Ubisoft released today the third major update for the PC version of Assassin’s Creed: Unity. While the French company listed 300 bugs that were fixed, it still has not addressed one major issue that plagues the PC version, and that is no other than the stutter issues that happen randomly and make the game completely unplayable.
In order to showcase this issue, we captured a video. Do note that this stuttering issue happens in both Single-GPU and SLI modes. Not only that, but we decided to lower our resolution at 720p in order to prove that those stutters are not caused by our VRAM. As you can see, only 1.7GB of our GTX690’s VRAM were being used, yet the game still suffered from those stutters. In addition, you can notice this stuttering side effect even while we are browsing the game’s menu (pay attention to the mouse cursor).
Whenever those stutters occur, we can see Arno’s hair going crazy. It’s as if the physics are being reset each time those stutters happen. We don’t know whether Ubisoft has messed up physics calculations or not, but there is something fishy going on under the game’s hood.
What’s really weird here, is that these stutters occur randomly. Sometimes they are present from the get-go, while other times they appear right after a cut-scene.
Here is hoping that this video will find its way to Ubisoft’s forums, and that the development team will be able to fix it via a future patch. Still, it is really funny – for lack of a better word – that the game is still broken (and completely unplayable for some) even after three whole patches. Guess PC gamers will be lucky if the game is fixed by Christmas.
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.”
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That looks nasty man and here’s AMD users thinking they were hard done by. It’s like FC4 though, that thing stutters as well. Hard to say what it is, especially if different hardware and different configs get it.
in addition there are still loads of bugs after that patch e.g. NPC’s in the walls etc.
It’s s**t coding.
Let’s just forget about ACU for 5 months like Watch Dogs, then no one will care anyway
was watch dogs ever fixed?
No, I played it through unmodded and updated like a month ago and still constant stuttering.
That’s why I deleted it, the stuttering whilst driving (i7 4790k, GTX 970) was far too much to enjoy, shame.
FX8350, GTX560 Ti OC 1GB, 8GB RAM 1866mhz….no stuttering while driving at all.
The game won’t let me put more than textures in medium because of the vRAM memory but I managed to make a good mix between the optimal configuration from GeForce Experience and some changes to make it look as good as possible and I get 50/60 FPS all the time in every situation. Again no stuttering at all.
I think that if you all are trying to run the game with everything in Ultra (you of course expect that with that GPU) of course it will have issues here and there since it is not very well optimized.
I got rid of micro-stuttering in version 1.03.483 if that helps.
Still playing the game till completion and I think is actually pretty good after all the hate it got. (even from me though) Downgrades aside of course.
PS: I hope I can upgrade my GPU for GTA V, The Witcher 3 and Batman Arkham Knight. I want that 970. 😉
Get the MSI 970. Being able to run Arma 3, and Battlefield 4 on full whack in 1440p is amazing to see 🙂
Except even a GTX 980 doesn’t get constant >60fps on ultra in 1440p. Put ”only” 2xMSAA and it will. 970 would be a better choice for 1080p.
Tried MFAA yet?
Good that you mentioned, I haven’t actually. The drivers for that just released a week ago or so.
Then you’ll need this friend:
http://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/mfaa-multi-frame-sample-aa-guide-review,1.html
”I get 50/60 FPS all the time”
With a GTX560? On what resolution?
I didn’t put any setting to ultra with my GTX 980, I think I used the best textures because taking them down a notch didn’t effect the stuttering. Also 4GB isn’t going to run out.
The game itself was ok but had much more potential and got overhyped. Maybe watch_dogs 2 will be better but I feel like things with ubisoft aren’t going to be better for a while, if ever.
At 1920x1080p resolution of course. I never go below since I play in a 47″ HDTV. The average frames are around 50’s and as I said all the time.
If I turn everything up I can’t even get 20FPS. xD
My settings (game is in Spanish, “Alto” means “High”, “Bajo” means “Low”, “Medio” means “Medium”…you get the idea):
http://i.imgur.com/ArZF1il.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/F9D6XOx.jpg
And some images I took (it doesn’t look all that beautiful it can but yet the frame rate and gameplay is cool for me): http://imgur.com/a/MZo70
Overall it wasn’t that bad and I kind of got used to the stuttering slightly but it still effected the experience significantly. I used nvidia’s vsync to get rid of the bad tearing. Didn’t run at constant 60fps at high settings 1440p on a GTX 980.
nope 😀
Yep indeed that was the “key” for showing us that they care for PC gamers (ironic)
I have a guess that it’s somehow connected with the unified console memory, since game is optimized for it. If I understand it correctly, it’s working both as RAM and VRAM, but with a much higher speed, than standard RAM.
They probably just don’t care how streaming will work on PC RAM, tossing more data than it can handle in some ineffective way, thus causing stuttering
They still didn’t fix NPCs disappearing into the ground even in 1.3, still loads of clipping issues. RLD are fast at updates, seems I’ll keep people updated on when the game is out of alpha or when or if AMD users can get good performance, until then people like me shouldn’t give them money for the game.
They ask for money upfront, I test their game until I’m satisfied it’s worth buying.
