Support NeoGAF

[stryke]

Gameplay framerate test

Cutscene framerate test

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2015-assassins-creed-syndicate-performance-analysis

• 900p/30fps on both consoles
• Occasional dips on both, particularly more on XB1
• Dramatically reduced NPC population in comparison to Unity
• Visual fidelity appears like-for-like (AA, texture filtering, etc)
• Return of dynamic day-night cycle
• Less interiors

Overall, it feels like Syndicate is a very positive step in the right direction. Stability isn't perfect, but there's no longer the sense that bugs, glitches and oddities actively intrude on the gameplay experience. Meanwhile, performance isn't up to the rock-solid frame-rates achieved by Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag, but it's certainly good enough - especially on PlayStation 4. And we are reaping the benefits of an engine designed for the current generation of console hardware, as opposed to the moderately enhanced last-gen technology we saw in Black Flag. Conceptually and technologically, perhaps the raw ambition of Unity is missing, but Ubisoft has doubled down on gameplay and stability. Combine that with perhaps the most iconic location seen in the series to date, and we'd suggest that given the brutal time-constraints in producing these titles, Ubisoft has done well here and it feels like the series is back on track.

 

[Tal Shiar Agent]

Can't go back after 1080p30fps Black Flag on PS4.

 

[Dictator93]

AA is super ghosty in both versions.

 

[Parsnip]

Looking forward to the PC version. Hoping they keep their promises regarding it.

 

[digoutyoursoul]

Can't go back after 1080p30fps Black Flag on PS4.

What does this even mean? You saying even if the game was brilliant you wouldn't be interested?

 

[Alcoholikaust]

900p/30fps on both consoles
Occasional dips on both, particularly more on XB1
Dramatically reduced NPC population in comparison to Unity
Less interiors

Hmm

 

[Shari]

Looking forward to the PC version. Hoping they keep their promises regarding it.

What was that? I'm looking forward too as the reviews are better than expected.

 

[Gunslinger]

Its a shame unity was too strong for current generation consoles to run. Maybe unity can get a remaster on ps5. The definitive version.

 

[statham]

maybe they will release a version that hits 1080p on the enhanced PS4? and maybe XBox Pro.

 

[Get_craycray]

Combine that with perhaps the most iconic location seen in the series to date

If I were chauvinistic like DF is, I'd say Paris was the most iconic location.

Anyway, looks like the game runs fine. Ubi had to make some sacrifices to get there.

 

[diamount]

What was that? I'm looking forward too as the reviews are better than expected.

That it won't be a broken, unoptimised mess like Untiy was.

 

[bumpkin]

• 900p/30fps on both consoles
• Occasional dips on both, particularly more on XB1
• Dramatically reduced NPC population in comparison to Unity
• Visual fidelity appears like-for-like (AA, texture filtering, etc)
• Return of dynamic day-night cycle
• Less interiors

Bummer... XB1 was what I got Unity on (and all of the prior gen AC games). Sucks to hear that this time the roles are reversed and PS4 is the more solid version.

I also liked the interiors in Unity. It made the world much more immersive than the miles and miles of alleys and buildings you couldn't enter in the older games.

 

[jimbobsmells]

Its a shame unity was too strong for current generation consoles to run. Maybe unity can get a remaster on ps5. The definitive version.

Too much focus on CPU in their engine.

 

[dugdug]

"Dramatically reduced NPC count compared to Unity"

Thank fuck. What a terrible choice that was in Unity.

 

[rockman zx]

Less detailed city plus less NPC, no wonder the game runs fine, the Unity team was too ambitious but they made the best open world city in my opinion.

 

[ogbg]

Bummer... XB1 was what I got Unity on (and all of the prior gen AC games). Sucks to hear that this time the roles are reversed and PS4 is the more solid version.

I also liked the interiors in Unity. It made the world much more immersive than miles and miles of alleys and buildings you couldn't enter.

Yeah i liked them too, but I got the impression from an interview with the dev that it was one of the main reasons for Unity's awful performance

 

[dofry]

This is an in-between AC game so I did not expect a lot.
A bit stripped down in features but solid enough performance to keep people happy.

I do hope that they bump the res back to 1080 as I like the clarity or the picture.

 

[Tal Shiar Agent]

What does this even mean? You saying even if the game was brilliant you wouldn't be interested?

Possibly. If a developer sacrifices performance for aesthetics and another entry in a series on the same platform runs worse than its predecessor, I won't support that developer. Do what you have to do to at least match the performance of previous titles.

 

[Larogue]

The city looks so empty. I hope the PC version has an option to control the NPC count like The Witcher 3.

