Assassin’s Creed Odyssey is one of the most highly anticipated games of 2018. Powered by AnvilNext, this new Assassin’s Creed game aims to transport you to ancient Greece. The game releases in a couple of days so it’s time to benchmark it and see how it performs on the PC platform.
For this PC Performance Analysis, we used an Intel i7 4930K (overclocked at 4.2Ghz) with 8GB RAM, AMD’s Radeon RX580 and RX Vega 64, NVIDIA’s GTX980Ti, Windows 10 64-bit and the latest version of the GeForce (411.70) and Catalyst drivers (18.9.3). Since the game requires a high-end GPU and does not support multi-GPUs (both SLI and Crossfire), we’ve decided not to test our GTX690.
Similarly to Assassin’s Creed Origins, Ubisoft has added a wide range of graphics settings in Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. PC gamers can adjust the quality of Anti-Aliasing, Environment Details, Textures, Terrain, Clutter, Fog, Water, Screen Space Reflections, Volumetric Clouds, Character Detail, Ambient Occlusion and Depth of Field. There are also options for Field of View, Resolution Scaling, FPS limiter, HDR and FreeSync 2. Unfortunately, though, the small description that accompanies each and every option does not clarify whether it affects the CPU, the GPU or both of them.
Before continuing, let’s address the underwhelming AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 performance on our system (because I’m sure that most of you have already viewed the graphs). As we’ve said numerous times, AMD’s DX11 drivers come with a huge CPU overhead, resulting in awful performance on CPU-limited games. In this particular title, the NVIDIA GeForce GTX980Ti can actually offer a way better overall performance – on systems that are CPU-limited – than the more powerful Radeon RX Vega 64. The only way to overcome this issue is by overclocking the CPU (when we overclocked our i7 4930K to 4.3Ghz we saw a 5fps boost on the RX Vega 64, which basically proves our point) or by using a newer CPU. Now I know that most of you will say that we should upgrade our system – we actually do plan to build a new i9 9900K system – however you must realize that NVIDIA’s hardware on the exact same system performs way, way better. There is no magic sauce here, AMD simply needs to step up its DX11 game. And… well… here is an example of why we should not give AMD a pass.
Let’s assume that after the release of the RTX2080Ti, NVIDIA decides to gimp its previous generation graphics cards with its latest drivers. In case something like that happens, should we call out NVIDIA or should we suck it up and upgrade to a newer GPU? Obviously most of you will agree with the former. Well, the exact same thing is happening right now with AMD’s DX11 drivers. The DX11 drivers are awful and all of these driver issues vanish the moment developers properly use DX12 and Vulkan. We’ve seen this in games like Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Forza Horizon 4 in which the Radeon RX Vega 64 performs ideally on our system. So yes, it’s inexcusable that AMD has not improved its DX11 drivers at all these months/years. It’s also inexcusable for Ubisoft to be using DX11 in its open-world games as DX12 or Vulkan would really benefit them.
In order to find out how the game performs on a variety of CPUs, we simulated a dual-core and a quad-core CPU. We also used the in-game benchmark tool as it features a worst case scenario. Without Hyper Threading, our simulated dual-core was unable to run the game due to severe stutters. With Hyper Threading enabled, our simulated dual-core was able to push a minimum of 31fps and an average of 38fps, though we did notice some stutters and framepacing issues. What really surprised us, though, was the performance improvements we noticed with Hyper Threading on both our hexa-core and our simulated quad-core systems. Assassin’s Creed Odyssey is one of the few games that benefits from more than six CPU threads. Do note that in Alexandria in Assasin’s Creed Origins we could never achieve the same performance and were severely CPU-limited, even on NVIDIA’s hardware. So yeah, it appears that Ubisoft has optimized the AnvilNext Engine so it can better scale on multiple CPU cores/threads.
Contrary to Assassin’s Creed Origins, though, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey requires more powerful GPUs. At 1080p on Very High settings, our GTX980Ti was able to offer a minimum of 38fps and an average of 53fps, whereas the AMD Radeon RX580 was able to push 33fps/42fps and the AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 offered – due to the aforementioned enormous DX11 driver CPU overhead – 40fps/48fps.
