thing about these screenshots is that they can't capture the swaps that are happening 5 metres away from you, which are impossible to ignore when they're happening every second because there's so many NPCs on screen.

From a visual stand point that is a horrible compromise that I hope they find someway to smooth out. It is very distracting to say the least.

 

[captainnapalm]

You can find a tessellation comparison here :
http://www.geforce.com/whats-new/guides/assassins-creed-unity-graphics-and-performance-guide
No word on performance yet but we all know this is going to be expensive.

Yeah, I've seen that one image, but I want to see more, different surfaces and so on.

It probably will be expensive, but not as much as stuff like PCSS shadows or MSAA. At least in the past, tessellation hasn't really been too crazy expensive for most games.

 

[Bebpo]

The washed out, overly bright lighting reminds me of early X360 games like PGR3. Otherwise, it is definitely a nice looking game.

 

[Bricky]

Also is it me or is this best implementation of HBAO+ in video game to date?

Absolutely. It is the first PC-game where I wouldn't even think about turning it off for better performance.

Words don't do it justice, so let me use the screenshots from the official Geforce guides. This is the little difference it made in Black Flag:

Looks decent, but you don't even notice the difference in a smaller image. Now look at the difference it makes in Unity:

Yeah.

 

[Leafhopper]

wat

I don't get it either.

 

[dampflokfreund]

Yes there's a big difference.
The game can't really be maxed out yet though. There's tesselation coming in a future patch that was left out. Not sure why it was left out.



PS4 Screenshot 3
PC Screenshot 3

For instance, here's how it looks on my laptop. FPS on 900p are similar to PS4, on 768p its better.

768p

900p

Lol I think even at 768p the PC version looks much better. How is this possible?

 

[Maastricht]

It doesn't really look that much worse on console either. This is straight from my PS4, with horrible Facebook compression, and it still looks great.

 

[IcyEyes]

Sure, this game looks awesome, but it's not the graphics leap we are waiting for.

 

[Objectively Bad Opinion]

Is this supposed to be the damage control to reports of the game running badly? Admittedly, I wish the game ran better so I could buy it because some of the screens look great.

Of course not. I won't deny the game has issues, should not have been released so soon, and Ubisoft deserves all of the flak they're getting and more. I doubt many people here would deny that.

But that's a totally different topic.

 

[Bebpo]

Sure, this game looks awesome, but it's not the graphics leap we are waiting for.

The other thing is that the character models stand out in every screenshot during the daylight. The graphical shading style used on the characters does not match the realistic environment style at all. I've taken so many screenshots where I wish I could erase Arno because without him in the shot it looks extremely photo-realistic, but he looks like a cartoon character on top.

It's missing the whole package look.

 

[Interceptor]

I really adore it for the assets. There are so many individually rendered objects in this game its insane. I just see it as that: An impressive tech demo with lots and lots of people who rendered stuff for it.

 

[MaestroBanyen]

I understand this game is almost broken due to the Framerate. BUT, when a game pushes the limits that most games do not (5,000+ NPC's and amazingly detailed environments) I tend to give them the benefit of the doubt.

However, this game does need a serious FPS update and I will enjoy it tenfold when this occurs.

 

[ShockingAlberto]

I will say this about Unity, the artist's did their job impeccably.

They did an amazing job of making the food on the plate look attractive. It's just not edible.

 

[RetroElectro]

Thank you OP. This is coming from a PC gamer's perspective. Ubisoft has been getting dinged due to the poor launches of Watch Dogs and ACU, but they've also been putting themselves out there for trying to make technical advancements to justify this "new" gen. Both of these games push the boundaries of a gaming system's architecture and components that has been exposing weaknesses in both consoles and PC. The narrative is around how poorly coded or optimized these games are, but I think what's missing is how overly ambitious they were with trying to pioneer new standards for this generation along with corporate mismanagement.

Watch Dog's engine is capable of rendering some incredible lighting, shadows and camera effects. Admittedly, you have to be a PC gamer and use a mod to see it's potential but it's there. Unfortunately this exposes poor corporate decision making by enforcing graphical parity on PC.

ACU is even better looking than WD with the things this thread has been pointing out but it also amps up the number of NPCs to a massive amount. Reducing the NPC count to improve the framerate would affect the game's mechanics for using the crowd for stealth and finding targets. It would also negatively impact the immersion factor those huge crowds bring. It was a creative design decision to reduce the FPS on consoles to experience the game as intended vs having an empty city at 1080p&60fps. This is no different than Mikami making the creative decision to letterbox the Evil Within due to technical limitations. But with a PC, you can experience these games closer to how they were envisioned with the right hardware and config.

If I compare the PC versions of Watch Dogs to LA Noire, I see that Ubisoft gave much better support than Rockstar did. I can play Watch Dogs without stutter at 1080p60fps. LA Noire has 1 core of my i7 pegged at 90+% while my GPU usage is well below 70%. About the only thing Rockstar did to address performance issues was to move LA Noire to DX11 and then called it a day. Hopefully GTAV will get better support although Rockstar really doesn't have a track record with PC. This is starting to turn into a different rant so I'll stop here

 

[ISee]

At least in the past, tessellation hasn't really been too crazy expensive for most games.

Are you sure? I remember tessellation to eat my graphic cards in the past. The step from

This:

To this:

made my gtx 460 cry back then in Batman Arkham city. The same with Dragon Age 2.

