Assassin's Creed "Parity": Unity is 900p/30fps on both PS4 & Xbox One

[George P Global Moderator]

I have no doubts the game is graphically more impressive than AC4, but the topic isn't Ubisoft just saying we can't do 1080p on PS4 now due to a new engine. The remark as you can read as many times as you want says they'd rather "avoid debate".

Either way the PS4 GPU should enable some sort of difference, and the faster RAM, so if the game is 1:1, then I buy it's for parity. I don't just mean 1080 or 30/60, there should at least be texture, shadow or foliage based differences. Especially in an open world game. We seen it just days ago with Shadow or Mordor, 1080p with better shadows closer to PC like settings.

 

Maybe they don't want to cut something out of the look just to give you a higher resolution or a faster frame rate?    Again, no ones in here debating the GPU differences, all well and good there, but that has little to do if your issue is the CPU holding things back.  It's all tied together and the CPU is and always has been the bottleneck, even on the PC, that's never changed.  GPU bound games don't show a dramatic difference when it comes to the CPU but that's a whole different story if the game is using the CPU primarily.  You like to bring up Shadow of Mordor because it fits with your point but is that even the same type of game, is it CPU bound?  Is it using as much NPCs as what we've seen and what we expect out of Unity?     Not all games are coded and work the same, it's not really fair to compare one game to the other and say this one does this so the other should be able to as well. 

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

Maybe they don't want to cut something out of the look just to give you a higher resolution or a faster frame rate?    Again, no ones in here debating the GPU differences, all well and good there, but that has little to do if your issue is the CPU holding things back.  It's all tied together and the CPU is and always has been the bottleneck, even on the PC, that's never changed.  GPU bound games don't show a dramatic difference when it comes to the CPU but that's a whole different story if the game is using the CPU primarily.  You like to bring up Shadow of Mordor because it fits with your point but is that even the same type of game, is it CPU bound?  Is it using as much NPCs as what we've seen and what we expect out of Unity?     Not all games are coded and work the same, it's not really fair to compare one game to the other and say this one does this so the other should be able to as well. 

 

Open world games use the GPU heavily George, unless Ubisoft have reinvented how games development works you need a powerful GPU to push pixels and frame rate in an open world setting. There's a reason even Mordor runs better on the PC than the PS4 when it comes to lighting or shadows, GPU. Why do you think sports games come out the door day 1 1080/60, but open world games pretty much NEVER do 60 on a console.

 

The CPU primarily handles physics and calculations, so yeah, AI, but we've had games with a ton of NPCs on screen for years

 

 

You can quite easy load a game with large crowds, doesn't mean they're taxing if they aren't doing anything complicated (and textures are copy pasta). It's not as if Assassins Creed's AI has ever been shockingly amazing either, aka guards waiting one by one to fight you.

[HawkMan]

Citation needed. Just as it is for anyone saying MS have paid for parity, right?

 

 

Just go read the old Assasin creed topic, it's linked in there. It was even stated when they announced the patch that sony had paid for it. I honestly can't be bothered to look it up if but it was discussed in the AC4 topic so.

Edited October 7, 2014 by Andrew

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

Just go read the old Assasin creed topic, it's linked in there. It was even stated when they announced the patch that sony had paid for it. I honestly can't be bothered to look it up if but it was discussed in the AC4 topic so.

 

If you're going to bring it up, please bother to look it up. It's your addition to this topic, not mine, not anyone else's. If you can be bothered to post about said fact, I don't know why you wouldn't be interested to discuss it further in the context to this topic, with the evidence of course. Is it therefore possible to "pay for parity" if paying for patches is a cold fact? What's your thoughts on that?

 

Why didn't MS just give Ubisoft 10k to do an AC4 1080p patch if it's that simple? I mean we've got people in here saying AC4 was easier to develop than this CPU insane AC Unity, so did MS just think that day wait, we need that 10k for the 2.5 billion Minecraft buyout?

Edited October 7, 2014 by Andrew

[DrunknMunky Veteran]

Very silly not to push each console to it's full potential (at least as much as possible in the early stages of the generation) :no:

[xWhiplash]

Is this a common thing (running at only 30fps)?  I was thinking of getting a next gen console, but if this is common I might not get one.  I can get 100fps on a lot of games running at 2560x1440 on my PC.  What are they doing on these games?

[HawkMan]

Open world games use the GPU heavily George, unless Ubisoft have reinvented how games development works you need a powerful GPU to push pixels and frame rate in an open world setting. There's a reason even Mordor runs better on the PC than the PS4 when it comes to lighting or shadows, GPU. Why do you think sports games come out the door day 1 1080/60, but open world games pretty much NEVER do 60 on a console.

