Ubisoft Points Finger At AMD For Assassin's Creed Unity Poor Performance 262
MojoKid (1002251) writes "Life is hard when you're a AAA publisher. Last month, Ubisoft blamed weak console hardware for the troubles it had bringing Assassin's Creed Unity up to speed, claiming that it could've hit 100 FPS but for weak console CPUs. Now, in the wake of the game's disastrous launch, the company has changed tactics — suddenly, all of this is AMD's fault. An official company forum post currently reads: "We are aware that the graphics performance of Assassin's Creed Unity on PC may be adversely affected by certain AMD CPU and GPU configurations. This should not affect the vast majority of PC players, but rest assured that AMD and Ubisoft are continuing to work together closely to resolve the issue, and will provide more information as soon as it is available." There are multiple problems with this assessment. First, there's no equivalent Nvidia-centric post on the main forum, and no mention of the fact that if you own an Nvidia card of any vintage but a GTX 970 or 980, you're going to see less-than ideal performance. According to sources, the problem with Assassin's Creed Unity is that the game is issuing tens of thousands of draw calls — up to 50,000 and beyond, in some cases. This is precisely the kind of operation that Mantle and DirectX 12 are designed to handle, but DirectX 11, even 11.2, isn't capable of efficiently processing that many calls at once. It's a fundamental limit of the API and it kicks in harshly in ways that adding more CPU cores simply can't help with.
A highly relevant comment from the previous post (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:A highly relevant comment from the previous pos (Score:5, Interesting)
the linked comment is super cool, but unsourced. However, it has a ring of truth for me. the comment calls out several nvidia technologies like TXAA and SMAA. It was the second time today I heard those terms. The first was when watching a gamestop video where an designer talks about all the cool tech that makes far cry 4 so pretty on the compuper. "Together with NVIDIA, Ubisoft has been working to incorporate GAMEWORKS technologies to add visual enhancements for the PC version of the game." LINK [gamespot.com]
Re:A highly relevant comment from the previous pos (Score:5, Interesting)
Here's something that doesn't need 'conspiracy' to understand. Unity is playing bad on the PC because they're issuing 50k draw calls on DX11.
Ironically, instead of blaming AMD for this, AMD is actually providing a solution. I don't like it personally, but the Mantle API specifically solves this problem today while we wait for DX12/OpenGL Next.
Of course, it's only available on AMD hardware and besides, because Ubi is in a company wide PR deal with nVidia to use GameWorks(TM) THEY CAN'T USE IT!
So instead of blaming AMD, Ubi should either go sit in a corner (because they know what they did wrong), or they need to look into a mirror (because they don't recognize that they're the real problem)
Re:A highly relevant comment from the previous pos (Score:5, Informative)
So yeah, I don't see a point in blaming AMD here.
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Re:A highly relevant comment from the previous pos (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem (or solution rather) is that developers don't want to write the same game 7 times. OpenGL(Linux/Mac OS X/PS3), DirectX9(PC baseline), DirectX12(PC high end), Mantle(PS4), Metal(OS X/iOS8),OpenGL ES2(Android, old iOS),OpenGL ES3(iOS)
They will simply design a middleware that can "intelligently" pick a rendering backend, and if the game suffers, it suffers because of the weakest backends (DirectX9, OpenGL ES2) force it to. This is a problem with Unity (the 3D game engine), and is a problem with Unreal engine.
Oddly enough the Crytek engine actually works better on AMD hardware (and Crytek games are often bundled) because the games support higher DirectX levels out of the box.
But no single-player game engine will ever work for a MMO game, due to the need of many objects in motion at once. The same Crytek engine used for a MMO looks a lot like a 6 year old game. This is because they trade off detail for simultaneous objects because of the need to limit draw calls.
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The problem (or solution rather) is that developers don't want to write the same game 7 times. OpenGL(Linux/Mac OS X/PS3), DirectX9(PC baseline), DirectX12(PC high end), Mantle(PS4), Metal(OS X/iOS8),OpenGL ES2(Android, old iOS),OpenGL ES3(iOS)
They will simply design a middleware that can "intelligently" pick a rendering backend, and if the game suffers, it suffers because of the weakest backends (DirectX9, OpenGL ES2) force it to. This is a problem with Unity (the 3D game engine), and is a problem with Unreal engine.
Oddly enough the Crytek engine actually works better on AMD hardware (and Crytek games are often bundled) because the games support higher DirectX levels out of the box.