 

[Garrett Hawke]

I'm glad they have the dynamic TOD back, didn't like Unity's.

 

[Kezen]

900p again, not surprised. The PNG PS4 shots were particularly "blurry".

Still, the trade-offs are acceptable (and trade offs are optimization). Unity pushed consoles too hard, it was only to be expected that they had to tone things down if they wanted the game to perform better.

 

[Shari]

That it won't be a broken, unoptimised mess like Untiy was.

Oh, so that kind of promise. Alright.

 

[DrArchon]

• Dramatically reduced NPC population in comparison to Unity
• Less interiors

Guess this is the price to pay for getting the game to run well. Well, sounds like this isn't a steaming pile of garbage like Unity was in terms of performance so good on Ubi for making the right call here.

 

[Kezen]

What was that? I'm looking forward too as the reviews are better than expected.

They claimed it will "shine".
http://www.pcgamer.com/assassins-creed-syndicate-creative-director-promises-the-pc-version-will-shine/

As with Unity it will probably have the following improvements :
-Much better LOD.
-Farther draw distance.
-Higher quality shadows (better resolution or actual contact hardening).
-Better AO (Unity had HBAO+).
-Better textures in places.
-16xAF through the driver, or perhaps (who knows, miracles do happen) in the options menu.
-No 30fps limitations.
-Not limited to 900p.

That will do fine, thanks.

 

[Dictator93]

Why do these perf analyses never have PC btw?

 

[Quadraphonic]

Bummer... XB1 was what I got Unity on (and all of the prior gen AC games). Sucks to hear that this time the roles are reversed and PS4 is the more solid version.

I also liked the interiors in Unity. It made the world much more immersive than the miles and miles of alleys and buildings you couldn't enter in the older games.

Well, you should know by now the PS4 will almost always perform better except in weird cases like Unity. Even AC4 performed better on PS4.

 

[JaseC]

I'm glad they have the dynamic TOD back, didn't like Unity's.

I was surprised to find that I didn't miss it thanks to the sublime GI. The PC version of Unity is really a sight to behold at times.

 

[Gurish]

This game is really one of the less impressive open world games on next gen consoles, I just find it to be unappealing visually, 900P doesn't help obviously, bad job by Ubi with this one, at least Unity was beautiful.

 

[digoutyoursoul]

Possibly. If a developer sacrifices performance for aesthetics and another entry in a series on the same platform runs worse than its predecessor, I won't support that developer. Do what you have to do to at least match the performance of previous titles.

And that's the stand out thing to me, the mentality of 1080p and 60fps or whatever. It didn't stop many of you from buying PS3 games, multiplatform games, with inferior performance last generation but now it takes presidence over the game itself, in particular the resolution. I don't get it dude, you might actually enjoy it if your a creed series fan?

 

[diamount]

Oh, so that kind of promise. Alright.

Indeed, very hard to believe from the outset.

 

[Kezen]

Why do these perf analyses never have PC btw?

PC version is out November 19.

 

[Shari]

They claimed it will "shine".
http://www.pcgamer.com/assassins-creed-syndicate-creative-director-promises-the-pc-version-will-shine/

As with Unity it will probably have the following improvements :
-Much better LOD.
-Farther draw distance.
-Higher quality shadows (better resolution or actual contact hardening).
-Better AO (Unity had HBAO+).
-Better textures in places.
-16xAF through the driver, or perhaps (who knows, miracles do happen) in the options menu.
-No 30fps limitations.
-Not limited to 900p.

That will do fine, thanks.

Thanks to your link I've discovered the release date for this on PC is not yet confirmed. Such a bummer.

2nd grade citizen? Guess i'll buy it on sale for dirt cheap.

 

[Corpekata]

Why do these perf analyses never have PC btw?

Because it's got an Arbitrary Ubisoft Delay this time.

 

[Hoje0308]

Why do these perf analyses never have PC btw?

Well, in this case at least, the PC version isn't out yet.

Edit: Beaten bad, due to stuttering performance.

 

[Social]

so many cutbacks yet only 900p on PS4? There's no excuse

 

[Synless]

So they had to downgrade in almost every area to get the frame rate steady. Seems like Unity was ahead of its time graphically.

 

[Garrett Hawke]

I was surprised to find that I didn't miss it thanks to the sublime GI. The PC version of Unity is really a sight to behold at times.

I have Unity on PC and played it on a 970 but I found it not all that beautiful tbh. Felt like there was a vaseline filter on everything (and I'm not talking about FXAA ) and the texture draw distance was really bad.

