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[bargeparty]

Ubisoft said the crowds didn't affect Unity's performance. Has that changed?

https://www.vg247.com/2014/11/19/large-crowds-are-not-the-reason-for-assassins-creed-unitys-framerate-issues-says-ubisoft/

“We have just finished a new round of tests on crowd size but have found it is not linked to this problem and does not improve frame rate, so we will be leaving crowds as they are,” commented Ubisoft.

 

[SapientWolf]

I just don't get how those whining about parity keep ignoring this point.

So why not raise the resolution and let the PS4 version run like the XB1 version? It's not like the game is a graphical masterpiece. It's not even the best looking sandbox game on the platform.

 

[Kezen]

Better have an option to reverse this on PC anyway.

Unlikely imo.

 

[ninjablade]

ps4 not 1080p revolting

The problem isnt that its 900p on ps4,the problem is its 900p on both consoles, thats 40% less pixels then every other developer has been able achieve in graphically impressive games, for a slight framerate advantage, and what makes it worse is most of those game run better as well.

 

[Dictator93]

for a slight framerate advantage

It isn't slight at all in the video when the boxes are GPU limited - xb1 sits @ 21-22 and ps4 sits @ 28-29. That is like a 28-30 % performance advantage.

PS4 has a decidedly more stable framerate that maintains 30.

 

[ninjablade]

So why not raise the resolution and let the PS4 version run like the XB1 version? It's not like the game is a graphical masterpiece. It's not even the best looking sandbox game on the platform.

People also fail to reaize your not gonna get parity with huge demanding games like this, it would cost them a ton of money to match every frame drop, they are making the games similar enough cause it saves them a ton of money and time on the ps4 version.

 

[Kezen]

The problem isnt that its 900p on ps4,the problem is its 900p on both consoles, thats 40% less pixels then every other developer has been able achieve in graphically impressive games, for a slight framerate advantage, and what makes it worse is most of those game run better as well.

I would not say the FPS advantage is slight.

 

[Inuhanyou]

You mean, thrown out the engine and started from scratch a year and a half into development?

Yeah, sure. Why not? I don't like Ubisoft's kind of development pipeline to begin with, it doesn't allow for the franchises to even really branch out in terms of game design, let alone technical development

What a vicious step back.


Damn it. Far less NPCs? The density and location variety is what made Unity's world the most believable one ever up until that point.

These consoles are weak fucking game.


Better have an option to reverse this on PC anyway.

The consoles are what they are. The fact of the matter is, if 2 of the 3 selling SKU's can't run the game from a design standpoint, it's simply bad game design, nothing more.

 

[tuxfool]

The problem isnt that its 900p on ps4,the problem is its 900p on both consoles, thats 40% less pixels then every other developer has been able achieve in graphically impressive games, for a slight framerate advantage, and what makes it worse is most of those game run better as well.

Battlefront is also 900p, By most people's account it looks pretty great.

 

[tuxfool]

Yeah, sure. Why not? I don't like Ubisoft's kind of development pipeline to begin with, it doesn't allow for the franchises to even really branch out in terms of game design, let alone technical development

Unless they're SE they're not going to dump all that technology in the bin. At that point in the dev cycle they probably still had hopes that they could tune the game to perform well.

What they should have done is delayed the game. Made more cuts to guarantee performance, not throw out their brand new engine (and associated assets) and then replaced it with their crufty old engine.

 

[Inuhanyou]

Battlefront is also 900p, By most people's account it looks pretty great.

I think his point is, battlefront may be 900p on PS4, but XB1 is 720p and worse performing to boot.

So dialing Unity and this game to 900p on both platforms makes no sense based on the PS4's GPU advantage specifically allowing for a higher res. The CPU's not allowing more NPCs has little to do with that

 

[Inuhanyou]

Unless they're SE they're not going to dump all that technology in the bin. At that point in the dev cycle they probably still had hopes that they could tune the game to perform well.

What they should have done is delayed the game. Made more cuts to guarantee performance, not throw out their brand new engine (and associated assets) and then replaced it with their crufty old engine.

I didn't really say to throw out their work in my first post though, i said, they probably should have from the start used the base they had from Black flag(what they were using from last gen in general), and upgraded it smartly to conform to the new consoles.

Not fucked it up to the point where they could not run a majority of the gameplay systems on the new consoles without huge cuts.

A wise man once said that console optimization was the art of leaving things on the cutting room floor without the player noticing that it was the case.

If you have a convincing GI solution, why try and cram in SVOGI if its gonna run like shit and be a ton more expensive? Likewise, if you can have a decent amount of NPC's populate a city, why go overboard and make a huge amount of disappearing glitchy NPC's that perform like shit on the hardware?

 

[tuxfool]

I think his point is, battlefront may be 900p on PS4, but XB1 is 720p and worse performing to boot.

So dialing Unity and this game to 900p on both platforms makes no sense based on the PS4's GPU advantage specifically allowing for a higher res. The CPU's not allowing more NPCs has little to do with that

On the PS4 Unity ran the cutscenes at a higher frame rate than the XB1. Now seemingly Syndicate, with general reductions of crowd density among other things now manages to perform better than the XB1.

try and cram in SVOGI if its gonna run like shit and be a ton more expensive? Likewise, if you can have a decent amount of NPC's populate a city, why go overboard and make a huge amount of disappearing glitchy NPC's that perform like shit on the hardware?

SVOGI? Unity had baked GI+light probes.

On the crowds issue, I agree. They really didn't need to push things to that degree. They could have easily made significantly more cuts on consoles. As I suggested earlier, they should have just delayed the game to fix their bugs and tune the game appropriately to the consoles.

