AC3's textures look better than AC4... why?

[abalian]

I just fired up AC3 to check something and I could've sworn the textures were so much sharper, more crisp and detailed than Black Flag. I play both games at 1080p (AC3 maxed out - AC4 maxed out except God Rays on Low) and AC3 looks like true 1080p compared to AC4 which looks blurrier.

Funny thing is, I have TXAA (which is meant to blur) on in AC3 and MSAA 2x (no blur) in AC4. Am I the only one seeing this? Or is Ubisoft's definiton of "better optimization" lower-res textures? It could also be the result of a bigger FOV (IF they increased it, I don't know) in AC4 shrinking the textures, or Depth of Field I don't know about. Any thoughts?

[Chimpo]

Yea i just fired up AC4 and it doesn't look as ghood as AC3. I don't know if it's shadows or lighting or what. But everything in AC4 seems so flat. It's like it's 2D compared to 3D. In AC3 things have depth and your character looks closer to you than other things do. Also NPC animations seem poor as where they were really smooth in AC3.

Maybe AC3 was built for PC and AC4 was just ported to PC?

[LeadStarDude]

I have to agree that AC3 looks more polished. Perhaps that is why so many people say it runs worse than AC4. I can run both games fully maxed out @ 1080p, & 3 does look better to me as well.

[Chimpo]

I can run AC3 fully maxed out at 2560 x 1080 but not AC4. so for me AC4 runs worse and looks worse (even on it's max settings). Maybe i need to try some different drivers for performance.

[LeadStarDude]

Originally posted by Chimpo:

I can run AC3 fully maxed out at 2560 x 1080 but not AC4. so for me AC4 runs worse and looks worse (even on it's max settings). Maybe i need to try some different drivers for performance.

Are you using nVidia? If so I am on WHQL driver 337.88

[Chimpo]

I was on 337.50 so i'll check out 337.88. Cheers

[abalian]

I've come to think AC4 is when console parity kicked in with Ubi, but anything's possible really. Also, I heard 337.88 performs better because "graphic fidelity " was reduced, which results in poorer quality. Again, I'm just speculating.

[Chimpo]

Assassins Creed games are the only thing stopping me uninstalling uPlay all together. If they screw AC up, then i'll be done with Ubisoft forever. (I've already washed my hands of EA and uninstalled Origin).

[Chimpo]

Even with New Drivers it doesn't run very well. Have to turn a lot of settings down to get a good framerate. My GFX card isn't top of the line any more but this is the only thing i can't run on full. I have a ROG Matrix 580. I say bad code more than needing a beefier card.

[LeadStarDude]

Originally posted by dwnld1000:

I've come to think AC4 is when console parity kicked in with Ubi, but anything's possible really. Also, I heard 337.88 performs better because "graphic fidelity " was reduced, which results in poorer quality. Again, I'm just speculating.

337.88 is better because it reduces a lot of CPU overhead caused by a game by moving some of those processes to the GPU when a CPU bottleneck happens. It really helps performance in all games. It is kind of a new resource balancing upgrade

[abalian]

Ah, that's good news. Are you by any chance talking about Shader Cache?

[LeadStarDude]

Originally posted by dwnld1000:

Ah, that's good news. Are you by any chance talking about Shader Cache?

Yes that is part of it. ;)
Performance Boost
Introduces key DirectX optimizations which result in reduced game-loading times and significant performance increases across a wide variety of games. Results will vary depending on your GPU and system configuration.
4K Display Support
Added support for single-tile 4kx2k @ 60 Hz displays using bridgeless SLI cards.
NVIDIA Control Panel
Shader Cache: 3D Settings->Manage 3D Settings Page
Added Shader Cache setting to reduce CPU usage by saving compiled shaders to a disk cache. This may improve performance and reduce the time it takes for a game to load.
http://us.download.nvidia.com/Windows/337.88/337.88-win8-win7-notebook-release-notes.pdf

[abalian]

That explains the slightly faster load times, but not the increase in FPS. I'm assuming the only thing that would increase FPS is a reduction in something else, which makes me think twice about what that guy said about graphic fidelity, then I wonder how NVIDIA managed to "boost" performance up to 75%. Anyway, it's not like I actually noticed anything different, so so far so good. :D