I honestly do not think I'll get playable framrates with tessellation on my current gtx 970. Still, I am looking forward to the tessellation patch as it will raise the bar for the future.

 

[SapientWolf]

It doesn't really look that much worse on console either. This is straight from my PS4, with horrible Facebook compression, and it still looks great.

All the fine texture detail was blurred out. There had to have been a better AA solution for the consoles.

 

[Yasae]

The other thing is that the character models stand out in every screenshot during the daylight. The graphical shading style used on the characters does not match the realistic environment style at all. I've taken so many screenshots where I wish I could erase Arno because without him in the shot it looks extremely photo-realistic, but he looks like a cartoon character on top.

It's missing the whole package look.

I definitely think missing reflections are part of that problem. Characters don't reflect and neither do most environmental objects, like chairs. I have shiny wood floors in my house and I can see the difference right away.

Maybe that would've been another performance killer, but the reflections wouldn't have to be very detailed. The game looks wonderful overall, though.

 

[RedSwirl]

Yeah, I can understand all the criticism over Unity's technical issues and maybe even its gameplay (I haven't played it), but I don't get the criticism over its actual graphics. Like, I don't get the visual criticism in TotalBiscuit's video. Even on what he said was just "high" settings on PC I think Unity most definitely looks like a next-gen game, more than almost any other game released in 2014. It probably does need to be in the running for best graphics this year.

We'll see how it holds up against the likes of Witcher 3 and Arkham Knight next year.

 

[mugurumakensei]

Is this supposed to be the damage control to reports of the game running badly? Admittedly, I wish the game ran better so I could buy it because some of the screens look great.

not really damage control so much as appreciation for its ambition. my only worry about this whole debacle is publishers will clamp down on developer ambition rather than give the developer time to create performance profiles. ubisoft kiev probably should have given a toggle for npc count on PC with low being 2000 max npcs in a given and set consoles to probably half that given their weak cpu. Nonetheless, i do appreciate developers who try to push boundaries. once the glitches get cleaned up, this will be a good new pc benchmark (both cpu and gpu) for years to come.

 

[The Cowboy]

From a visual stand point that is a horrible compromise that I hope they find someway to smooth out. It is very distracting to say the least.

This is what i want to, right now its a game i would say looks unmatched in screenshots only - in motion i just can't marvel at it all that much due to how bad some things look and how they ruin the in game art design.

 

[dex3108]

You think my HD 7850 2gb with i5 4690k could run it well at your settings? I've read people have frames dropping to 15 even with low settings on a 7850, but I looked at comparisons to a GTX760 and it doesn't seem to be a huge downgrade compared to that gpu.

I really don't know. I am playing on mixed settings and i am achieving 30FPS 90% of time.

Yeah, I can understand all the criticism over Unity's technical issues and maybe even its gameplay (I haven't played it), but I don't get the criticism over its actual graphics. Like, I don't get the visual criticism in TotalBiscuit's video. Even on what he said was just "high" settings on PC I think Unity most definitely looks like a next-gen game, more than almost any other game released in 2014. It probably does need to be in the running for best graphics this year.

We'll see how it holds up against the likes of Witcher 3 and Arkham Knight next year.

Arkham knight will look great but don't forget that game is happening during night and that helps alot.

 

[captainnapalm]

Are you sure? I remember tessellation to eat my graphic cards in the past. The step from

This:

To this:

made my gtx 460 cry back then in Batman Arkham city. The same with Dragon Age 2.

I honestly do not think I'll get playable framrates with tessellation on my current gtx 970. Still, I am looking forward to the tessellation patch as it will raise the bar for the future.

I do remember Arkham City, it was quite a hit. That was a while ago, though.

In more recent games like Tomb Raider or Hitman Absolution, I don't recall it being as big problem for a decent card. Anyway, we'll see. It is a new form of tessellation, so it could well be murder.

 

[VFX_Veteran]

The GI is baked, what's the merit on that?

It's partially baked. Yes, the light probes that represent the indirect is baked. However, the dynamic character moving around still have to fire rays to these probes and get illumination from them. No other game does this except Far Cry. If you can name another -- please do.

There's no real time reflections,

That would cause even more framerate issues. They had to sacrifice somewhere. SSR would have been nice, but getting the look is better than having a shitty look but SSR.

LOD is mediocre, their hair rendering looks ugly while playing,

LOD is broken period.

no post processing whatsoever during gameplay (motion blur, DOF).

Moblur isn't needed. They do have post-processing and some of the best I might add.

Game has DOF.

Far Cry 4 achieves a better graphics/performance balance than Unity.

Not better graphics.. performance yea.. but FC4 isn't doing the same things as Unity.

 

[luca_29_bg]

You can only appreciate the visuals of a game that runs great?



The comparing linear games to the visuals of an open world needs to stop...it's irritating to see people continually do so.

i know it's unfair, but just to point out that unity it's not the graphic leap we all been waiting for...for me at least!

 

[Rogue_Ledr]

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

Infamous looked better than this IMO.

 

[Chris23235]

The thing about these screenshots is that they can't capture the swaps that are happening 5 metres away from you, which are impossible to ignore when they're happening every second because there's so many NPCs on screen.

That's the problem. Additionally shadows of people are popping up, when you are 2 meters away from them, the hair of every character is constantly flickering, self shadowing is pixelated as hell and walking through a crowd shoves people right and left away in a way, that it looks like they are rubber ducks in a kitchen sink. I am not impressed.