 

[TheSpecialOne]

Any title running at less than 1080p is just an instant no buy for me.

.

 

[BennyBlanco]

These marketing deal conspiracy theories are wreaking havoc on my sides

 

[tuxfool]

These marketing deal conspiracy theories are wreaking havoc on my sides

There can't be marketing conspiracies, if there is no marketing involved this time...

 

[RoboPlato]

As a reminder, we know this engine uses the GPU in a way other engines do not... so as to compensate for weaker CPUs (something they did because of the consumer reaction of how previous AC games scaled on the CPU and b/c of next gen consoles having jaguar).

Kind of like idtech 5, this engine has untraditional scaling and load profile.

Just got into reading this pdf and your theory makes a lot of sense. Thanks for that.

I guess I just have to chalk this one up to the devs having different priorities to what I would for this title.

 

[ironcreed]

Looks fine to me. I am just happy that they got it to run smoother and added a day/night cycle back in. Got the PS4 version on the way.

 

[thelastword]

I haven't looked at enough footage to judge if the aforementionned features (POM and tessellation) are in Syndicate as well, but very rich geometry seems to be in. While AK is visually a technologically proficient game it's very easy to see why it runs at 1080p, not to mention nightime makes it much easier to hide sacrifices and cut-backs. Syndicate has a dynamic TOD and many objects to render (and shadows too), those things just don't come for free.

By far the most impressive graphical feature of AK is not on consoles funnily enough, the impressive and extremely taxing smoke is, as far as I'm concerned, the visual stand out of the game.

No, these features are not there in Syndicate. Did tessellation ever make it to the PC version of Unity as promised?

AK is not only a technologically proficient game, I think you're attempting to diminish iit to support your argument. AK is way superior to Syndicate in every way, speaking of bulletpoints like PBR and dynamic TOD means nothing, have you seen the rainfall in syndicate, it's not good. Batman wins on character models, texture detail, world density and detail, traversal and it's using some of the most taxing technical features in a game to date. Some of the best effects/features, smoke, rain, water and almost zero pop-in and zero loadtimes. How can Syndicate match that, beyond that, AC is running at 900p and it's still falling to 23fps in many scenes. Don't be satisfied with a below-par product on a platform which you will not play this game on, yet, you get ready to play a superior version on your platform. I'm sure if you can play at 1440p, you won't play at 1080p.

I just don't get why pc players (mostly) will come in a technical thread and say it's fine, it's all the hardware can do, it's all the developers could do with the hardware, when that has been proven wrong time and time again. It's as if the people who aren't going to play AC syndicate on PS4 are satisfied with such a beneath the norm product. I'm sure you will get a better performing/looking game on your main system (PC), PS4 owners just want Ubi to get on the level of 99% of other developers as it relates to resolution.

So why not raise the resolution and let the PS4 version run like the XB1 version? It's not like the game is a graphical masterpiece. It's not even the best looking sandbox game on the platform.

Because at 1080p, this game will still outclass the XB1 version in performance as with every other title across the system. Even badly done games like W3 has the res and framerate divide with better AF too.

 

[Kezen]

No, these features are not there in Syndicate. Did tessellation ever make it to the PC version of Unity as promised?

No, it's clear the assets were not made with tessellation in mind. No chance for Syndicate either and I speculate they don't want to make the PC version too taxing not to ruffle feathers.

AK is not a technologically proficient game, AK is way superior to Syndicate in every way, speaking of bulletpoints like PBR and dynamic TOD means nothing, have you seen the rainfall in syndicate, it's not good. Batman wins on character models, texture detail, world density and detail, traversal and it's using some of the most taxing technical features in a game to date. Some of the best effects/features, smoke, rain, water and almost zero pop-in and zero loadtimes. How can Syndicate match that, beyond that AC is running at 900p and it's still falling to 23fps in many scenes.

I disagree with almost everything, character models looks excellent in Syndicate, significantly more detailed than AK. I need more HQ footage of Syndicate to properly judge texture details but from the samples I've seen Ubisoft artists can pat themselves on the back, for such a massive open world it's impressive they've managed to cramp that much detail into so many surfaces.
AK is hardly impressive when it comes to world density, you can clearly see that LOD is very aggressive on distant buildings. Syndicate's LOD seems solid with little pop-in unlike Unity, once again it proves that Ubisoft are everything but amateurs and they understood what needed to be done to achieve a stable 30fps on PS4 hardware.

It feels you and I have been playing a different game, I emphasize than I base my visual assessment of Syndicate on Gamersyde trailers and HQ footage, I won't bother with the console versions.

I just don't get why pc players (mostly) will come in a technical thread and say it's fine, it's all the hardware can do, it's all the developers could do with the hardware, when that has been proven wrong time and time again. It's as if the people who aren't going to play AC syndicate on PS4 are satisfied with such a beneath the norm product. I'm sure you will get a better performing/looking game on your main system (PC), PS4 owners just want Ubi to get on the level of 99% of other developers as it relates to resolution

It has not been proven wrong, be careful about comparing apples to oranges. Just because AK runs at 1080p does not mean Syndicate can, because those runs different engines and have to meet different design points. From what I've seen of Syndicate it's a technologically rich game which seems, to me, to justify its 900p resolution. Watch Dogs is a different beast : 900p yet seems strangely barren in many places.
I'm still scratching my head on that one. Syndicate ? Clear as day.

The thing which would be very strange would be to find out significantly weaker GPUs running the game at 1080p using settings as close as possible to consoles.
I guess we will know soon enough, but I don't predict a 750ti faring well at all at 1080p.