Assassin’s Creed Syndicate finally made its way to PC this week, and I’ve been restarting my adventures with Jacob and Evie Frye to see just how well Ubisoft’s latest port on PC holds up. Ubisoft in the past has been notorious for below par jobs on this front, especially if you pick up the game at launch. What I can say s that Assassin’s Creed sure feels like a PC game – in the sense that it’s going to take a lot of tweaking to get working right.
One thing that is good straight away is the number of options available to you. It isn’t as extensive as say, GTA V, but the options menu let you mess around with a large range of anti-aliasing options and some truly advanced Shadow techniques. All of this is complimented by a Video Memory slider, which I think should be standard in every single PC game to aid graphical tweaking.
Just for reference, here’s what I was testing the game on:
- Asus Nvidia GTX 970 (Overclocked to 1400MHz on the Core Clock, and 7900 MHz on the Memory Clock)
- Intel Core i7-2600K Sandy Bridge (Overclocked to 4.5GHz)
- 8GB DDR3 1600 RAM
- Standard HDD (no solid state loveliness here)
The game immediately set me to a “Very High” graphical preset, which you can see in the video below included some advanced shadows and MSAA anti-aliasing. Syndicate was being optimistically kind to me, so I rolled with it. The results, however, proved that I probably should’ve been a little more conservative.
Despite my GTX 970, Syndicate struggled at most times to keep the framerate at 60FPS. Even notching down to FXAA didn’t seem to fix that, with smoke and particle effects forcing the frame \rate to nosedive well into the low 30s. It’s incredibly jarring, especially since indoor locations sometimes maintained a smooth 60, while climbing to higher perches certainly helped things along.
But it seems anti-aliasing and some of the more intense shadow rendering techniques are to blame here. Over at PC Gamer they tried Syndicate with three GTX 980s all working together, and still experienced low drops when set to Ultra presets. Notching down the PCSS Shadow in particular boosted the framerate, so it’s your go to setting if you’re itching to claw back some frames.
It was easy to fix. Using MSAA2x + FXAA instead of MSAA4x + FXAA got them a solid 60+ fps in outdoor areas. And reducing shadow quality was especially helpful. With settings on the ‘high’ preset, they were getting a steady 70 fps, peaking at 100 fps. In other words, those highest anti-aliasing and shadow quality settings really are ultra.
But Syndicate is a graphically demanding game, and it’s a case of Ubisoft actually nailing their minimum and recommended specifications this time. Whether that’s down to optimisation or just how the port functions on PC is up for question, but those running on moderately powerful PCs will have to settle for a mix between Low and Medium it seems. Assassin’s Creed Syndicate is out on PC now.
Last Updated: November 20, 2015
VampyreSquirrel
November 20, 2015 at 12:08
According to Game Debate I’d be able to play it on Ultra at 1080p… wouldn’t mind testing that actually 😛
Grand Admiral Chief SpaceNinja
November 20, 2015 at 12:21
3.5GB……
Greylingad[CNFRMD]
November 20, 2015 at 13:06
for the day one patch?
Corrie
November 20, 2015 at 13:34
Don’t you dare take a swipe at the 970’s VRAM mister
Love that card, for the performance I can’t complain 100+fps in GTA V, Fallout 4 sits at 60fps with the occasional drop , even AC:Unity handled well at Ultra.
Aries
November 20, 2015 at 13:35
same here, plus it was the 980 with the 3.5gb ram
Corrie
November 20, 2015 at 13:36
Actually it is the 970…
Aries
November 20, 2015 at 13:41
Ive never had a problem with my 970 BF4,GTAV and all runs above 60fps with issue, but I checked now that it is there but not that noticeable when you playing
Corrie
November 20, 2015 at 13:47
Yeah haven’t also had any issue, the problems only occur when you try to DSR at 4K…Unity was a powerpoint presentation
Dirt 3 and a few games are fine at 4K just newer titles just flop and die.
Aries
November 20, 2015 at 16:14
oh but who would use a 970 for 4k, some people ne
Grand Admiral Chief SpaceNinja
November 20, 2015 at 12:22
Lol Sandy has a Sandy bridge!
Kromas untamed
November 20, 2015 at 12:24
Now we just need someone with the name Skylake. 😛
Corrie
November 20, 2015 at 13:35
I’d change my name..for a week if someone was kind enough to donate one to me :p
Alessandro Barbosa
November 20, 2015 at 12:59
It’s so perfect XD
Michael Matusowsky
November 20, 2015 at 13:42
Did you download the latest NVIDIA drivers which fixed the issue with PCSS?
Alessandro Barbosa
November 20, 2015 at 13:43
Yes, said as much in the video 🙂
Alessandro Barbosa
November 20, 2015 at 13:43
Spoiler: Fixed absolutely nothing with PCSS peformance
MakeItLegal
November 20, 2015 at 15:32
these videos keeop getting better and better , well done gents 🙂 so happy for the team
MakeItLegal
November 20, 2015 at 15:35
this video just shows me why i am skipping , same bland game as last hear , AI is poor , PC restarts – had 6 of those last year , each 4 to 6 hours in….fail UBI
William Fenton
November 21, 2015 at 01:32
There’s a simple way to make it run well: Turn off the Nvidia crap. That means shadows on high, and ambient occlusion to HBAO+. I can run it solid 60 at 1440p on a 980 ti and i5 3570k