Assassin's Creed IV - low FPS at really low settings

[iosappsrock]

To be honest, I've been pretty disappointed with performance so far. My specs are:

GTX 765m
i7 4700MQ
8GB RAM
1080p monitor

I expected (per Nvidias recommended requirements) to be getting around 40-50 FPS, with most settings on medium.

My card is equivalent to a desktop 650ti, or 560. Per Nvidias own website, I should be running this at medium to high.

As of now, with all settings lowered down to nearly the lowest, I still dip to the mid 20s in some places!

I am currently running the game with these settings:
Evironment: Very Low
Texture: Medium
Shadows: Low
AA: Off
AO: Off
Reflections: on
God Rays: low
Fog: On

Resolution: 1366x768

So, guys, even with the above settings, running the game at a crappy resolution, with most settings on medium to low, I have still dipped into 30-31FPS in some areas. I almost never hit 60FPs, even on the open sea. During sea battles, when I'm boarding a larger ship, I have even hit 29FPS.

I just don't understand how it can dip that low with such low settings. I run Far Cry 3 @ 1080p, with tweaked settings (most on high, some maxed, no AA), and I pull in 50-60 FPs all the time.

So please, anyone else out there with 765m cards, or close to that, are you running any better than me? Am I just bad at tweaking settings or what...


Thanks for listening guys.


EDITED: Changed my settings, and edited the post to reflect my new settings.

 

[jay2577]

Hi
Are you running the game with the latest patch and drivers?

Can you check your CPU/GPU usage and temperatures while playing the game?

It's a shame your having problems because even though it's not very well optimized it is an awesome game.

 

[iosappsrock]

Hi
Are you running the game with the latest patch and drivers?

Can you check your CPU/GPU usage and temperatures while playing the game?

It's a shame your having problems because even though it's not very well optimized it is an awesome game.

Hey man,

Yeah, I've got the latest patch/drivers. Haven't tried the new nvidia beta driver, but I've heard it only increases performance for SLI. I'd be interested to know if there's any performance increase with the beta driver, if anyone has tested it and would care to share.

CPU Temps are around 70-80C. That's pretty hot, but then I was just discussing those temps with some Intel gurus, and I'm told the intel mobile Haswell chips are made to run up to 100C (sounds scary to me though). My GPU stays around 60C.

I gotta say, It is a fantastic game. That's why the optimization has been getting me down a bit. It's just so much fun to play. I've already sunk more time into it in just a week than many other games I've played this year.

 

[jay2577]

It is a fantastic game. I completed it in 3 weeks
I hope i can help or if not someone else can because the game looks great on high settings. I played it maxed out. I also have a friend playing it on an AMD FX4100@4Ghz, 4gb of ram and an AMD 7850 on pretty high settings @ 1920 x 1080.

It sounds like your CPU might be throttling down because of the temperatures. Well it's a theory and a place to start.
If you leave task manager open at the cpu usage and with a low update speed setting while your gaming you will be able to come out of the game and look to see your usage. Try that and have a look first before we try and think of anything else.

You might want to look at this thread about checking your usage. it will explain how to do it in detail.
http://www.overclock.net/t/1229915/how-to-cpu-and-gpu-usage-along-with-fps-in-game

How old is your laptop? Could it be dusty inside?

 

[iosappsrock]

It is a fantastic game. I completed it in 3 weeks
I hope i can help or if not someone else can because the game looks great on high settings. I played it maxed out. I also have a friend playing it on an AMD FX4100@4Ghz, 4gb of ram and an AMD 7850 on pretty high settings @ 1920 x 1080.

It sounds like your CPU might be throttling down because of the temperatures. Well it's a theory and a place to start.
If you leave task manager open at the cpu usage and with a low update speed setting while your gaming you will be able to come out of the game and look to see your usage. Try that and have a look first before we try and think of anything else.

You might want to look at this thread about checking your usage. it will explain how to do it in detail.
http://www.overclock.net/t/1229915/how-to-cpu-and-gpu-usage-along-with-fps-in-game

How old is your laptop? Could it be dusty inside?

Thanks for the reply man.

