Assassin's Creed Shadows: PC Raytracing Modes Explained

[Blk_Widow9]

Hello everyone,

Following the release of our PC specs for Assassin's Creed Shadows, we wanted to share additional insight directly from our tech team on the use of raytracing in the game.

Assassin’s Creed Shadows features three distinct raytracing modes on PC:

Selective Raytracing: This mode uses raytracing only within the Hideout portion of the game. The reason behind this, is that the Hideout allows extensive player customization at a level never seen before on Assassin’s Creed. Because of that, we cannot use traditional, pre-calculated, global illumination techniques, and therefore need to adopt a real-time approach with raytracing. In all other gameplay situations, such as in the open world, raytracing will not be used.

However, if your GPU does not support hardware raytracing, such as pre-RTX GPUs, we have developed our own solution to allow competent, yet older, GPUs to run Assassin’s Creed Shadows. The game will use a proprietary software-based raytracing approach developed specifically for that. This was made to ensure Assassin's Creed Shadows remains accessible to as many players as possible.

Standard Raytracing: This mode uses the hardware raytracing capabilities of the GPU to compute real-time global illumination.

Extended Raytracing: This mode uses the hardware raytracing capabilities of the GPU to compute both real-time global illumination and reflections. This is the most extensive usage of raytracing.

On GPUs that support hardware raytracing, the choice will always be given to the player. It is one of numerous settings available to players to customize their experience on PC.

[i-dot]

EULA prohibits modifiying
so no mods are allowed?

[i-dot]

Opprinnelig skrevet av Blk_Widow9:

EULA is going to spy my RAM
stop spying

[Anmaril]

Why can customers not put this OFF?!
What the holy heck. Sorry but this an absolute ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. I don't want raytracing. It takes too much performance and therefore also energy for what it does.

[Buzo 1º Chitukis]

I really wish Shadows allowed you to wear headgear in cutscenes.

[A_BloodyVanguard [GER]]

"AC Shadows" & "Star Wars Outlaws"
are the first (or my first) games with
"integrated Raytracing" & "Upscaling"
> you can't deactivate Raytracing (you can only minimize the RT-Intensity)
> you can't deactivate Upsaling (you have to choose either FSR/DLSS/Xess)

Therefore both games runs like Trash on my Setup (even with the lowest settings).
Skull&Bones runs only a little little bit better.

Theese kind of Quality-Settings have to be improved furthermore before implementing them totally in a game.
Not all people can have "the best of the best HighEnd-PC (FHD/WQHD/4K/....)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I have a Laptop (sadly, not a optimal PC-Setup)
Acer Nitro 5 AN517-41 / RTX 3070 8gb / R7 5800 / 2x16gb RAM / 2x1tb SSD
Since a few month i'm thinking around to buy a full PC-Setup.
Playing on a Laptop/Notebook is bad (even if its called Gaming-Laptop).

Sometimes max 25 FPS, mostly consistent 10-15 FPS. SlowMo unlimited!
Low - Middle Settings.
No useful change between all Upscalings.
The Trillions of "Falling Leaves" should be disabled!

[Bigtog77]

cpu must support avx2 to run this executable

[patrick68794]

Opprinnelig skrevet av A_BloodyVanguard GER:

"AC Shadows" & "Star Wars Outlaws"
are the first (or my first) games with
"integrated Raytracing" & "Upscaling"
> you can't deactivate Raytracing (you can only minimize the RT-Intensity)
> you can't deactivate Upsaling (you have to choose either FSR/DLSS/Xess)

Therefore both games runs like Trash on my Setup (even with the lowest settings).
Skull&Bones runs only a little little bit better.

Theese kind of Quality-Settings have to be improved furthermore before implementing them totally in a game.
Not all people can have "the best of the best HighEnd-PC (FHD/WQHD/4K/....)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I have a Laptop (sadly, not a optimal PC-Setup)
Acer Nitro 5 AN517-41 / RTX 3070 8gb / R7 5800 / 2x16gb RAM / 2x1tb SSD
Since a few month i'm thinking around to buy a full PC-Setup.
Playing on a Laptop/Notebook is bad (even if its called Gaming-Laptop).

They are not the first games to have RT you can't disable. A lot of Unreal Engine 5 games use it, Metro Exodus Enhanced and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle also have RT that can't be disabled

[cTm]

this forced RT eat to much FPS

[matsix]

So much misinformation in here...

I have a 3080 and can run ray tracing fine at 1440p DLSS set to quality. Almost every setting set to very high/ultra. FSR frame gen is also implemented really well in this game and helps a lot, doesn't look choppy at all and also doesn't add input delay like it usually does.