In order to come close to a 60fps experience, we had to lower our settings to High settings on our GTX980Ti. However, we were still experiencing some drops to mid-40s. Not only that but even on Low settings at 1080p, our GTX980Ti was used to almost its fullest, something that shows how awfully scalable Odyssey actually is. Let me say it again; on Low settings a GTX980Ti was used to around 95%… a GTX980Ti… on Low settings… running with only 77fps.
But what about those gaming at higher resolutions than 1080p? Well, get ready to drop a lot of graphics settings. Unfortunately EVGA has not shipped our RTX2080Ti yet, so we could not test it (though we’ll be sure to test it in a separate article once we get it on our hands). At 2560×1440 on Very High settings, our GTX980Ti was able to push a minimum of 35fps and an average of 43fps. On the other hand, our Radeon RX Vega 64 was able to surpass the GTX980Ti but it’s obvious that we were still CPU-limited. As for 4K, only the Radeon RX Vega 64 was able to offer a 30fps “console” experience.
Graphics wise, I wasn’t really blown away by what I saw in Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. I mean, the characters look amazing and the environments look great, but there was something off. Since I also played Unity recently, I can definitely say that the lighting took a big hit. Apart from its awful pop-in issues, Unity remains one of the best looking AC games to date and does not need any Reshade in order to get the best out of it. Yeap, Odyssey desperately needs Reshade as it looks a bit blurry for my taste. Origins saw a tremendous visual improvement with Reshade, and I’m pretty sure that the same can happen with Odyssey. Also, don’t get me wrong; this does not mean that Assassin’s Creed Odyssey is not a great looking game. However, it does not really justify its ridiculously high GPU requirements in cities, especially when other titles look and run better.
All in all, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey is a mixed bag. Ubisoft has definitely made some improvements to the game engine, resulting in better CPU utilization. And while the game uses the Denuvo anti-tamper tech, we did not experience any annoying stutters – like those in Origins – or framepacing issues. Even at 50fps, and mainly thanks to its great framepacing, the game felt smooth. However, Odyssey requires more powerful GPUs than its predecessor, especially when you are wandering around its big cities. The problem here is that the game does not appear to be as gorgeous in cities as Unity, and it runs significantly slower than it. Also, Ubisoft is still stuck at DX11 and we believe that DX12 or Vulkan would benefit tremendously all of its open-world games (provided they are properly implemented like in Shadow of the Tomb Raider). So yeah, as I said it’s a mixed bag. For those that were previously CPU-limited, the game will run better than Origins and for those that were GPU-limited, it will run slower.
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
Contact: Email
Ubicrap
Ubisoy
More like the AC devs are crap. Far Cry, Ghost Recon, Splinter Cell, Rainbow6 devs have been very PC centric when it comes to optimizations.
In other Ubisoft-related news, there is potential confirmation of something most already suspected:
boundingintocomics (dot) com/2018/10/03/ubisoft-leaked-documents-reveal-social-justice-based-company-culture/
It’s a real treasure trove with all the signs of terminal cancer, they’re even claiming that video games reinforce prejudice, citing Anita Sarkeesian no less, who uses Brad Bushman and Karen E. Dill as sources.
Looks like Ubisoft is looking to turn itself into a partisan social engineering company.
I watch the opening scene of Odyssey and it was about the Xerxes vs. Spartan and stuff. maybe i should write a mail to ubisoft, talk with their language and feed some of their bullcrap to them.
Yo, sup ? We wuz Achaemenid n s*iet, hol up hol up, We wuz Aryan n s*iet. yo opening of yo game wuz racis, das raciss to show POC Xerdude guy as a bad dude bro, he wuz kangz n s*iet with least amount of slavery compared to dat wahite guy sparta, n**aa yo telling me dat a wahite man slaver is guud ? dis is prejudice against poc b**ch, yo game is rasis.
If you try to bamboozle them using actual social justice jargon, there’s a good chance that they will fall for it, all signs point to the company being neck-deep in social justice dogma.
Peter Boghossian and his cohorts just went public with a project to get hoax papers published in academic socjus journals, they even rewrote a chapter of Mein Kampf using intersectional language and managed to get it accepted, peer-reviewed and published in a prestigious feminist journal. SJWs will fall for anything as long as you tingle their political biases with invocations of privilege and using feminist language, so try to get Ubisoft to do something truly absurd, they might actually fall for it if you play your cards right.