My laptop is pertty new (a month or two), so I don't think dust is a problem. I've already cleaned it once anyway, just in case.

I have actually gently undervolted my CPU, so it seems like it's doing fine temp-wise. I use coretemp to monitor my temp and usage. I'll give it a look and make sure it's not getting throttled, but I'm pretty sure that's not it.

 

[chimera201]

It is a fantastic game. I completed it in 3 weeks
I hope i can help or if not someone else can because the game looks great on high settings. I played it maxed out. I also have a friend playing it on an AMD FX4100@4Ghz, 4gb of ram and an AMD 7850 on pretty high settings @ 1920 x 1080.

It sounds like your CPU might be throttling down because of the temperatures. Well it's a theory and a place to start.
If you leave task manager open at the cpu usage and with a low update speed setting while your gaming you will be able to come out of the game and look to see your usage. Try that and have a look first before we try and think of anything else.

You might want to look at this thread about checking your usage. it will explain how to do it in detail.
http://www.overclock.net/t/1229915/how-to-cpu-and-gpu-usage-along-with-fps-in-game

How old is your laptop? Could it be dusty inside?

You are not maxing out the game because NVIDIA HBAO+, NVIDIA PCSS, NVIDIA TXAA, and NVIDIA GPU-accelerated PhysX are disabled on AMD GPUs

 

[jay2577]

Yes well i meant maxing the settings i could

 

[chimera201]

Yes well i meant maxing the settings i could

And u are also using 2 AMD 270X in Crossfire, that is atleast as good as a GTX 760 whereas OP has GTX 765M which is equivalent to a HD 7770 or GTX 465 and that's like 5 tiers below yours
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-review,3107-7.html

The devs have targeted a 40fps with Vsync on at 1080p. AC4 can be maxed only on a GTX 690
http://www.geforce.com//whats-new/guides/assassins-creed-iv-black-flag-graphics-and-performance-guide
"If you do like fiddling, here are game setting recommendations for the most popular GPUs, with the aim of maintaining at least forty frames per second at all times at 1920x1080, the most popular gaming resolution. Our settings should be considered a starting point for your own personal config as we’re unable to account for differing CPUs and overclocks in this table. Please note that our results may differ greatly from your own if you use a Dual Core CPU or older Quad Core CPU, like the Q6600. Also note that the recommendations below were made using a pre-release build - if significant performance differences are discovered we will update accordingly."

 

[jay2577]

I also wasn't suggesting he could play maxed out but i think he should be getting better fps than he is.
My friend who is using my old 7850 got a little performance boost turning Vsync off

 

[iosappsrock]

Yes well i meant maxing the settings i could

And u are also using 2 AMD 270X in Crossfire, that is atleast as good as a GTX 760 whereas OP has GTX 765M which is equivalent to a HD 7770 or GTX 465 and that's like 5 tiers below yours
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-review,3107-7.html

The devs have targeted a 40fps with Vsync on at 1080p. AC4 can be maxed only on a GTX 690
http://www.geforce.com//whats-new/guides/assassins-creed-iv-black-flag-graphics-and-performance-guide
"If you do like fiddling, here are game setting recommendations for the most popular GPUs, with the aim of maintaining at least forty frames per second at all times at 1920x1080, the most popular gaming resolution. Our settings should be considered a starting point for your own personal config as we’re unable to account for differing CPUs and overclocks in this table. Please note that our results may differ greatly from your own if you use a Dual Core CPU or older Quad Core CPU, like the Q6600. Also note that the recommendations below were made using a pre-release build - if significant performance differences are discovered we will update accordingly."

Yeah, I actually went onto the Nvidia website, to see what there recommended settings were. My card is equivalent (in approximation) to being right inbetween a desktop 650ti and standard (2GB) 650. According to Nvidias page, I should be able to run the game at around 40FPS, with most settings off, a few on medium and at 1080p. So far, to maintain 40FPS, I need everything on low, no AA, no AO, and the resolution downscaled to 1366x768. Even with those settings, I easily dip into 36FPS in Nassau, and some islands, and especially ship battles.

Just doesn't seem right to me.