 

The CPU primarily handles physics and calculations, so yeah, AI, but we've had games with a ton of NPCs on screen for years

 

 

You can quite easy load a game with large crowds, doesn't mean they're taxing if they aren't doing anything complicated (and textures are copy pasta). It's not as if Assassins Creed's AI has ever been shockingly amazing either, aka guards waiting one by one to fight you.

 

 

NO, NO , NO and NOOOOOOOO

 

the GPU handles physics, CPU's are generally ###### poor at physics. whereas the massive parallell engine in a GPU is great at it. the CPU handles memory management and in the case of open world games with massive amount of crowd people especially, the AI. GPU's don' t handle that kind of calculation very well, CPU's do. BUT, handlign the "simple" AI of hundred and sometimes thousand of individuals is taxing even when it's simple crowd control.

 

Add in the fact that AC uses euphoria or somethign similar to euphoria to handle animations(inverse IK animations, where feet actually hit the ground correclty all the time, instead of floating in mid air when walking down stairs) and this uses the CPU as well and you have a very CPU intensive game. 

 

You can quite easy load a game with large crowds, doesn't mean they're taxing if they aren't doing anything complicated (and textures are copy pasta). It's not as if Assassins Creed's AI has ever been shockingly amazing either, aka guards waiting one by one to fight you.

 

a crowd isn't a crowd. 

 

the AC crowd is interactive, not only with you, but each other, that means each one of them is aware of all the people around them, and navigate around them, interact with them and react to them depending on who they are. the blood money crowd was what you would call a "dumb crowd"

[George P Global Moderator]

Open world games use the GPU heavily George, unless Ubisoft have reinvented how games development works you need a powerful GPU to push pixels and frame rate in an open world setting. There's a reason even Mordor runs better on the PC than the PS4 when it comes to lighting or shadows, GPU. Why do you think sports games come out the door day 1 1080/60, but open world games pretty much NEVER do 60 on a console.

 

The CPU primarily handles physics and calculations, so yeah, AI, but we've had games with a ton of NPCs on screen for years

 

 

You can quite easy load a game with large crowds, doesn't mean they're taxing if they aren't doing anything complicated (and textures are copy pasta). It's not as if Assassins Creed's AI has ever been shockingly amazing either, aka guards waiting one by one to fight you.

 

*sigh*.   I already pointed out to you how another open world game, also by Ubisoft at that, Watch Dogs, is CPU bound.  It's the way they do it it seems, doesn't mean they're all that way and it doesn't mean all open world games do it the same way you think they do.   Most open world games have vast empty spaces with basically nothing but the environment.   There's no list out there but often times you'd be surprised what games are more CPU demanding than GPU, GTA4 is another that comes to mind and it's an open world game.   I was told that Oblivion was another but I'm not sure.   Feel free to look for what is and what isn't, but to say open world game == GPU bound and so on isn't the case.

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

*sigh*.   I already pointed out to you how another open world game, also by Ubisoft at that, Watch Dogs, is CPU bound.  It's the way they do it it seems, doesn't mean they're all that way and it doesn't mean all open world games do it the same way you think they do.   Most open world games have vast empty spaces with basically nothing but the environment.   There's no list out there but often times you'd be surprised what games are more CPU demanding than GPU, GTA4 is another that comes to mind and it's an open world game.   I was told that Oblivion was another but I'm not sure.   Feel free to look for what is and what isn't, but to say open world game == GPU bound and so on isn't the case.

 

And Watch Dogs had a technical gap, so it's not doing any favours bringing it into the argument. VCFan says the XB1 is being held back by the PS4 with CPU based games, so what happened there?

 

How did we get from 792p on the XB1 to 900p here when all MS has freed up is GPU resources, not CPU. Are we now going to go back to the argument that the XB1 can improve as time passes with development (SDK/software/etc), but the PS4 is somehow maxed out at launch?

 

GTA4 ran like dogcrap on the PS3. As I already pointed out the CELL processor is a very good CPU, but the PS3 split memory, and worse GPU compared to the Xbox 360 meant GTA4 ran better on the 360.

Edited October 7, 2014 by Andrew

[trooper11]

Oh Ubisoft, just keep your mouth shut please. PS4 only owners are going to literally murder you over this. So even if you had a legit reason for this, as in a technical and not 'political', by talking about it publicly, you have ruined yourself.

As to those wondering how a new game can run at a lower res than a previous title, it happens. AC Black Flag got updated to 1080p for the ps4, and yet Watch Dogs stayed at 900p on the ps4. So Ubisoft already has a track record of newer games not hitting the same visual level as a previous title.

Next, to those claiming that any game with equal visual quality on both consoles means the ps4 version was purposely gimped, well just look at Destiny. That game was 1080p ps4/900p x1 until MS stepped in and got the improved tools to result in 1080p for both. I didn't see anyone raising canine about the quality parity in Destiny. PS4 and X1 owners handled it fine.