But no single-player game engine will ever work for a MMO game, due to the need of many objects in motion at once. The same Crytek engine used for a MMO looks a lot like a 6 year old game. This is because they trade off detail for simultaneous objects because of the need to limit draw calls.
Right, but just a couple months ago these guys were talking up their new game and how they were trading high FPS off in favor of high object/poly counts. I believe they were especially pleased with themselves about how many unique actors they could get into the crowds.
So it seems to be a bit of a self-made problem; over-driving your target hardware OR API is a programming problem- target better hardware or use a different API, but stop blaming other people for sucking
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The problem (or solution rather) is that developers don't want to write the same game 7 times.
As a business apps dev, it seems obvious that the correct number of different versions is dependent on client considerations and not on the desires of the programmer. If the client has 7 platforms, I might need 7 versions. In this case, the platforms are actually being chosen by the vendor, and so they can't complain about how many platforms they have.
It is funny because they make more money and have higher margins, so they should be more able to manage that. Plus, they choose what platforms their game targ
Re:A highly relevant comment from the previous pos (Score:5, Interesting)
Their stance is completely bogus. Let's take a look at DICE's experience adding a Mantle renderer for Battlefield 4, presented at the AMD & Microsoft Developer Day conference here in Stockholm this past June: http://amd-dev.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wordpress/media/2012/10/Rendering-Battlefield-4-with-Mantle-Yuriy-ODonnell.ppsx
The numbers don't lie. For those who don't want to download a PowerPoint viewer, I'll give the money shot:
Benchmarking machine: Core i7-390x, AMD Radeon R9 290x, running at 1080p with Ultra graphics settings
DX11 renderer: Minimum frame rate 42fps, average frame rate 78fps
Mantle renderer: Minimum frame rate 94fps, average frame rate 120fps
The only thing I get out of NVidia not wanting to make use of the Mantle API is a pathological case of Not Invented Here syndrome, combined with a long-term gamble of DirectX 12 providing a cross-vendor implementation of an API similar to Mantle. For those wanting to learn more about DX12, there's a presentation from the same conference here: http://amd-dev.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wordpress/media/2012/10/Introduction-To-DX12-Ivan-Nevraev.ppsx
In general it seems to provide the same sort of benefits as Mantle, in that it removes a lot of legacy cruft from the pipeline and puts the onus of redundant state checking and resource management on the application authors. This shouldn't be a major problem in and of itself, as one of the things mentioned during the talk was that a lot of engines already do these things, so the kernel-mode driver doing the same checks is simply extra work. I can't blame NVidia for holding out for DX12 given that it will provide a similar bare-metal interface as Mantle, while having support across IHVs, but to say that there's no benefit to using Mantle - and by extension, a bare-metal GPU interface in general - is patently ridiculous given the performance improvements that companies using Mantle have seen.
Re:A highly relevant comment from the previous pos (Score:5, Insightful)
DX12 will be irrelevant for years if Microsoft don't release it for Wiindows 7.
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AMD playing kingmaker? (Score:2)
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their stance so far is that there would be no benefit using Mantle
The article points out a contradiction that isn't, there is no point in supporting Mantle when all relevant low level features will be accessible using the next versions of already existing APIs (OpenGL/DirectX). That the mantle specification is under AMD control makes support for Mantle a gigantic risk with no gain.
So you'd have them wait until the average consumer has the "next versions" of APIs. OK. You should be advised that each new numbered "version" of those APIs are actually new things that typically require new hardware. This isn't a matter of waiting for people to update their drivers, you're talking about waiting until consumers have all bought new PCs. I don't see that helping their shipping schedule.
If they're shipping now, it should probably run well on current computers people already own. Golly gee.
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Writeup doesn't make sense. The problem is supposedly a fundamental limit in Direct3D 11.2, which would be unable to handle the large nunber of draw calls. Yet the Nvidia 970 and 980 are claimed to offer great ('ideal') performance. Using D3D 11.2. Wut?
Maybe AMD should spend more time optimizing their D3D path rather than spending their limited development resources on the Mantle detour that benefits noone but their own hardware.
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There's enough in that comment that is verifiable bullshit that it makes me question the parts of it that don't seem ridiculous at first glance.
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It seems to me AMD is as common in laptops as they have ever been. Not very.
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I love my A-series! I don't have to buy an overheated energy pig PC just to be able to do 3D editing and development using current APIs. And, Tuxracer never looked better.
Running a 3d game my CPU fan spins loudly, but running business apps it slows down to the lowest speed, I can't even hear it.
