Report: Assassin's Creed: Unity Frame Rate Problems Across Consoles - Update

[Grumman]

It's not just possible, it's trivially easy. All you need to do is make the program increment a counter each time it renders a character, and stop rendering characters once it hits a cap or once it runs out of characters, whichever happens first. If there are a thousand people within LOS, just render the closest 200 and stop there. If there are 5, since 5 < 200, render them no matter how far away they are.

If you think this is not possible, you clearly have not the slightest clue about programming.

If it's so trivially easy, then you should be able to name 5 games that use tech like this, can't you?

*sigh*

The entire point of using such a technique is to ensure your optimisation methods are hidden from the end user while remaining efficient. Low draw distance fails to hide its corner-cutting, which is why it is possible to point to a game and say "Yes, that one uses low draw distance to reduce the amount of rendering it needs to do". An end user should not be capable of pointing at your game and saying "See? They're cutting corners there!" because if they can see it to complain about it, you aren't doing your job right.

 

[silverleaf81]

Great, they did a Battlefield 4. And Ubisoft will probably never fully fix the game either, they'd have long moved on to the sequel. And their engines seem to keep getting worse and worse, while also having higher requierments than before. What a mess.

I remember recently of an article that accused them of being the new EA, and I find it difficult to disagree.

 

[Something Amyss]

I remember recently of an article that accused them of being the new EA, and I find it difficult to disagree.

If Ubisoft thinks they can take the title without a fight, they'd better watch themselves.

 

[Buizel91]

At least they are trying to fix it, and aware there is a problem, for such a huge game there is bound to be a fuckton of problems.

No excuse mind, a month later and there probably wouldn't be as many problems. They probably got big headed after the success of Black Flag. Ooh well live and learn.

Probably pick this up after christmas.

 

[ryukage_sama]

Oh, God. Some of those images from the Steam Community page made me think of Mr. Popo.

Spoiler

Edit:
And the internet delivers.

 

[Jadak]

Now, this is where I actually have an issue with the whole 'frame rate' topic.

Unlike what seems to be a popular opinion, I am entirely okay with 30 fps being all that is desired for a game. However, when you make 30 fps a target, to the point that it actually can't go higher, then you get a development process that that makes 30fps a goal.

And while I'm okay with 30fps in the game, 30fps as the height of your performance goals is shit.

So sure, 30fps is fine for a game, but testing isn't perfect, performance is never consistent, and frame rate always suffers. If it suffers when you came was optimized with 60fps as a goal, no biggie, it drops to 30 or so and it's just fine.

But, if performance in your game hits a snag when it was only intended to reach 30 fps to begin with? Well, this happens, it's fucked.

Really, regardless of the frame rate your game will actually run at, you should design intending to at least handle 60. If you choose to throttle it down to 30 after the fact to ensure a stable and consistent experience, go for it, but if you aim for 30 and shit doesn't keep up? Now your game just sucks.

 

[J Tyran]

If a dynamic render distance is so trivially easy to program, then name 5 games that use it.

You know there are mods for Skyrim that patch that into the game? Yes mods made by the players, they also work much better than a team full of supposedly triple A developers can manage.

 

[Jandau]

Could it be that trying to put out yearly sequels leaves developers with too little time to... you know.. DEVELOP the game? Why not take 2-3 years to properly develop a title, polish the design, make sure the mechanics are working well, maybe add in new features and expand on existing ones, optimize the software for all the platforms and thereby get the best performance out of the hardware available?

Oh yes, because charging $60 once every two years is half as much money as charging $60 every year...

 

[Czann]

Another day, another Ubisoft trainwreck.

 

[Matt K]

This game was released today, right?
Was there some review embargo?

I was wondering the same thing.
Anyhow, why has Rogue not been mentioned at all? That is supposed to be the more interesting of the two but i have to wait till friday for it to be available in Europe.

Like other had said, Unity had an embargo until after Launch day.