 

[chimera201]

Have u tried Vsync Off? I noticed u didn't mention that setting. It does solve the problem a little but leads to very bad screen tearing.
And what does your Geforce Experience software say as optimal settings?

 

[iosappsrock]

Have u tried Vsync Off? I noticed u didn't mention that setting. It does solve the problem a little but leads to very bad screen tearing.
And what does your Geforce Experience software say as optimal settings?

Hey man,

I have indeed tried with/without vsync. Both in game settings, and Nvidia control panel settings. Made no difference for me.

As for Geforce experience, that's basically what I'm using. They recommend almost all low, and at 1366x768 res. I will say however, that for every other game I play, geforce experience is very wrong. For example, it wanted to put sleeping dogs down on very low settings, even though I got a rock solid 60FPS on ultra, with the high res texture pack.

I dunno... It just still feels like poor optimization to me. For example, even though there are 5 environment settings, there may as well only be two, or three. I notice maybe a 1-2FPS difference between normal and very high, and absolutely no FPS difference between low and very low. I wish that low texture quality was a more in between setting. Normal gives you grass, and smooths texture popins, and generally looks really good. one step down to low, and you lose all grass, bushes have almost no leaves, texture popins are instant, and the game generally looks really crappy. It's a huge jump between normal and low, but basically no jump between low and very low, or normal and very high.

 

[chimera201]

Yeah, AC4 is really unoptimized. There are very demanding scenes and not very demanding scenes in the same game. They haven't made it consistent. They just put the trees and bushes where they wanted and never thought about how the fps will look like from every angle. When it rains and and wind blows, the bushes animate too fast and reflections come - that's when the fps drops very low as 20. It's gameplay is also designed in a console style. Brotherhood was the best game for me

 

[iosappsrock]

Yeah, AC4 is really unoptimized. There are very demanding scenes and not very demanding scenes in the same game. They haven't made it consistent. They just put the trees and bushes where they wanted and never thought about how the fps will look like from every angle. When it rains and and wind blows, the bushes animate too fast and reflections come - that's when the fps drops very low as 20. It's gameplay is also designed in a console style. Brotherhood was the best game for me

Another thing that really points to poor optimization is how well it runs on a PS3. The PS3 is what, 8 years old now? My Laptop actually out-specs it massively, yet the PS3 runs most settings on normal to high (minus a few fancy effects), and never dips below 30 FPS, even on the resource hungry islands (looking at YOU "Salt Lagoon"). My laptop still dips to 28FPS on said island, everything low and off, downscaled resolution.

I really hope they patch it at least a little bit... :|

 

[pipeline010]

Your result looks very accurate based on your specs. Check out notebook check on AC4.

If you don't want to read all that basically if your trying to run at 1920x1080 expect frame rates at/below 20fps, regardless of whatever else is turned off.

Good news is dial that down to 1366x768 and you can pretty much max out all other settings and be 35-60+.

It's only a laptop after all.

 

[iosappsrock]

Your result looks very accurate based on your specs. Check out notebook check on AC4.

If you don't want to read all that basically if your trying to run at 1920x1080 expect frame rates at/below 20fps, regardless of whatever else is turned off.

Good news is dial that down to 1366x768 and you can pretty much max out all other settings and be 35-60+.

It's only a laptop after all.

Thanks for the link man. I actually have checked that out before.

Again, I am not expecting great performance from a laptop. However, with everything on Normal, AA off, and AO off, I definitely expect FAR more than 20-30FPS at 1920X1080. So many other games I have that quite frankly look much better than ACIV, run far above 60FPS, with maxed settings.

Sadly, even at 1366x768, on normal, there are plenty of areas that lag well below 30FPS. The only way I can get close to 60FPS is on 720p, with everything turned to the lowest. Even then I often see dips into the 40s. Pitiful for any game really...

The game is just badly optimized. I recently contacted Ubisoft, and the rep. actually told me I should be getting better performance than I was. Eventually, after many solutions, he gave up and said that Ubisoft would "look into this issue". He admitted the game was not performing as it should.

I've already gotten 40+ hours out of it, so I'll probably just leave it alone till someday when I get a better computer. Sad though, as so many of the new games coming out run far better than this one.