Improve Performance / FPS Guide

[RED]

Ok, Firstly, i can't post this as a guide as i own the game on Uplay as it cost £35 less than it would have to purchase through steam.

IMPORTANT >>>THIS GUIDE IS DESIGNED TO STABALISE FPS FOR THOSE SEEING LOWER FRAMERATE FIGURES<<<

So many of the AC fanbase are appauled with the awful optimisation in this game.
Allow me to explain the ♥♥♥♥♥♥ performance and hopefully help you improve this!

The Anvil engine has been about since the First AC game back in 2007.
All of the titles have been ported to pc from console releases; whilst back in 07, they gave a lot more of a care toward this to ensure the earlier releases would spike fans on all platforms.

Q So why does it run like ♥♥♥♥?

A) When "Assassins Creed" came out back then, the generation of consoles had been about for a while AND pc gaming wasnt as popular as it is today thanks to youtubers and streamers in the masses. This meant the gamers who were playing on PC back then had more than the equivilant hardware to play the game with no issues; and the Devs were more up to date on how to optimise releases for the hardware they had to work with.

When you adjust the graphic quality & environment quality settings in any of the Assassins creed titles, it controls multiple variables of the engine and edits these to reflect in a config file in your computer.

For unity this is located. C:/User/Documents/assassin's creed unity/ACU.ini

Back in the earlier versions of the engine however, this sliders would change, Render distance, particles, entity cull, shader map resolution etc.

In Unity, this is not the case; the slider effectively changes toggles AA and grass... [Slight exaggeration but not far wrong]

Q )How can i rectify this problem?

A ) Luckily, i've played all the AC release on PC! So i have compiled a custom .ini using all of the settings i've ever encountered throughout the series' previous configuration files; this way i know that the engine will respond to these changes!

I will detail below the [Graphics] & [Performance] tags of my ACU.ini file

WHICH YOU CAN COPY PASTE OVER YOUR OWN TO APPLY CHANGES
[BARE IN MIND SOME VALUES WON'T ALWAYS START AT 0, THE LOWEST RECOGNISABLE VALUE FOR SOME OF THESE ENTRIES MAY IN FACT JUST BE 1]

VSync=0
Stretching=0
EnvironmentQuality=0
TextureQuality=0
ShadowQuality=0
SSAO=0
Bloom=0
AntiAliasingMode=0
Multisampling=0
Tessellation=0
Anisotropic=0
LODBlend=0
ReflectionQuality=0
GodRays=0
MotionBlur=0
UseVolumetricFog=0
ApexParticles=0
Particle=0
PostEffectsQuality=0
PostFX=0
ShadowDistance=1
DistanceLODEnabled=1
DistanceLOD=2
SmallObjectsCullDistanceModifier=5
MediumObjectsCullDistanceModifier=5
AdvancedDynamicLighting=0
Layers=0
MaxNPCLODLevel=0
ShadowMapSize=128
[Performance]
MaxNumNPCs=60

As you can see, there are multiple settings here that aren't appliable as options from the games graphics menu, and furthermore; options that you can't control at all without using this method

What we have here, is an optimised file that should have been how the game handled the engine with the slider set to "Low"

Q) So, How will This improve my FPS?

A) My .ini settings will apply these effects to your game

Entity Culling; The ability to force certain sized objects not to render unless they are within a close distance to the player. [ ObjectsCullDistanceModifier & Layers apply this effect ]

NPC Render Control; The original AC title added "MaxNumNPCs=80" to the .ini when set to low, Unity does not. The lowest fingure the engine allows is 60, as shown above. I have added MaxNPCLODLevel=0 as well to force npc of a certain distance not to render at all, and then look like ♥♥♥♥ when they do, until they are within range of the player to justify rendering them properly.

Level of Detail Blend; "LODBlend=0" This basically means theres no animus styled animation as things render, they just appear within a single frame when in range.

Generic 'Low' correction: "ReflectionQuality, GodRays, MotionBlur, UseVolumetricFog, ApexParticles, Particle, PostEffectsQuality, PostFX, ShadowDistance.
These should all be off with any game set on low, now they are - Your Welcome.

>>> SO BASICALLY... <<<
With these changes in place, the notorious lagspikes and framedrops we've all been seeing should reduce drastically, as you enter a new area, or new objects appear onscreen, the engine has less nobbing about to do behind the scenes, this should assist with stabalising your fps.

AS WELL AS THIS:
You can use Nvidia Control Panel; or Radeons Catalyst Control to force the AA, SSAO, Tessaltion etc to off. If you don't know how to do this- Google it.

[MasterDubya]

Couldnt find the file from my steam downloaded version-can you give a direct route? Unlike AC rogue, ACU doesnt have a .ini file right in my mydocs

[RED]

Depends on your operating system. They used to be in a folder called "My Games" / "Games" with alternative windows distros.

EDIT: Another Quick thought for you! Win Key + R and type %appdata%
Syphon through those until you stumble across it :)

[Ted]

thanks for the good thread, really found it helpful

[zerojad]

Thanks, it does make my game more playable.

[RED]

I'm glad this helps, any tech related queries, Gimme a message (Y)

[Crocodildo]

when I start m game it automatically changes my .ini settings back, is there a workaround for this?

[jOHNdOE]

Yeah there is something odd with it! when I started ACU after I copy & paste setting into the ACU.ini the game ran worse! than on low settings. When i quit and went back to check ACU.ini the game had changed things like TextureQuaility, EnvironmentQuality setting, from 0 to 2. So I just changed them back to 0 (low). I am still testing it, while my VRAM usage has dropped from 1900mb to 1500mb the game seems a bit sluggish.

[RED]

One of those things i think that you need to tweak for your particular rig.

[LowSpecGamer]

Hey! I have tried most of these settings of the .ini files, but none seem to work. ObjectsCullDistanceModifier does not seem to change anything and ShadowMapSize or ShadowDistance seem ignored, as shadows always appear the same and at the same distance.

Was this working on a previous version? is it still working?

[Darryllan]

if the file get changed back you should change it's properties to ''read only'' , you're welcome

[RED]

Originally posted by Vegeta:

if the file get changed back you should change it's properties to ''read only'' , you're welcome

Kudos, another techy up in here ;D

[TerriesOnLock]

I do not have most of those tags in my file, should I put in the ones that I am missing? (I see vsync, stretching, qualities, and a few other stuff but not the rest)

[RED]

yup ^^ then set read only as the other guy said

[luluzulu (she/her)]

If I apply these settings, will my game look bad? Like will the buildings be all blurry, and will the people be just blobs, stuff like that?

[Dragonlord3344]

Originally posted by Nature Loving Cholo:

If I apply these settings, will my game look bad? Like will the buildings be all blurry, and will the people be just blobs, stuff like that?

he explains what the stuff does ;), just gotta read it.

Also ty this is very informative post and i'll be using it as my downloads at 98%!