The Hidden Blade Assassin's Creed in Depth

I noticed that PS3 versions of AC games have freezes, whereas PC versions have not.

Here's a quick YouTube test:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9eFSa-0s3s

I'm not terribly happy with the way this video turned out. It's really not doing the game any justice as it looks much better in the actual game than what's shown here. The original video capture file looks fantastic, but the output render from Sony Vegas Pro is very softened. I've tried various encoding formats and settings but it always comes out this way. I'm going to try a different encoding app altogether to see if that remedies the situation.

It seems to me that with every AC game released since ACII, each sequel has gotten sloppier and more sloppier.

I suggest you to try Anri-Chan (link below) to encode. Maybe the code has to be changed in order to obtain eXtreme-Quality with higher video bitrate (25000 kbps for instance).

Also keep in mind that afaik the video bitrate on YouTube doesn't depend on the resolution, given it's greater than 1080p. (or is it 720p?)

http://kb.speeddemosarchive.com/Anri-chan

In what way? What is this in response to?

Thanks! I'll take a look.

Could you maybe please measure your FPS (min and avg) running around in Boston during the day while recording, and while not recording? Also, what is your processor and your graphics card?

so are Steams releases region specific?
i pre downloaded it yesterday, but i'm still waiting for it to be "officially released"

Oh my goodness, Asaic. That screenshot is delicious indeed. *drool* (not really )

Beautiful Screenshot. Just got it from my Gamestop pre-order. Definitely going to install it after I finish crawling through the Steam sales (AUTUMN SALES ARE GREAT!!!).

My PC is as follows:

• AMD Phenom II X4 965 (3.4GHz)
• 8 GB DDR3 RAM
• AMD Radeon HD 6870 (1 GB)
• Windows 7 Ultimate (64-bit)

Still in Boston, Sequence 2. I have the game's resolution set to 1920x1080 (60Hz). With graphics settings on maximum, I get an average of 22fps with dips as low as 15fps. With minimum graphics settings, I average about 40fps with the occasional dip down to 30fps. I'm using a separate capture card to do my video captures, so there is virtually zero impact to my performance while capturing.

I'd like to reiterate that the PC version at the lowest settings looks noticeably better than the console versions. The console versions run at 720p natively and top out at 30fps, with frequent dips below 25fps.

To get an idea of the difference between the "Normal" and "Very High" graphics settings, take a look at the following two screenshots:
http://imageshack.us/a/img29/755/ac3pcnormal.jpg
http://imageshack.us/a/img35/3355/ac3pcveryhigh.jpg

To really see the difference, save them both to your computer and flip back and forth between them. When setting the graphics to Very High in the game, it's immediately noticeable, especially in motion.

Despite how it might seem, the game is still very playable for me on Very High. The occasional stutter wouldn't make for good videos, but I can live with it to have the vastly superior graphics. Topped out, AC3 is one of the best looking PC games available today, in my opinion.

A quick Google search turns up November 20th for North America, 22nd for Australia, and 23rd for Europe.

Awesome, Asaic, thank you.

Now, I've been reading the forums and articles for the past three days, and there are some inconsistencies in performance between different setups, and of course everyone is hoping that new AMD graphics drivers and game patches will improve the situation, but right now two suspects are bad multi-core utilization and bad AMD optimization.

To me, the most outstanding strangeness is the contradiction between these two tests:

http://www.pcgameshardware.de/Assassins-Creed-3-PC-235361/Tests/Assassin...

http://benchmark3d.com/assassins-creed-3-benchmark

One shows good multi-core utilization with AMD CPU and GeForce graphics, while the other one shows bad multi-core utilization, severe CPU bottleneck with Intel CPU and AMD GFX.

And you have AMD processor with AMD graphics. Well, I don't know if you like experimenting, but if you do, there's an interesting opportunity here. If you could measure the FPS on the same city-gameplay run with different numbers of cores turned on and/or take a screenshot of the core-by-core CPU usage, that would be informative. Maybe even use a lower resolution for heavier CPU-bottlenecking.

Besides taking a look at the CPU-usage graph, another simple experiment that you can do without the hassle of turning off cores is comparing the FPS at different resolutions.

Basically, if you have bad multi-core utilization, that will suggest that the AMD graphics driver is causing the CPU-bottleneck.

I'll leave the analyzing to the experts. Or, in this case, the people with tons of spare time.

I get far less time to play games than I would like and I want to make some videos, so I'm going to just play through the game for now. I turned Environmental Detail down to normal and AA down to High and now it looks just about as good as max settings yet plays almost as smoothly as with everything on normal. I'm quite happy with the balance. The framerate is better than the console versions and the game looks significantly better than those versions. Win-win.

Yeah, okay, I'm sure there will be a lot of performance analysis done in the weeks and months to come anyway.

Here's a feisty review I just found:

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/11/22/assassins-creed-3-pc-review/

it's now working anymore.
i'm trying to start the game now and i'm getting an error message. i will loosely translate it to english here.

*i'm not sure what the english term is, it's close to one of those.

and when i click on the link to Steams support it says

Do you know how to get Steam to verify your game files? Something probably became corrupted, so it would just re-download the affected files.

i have no idea how to do that.

if i just re-install, will i lose all my progress? if so, i'm not gonna bother to play it again

Right click the game in your Steam Library -> Properties -> Local Files tab. Then click 'Verify Integrity of Game Cache'.

I've been thinking about laying down another 80 bucks on Steam to get this. I don't remember AC:R being that bad on consoles but here i noticed the building textures look super jagged in the distance. I haven't exactly been anticipating the next console gen that much but i think AC3 is the game opened my eyes(WE NEED A NEW XBOX/Playstation!).

So i just bought the PC version on Steam and learned that there is a bug with the DLC that kills all of the in-game music. Hope Ubisoft fixes this soon as music is one of the best parts of AC.

Which DLC is this? I have the season pass and no issues with the music.

I'm not sure, the combat music works but it's the scripted tracks that aren't playing(like in the Opera House). When Haytham is climbing backstage it's completely silent aside from the npcs off stage.

And you're sure it's not supposed to be like that?

I KNOW there's background music during the Opera House mission. I think it's the Hidden Secrets pack, whenever i play with that installed all the cutscenes are silent(side from dialog and sound effects).

yes. that did the trick
thank you

Having a clear understanding of spambot speech patterns is important to helping you understand that we ACTUALLY live in a subtle cyberpunk dystopia.