Obviously, it is a low to mid priced CPU, and considering the GPU, it is very low cost. And yet, it is much faster in every area that a similarly priced CPU+GPU from anybody else. It wins all the way from low end, "I
Re:A highly relevant comment from the previous pos (Score:4, Informative)
Except that Nvidia users are reporting all the same problems. Crashes, clipping issues, massive fps drops in certain buildings. All the nine miles.
I've even seen reports that even tri-SLI 980s cannot handle the game on 1080p ultra with no AA at stable 60 fps. This is pretty much as powerful of a machine as you can get today. And the game definitely doesn't look good enough to justify that kind of power not being enough.
This is Ubisoft's shitty optimization dropping the ball.
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Comments like the one linked are a great read, but without ANY sourcing what so ever, it's hard to take it seriously.
Certainly, Nvidia is more than happy to donate engineers and code that favours nvidia hardware (as well as the hardware itself) in return for some branding and an exchange of cash, but to claim that it deliberately gimps older or competing hardware seems beyond the realm of likelihood. IF such a thing was happening, there'd be easy ways of proving it and lawsuits would be flying around pretty
Ok, even giving them the benefit of the doubt (Score:5, Informative)
So let's give Ubisoft the benefit of the doubt for a moment. I'm not going to slate them for the fact that you need a top-end graphics card to get good performance with all the bells and whistles. I actually quite like to see developers showing a bit of ambition when it comes to pushing the envelope on PC graphics. Let's even assume that something went badly wrong in the AMD optimisation. It's not completely unknown for things to go wrong with a GPU manufacturer at the last moment - the PC version of Rage was a hideous mess on PCs with Nvidia cards when it released, because a driver update that was anticipated between the game going golden-master and hitting the shelves turned out not to be what the developer was expecting.
But even allowing for that, how does it explain the console versions being such a mess? There are detailed performance analysis reports out there showing frankly shocking levels of performance on both of the console platforms (Playstation 4 and Xbox One - no last-gen releases for this game). Both platforms fail to hold even a consistent 30 fps, with the Playstation 4 version (which in theory should be the better of the two, as the console does have a little bit more horsepower) having some truly shocking moments where the framerate dips into the teens.
If you're used to playing games on a PC, this might not sound too shocking. After all, unless you have a particularly old PC, you can almost always salvage a playable framerate by dropping your graphics quality. But that option isn't there on a console. For action oriented games on a console, a locked 60 fps rate is the "gold standard" and is becoming almost mandatory for twitch-shooters, precision driving games and other genres that rely on rapid response times. The popularity of the Call of Duty series, generally inexplicable to PC gamers, has largely been driven by the fact that the series has long adhered to the 60 fps standard on the consoles, meaning that it has felt tighter and more precise than its competitors.
But if you can't manage a locked 60 framerate, then the general consensus is that a locked 30 framerate is an acceptable fallback. It won't feel as precise, but it at least eliminates the disconcerting impact of framerate fluctuations (particularly unpleasant when you're playing on a controller). For a console action-game to fail to manage even a locked 30 fps is pretty shocking these days. For it to be dipping into the teens suggests either misguided design choices or terrible optimisation (or both).
Plus, yeah, the whole "falling through the floor" thing is happening on consoles as well as PC. The game's broken and it's not (entirely or chiefly) down to a particular brand of graphics card.
Re:Ok, even giving them the benefit of the doubt (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's also take into account that Ubisoft had to know something was up, because the pre-release copies they gave game reviewers came with an embargo that lasted 17 hours into the release date. I'm not surprised at all to see this, though I'm admittedly surprised it's quite as large a problem as it is. When they announced the system requirements, I winced. I know that the horsepower demand for a game engine designed for a modern console is finally going to be a lot more demanding than last year's titles, but a GTX 680 as minimum specification? Someone screwed up engine design, plain and simple.
Re:Ok, even giving them the benefit of the doubt (Score:4, Insightful)
"pre-release copies they gave game reviewers came with an embargo that lasted 17 hours into the release date"
Always an encouraging sign to any sensible buyer.
STOP BUYING STUFF ON RELEASE. Wait a day. A week. A month. Until then, I have no sympathy for people lumbered with a buggy release based on paid-for or embargoed reviews.
Re:Ok, even giving them the benefit of the doubt (Score:5, Interesting)
Look, gamers(as a whole) have no history of actually doing anything to reign in companies that abuse. The AAA companies' executives are familiar with this, and the sense of entitlement that causes gamers to demand things for petty reasons and then given in without a fight.