(not my pic but like this)

Older AC games seemed to swap in low poly models like this:

which actually looked good whereas Unity appears to use very poor low res textures:

 

[OléGunner]

Parité basically except for framerate.

 

[Hoje0308]

so many cutbacks yet only 900p on PS4? There's no excuse

Bandwidth is a pretty good excuse. And Unity ran at the same resolution, so I really don't get why you would expect 1080 when the cutbacks were made to get a similar game running at a more stable rate.

 

[ps3ud0]

so many cutbacks yet only 900p on PS4? There's no excuse

Confused by that myself - its doing far less than Unity but only a bit better performance wise.

Going for parity means no purchase for me (though post-Unity I doubt any AC entry will be worth getting back into the (dying?) series)

ps3ud0 8)

 

[Shari]

I have Unity on PC and played it on a 970 but I found it not all that beautiful tbh. Felt like there was a vaseline filter on everything (and I'm not talking about FXAA ) and the texture draw distance was really bad.
(not my pic but like this)

Older AC games seemed to swap in low poly models like this:

which actually looked good whereas Unity appears to use very poor low res textures:

Unity's drawing distance and LOD are the worst parts of the game by far.

 

[Kezen]

Thanks to your link I've discovered the release date for this on PC is not yet confirmed. Such a bummer.

2nd grade citizen? Guess i'll buy it on sale for dirt cheap.

The date has been confirmed actually. November 19 on PC, but we have no idea when (if) Ubisoft will communicate on the PC version.
It's fair to wait until the game is out in the wild, I'm expecting better performance than Unity at console settings because the game visuals have been toned down, however who knows about the max settings. They could scale higher than Unity's.

 

[JaseC]

PC version is out November 19.

Granted, AssCreed Syndicate isn't the best example to use as a jumping off point, but he's speaking generally about Digital Foundry's policy of publishing performance analysis articles that feature only the console versions ahead of the "Face-Off" articles that cover all three platforms. The Witcher 3's performance analysis article, for example, was superseded by the all-inclusive face-off article after just three days, which makes the answer abundantly clear: Clicks.

I have Unity on PC and played it on a 970 but I found it not all that beautiful tbh. Felt like there was a vaseline filter on everything (and I'm not talking about FXAA ) and the texture draw distance was really bad.
(not my pic but like this)

Older AC games seemed to swap in low poly models like this:

which actually looked good whereas Unity appears to use very poor low res textures:

Yeah, the game certainly has its fair share of sore spots when it's rendering a great deal. That's why I said "at times."

 

[Shari]

The date has been confirmed actually.

Guys told me in the OT for the game hehe, thanks anyway. Looking forward to it whenever I can move away from F4.

 

[Kezen]

He's talking about Digital Foundry's policy of publishing performance analysis articles that feature only the console versions ahead of the "Face-Off" articles that cover all three platforms. The Witcher 3's performance analysis article, for example, was superseded by the all-inclusive face-off article after just three days, which makes the answer abundantly clear: Clicks

Oh thanks. I completely misunderstood.

Yeah, the game certainly has its fair share of sore spots when it's rendering a great deal. That's why I said "at times."

Could some of that be attributed to DX11's limitations ? I've heard claims (that could not be verified) that it can use 50.000 draw calls which seems really high.

 

[Dictator93]

Confused by that myself - its doing far less than Unity but only a bit better performance wise.

It would have to be doing quite a lot less than it is currently doing to see a bump in resolution.

 

[nOoblet16]

I have Unity on PC and played it on a 970 but I found it not all that beautiful tbh. Felt like there was a vaseline filter on everything (and I'm not talking about FXAA ) and the texture draw distance was really bad.
(not my pic but like this)

Older AC games seemed to swap in low poly models like this:

which actually looked good whereas Unity appears to use very poor low res textures:

That is quite obviously a texture/geometry loading issue rather than an actual low quality texture and issue with draw distance.

 

[RowdyReverb]

Not really much to be said here that wasn't covered in last year's DF thread for AC:U. Looks like a slightly more fluid game with less stuff going on. And it looks like they fixed the framerate nosedive whenever you're around water. Sounds good to me.

 

[Garrett Hawke]

The first one is quite obviously an unloaded texture rather than an actual low quality texture.

I was using the top one as an example of how textures look from a distance, which is incredibly poor, especially compared to the games that shipped with III/BF's engine. I could boot it up right now and probably get a screenshot similar to the third one.

 

[Orayn]

Why do these perf analyses never have PC btw?

PC version isn't even out til next month in this case.