Yes, you really can do that and they really might fall for it, that’s the stupid part that i demonstrated up there, with proper english and owning a blog in the same area with the same minded people as the blue hair cows, you can force them to apologize for the game’s opening. using their stuff against them. But i was just kidding, these kinds of SJW bulls**t is not bothering me that much, it’s annoying to see them but this industry have bigger problems than these bunch of Aholes claiming whats left of it
Anti-bias training=Anti-white training
f**king kikes at it again…
Quit the anti-Semitism.
Your comment pretty much guarantees that the likes of MrSquifler and SpaceKnotzy will be pre-ordering the game ASAP! ?
i’m surprised mr F agfler and SoyKnotz still lurk on DSO
watch how they’ll cry and b*tch that DSO is “rasis” because unrestrained speech will definitely win by a landslide
i can already imagine them trying to Dox this site too, which i wonder if that’s gonna be the case…
I’m surprised you’re such a baby bi*ch that you’re obsessed with me as much as your boyfriend Bub&Bub is. It’s pretty adorable to be honest. Two homosexual men, commenting on their love of me on a website. I’d pinch your rosy red cheeks if I could.
that’s some mighty gay projection there mr Soynuts
SoyNuts has lost the plot with those two deranged responses featuring an apparent obsession with homosexuality. He truly is the gift that keeps on giving! ?
Man you’re really secure about your sexuality to be obsessed with two other men to the point where it’s border-lining on a homosexual obsession. Congratulations on coming out to the DSOGaming comment section in such a strange way. You could have just said you were a f*g, we would have accepted you the same.
France did vote to destroy itself during the last election. This revelation is not shocking.
Cut the anti-Semitism.
Haha, Anti-Semitism… That word is funny. They make up words to demonize people that doesn’t agree with their brand of Jew World order. Well listen closely, The Jews & Their Muslim cousins can go Fck themselves. Was that enough Anti-Semitism for you? Or would you like some more. Because I have
Plenty of that stashed up for a rainy day.
How perverse. First, there is no justification for your depraved and vile Jew-hatred. Second, Islam is a belief system and not a “race.” Third, you share your bigotry with Hitler, the genocidal pedophile Muhammad, and their followers.
How does it feel to be kin to Nazis and jihadists?
jew world order? jews control the world? i must run tell my jew friend that can barely afford his rent and work at minimum wage salary maybe he can get a job at the so called “jews overlords”
fun fact most jews are not sjw and actually like trump.
but yes lets hate all the jews because of some bullshit conspiracy that was never proven,if they control the world and the media why so many still hates them? why their only country is barely the size of new jersey and is constantly under attack.
from the side it looks like the world love to persecute the jews and that they can barely control their own country and they have to keep trying to legitimate their claim on that tiny strip of land and people believe they control the world.
and the earth is flat,the moon landing was staged…
if aliens were observing us they would think the world is obssesed about a population that represent 0.2% of humanity.
The most massive Ubisoft team is in Montreal. Believe me, they are absolutely oblivious to their own failings, even when confronted about them…
Of course, people over there live in a vacuum. They are heavily leaning to the Left, though to their defense the city is really safe. Don’t try to go against the mob mentality though, they will tax you of being a liar…
“Unity remains one of the best looking AC games to date”
Yet morons think otherwise. man that game was a generation ahead of it’s time. Crap game, like the rest of the series but it was a looker and ran better than these two even tho it was an unoptimized mess.
Unity still looks insane, but most of it is due to prebaked nondynamic lightning. Same reason why Spiderman looks so incredible. The moment you opt for dynamic time of day and weather, you gotta compromise….until raytracing becomes commonplace, that is.
I was with you until you brought up RayTracing.. . Haha, RayTracing what a funny prospect.
You say the Witcher 3 looks better, yet in the screenshots provided, those characters look a lot more detailed than anything in the Witcher 3. Is the lipsyncing better in the Witcher?
The Witcher 3 is the best looking game ever made. Geralt of Rivia set the standard for male character models and their effects on female gamers. Yennefer has made countless of male gamers org*sm and str*ke their c*cks. The Witcher 3 has the best looking environments ever designed in a video game. As quoted by now deceased critic Roger Ebert. “The Witcher 3 is the best game ever made, the environments look like a mash up between game of thrones and lord of the rings. God himself yanked me out of heaven so I can witness the full glory of The Witcher 3”.