I'm in year 6 of a personal EA/Ubissoft/Activision boycott, and I feel like anyone who cares about getting decent treatment as customers should be too. Unfortunately, they clearly don't need my money, and are doing fine. It's just one of those cases where successful marketing clearly beats out delivering a decent product.
This is fundamentally what GamerGate is too, petty, entitled people making unreasonable demands, and then doing nothing self-sacrificing to make any meaningful changes.
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"STOP BUYING STUFF ON RELEASE."
No, we need a law that forbids all this 'release broken shit for money, fix it later' syndrome.
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We call it a rhubarb.
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Given the likelihood of that happening (hint: not at all), the only sane option is to stop buying on the release date.
I saw the trailers for AC:Unity and thought that it looks like a fun game. Then I remembered what a cluster fuck Watch Dogs was and decided to wait.
Surprise, I made the wise choice there.
I might pick up the game in another month or two once the public beta period is over, and Ubisoft has knocked 20%+ off of the price.
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No, we need a law that forbids all this 'release broken shit for money, fix it later' syndrome.
Why? Isn't taking someone's money and then not giving them what you promised already illegal?
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Actually, I can see a simple bit of legalese solving the problem almost in its entirety (notwithstanding the bullshit DRM can cause.)
"Software, before release, must undergo a period of rigorous testing which utilizes at least 250,000 physical computers of varying configurations of hardware and other installed software, for a period of no less than 60 consecutive days. The tests must be performed by people outside of the company or entity releasing the software."
"I couldn't suppress a chuckle at the thought
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STOP BUYING STUFF ON RELEASE. Wait a day. A week. A month.
I wait until the Black Friday sale at Valve Steam to buy video games for $5 USD or less. I bought Id Software's Rage for $2.50 USD a few years ago. Despite being a few years old with several patches, "Rage" still can't run on my AMD CPU and video card above the recommended hardware spec. The workaround solution is an Intel CPU and/or Nvidia video card.
I wasn't surprised that the minimum hardware spec for the new Wolfenstein game (using the Rage engine) exceeded the recommended hardware spec for Rage. When t
Re:Ok, even giving them the benefit of the doubt (Score:4, Insightful)
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I know that the horsepower demand for a game engine designed for a modern console is finally going to be a lot more demanding than last year's titles, but a GTX 680 as minimum specification?
No kidding, those requirements were Crysis level shocking. I just built a new medium-high end rig and even my system would barely meet its minimum specs. No way they could get it to run on even a new-gen console with those kind of specs, not without ramping it WAY down. Christ, the run it at its RECOMMENDED settings you would need a $2000 system at least.
Re:Ok, even giving them the benefit of the doubt (Score:5, Interesting)
Problem is the game plays like shit no matter what hardware you're using. The claim against AMD is unfounded because a GTX770, a near-flagship card, can't play the game worth a damn, even with lowered settings. I can't beleive I wasted money buying that garbage.
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I cannot believe that you wasted money buying that garbage either.
Get with the rest of the smart people and wait next time. I did. Oddly enough, I am not kicking myself in the ass for not pre-ordering AC:Unity. Go figure....
That is not say that I do not want to play the game, or that I will not enjoy playing it in two months from now when the public beta period is over, the bugs are worked out, and I purchase the game for a discount.
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Normally, I do. Last year I bought Black Flag around new years for like $35 and enjoyed it immensely, and I bought Bioshock Infinite during the summer steam sale for like $10. I guess ubisoft they bought some good karma with black flag and I was too trusting, shame on me. I thought the other guy's post on this thread talking about how a bad/good release in a franchise effects the next iteration's sales was very apropos. I feel I fell into that trap.
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I have the same processor as you too, am playing at 1080p and the game is installed on an SSD and is played on Windows 7. I had to jump AA down to FXAA (post-processing, not real AA), disable bloom, disable ambient occlusion, and notch down a few other settings, vaguely recall shadow and lighting, but haven't played in two days so I'm not sure. Oddly, switching from fullscreen to borderless windowed (I have two monitors) improved performance, when in all cases the opposite should happen.
Every couple secon
Re:Ok, even giving them the benefit of the doubt (Score:5, Insightful)
All the consoles run AMD chips. Therefore, getting rendering performance right on AMD was really, really fucking important.
Re:Ok, even giving them the benefit of the doubt (Score:4, Insightful)
If Ubisoft built and tested a game intended to run on consoles exclusively on nVidia hardware, they're goddamn morons because all the consoles use AMD chips!