Finally, to those that might think MS paid for this, that is just wishful thinking. Instead of paying, why not just work with Ubisoft as they did with Bungee? I got to think that is both cheaper and less risky.

Probably somewhere on GAF someone has said that as a joke... On Neowin you'll find it's a serious remark.

I see you say this every so often, and it always sounds hollow. You make a generalized statement that is just masking an attack on certain people. Most people around here seem pretty reasonable. Maybe you need to rethink such remarks. When certain people make a silly remark, correct it. As if GAF is clean and Neowin is the devil :laugh:

Name one multiplatform game that has ran better on Xbox One? In align with open world games I just pointed out Mordor above, XB1 900/30, PS4 1080p/30 and then the other differences.

 

Even 1st party open world

 

Sunset Overdrive - 900/30

inFamous - 1080/30

That's easy, the answer is none. All we have seen is more parity, nothing better on the X1.

As far as comparing first party titles, that's a bit harder. Can you say that Sunset Overdrive and Infamous are built close enough to make any claim? Things like art style, Ai unit density, world density, ect, ect, might not be close enough to just compare resolution. I know Infamous since I beat it twice, but I'm not sure about SO yet.

[exotoxic]

"Technically we're CPU-bound," he said. "The GPUs are really powerful, obviously the graphics look pretty good, but it's the CPU [that] has to process the AI, the number of NPCs we have on screen, all these systems running in parallel.

 

I thought this was the exact thing the "cloud" processing was supposed to overcome??

[HawkMan]

Oh Ubisoft, just keep your mouth shut please. PS4 only owners are going to literally murder you over this. So even if you had a legit reason for this, as in a technical and not 'political', by talking about it publicly, you have ruined yourself.

 

 

The reason is as I said above, in my first reply. it's not worth the time, effort and money to optimize for one platform when the game will sell equally well without wasting those resources. 

I thought this was the exact thing the "cloud" processing was supposed to overcome??

 

but then they would have to spend time and resources optimizing for the XO and it's cloud system again, which is exactly what he said they weren't doing. 

[vcfan]

And Watch Dogs had a technical gap, so it's not doing any favours bringing it into the argument. VCFan says the XB1 is being held back by the PS4 with CPU based games, so what happened there?

How did we get from 792p on the XB1 to 900p here when all MS has freed up is GPU resources, not CPU.

wrong. the new sdk released CPU reservations as well as GPU and bandwidth,and even The Crew developers stated that the CPU bump helped that game go from 900p to 1080p. I posted that awhile back in the resolution thread.

 

Are we now going to go back to the argument that the XB1 can improve as time passes with development (SDK/software/etc), but the PS4 is somehow maxed out at launch?

 

did the ps4 have hard reservations for ps4 camera?

[theyarecomingforyou]

How in the world can they think it's right to limit the PS4 version because of limitations relating to the XB1? That's insane.

 

When developing a game like this they should always ask the question 'does this benefit gamers?' and if it doesn't it shouldn't be done. If the PS4 is capable of 1080p then it shouldn't be limited to 900p because of the XB1, which is what they've done by admitting they opted for 'parity'.

[George P Global Moderator]

And Watch Dogs had a technical gap, so it's not doing any favours bringing it into the argument. VCFan says the XB1 is being held back by the PS4 with CPU based games, so what happened there?

 

How did we get from 792p on the XB1 to 900p here when all MS has freed up is GPU resources, not CPU. Are we now going to go back to the argument that the XB1 can improve as time passes with development (SDK/software/etc), but the PS4 is somehow maxed out at launch?

 

GTA4 ran like dogcrap on the PS3. As I already pointed out the CELL processor is a very good CPU, but the PS3 split memory, and worse GPU compared to the Xbox 360 meant GTA4 ran better on the 360.

 

 

Why are you jumping all over the place with this?  My point stands, even if you don't happen to like the games I used as my examples, the fact remains that some games, even open world ones, are more CPU than GPU needy in what they do.   It doesn't matter what the GPU difference may be if that is held back by the time it takes the CPU to do it's work and the GPU is left waiting.   How did the XB1 get it's performance boost, it's not all because of the unlocked reserve, there are other factors.  Better tools with the newer SDK, developers having more time to work with the hardware and get more out of it, a combination of all of the above, take your pick.

 

I'm also not debating or saying either system is stuck with how it is now performance wise, be it drivers or software or whatever other updates they can push out to get more out of them, so I don't know why you want to bring that into this as well.

 

At the end of the day my plan was to play this game on the PC, that hasn't changed but simply because I don't own either of the new systems not because they're going to be 900p or w/e.  

[HawkMan]

snip

 

Also companies become rich by not wasting resources. 

 

here's an example.

 

making two identical vversionsof the game costs 5 imaginary millions and sells a total of 5 wishfull millions

 

Making an optimized game for each platform requires aditional programmers and more art assets, so it costs 6 imaginary millions and it still sell 5 wishfull millions.