As for Rogue, apparently Ubisoft did not send out any review copies to any outlet. So anyone wanting to review it had to wait until after launch (and had to buy their own copy, which isn't as big a deal but means most media outlets won't bother).

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

This game will never be properly fixed on the PC. It's Ubisoft. They'll try to reduce the damage on the consoles, but even that remains the question. PC version is forever doomed to being one of the worst ports in history. And I would love nothing more than to be proven wrong. But I won't because this game wasn't ready to go out of pre-beta testing.

 

[FYI I Am Some Guy]

At least they are trying to fix it, and aware there is a problem, for such a huge game there is bound to be a fuckton of problems.

They released a set of patches trying to fix Watch Dogs, and the performance after half a year of patching is still too poor for what the game is. I don't see why this will be any different.

 

[EternallyBored]

Could it be that trying to put out yearly sequels leaves developers with too little time to... you know.. DEVELOP the game? Why not take 2-3 years to properly develop a title, polish the design, make sure the mechanics are working well, maybe add in new features and expand on existing ones, optimize the software for all the platforms and thereby get the best performance out of the hardware available?

Oh yes, because charging $60 once every two years is half as much money as charging $60 every year...

Much like how Call of Duty has multiple development studios working on it, so too does AC. They get more than a year to make each game, and Unity has likely been in development for at least 2 years, possibly more. It still probably could have used more time anyway though, as the recent release of Advanced Warfare shows, the multiple team cycle worked fine for AC and CoD, but it seems to fall apart with the transition to a new console generation, the team probably could have used more time to learn and develop the new engine rather than just the game itself.

With the advance to a new generation, these yearly release games are likely suffering from being unable to just rely on making small modifications to the old graphics engine, like how pretty much every CoD game is running off a modified Modern Warfare IW engine, and AC is running off a heavily modified Anvil engine that's been used since AC 1. Even Unity and Advanced Warfare are running off the same engines that have been used for years, appropriately modified and improved for advancing tech of course, but at some point these graphics engines that have been around since 2007 will need to be either completely replaced or given massive overhauls.

 

[WouldYouKindly]

Still wearing the gimp suit, eh Ubi? Well, time for another round of tongue lashing to the company who seems to ask for it non-stop.

 

[KaZuYa]

Sigh..............This is why you develop on PC and make it as awesome as you want on a machine which can run it perfectly then you downscale for console so it runs well, You do not develop for console on hardware which cannot live up to your aspirations or even run it well then port the whole mess to PC with virtually no support for controls or options for more fps. GG Ubisoft GG.

 

[Pebkio]

That juttering, those pauses...

It's so cinematic! Way too cinematic for my brain to comprehend. It's like I've been transported into that world and arrived there with brain damage.

 

[Rozalia1]

Sigh..............This is why you develop on PC and make it as awesome as you want on a machine which can run it perfectly then you downscale for console so it runs well, You do not develop for console on hardware which cannot live up to your aspirations or even run it well then port the whole mess to PC with virtually no support for controls or options for more fps. GG Ubisoft GG.

... What are you on about? This madness (the state of Unity) has not a single thing to do with whatever you're trying to state.

 

[Shamanic Rhythm]

Oh, God. Some of those images from the Steam Community page made me think of Mr. Popo.

Spoiler

Hahaha. Well picked, my friend.

Someone needs to make a mod for this game now that makes this a permanent look, and when you throw a guard off a ledge it goes "Enjoy the climb back up, *****!"

 

[KaZuYa]

Sigh..............This is why you develop on PC and make it as awesome as you want on a machine which can run it perfectly then you downscale for console so it runs well, You do not develop for console on hardware which cannot live up to your aspirations or even run it well then port the whole mess to PC with virtually no support for controls or options for more fps. GG Ubisoft GG.

... What are you on about? This madness (the state of Unity) has not a single thing to do with whatever you're trying to state.

I hope you are being ironic.

 

[Arnoxthe1]

Looks like that stupid yearly development cycle is now beginning to take its toll.