The culture of responsibility switches. (Score:5, Insightful)
How is it now obvious to them that this excuse mean nothing after release?
Are they implying they never tested their game on the platforms they specified in the minimum requirements?
Re:The culture of responsibility switches. (Score:5, Insightful)
This isn't a testing fault. I'm sure they tested the hell out of it. Dozens if not hundreds of QA people sat in cubes for months, maybe years, testing bits of this game as it got produced. And I'm sure that many of them wrote up really detailed, well reasoned explanations of just how broken it was in every single way that people are counting today.
And nobody cared because the game had to launch before the holiday season of 2014, Thousands of jobs and millions upon millions of dollars were at stake.
It isn't that nobody tested, it's that nobody really cared.
Re:The culture of responsibility switches. (Score:5, Funny)
If a tester runs a test and no one is around to see it, does the test return a result?
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If a tester runs a test and no one is around to see it, does the test return a result?
Depends on the quality of the test automation software. You do know a lot of the software in the airplanes you fly in is tested via an automated approach where the only observation of 10k tests is 1 pass/fail?
Re:The culture of responsibility switches. (Score:5, Interesting)
I can probably make some educated guesses about what may have transpired, at least from the performance side, since I've done engine-side programming for AAA games in the past.
Unless you're working with an established and already-polished game engine, all the art content for a game of this size has to be built far in advance of when the engine is fully ready to render it at full efficiency. By it's very nature, optimization is something that has to occur near the end of development for a game, since there's no way to optimize game features until they're largely finished and can approach performance issues holistically. The hardest thing about that is you have to make a very early prediction about how much your game will be able to render. It's extremely time-consuming to fix if it turns out your engine simply can't cope with the amount of artwork or game content it's being asked to process, as that artwork and game content has been in the pipeline for years.
The kicker is that you can't really know for sure what the bottlenecks are exactly and how you can improve on them before you begin the investigation and optimization process, nor can you really predict with 100% certainty how effective your efforts will be, or how long it will take. This is why the recommended specs on boxes are often, at best, simply guesses that are made by the engine developers many months in advance of the title's ship date, and are a reflection of how well they *think* they can get the game engine working. Of course, in other cases, it's managerial wishful thinking, trying to sucker people with lower-end systems into purchasing the game. To me, it seems entirely likely that the programmers either overestimated how much they could optimize the engine / game code or the artists went far beyond their established budgets. Maybe both. Management compounded this issue by not giving the development team time enough to fix the problems.
None of this excuses them in the least, of course, especially on consoles with immutable, fixed hardware to test on. They should have owned up a many months ago and let people know the game wouldn't be ready, because there's zero chance they didn't know about all these problems. Unfortunately, there's a great deal of pressure put on programmers to simply try to patch up the game as best they can given the current time left in the schedule, rather than re-assessing realistically how much time they *actually* need to fix the game, because, you know, money. Instead, I'd imagine that those guys were crunching for many months before the game shipped, and they're still crunching away with insane hours, trying to fix all those bugs. It probably ending up being counter-productive too, because, at least in my case, the quality of my code dropped rather dramatically when I was exhausted.
It's pretty difficult to really know what's going on inside a company. For any game we released, I always saw lots of fan speculation about what was going on, and more often than not, it was well off the mark. So definitely take any speculation, including mine, with a grain of salt. What's absolutely inescapable, though, is that Ubisoft management is ultimately responsible for the go/no-go ship decision, and decided that they didn't care enough about their customers or their reputation to bother getting their game polished to an acceptable standard before launch.
I haven't bought an Ubisoft game since they started on this ridiculous anti-consumer DRM campaign, and this makes me really glad I'm still staying the hell away from them. Yeah, I'd probably have enjoyed the Assassin's Creed series, but there are plenty of game companies that don't piss all over their customers, and they'll be getting my dollars instead.
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Unless you're working with an established and already-polished game engine, all the art content for a game of this size has to be built far in advance of when the engine is fully ready to render it at full efficiency. By it's very nature, optimization is something that has to occur near the end of development for a game, since there's no way to optimize game features until they're largely finished and can approach performance issues holistically. The hardest thing about that is you have to make a very early prediction about how much your game will be able to render. It's extremely time-consuming to fix if it turns out your engine simply can't cope with the amount of artwork or game content it's being asked to process, as that artwork and game content has been in the pipeline for years.