And yes you CAN disable ray tracing and it reverts to the baked GI solution from previous AC games. Just watch a digital foundry video and they show it there...

"Diffuse hideout only" disables it everywhere except for your hideout. Just set that setting then set both ray tracing options to lowest.

[Medusa]

Opprinnelig skrevet av A_BloodyVanguard GER:

"AC Shadows" & "Star Wars Outlaws"
are the first (or my first) games with
"integrated Raytracing" & "Upscaling"
> you can't deactivate Raytracing (you can only minimize the RT-Intensity)
> you can't deactivate Upsaling (you have to choose either FSR/DLSS/Xess)

Therefore both games runs like Trash on my Setup (even with the lowest settings).
Skull&Bones runs only a little little bit better.

Theese kind of Quality-Settings have to be improved furthermore before implementing them totally in a game.
Not all people can have "the best of the best HighEnd-PC (FHD/WQHD/4K/....)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I have a Laptop (sadly, not a optimal PC-Setup)
Acer Nitro 5 AN517-41 / RTX 3070 8gb / R7 5800 / 2x16gb RAM / 2x1tb SSD
Since a few month i'm thinking around to buy a full PC-Setup.
Playing on a Laptop/Notebook is bad (even if its called Gaming-Laptop).

Sometimes max 25 FPS, mostly consistent 10-15 FPS. SlowMo unlimited!
Low - Middle Settings.
No useful change between all Upscalings.
The Trillions of "Falling Leaves" should be disabled!

If you set RT to hide out only it is disable basically anywhere but in the hideout.
So what you say here is not true.

[PixelBuddy37]

fix DLSS, please

[Mitai na Kanji]

Ah I see. So because you couldn't come up with an entirely new way to make Assassin's Creed feel fresh. Y'all gave us expensive graphics. I gotcha chief. Imma hit up every Best Buy, Walmart, any online tech store, and scalper for a fresh 5090. Can't wait to spend $1000+ to play a $70 game. Could an optimization patch help? Perhaps not, I better get to searching for that cheap upgrade before they all get bought.

[cTm]

Opprinnelig skrevet av Medusa:

Opprinnelig skrevet av A_BloodyVanguard GER:

"AC Shadows" & "Star Wars Outlaws"
are the first (or my first) games with
"integrated Raytracing" & "Upscaling"
> you can't deactivate Raytracing (you can only minimize the RT-Intensity)
> you can't deactivate Upsaling (you have to choose either FSR/DLSS/Xess)

Therefore both games runs like Trash on my Setup (even with the lowest settings).
Skull&Bones runs only a little little bit better.

Theese kind of Quality-Settings have to be improved furthermore before implementing them totally in a game.
Not all people can have "the best of the best HighEnd-PC (FHD/WQHD/4K/....)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I have a Laptop (sadly, not a optimal PC-Setup)
Acer Nitro 5 AN517-41 / RTX 3070 8gb / R7 5800 / 2x16gb RAM / 2x1tb SSD
Since a few month i'm thinking around to buy a full PC-Setup.
Playing on a Laptop/Notebook is bad (even if its called Gaming-Laptop).

Sometimes max 25 FPS, mostly consistent 10-15 FPS. SlowMo unlimited!
Low - Middle Settings.
No useful change between all Upscalings.
The Trillions of "Falling Leaves" should be disabled!

If you set RT to hide out only it is disable basically anywhere but in the hideout.
So what you say here is not true.

Diffuse hideout only is pure marketing, still a force RT, i want to see disabled/off option

[matsix]

Opprinnelig skrevet av cTm:

Opprinnelig skrevet av Medusa:

If you set RT to hide out only it is disable basically anywhere but in the hideout.
So what you say here is not true.

Diffuse hideout only is pure marketing, still a force RT, i want to see disabled/off option

Buddy, it's actually not "pure marketing". It's done for a reason. Since the hideout is fully customizable where you can place stuff wherever you want, it literally will not work with baked lighting. It actually NEEDS the ray tracing for it to look presentable. Otherwise the whole hideout will look totally out of place and everything will look flat and incredibly ugly. Diffuse option means only ray traced global illumination.

[Medusa]

Opprinnelig skrevet av cTm:

Opprinnelig skrevet av Medusa:

If you set RT to hide out only it is disable basically anywhere but in the hideout.
So what you say here is not true.

Diffuse hideout only is pure marketing, still a force RT, i want to see disabled/off option

It is disabled when it's on hideout only, simply because the hide out is not where the actual game takes place.