Ubisoft discovers source of low FPS in AC: Unity

[ImBleu]

Source: http://www.kitguru.net/gaming/matthew-wilson/ubisoft-has-discovered-acu-low-frame-rate-cause/

Source2: http://assassinscreed.ubi.com/en-US/community/liveupdates/live_updates_details.aspx?c=tcm:152-185420-16&ct=tcm:148-76770-32

 

 

 

Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed development team has been working around the clock since the launch of Unity in an effort to patch out a ton of issues players on all platforms have been facing. On the PC side, things have been pretty bad with low frame rate issues even on high end hardware-  there was even a super creepy ‘no face’ bug.

Fortunately, the no face bug has been fixed and Ubisoft discovered that it was only caused by two specific graphics cards. In an update on the AC: Unity live blog, Ubisoft said: “In both cases the issue is resolved with the application of the Day 1 patch (as well as all future patches). This should not be affecting any players who are allowing their game to be automatically patched as recommended with updates as they are released.”

 

Considering the recent allegations on Reddit of the supposed ex-ubisoft developer working 67+ hours a week, we can believe the whole "working around the clock thing". That is, in-between their Mining expeditions.

 

 

 

 

We can tell you that we have detected a distinct discrepancy between what we observed in the pre-launch versus post-launch environment. In spite of our testing, it looks like the instruction queue is becoming overloaded and impacting performance. We have several fixes we are exploring right now and will continue to update you with our progress of what is working and how quickly we can implement these fixes in the game in the weeks ahead. 

 

Looks like this might all be fixed soon - at least we can hope. if anyone still cares about AC:Unity that is.

 

 

Ubisoft plans to fix these by:

 

Meanwhile, we are looking at the following revisions that should improve framerate stability for all players: 

• Streamlining some technical aspects of navigation: We’ve fixed a number of edge cases with our detection system to smooth certain behaviors during parkour. We’ve fixed a few objects which were improperly tagged to smooth navigation.

 

• Improving task scheduling: We’ve tuned the way the computing tasks are prioritized and parallelized by the processor cores to improve framerate in certain edge cases. 

 

• Tweaking performance for Reach High Points: We’ve optimized the reach high points, during the camera swooping sequence to improve framerate a little bit. 

 

It seems like they understand 30fps isn't all its cracked up to be.

 

 

 

 We hope to have further updates on this topic before the end of the week. 

 

Looks like it's going to be dealt with quite fast at least.

 

 

It seems like Ubisoft might be slowing down their digging operation -- But at least they're not blaming AMD anymore. Would've been nice to see an apology from them but hey, fixing the problems works too I guess.

 

(Checked - Couldn't find a repost)

 

 

EDIT: Fixed for Night theme.

[SkilledRebuilds]

^ I can't even read that second quote...may wanna fix that..

/Highlight it, go to the color options in the post editor, click automatic.

[TheKDub]

The source: Shitty console ports & terrible optimization.

 

We all know that there was a 99.999% chance that they purposely made it run shittily on pc like they did.

[ImBleu]

^ I can't even read that second quote...may wanna fix that..

 

I'm a night themer, I couldn't read it either. Quickly fixed it though - Should be good now.

[FluffiestPond]

"Ubisoft discovers source of low FPS in AC: Unity"

[SkilledRebuilds]

I'm a night themer, I couldn't read it either. Quickly fixed it though - Should be good now.

Thanks man... Seriously had some trouble reading it without selecting it.

[patrickjp93]

interesting.

[Altecice]

Well this is good news!

[virtualTune]

I like this. Thanks for posting

[DigitalHermit]

Could things have gone differently if they used the Mantle API and not stick with DirectX11?

[ImBleu]

looks as if they shipped the game due to pressure from investor's thus didnt test it

 

As per the "Ex-Ubisoft Employee"'s accounts for life working at Ubisoft.

[ImBleu]

Could things have gone differently if they used the Mantle API and not stick with DirectX11?

 

You could use any API, but if your code is absolute shit, nothing's going to save it.

[Altecice]

valve's better offf being a privetly owned company..... no pressure to ship shit

 

Im sure thats how Ubisoft started, then managers pressure the workers because they are being pressured. Its an endless cycle.

[ShadowCaptain]

Source: "We are shit at making games it turns out"

[Toddwjp]

all they had to do was optimise and unity reviews would have been decent enough

[That Norwegian Guy]

Conspiracy theory: they injected the game with a scaling performance sink just enough to prevent streaming or let's play recordings from being made until they sucked out all the launch money, then 'fixing' it in a patch later.

 

Ubisoft are galaxy-leading assholes, after all. Surely, you can't put something like that past them.

[SeriouslyMikey]

It should have been done beforehand.

 

[typographie]

Could things have gone differently if they used the Mantle API and not stick with DirectX11?

 

Possibly, depending on what's actually wrong. If it's an issue with draw calls, as Linus suggested in the WAN show I think, then Mantle might have been able to do a better job. But to be clear, that's not a fix—the game needs to work properly with DirectX.

 

The root of the problem, in my opinion, is that it's a game designed from the foundations around creating E3 trailers. If they didn't feel like their engine need to display up to 5,000 NPCs that add nothing of value to the gameplay, maybe it wouldn't have been so difficult to get it working on current hardware.

[Humbug]

It seems like Ubisoft might be slowing down their digging operation -- But at least they're not blaming AMD anymore. Would've been nice to see an apology from them

they did apologize. Below was their statement.

"We apologize for any confusion and want to be clear that we are working with all of our hardware partners to address known issues that exist across various PC configurations,"

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/assassin-s-creed-unity-dev-working-furiously-to-fi/1100-6423611/

[ComradeHX]

Ubisoft looked in a mirror?

[Victorious Secret]

Their whole "67" hour work week thing, if anyone had any brains to understand it, was well explained in the last bloody "shit on Ubisoft" thread.

They employ salaried workers who AGREED to go above full time hours for no additional pay (read: overtime) and they agreed to be called into work whenever Ubisoft needed them to. It's how salaried employees tend to work. They knew full well what they signed up for. That "employee spilling secrets" was more or less a moron for not understanding the very contract he signed.

[Electrostatik]

Big thanks to all the beta testers out there!

[Guest Kloaked]

Good that their devs figured out a way to get better framerates. I hope it's good enough on the PC side.

[Eroda]

its easy ubisoft take an extra 6-8months per title and get it right

[Me1z]

Their whole "67" hour work week thing, if anyone had any brains to understand it, was well explained in the last bloody "shit on Ubisoft" thread.

They employ salaried workers who AGREED to go above full time hours for no additional pay (read: overtime) and they agreed to be called into work whenever Ubisoft needed them to. It's how salaried employees tend to work. They knew full well what they signed up for. That "employee spilling secrets" was more or less a moron for not understanding the very contract he signed.

 

Just because they agreed to it, it doesn't make it excusable by any means. If your options are to agree to work overtime for no pay or to not have a job at all, guess what, you're going to "agree" whether you like it or not. I'm positive he fully understood his contract, he wasn't a moron for letting the world know that Ubisoft treats their developers like an expendable resource rather than human beings. Its a problem with the entire industry and the best thing you can do is let people know what they are supporting by buying games from developers like Ubisoft.