Unity: unoptimized or too demanding

[Ruthlesswill]

I've always loved unitys graphics but with syndicate I realized they didn't fix anything performance wise(except forba few bugs) really as the engine remains the same, with syndicate it appears better fps is acheived but less population density less Indoor environment and less lighting quality so just quality over quantity at the same quality.I own neither games and I really want to play one and unity graphics are so appealing and appears to be fixed.sorta

[CursedPanther]

The amount of NPC in Unity is rather off in my opinion. I can understand that it's Paris after all, but a dozen or so NPCs walking up and down even in the narrowest allies? Now that's just a waste of hardware resources.

[Wardiaper]

I personally think Unity and Syndicate are the pinnacle of computer graphics, the insane amount of detail in the worlds and volume of content and number of unique and detailed NPCs on screen going about their unique lives and conversations (CursedPanther may be right with too many NPCs although it is pretty awesome to see them err on the side of massive numbers of NPCs rather than lifeless worlds). Some people can nit pick things here and there, but the overall packages are unequaled (in my opinion). And the gameplay just gets tighter and more polished with every new AC game.

All of this is dependent on if you have a good mid level or higher PC. Definitely should exceed the min requirements and closer to the recommended requirements on the store page for the best experience. They are both running amazing for me on an i5 4570, 16 GB RAM, Win 7, GTX 970. Haven't checked the FPS because anything over 45 FPS for me in a game feels smooth and these games for all their detail feel very smooth.

I haven't had a chance to play much of either game lately other than to run around admiring these worlds doing a few missions, but Unity feels more like an AC game and Syndicate feels more like moving towards a GTA game with the horse drawn carriages instead of cars like GTA. The detail on the carriages and the movement of all the parts again is taken to an insanely detailed level. If there was a FPS camera while dirving the carriages in Syndicate it would be perfect.

[CursedPanther]

Originally posted by Wardiaper:

I(CursedPanther may be right with too many NPCs although it is pretty awesome to see them err on the side of massive numbers of NPCs rather than lifeless worlds).

I never found the quantity of NPC back in AC2 and the expansions lacking at all, despite it's probably only half of what we had in Unity.

The real problem is the huge crowd in Unity doesn't exactly help you evade the pursuers any easier, and running down the streets will often get one or two civilians killed by enemy gunshots. That is arguably not a very 'assassin' thing to do.

[Ceriss]

There't not really worse, textures aren't lower res or anything in Syndicate and lighting seems to be largely unaffected if you ask me. Unity is less demanding for me, I can run ultra high textures and HBAO+ on Unity, turning HBAO+ on in Syndicate lowers the fps a bit more though.

Now the interiors are pretty dull there's not a lot of variation to be sure it's stripped down in that regard, less areas to load is just as impactful as turning off expensive shaders.

It's probably unoptimized a bit still it runs fine on my rig but even my bloated Skyrim with ENB and 4k textures everywhere can run relatively close to Unity performance and their textures are definitely not 4k.

AC games don''t have a good PC performance history.

[Vman009]

I just brought this game yesterday and I think it's a combination of both optimization and the game just being demanding. When I'm in a cut scene and all I can see is a persons face, my frame rate shouldn't drop by 10fps+.
But on the other hand, it really is amazing how beatiful France looks. Some of the interior levels I've explored in my brief 2 hours with the game are really stunning.

[CH13F]

its a bit better now, when it first released it was horrible.

[CursedPanther]

The latest patch for Unity was released some time last February.

The only things that could have changed since then are Windows updates and display drivers.

[Ailes]

Originally posted by Vman009:

I just brought this game yesterday and I think it's a combination of both optimization and the game just being demanding. When I'm in a cut scene and all I can see is a persons face, my frame rate shouldn't drop by 10fps+.
But on the other hand, it really is amazing how beatiful France looks. Some of the interior levels I've explored in my brief 2 hours with the game are really stunning.

The ingame cutscenes, as far as I've seen, are rendered with much more quality in terms of people's faces and hairs. If you compare their facial details and amount of detail or invidiual strains of hair to their ingame models you'll notice. Although I fear something might be off with my graphics card or drivers because I'm having some graphical glitches across various games.