The Witcher 3 has the best lighting system in any video game ever made. Each ray light is based on how light interacts in the real world. Try going to a forest, you can see the rays of light bounce of geralts genit*lia highlighting the beauty of the Witcher 3’s perfectly designed character models.
You are an idiot if you think The Witcher 3 isn’t the best looking game ever made. It is actually the first game to use Raytracing. The effect is subtle but can be seen in cutscenes. If you magnify Triss bre*sts by 300x. You can see subtle Raytracing in the character models.
Witcher is overrated in graphics. Not that great.
They were great at release, but things move on. I reckon ACO graphics looks better IMHO…
The Witcher 3 is the best looking game ever made. Geralt of Rivia set the standard for male character models and their effects on female gamers. Yennefer has made countless of male gamers org*sm and str*ke their c*cks. The Witcher 3 has the best looking environments ever designed in a video game. As quoted by now deceased critic Roger Ebert. “The Witcher 3 is the best game ever made, the environments look like a mash up between game of thrones and lord of the rings. God himself yanked me out of heaven so I can witness the full glory of The Witcher 3”.
The Witcher 3 has the best lighting system in any video game ever made. Each ray light is based on how light interacts in the real world. Try going to a forest, you can see the rays of light bounce of geralts genit*lia highlighting the beauty of the Witcher 3’s perfectly designed character models.
You are an idiot if you think The Witcher 3 isn’t the best looking game ever made. It is actually the first game to use Raytracing. The effect is subtle but can be seen in cutscenes. If you magnify Triss bre*sts by 300x. You can see subtle Raytracing in the character models.
Are you out of your mind? The Witcher 3 didn’t even look good at release… LOD is laughable, textures are horrid outside of character models. My god, you are the most insane fanboy yet.
whoosh
“like The Witcher 3 – look and run better.”
“LOOK BETTER”
I laughed so hard my kidney bursted out of body and started orbiting the Earth.
Can i have your other kidney?
i mean i got an average 85fps to 100fps in origins with gtx1080 on 1080p so this isn’t surprising to me but they’re shet at optimizing their games, that’s for sure.
if you’re paying $60 for this there’s something seriously wrong with your brain not because of performance but the game itself is exactly origins. textures on rocks, roads and buildings are the same, animations are the same, they added a few new animations but they’re mostly for protagonist because they had to do it, voice actors of hostile NPCs are the same and have same lines they had in origins at times, trees and grasses are cut from origins and ghost recon wildlands, footstep sounds are the same as origins and some are copied from wildlands. swimming animations, climbing animations and ship animations are copied from origins. invisible walls in middle of oceans (not just where map ends but places where they don’t want you to go yet) and overall zero effort on making a world and they demand $60 for it.
wake up you dumb autists, stop giving your money to this kind of scam and get out of home for a change.
Sounds like a modder put this game together
if it didn’t have new protagonist and new story and dialogue choices, it’d be a mod.
Actually modders can do that, so it is a mod
yeah but you know what i’m talking about, it’s a DLC that i never buy at best.
What if the dlc add goat romancing?
not enough, add camels and llamas then i’ll consider.
if you’re paying $60 for this there’s something seriously wrong with your brain not because of performance but the game itself is exactly origins. textures on rocks, roads and buildings are the same, animations are the same, they added a few new animations but they’re mostly for protagonist because they had to do it, voice actors of hostile NPCs are the same and have same lines they had in origins at times, trees and grasses are cut from origins and ghost recon wildlands, footstep sounds are the same as origins and some are copied from wildlands
who’s this guy?i have him blocked and i don’t remember blocking anyone in my life.
some random hippy N*ggerKikeF*ggot
figured it out by replies.
“However, it does not really justify its ridiculously high GPU requirements in cities, especially when other titles look and run better.”
“when other titles look and run better.”:
Bro was the “The Witcher 3” an error or are you changing your opinions because people called you out???????
Sand in my vagina feels offended too. Take it back you sexist biggot racist trump voter.
In short, the team from Ubisoft who made the worst Assassin’s Creed game known as Syndicate is, once again, releasing an unoptimized turd and getting away with it…