Assassins Creed 4: Black Flag (PS3, X360, PS4, XBOne)

Wow ! I am having a fantastic time fighitng other ships, looting them and exploring every island I can find :p ! Such a fantastic game hidden inside an AC name. I have accepted the AC combat for what it is and play along with the button prompts, but outside that basic AC gameplay, this game is super fun ! Now I see why this game got all the 9s ! Its because of the fantastic exploration and collectibles, the navalsections and the wonderful sea time you have !

I would love to continue this on the ps4 with cleaner visuals. But, I have to say, even with the weird lighting system they have, those little islands look so fantastic in early mornings ! In general the game looks fantastic on the ps3, just that the lighting is just flat in the environments, sometimes making it look almost cell shaded and well, lets just say, there is no lighting on the characters making some amazing character models look outright ugly.

But don't let anythiing deter you, the game is a time sink. Stranfley, I am finding exploring more enjoyable and smile-inducing than Nino Kuni in this one. Don't ask me why I compare it to Nino Kuni, my mind tells me I like exploring the seas, stopping at islands more than exploring and running around the beautiful world map of Nino Kuni.

Get this game, look past the weirdo combat, don't get frustrated by it, and enjoy a great time sink ! :)
 
Billy Idol said:
But is it even still 30fps?? How can they increase resolution, even add AA without affecting the framerate?!? This is quite confusing to me?
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From what I had understood form the developers interviews and leaks back then, they always developed the game at 1080p on PS4.
They were reaching easily 30fps at 1080p on PS4 while penibly 20fps at 900p on X1. It was from insiders leaks at the beginning of the year before any rumors about the power difference between the 2 consoles. In fact it was one of the first leak which created the power difference rumour.

I have been even more surprised of the 900p retail version off PS4 in the first place. I think Ubisoft chose to gimp the PS4 version for the early reviews in order not to bring negativity around the game which could have hampered both versions.

But anyway all those articles about the 1080p patched PS4 version may do some damage on its own (not sure how) aggravated by the similar COD 720p-1080p patch. People are not dumb and see it can't be a coincidence.

How do you find 44% more raw performance in a system in a few weeks in order to boost the resolution by the same percentage? Ridiculous!
 
I find 1080p version on ps4... surprising. Haven't really followed what features are enabled but that said. I have intel 4670k and nvidia 780 somewhere around 950MHz and that rig barely runs assasins creed iv at constant 1080p60Hz. Enabling all the features on maximum or putting better than fxaa antialiasing on causes either framerate drop to 30 or very annoying pretty constant tearing effect. So I'm running 1080p no antialiasing and other settings almost maxed out.
 
manux said:
I find 1080p version on ps4... surprising. Haven't really followed what features are enabled but that said. I have intel 4670k and nvidia 780 somewhere around 950MHz and that rig barely runs assasins creed iv at constant 1080p60Hz. Enabling all the features on maximum or putting better than fxaa antialiasing on causes either framerate drop to 30 or very annoying pretty constant tearing effect. So I'm running 1080p no antialiasing and other settings almost maxed out.
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That's the benefit of a closed system with low OS\Driver overheads. And this is only scratching the surface of what's possible.
 
Before we go too overboard with extolling the closed box advantages we should remember that the game only runs at 30fps on the PS4 which is something easily achievable on a 7870 (which averages in the mid 40's). So to lock the game at 'only' 60 fps minimum (likely averaging in the high 80's) on a 780 which is about twice as fast as the 7870 in real terms falls almost exactly in line with expectations. Dialling settings up beyond what is available in the consoles (MSAA, HBOA+) doesn't tell us anything about the relative performance efficiency.
 
^ DF already tested that. AC4 on PS4 doesn't drop any frames whatsoever under any scenario, its completely locked to 30 even with the patch. Hence its going to run much higher if unlocked.

Impressively, the increase in resolution and the mild upgrade in visual effects comes without impacting performance in any way whatsoever. We've only tested the first hour of the game so far, but we didn't see or feel any noticeable frame-rate drops, something that was confirmed to us after running a variety of clips through our analysis tools. Assassin's Creed 4 operates at what appears to be a locked 30fps without any tearing and dips in performance at all - a huge upgrade over the highly variable frame-rates seen in the 360 and PS3 versions of the game.