After a few adjustments in the files, I’m loving Far Cry 4. I just took out 2 hiding Tortoises with C4, as they’re shells flipped in the air, I reached for the Shadowplay hotkey. Good times.
Mark my words. This game will never run in an acceptable manner.
Maybe. Some bugs can’t be fixed without an engine overhaul (that will break more stuff than it fixes). Could be the case here.
according to this link :
http://games.slashdot.org/story/14/11/14/041256/ubisoft-points-finger-at-amd-for-assassins-creed-unity-poor-performance/
they broke directx 11… so yeah, it may never run properly
For stuttering Issues set v-sync option and in control pannel of Nvidia’s Driver put anisotropic filtering 16X. The results will depend from your Pc configuration.
I’m mostly convinced that vsync is the problem on Far Cry 4, too. They build the game around console clock cycles which never change, and then when they port the game over to PCs they don’t even bother to change the code – they simply rely on a computer’s brute force.
There’s absolutely no reason the PC recommendations for a console port need to be four times more powerful than a console.
i dont have fc4, but fc3 had that issue with water and max pre rendered frames, i got away from water and messed with vsync and max pre rendered frames in the game and it became smoother.
half refresh v-sync make the game stutters less than before but it wont fix it
Hmm conflicting. In the beginning you say 144fps, and then you end it with 30fps.
OMG so many “skipped frame”… luckily I haven’t buy it yet..
It seems like this game is so messed up they haven’t even begun to get to PC-centric problems.
I have the same problem in Far Cry 4
You expected something besides stuttering from ubisoft?
Interesting thingy though apparently the whales who bought the season pass (term used in f2p for people who spend too much money with no sense in a game) get the dlc and far cry 4 for free, or so i heard. I am suprised ubisoft did that.
I am glad the console version is a mess as well, ubisoft stock falls, so maybe they get it and stop releasing 10 games a year and make dlc for them, instead of that they can focus on FINISHING THEM at launch.
nvidia has a new card with 24GB, Only 5000$
Anywa look at red fraction guirella, stills goes under 60 fps, so no i doubt you will ever run this well.
The stutters are real! I can confirm as a owner with a 750ti and I 970! Been playing threw the game again and parts can still be a mess even when you are just running on the roofs with nobody in sight. It’s just funny because I noticed some added performance dealing with higher AA in the game getting a higher fps… but the more I get into it after the patch the more problems I am finding…
@John Papadopoulos: how many fps do u have in 1080 w gtx 690? which setting? thanks. I’m trying “high” setting + fxaa but i ve 40fps average w a lot of drop (sometimes 10-18 fps). It’s a shame…
so game wasn redy for lounch whay its not iven BETA
isn’t update 3 only bug fixes? and 4 will fix performance they said?
yeah, patch 3 only focuses on bugs, but for the framerate they only fix the specific ones…
hahaha this ubisoft so funny
i dont have this but i have a very high end system
Digital Foundry finds that the patch 3 on the PS4 still doesn’t improve frame-rates much, maybe 1% 2% at best but look at these dreadful frame-rates.
http://i.imgur.com/i0527gN.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/9z2mCAh.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/cnnLJOq.jpg
Also have the same setup 690 GTX, intel I7 – 3930K, 16gb ram and my game stutters even more than what the vid shows
For FC4: I have the Solution: Change ONLY the Textures to Medium, that will fix the stuttering completely!
*i7 4790K @4,2Ghz
*GTX 970
*8GB DDR3-2400Mhz
Well that’s surprisingly impressive, those textures are only rather bad. But fps and less stuttering are more important.
Yes..the game won’t let me put more than medium because of the 1GB vRAM. It looks really poor up close but overall good enough.
This game looks awesome at the sunrise and sunset, also with rain. In full light is not that good looking.
I finished the main story before commenting this. Have to make some more secondary missions to complete it at 100%. Good game after all.
how they can sell such a thing ?
yet, next year, next AC game on E3 and comments like “can’t wait” “oh my god, jaw dropping” “day1 buy” etc…
Thankfully my system runs far better than the PS4 and that’s at 1080p, higher settings. 🙂
http://i.imgur.com/6ngagA5.jpg
you should at least turn on FXAA
MLAA on, I was trying it over FXAA.
At least most people can get past the first freaking sequence. Mines is so bad I can only get to the part where the guy has to climb the ladder to get into the tower. Even the it takes about five minutes just to do that. Seriously ridiculous, I was so looking forward to this game too. Shame 🙁 Hopefully patch 4 will make the game actually playable.
This is my second time I ever browse this site,
This WebSite is gonna be something big,
To the Editors: I love your Peformance Analysis, very useful and informative.
Keep up the good work.
I just installed Patch 4. Still stuttering. It stutters equally on Ultra vs Low Gfx quality mode. It stutters in the INTRO FOR GODS SAKE!
I’ve got a good rig, well within specifications for this game. I’m lost now.
I dropped to 900p and Medium Settings they frame rate was nice and smooth and controls responsive and I thought aha! I’ve cracked it, played through a side mission and the stuttering started again. “HEADBANG”