 

 

Now WHY would a company who's main interest is making money, want to do the latter ? answer is, they don't.  They're ubisoft, have you not heard of them before ? they're not making games because they really like gamers and think they should have the best games they can make them at any cost...

Edited October 7, 2014 by Andrew

[123456789A]

I'm not terribly concerned about a 900p or 30fps, as long as the game is fun to play.

Edited October 7, 2014 by Andrew

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

snip

 

 

To mock the idea that a gigantic company like Ubisoft need any empathy when it comes to development resources on a game they manage to make a yearly instalment. Especially when other developers need years between open world titles (Elder Scrolls/inFamous/GTA).

 

I'm pretty sure if Ubisoft can pump out AC every year they have a vast pool of resources, developers, employees and money to focus individually on each platform to attain the best results for each. Saying you can't spend more time on one than the other is like something a poor indie dev says. Nearly ever damn dev had to spend more time on the PS3 last generation just to get similar results to the 360 on multiplat titles (and the majority ran worse), but now we're all about parity because of debates on forums if one platform runs better?

Edited October 7, 2014 by Andrew

[HawkMan]

snip

 

AI's work according to framerate generally, as that's easiest. sometimes they do multiple calulations per frame sometimes one per frame, for the crowds in AC it's safe to assume for any numbers of reason(the amount of actors being the main one) that they do one calulation per frame.

 

that is one calulation of Who am I, what am I doing, what will I do next, who are the people around me, do I know any, do I react to any, and do I have to react to any. in this simplified form, each actor here is actually doing 7 checks each frame. multiple that by a few hundred or more actors. add in a few more specialied actors with more advanced AI like the guards who there can be tens of as well who require much more complicated AI's and the main actors you're going to kill who will have even more advanced AI. 

 

All this has to be linked to a frame, otherwise you get frames where the actors(that is the crowds and the guards) aren't doing anything, because the AI isn't able to keep up. 

 

This is why AI controlled crowd games have CPU bound framerates. add in smart IK animation like euphoria for each actor as well and you have a very CPU demanding game. 

To mock the idea that a gigantic company like Ubisoft need any empathy when it comes to development resources on a game they manage to make a yearly instalment. Especially when other developers need years between open world titles (Elder Scrolls/inFamous/GTA).

 

 

And again, who said anything about empathy ? this is how THEY think. they think in cash. there is no money in optimizing the games for the consoles here for them. 

 

also mocking, really, is that the maturity level you're commenting at. Then maybe you should go to sleep and decide it that's the maturity level you want to operate at. 

Edited October 7, 2014 by Andrew

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

We understand how Senior Producer Vincent Pontbriand's quotes have been misinterpreted. To set the record straight, we did not lower the specs for Assassin's Creed Unity to account for any one system over the other.

 

Assassin's Creed Unity has been engineered from the ground up for next-generation consoles. Over the past 4 years, we have created Assassin's Creed Unity to attain the tremendous level of quality we have now achieved on Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC. It's a process of building up toward our goals, not scaling down, and we're proud to say that we have reached those goals on all SKUs.

 

At no point did we decide to reduce the ambitions of any SKU. All benefited from the full dedication of all of our available optimization resources to help them reach the level of quality we have today with the core Assassin's Creed Unity experience.

 

 

http://kotaku.com/ac-unity-will-have-same-specs-on-xbox-one-and-ps4-to-av-1643054770

Edited October 7, 2014 by Andrew

[+Thayios Subscriber²]

Heh, I managed to make it to this before my PS3 locked up:

 

[vcfan]

snip

with black flag, they openly bragged about optimizing only one version post ship.

 

Finishing the game at 900p gave the development team the extra room in terms of the GPU and CPU usage to ensure the framerate never dips below 30 frames per second. The team then used the time between the ship date and the release to focus on a title update that could deliver native 1080p resolution on the PS4.

http://blog.ubi.com/assassins-creed-iv-black-flag-in-native-1080p-on-playstation-4/

Edited October 7, 2014 by Andrew

[DrunknMunky Veteran]

Topic closed

 

The topic is far too gone for it to be re-opened. Time and time again I have been proved wrong that I can let you guys have second chances to continue maturely.

 

May I also remind some of you of the following rule:

 

Neowin Is Not A Support Forum For Other Sites.
Comparing, judging the content/value or raising the opinion of other sites, recruiting members or staff, bad mouthing (or victimizing) & negative discussion about non/affiliate site issues on our forums is neither wanted nor tolerated. Promotion of individual member sites or blogs will be deleted on sight.

 

If I wake up to see the resolution topic a mess with discussion moved there, I won't be so lenient in how I handle it tomorrow.

 

All of you consider this a clip around the ear for general good behaviour recently. Continue down the same path and I will hand out warnings.