The fact that we aren't seeing any hiccups in smoothness is also rather interesting: it makes you wonder, if Ubisoft are hitting 30fps on such a consistent basis, just how fast would the game actually run on the PS4 hardware if it were not for the frame-rate cap? Sadly, this is something we're unlikely ever to find out, with the upcoming PC version looking like the only one capable of delivering a 60fps update while running at high definition resolutions.
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http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-ps4-ac4-patch-analysed-in-depth

My point being, there's plenty of headroom there. And this is before they even start experimenting with more complex shader work and more elaborate area design. This is a current gen game with some features slapped on after all.
 
Inuhanyou said:
^ DF already tested that. AC4 on PS4 doesn't drop any frames whatsoever under any scenario, its completely locked to 30 even with the patch. Hence its going to run much higher if unlocked.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-ps4-ac4-patch-analysed-in-depth

My point being, there's plenty of headroom there. And this is before they even start experimenting with more complex shader work and more elaborate area design. This is a current gen game with some features slapped on after all.
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No doubt there's plenty of headroom but that still puts it around the performance level of a 7870 (which also performs well in exceess of 30fps: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5LBqS8fNzQ)and about half the performance of a 780.

Comparisons to the PC version are very difficult due to the PC exclusive features like enhanced soft shadows, enhanced god rays, HBOA+ and more sophisticated AA methods, all of which will drain performance by an amount we currently don't have defined.
 
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PS4: The IQ is untouchable ! So damn clean !
 
Thankfully we're in the console games forum and nobody from the PC forums heard you ... ;)
 
Just teasing ... I'm happy too, especially as it's native res to boost. I hope they manage to take it even further with one that has been designed from the ground up for the next-gen platform (if we'll see such a thing - it will probably be tempting for them to keep doing cross-gen for a while yet).
 
pjbliverpool said:
That does look extremely clean. Do we know what type of AA method the PS4 is using? I'm guessing SMAA.
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I seem to remember them saying they came up with some new post-process AA just before release that was added in with the day one update. I'm not sure what it's a derivative of.
 
Scott_Arm said:
I seem to remember them saying they came up with some new post-process AA just before release that was added in with the day one update. I'm not sure what it's a derivative of.
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I thought it was the same as KZ only a little better in this case.
 
SMAA by default it is.

pjbliverpool said:
That does look extremely clean. Do we know what type of AA method the PS4 is using? I'm guessing SMAA.
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From the testimonies and those kind of comparisons:

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That added sharpness can't come only from slight resolution boost. When you compare BF4 X1/PS4 the X1 version (on the recent DF face-off) is not blurry at all when the difference in res (+44%) is the same.

But here the difference of sharpness is impressive. There was FXAA before the patch, that much is clear and they obviously replaced it by a sharper AA.

But What AA exactly?

- Is roughly as cheap as FXAA because replaces FXAA in both X1/PS4.
- Does not blur the assets (textures and details) like FXAA?
- Better reconstructs the edges than FXAA? (Well FXAA just blurs high contrasted pixels, it can't distinguish edges from textures details) here an exemple strongly favouring morphological aa.

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- Is more effective than FXAA overall?

I don't see others AA than SMAA.
 
I start it last night, the game looked good. Then it asked me if I wanted to restart after the patch. Wow, what a difference. Gorgeous game that makes me excited for Second Son. 1080P open world is the definition of next gen to me.
 
pjbliverpool said:
Comparisons to the PC version are very difficult due to the PC exclusive features like enhanced soft shadows, enhanced god rays, HBOA+ and more sophisticated AA methods, all of which will drain performance by an amount we currently don't have defined.
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Since I got this game this evening I thought I'd run a few tests on the above assumption.

At what I assume to be PS4 settings (1080p, SMAA, max everything apart from HBOA+ (High), Godrays (High) and Soft Shadows) I average around 50fps.

Maxing everything out on the PC version brings that frame rate down to around 28fps. A lot of that drop is accounted for by TXAA 4x. Leaving everything else at max but knocking AA down to SMAA brings the frame rate up to about 36fps and it's enough to stay above 30fps locked pretty much consistently.
 
AlNets said 900p, and not sure about the AA. Ubisoft only mentioned the PS4 getting the 1080p and AA patch, so it's most likely still 900p.
 
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