That makes somewhat sense for where you're going to be at full tilt on not-as-yet released cards. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense for old cards, both the hardware and current-gen engines have usually pushed it close to the max and you can't expect miraculous improvements there. In short, if you overshoot you're planning it poorly.
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It compiles, ship it!
Re:The culture of responsibility switches. (Score:4, Funny)
They tried it but their fucked up drm prevented them from running the game.
If at first you don't succeed... (Score:5, Insightful)
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This right here is what I miss the most about swapping warez.
I haven't pirated software with any regularity since a 56k modem was fast, but even back then, any game that I enjoyed I bought to support the publisher so that they had a chance to stay in business and continue to pump out good products.
A try before you buy model would crush the software industry, but would be a godsend for gamers. Even a model where you get to play the first level, or play for 10 hours would strike the balance between piracy an
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:If at first you don't succeed... (Score:5, Interesting)
Steam has indeed come a long way, about 10 years ago it was loathed and hated by gamers. Many people would not buy a game if it needed Steam, Ubisoft with their crappy launcher are where Steam was 10 years ago.
10 years ago, Steam was a glorified auto-updater that sat there and sucked up system resources... something like 64MB of RAM when 128-512MB was standard.
Steam now takes something like 128MB of RAM in a time when 8192-16384MB of RAM is common. In addition to being an auto-updater, it also has a store, friends list, friends chat, game library, a non-puke green color scheme, and a host of other features. ...and if you ask me how I know this, I'll toss my Steam "11 year" badge [steamcommunity.com] at your face.
(Note: I'm guesstimating at these RAM usage numbers, and they're the numbers when you're not actively using it.)
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EA now only sells its titles through Origin
Valve only release its titles through Steam
Blizzard only release its titles through Battle.net
I would rather be able to choose my content distributor and have complete access to everything, but I know it is not feasible to have all games be released on all distributors. Those 3 guys up there used their established user-base to build their content distributions with exclusive games that only worked with their platforms. Ubisoft is trying to do the same. At one point
Re:If at first you don't succeed... (Score:5, Interesting)
This is a side effect of what happens when game franchises become more profitable than movie franchises. Once the flow of money starts on a game with a budget in the tens of millions like the Call of Duty, Assassin's Creed, or Grand Theft Auto franchises to name just a few - there comes a point of no return where you finish what you started, because you've sunk millions upon millions into something that just turned out *wrong*, like this. Just like Warner Brothers couldn't put the Green Lantern movie on hold and rewrite it to not suck, Ubisoft backed themselves into a corner.
Nobody had the balls or the power to say "Wait a minute, we're overreaching. Let's scale this back to something that will actually run." Instead, they launch a buggy, bad game because they're into just the marketing campaign for tens of millions of dollars. It's so much worse for consumers than a flop of a movie, because you're spending $60+ on the cost of entry, and when the reviewers are embargoed there's just no way to tell if you're going to get screwed. Thank the big budget productions and stock market demands for this kind of disaster.
Every time I see something like this, or a botched Call of Duty release, I get a *little* less annoyed with Valve for not saying a word about Half-Life 3/Ep. 3. They're private. They can take the time without investors freaking out.
Re:If at first you don't succeed... (Score:5, Interesting)
If we want to see a change of heart from the publishers, people should start actually returning defective games.
Despite what the EULA may say, lemon laws make it illegal to sell something that doesn't work, and even if a store says they don't take returns of software, if you tell them the return is because it's defective they'll take it anyways.
I can guarantee you if all the people who gave cash to Ubisoft turned around and asked for their money back because the game is defective (doesn't even play on a console), Ubi would think twice about pulling similar shenanigans in the future.
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That is pretty much the only resource people have. And it won't work until lots of people try and do it, loudly, repeatedly, but politely. The fact that Ubisoft is already making excuses actually makes it seem like people might have a better case this time than in most, because it's not just going into a cone of silence.
Re:If at first you don't succeed... (Score:5, Informative)
This happened with the last X game - X:Rebirth, released with a lot of fanfare and expectation and hype and.... truly, truly dreadful. Not just in gameplay but bugged to hell and back again.
The forums on Steam and Egosoft were full of people either asking how to get a refund, complaining they had been told to "sod off" by Steam, or rejoicing that they had managed to scrape a refund out of Steam.
Incidentally, this game too was not available for review before it was on sale.
Re:If at first you don't succeed... (Score:4, Informative)
If you buy with a credit card (which you are if you're using steam), you can call your credit card company and get them to issue a charge back.