I'd love to hear from anybody else if they notice the quality differences in ingame models to cutscene models.

[Ailes]

I also notice the shadows of individual people disappearing at mid to long range. They just pop out of sight. Is that normal? I really wanna know because of mentioned glitches I get with my graphics card/drivers/OS state.

[Ceriss]

Originally posted by Sharisad:

Originally posted by Vman009:

I just brought this game yesterday and I think it's a combination of both optimization and the game just being demanding. When I'm in a cut scene and all I can see is a persons face, my frame rate shouldn't drop by 10fps+.
But on the other hand, it really is amazing how beatiful France looks. Some of the interior levels I've explored in my brief 2 hours with the game are really stunning.

The ingame cutscenes, as far as I've seen, are rendered with much more quality in terms of people's faces and hairs. If you compare their facial details and amount of detail or invidiual strains of hair to their ingame models you'll notice. Although I fear something might be off with my graphics card or drivers because I'm having some graphical glitches across various games.

I'd love to hear from anybody else if they notice the quality differences in ingame models to cutscene models.

I hear what they do is super sample the cutscenes which would easily explain the fps drop and jump in quality.

[never047]

While it sure does look stunning in places, I still wouldn't consider Unity to be the pinnacle of graphics. The engine has it's share of issues and the LOD distance is the biggest one..

And yes, it definitely seems like the game is using higher quality assets and lighting during the cut-scenes..

[wayne_959]

Originally posted by <<<Ch13F>>>:

its a bit better now, when it first released it was horrible.

but the detail of the buildings far away are gone. some distant building now looks horrible.

[Ceriss]

Originally posted by never047:

While it sure does look stunning in places, I still wouldn't consider Unity to be the pinnacle of graphics. The engine has it's share of issues and the LOD distance is the biggest one..

And yes, it definitely seems like the game is using higher quality assets and lighting during the cut-scenes..

Have to agree. It's not the pinnacle. It's a lovely game but not the most technically advanced in terms of graphics.

[CursedPanther]

Originally posted by wayne_959:

Originally posted by <<<Ch13F>>>:

its a bit better now, when it first released it was horrible.

but the detail of the buildings far away are gone. some distant building now looks horrible.

You mean the far away buildings have lost texture when you try to synchronize the area? An inevitable trade off unfortunately.

[SaltySub2]

Originally posted by CursedPanther:

Originally posted by wayne_959:

but the detail of the buildings far away are gone. some distant building now looks horrible.

You mean the far away buildings have lost texture when you try to synchronize the area? An inevitable trade off unfortunately.

It's also just when you climb up to the roofs, even buildings not that far away have too much detail lost (too aggressive LOD).

I don't mind having lower textures, playing at lower resolution, as long as we have an LOD distance setting so we can control that aspect. "Draw Distance" setting, as it were.

This way let the user decide the exact graphics quality and balance of AA, AF, FPS, draw distance, detail, etc. they want.

AC:Unity is actually a very beautiful but indeed very demanding engine. The cutscenes do look fantastic, and especially manually setting Anisotropic to 16X, setting SGSSAA 4x, in-game setting AO to HBAO+ etc... on an Nvidia 970, 980 and 980 Ti you can really appreciate all that quality especially at 2K (4K would require 980Ti SLI for max settings, AFAIK).

We just need that Draw Distance/ LOD setting for when climbing onto the roofs, so that looking out to buildings 50-200 metres away still looks fine, not horribly "chopped up" in its textures, etc.

As for AntiAliasing the best setting I found is FXAA in-game, then SMAA through Master Effect and SGSSAA transparency antialiasing (for foliage) through Nvidia Control Panel.

PS. Yes the crowds are somewhat excessive but I think this is the first AC game where you get to experience a city teeming with such life... and hating the NPCs because they're just in the way LOL!

PPS. I thought Paris would be more exciting and elegant but I love how the all the details including the NPC crowds show what a chaotic time the Revolution was... which feeds into the storyline as you will see.