I've done this with a couple software titles where I was told to "sod off" and nothing bad happens, and you get your money back.
The thing that makes me sad is most people don't ask for a refund, so they are creating an incentive for video game companies to create bad titles.
It's almost like the Producers, in video game form. Hype up a game, get a ton of preorders, make it absolute steaming shit, say "Sorry no refunds" and haul in the cash
Re:If at first you don't succeed... (Score:5, Informative)
If you buy with a credit card (which you are if you're using steam), you can call your credit card company and get them to issue a charge back.
If you try this, there's a 99% chance that you'll lose your steam/origin/ubi account, and everything in it. Companies are vindictive like that.
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This is correct. I believe it's even in their EULA.
Would make for an interesting European lawsuit.
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I think it was Diablo 2 {it was one of the Diablo games} I took back to the store because it had a visible defect on a couple of the discs that kept it from being read. The guy told me they couldn't refund it but he would exchange it... which was fine because I wanted to play the game.
He exchanged it for me and I opened it at the counter and inspected the discs only to find some of them also had the same defect. He opened four boxes for me to find all the disc needed for the game with out the defect.
This is
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Indeed. Why do so many people continue to trust these publishers? They've shown time and again that they cannot be relied upon to release a working game. SimCity (the recent one), and Diablo 3, spring to mind as high-profile examples.
Maybe people really do fall for the pre-order 'bonuses'.
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And then Valve/Ubi will shut down your account, because they can, and because it's their policy.
The wonders of Internet-based DRM: they always have the power to take it away from you, even if it's a single-player game.
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I presume you'll also be waiting for a discount. 17 weeks might be a bit optimistic for 50% off, but it might happen.
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Publishers combat this with preorder incentives: a slightly reduced price if you pre-order, and an unfair advantage in-game (items, free in-game money, etc).
Personally I have the patience to wait a few months.
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and yet I just went ahead and pre-ordered far cry 4, also being released by ubi. who's the dope now?
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Anyone that still pre-orders anything that has a launch day review embargo, after the "Aliens: Colonial Marines" disaster, that's who.
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Yeah, right. Everyone knows the supposed 'release' of DNF was just a quick hack they put together as a joke.
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They earned that reputation by their actions and statements.
Somehow none of this is any kind of surprise.
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Since when was video game production about releasing quality software in the last 10 years?
These days it is about rushing an unfinished release to rake in money during the holiday rush, the bugs and problems will be fixed after the "release" with multigigabyte patches or (even better) a paid DLC. If ever ... Spending time on debugging and optimizing takes resources away from building the next AAA blockbuster to be released 6 months later.
I am not even considering buying many of these "AAA" releases because
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Testing is time-consuming and expensive. Lying is quick and cheap, or even free if you already have a marketing department.
Not piracy? (Score:2)
I was sure it's piracy, and they will install a new version of StarForce.
TBH, if you go near an EA or Ubisoft product, you deserve what you get. They're not even worth pirating.
that's funny (Score:2)
since before launch they complained that there's not enough cpu for the "AI".
though looking at the videos, from previous game they just changed generateCivilians(10) to generateCivilians(200) for no particular reason. loads of people on the scenes but it doesn't look good, just looks weird
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It's a case where the developers looked at the raw numbers for the system that was coming, and said "Wow! We're going to have almost three times the cores, sixteen times the RAM and so much GPU!" and then went on ahead and jacked the engine demands up to a level that probably shouldn't have been reached until a few more years into the life cycle for the platform. It took years and years for the Xbox 360 and PS3 to be understood well enough to be able to create things like the GTAV engine, and possibly in pa
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This really should not have been that bad. They're overreaching, and that's basically the fundamental problem. Wait a few years, and games that try and pull off what Unity does will be successful and well optimized, but right now they're still working out just what's capable. It's just too bad for the customers that get screwed while inadvertently helping Ubisoft and other developers learn just how this hardware can be put to use.
You are being too nice. When developing anything you first have to consider your target consumer demographic that will return the best monetary value for your product, this is basic statistical analysis and common business sense. Once you decide on the appropriate demographic you develop for that and if you have the time and expertise you may wish to develop that product for prospective customers that fall outside of you main target demographic.
Basically Ubisoft developed a game that in reality targeted t
Or, you know, use OpenGL (Score:3)
Re:Or, you know, use OpenGL (Score:5, Informative)
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So, let me get this right. The new consoles are all AMD, these 'AAA' games are developed for consoles and then ported to PCs... but they run like a dog on a PC because AMD?
Does not compute.
That's why it runs like shit on PC as well (Score:4, Interesting)
That must be the reason the game runs like utter crap on PC as well. Ohh wait, it is not!
TotalBiscuit - "Let's not play Assassins Creed: Unity yet "
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
They knew they had a shit game before the release.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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And, it's worth noting, that's on a GTX980: the highest end of Nvidia cards. The claims about it being an AMD problem are blatent lies.
so... (Score:2)
Use less draw calls?
Modern GPUs can do nice things like texture libraries and very configurable shaders as the if statements aren't the pain they used to be on 360/PS3.
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I've never seen Ubisoft shills before... (Score:2)
I wonder if the NSA let them use theirs?
Ubisoft==Do Not Buy.
I only got FarCry3 because it came with a video card for free; talk about a game for damaged psychopaths... Sorry, I meant "Written By".
Not on *any* card (Score:2, Interesting)
>and no mention of the fact that if you own an Nvidia card of any vintage but a GTX 970 or 980, you're going to see less-than ideal performance.
That is because even on (triple) sli'ed GTX 980's you will not get a decent performance. Gaming reviewer/personality TotalBiscuit has gotten terrible performance (dropping below 20 fps at times, full of glitches, crashes) on a new rig with two GTX 980's. In his video he also mentions asking a friend of his with three gtx 980's if he was experiencing the same issu
Software testing motherfucker (Score:2)
Do you do it?
Sounds more to me as if... (Score:2)
... An official company forum post currently reads: "We are aware that the graphics performance of Assassin's Creed Unity on PC may be adversely affected by certain AMD CPU and GPU configurations...
It sounds to me like Ubisoft is not using the hardware properly, and is trying to place the blame elsewhere.
Everybody's complaining about Assassin's Creed... (Score:2)
Everybody's complaining about Assassin's Creed... and I'm just here playing Mario Kart 8 at 1080p/60fps on my "inferior" game console.
QA (Score:2)
How about some QA before releasing the game Ubisoft? Maybe you'd have noticed this before release?
Comment removed (Score:3)
BULLSHIT: Online is the _cause_ ... (Score:2)
... of the PC & PS4 frame rate drops.
AC: Unity's Frame Rate Issues Resolved By This Embarrassingly Simple Fix
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Perhaps if.. (Score:2)
Thanks Ubisoft! (Score:2)
Well thanks for owning up to the fact that it's all AMD's fault!
Given that fact, there is absolutely no reason for me to buy Far Cry 4 next week since my console and PC both use AMD processors.
As the problem is AMD's fault, I guess Far Cry 4 is going to be just as buggy.
$60 saved. Thanks again!
We, the customer are mostly to blame here. (Score:5, Insightful)
Over the last 10 years, we've allowed this to happen, we are mostly at fault.
We buy into products that are less and less quality. Then, we accept that low quality product as "its ok there will be patches". For anyone who purchased this game, i'd suggest you send it back and get a refund. Buy yourself Quake 3 or Elite:Frontier and admire what is possible when the developers care about the product their making.
Fair play to Ubisoft for taking the next step in blaming others for their failures.
This has nothing to do with AMD or DX11 draw calls its just bullcrap to confuse the inexperienced. AMD and Nvidia cards are DX11 certified, their cards comply with the DX11 api. Its down to Ubisoft to know the limitations of whats possible and optimize the game accordingly. Their probably using their own inhouse game engine for this game, so there is no excuse.
This game is a complete failure at all levels of development. Profits are the clear priority here, not the end product. Send the product back for a refund and make Ubisoft realise we wont accept half completed alpha crap for our hard earned money.
Re:Runs fine on my system, despite the bugs (Score:4)
A $500 graphics card and a high end processor making it playable is not acceptable. I have a GTX770 and an i5 (3.4ghz) and it plays like garbage, no matter if I lower the settings significantly. The game hiccups every 5 seconds or so noticeably and suffers random spikes during big action, making it difficult to keep track of your character. There are several beautiful games with not-so-lower graphics that have come out in the past couple years that I can run over 100FPS. Thief, Tomb Raider, Skyrim with 4k textures and mods, Battlefield 4, among others.
AC:U is a poorly designed peice of shit. If it was designed better, you'd be getting more performance with your current hardware. I bought it early because I thought Black Flag was excellent, serves me right I guess.
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Re:Blah blah blah (Score:4, Informative)
I imagine Ubisoft's shareholders care.