Ubisoft and Nvidia Form PC Gaming Alliance
Several PC titles from Ubisoft will be optimized for Nvidia's GeForce GPUs.
Ubisoft said that it has formed an "alliance" with Nvidia that will see a number of popular PC games optimized for GeForce GPUs. Supported tech will include TXAA antialiasing that provides Hollywood-levels of smooth animation, soft shadows, HBAO+ (horizon-based ambient occlusion), and advanced DX11 tessellation.
"The PC remains one of the world’s most popular gaming platforms, and we’re committed to offering PC players the best possible experience with our games," said Tony Key, senior vice president of sales and marketing, Ubisoft. “Combining Nvidia’s visual computing expertise and the creativity of our development teams will give customers a stunning experience when choosing an Ubisoft game for the PC."
PC games that fall under this "alliance" include Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell Blacklist, which is slated to arrive on August 20. The Digital Deluxe version is already made available in the new "Splinter Cell Blacklist" bundles featuring cards based on GeForce GTX 660, 660 Ti, 670, 680, 760, 770 or 780 GPUs. The Digital Deluxe Edition throws in two extra single-player and co-op maps, five pieces of "sneaktastic" gear, five bonus stealth suits, and five weapons. A code for Splinter Cell: Conviction is also included at no extra charge.
Additional Ubisoft PC games optimized for GeForce GPUs include Assassin's Creed IV Black Flag and Watch Dogs, which arrive on October 30 and November 15 respectively. Ubisoft said that Nvidia's Developer Technology Team worked closely with the developers of each game to create GeForce-optimized "worlds that deliver new heights of realism and immersion."
"PC gaming is stronger than ever and Ubisoft understands that PC gamers demand a truly elite experience – the best resolutions, the smoothest frame rates and the latest gaming breakthroughs," said Tony Tamasi, senior vice president of content and technology at Nvidia. "We’ve worked closely with Ubisoft’s incredibly talented creative teams throughout the development process to incorporate our technologies and deliver the most immersive and visually spectacular game worlds imaginable."
The news arrives after AMD revealed its Never Settle Forever bundle that allows customers to pick games from a limited library of popular titles, depending on the Radeon card they buy. The program provides three tiers -- Bronze, Silver and Gold – that grants one, two or three free games respectively.
AMD is also supplying APUs for the upcoming PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, which should be incredibly lucrative cash cows for a company that's struggling to gain its footing in a declining desktop market. AMD has also entered the cloud gaming market with its Radeon Sky line of server-side single-and dual-slot cards.

I guess launching a popular game with crappy always-online DRM and a proprietary launcher (uplay) may count as interesting, albeit very frustrating if you happened to pay for it.
Ubi can call me when they get their stuff on steam.
This is a step in the wrong direction. At one time, games were optimized for DirectX...and before that, for OpenGL. Game devs didn't focus on any 1 single GPU architecture. These "alliances" of sorts, have actually hurt PC gaming, not helped. Graphics card prices have increased because of NVidia throwing money at devs trying to get an artificial advantage in games.]
Won't happen. EA and Activision would be slitting their own throats. They both heavily rely on consoles, which will have AMD CPU and GPU inside. The code will have to be heavily optimized for those AMD architectures.
depending on how the "optimization" happens, as in did nvidia lock basic code to make their cards look better, than i may just not buy the games on principal.
I guess launching a popular game with crappy always-online DRM and a proprietary launcher (uplay) may count as interesting, albeit very frustrating if you happened to pay for it.
Ubi can call me when they get their stuff on steam.
Nvidia need to pull something out since they have nothing to do with consoles this time. Could be very good in the future.
This is a step in the wrong direction. At one time, games were optimized for DirectX...and before that, for OpenGL. Game devs didn't focus on any 1 single GPU architecture. These "alliances" of sorts, have actually hurt PC gaming, not helped. Graphics card prices have increased because of NVidia throwing money at devs trying to get an artificial advantage in games.]
Won't happen. EA and Activision would be slitting their own throats. They both heavily rely on consoles, which will have AMD CPU and GPU inside. The code will have to be heavily optimized for those AMD architectures.
This article is published on August 26. Why speak of game already released in future tense?
this is true, but it all depends on whether AMD will keep the GCN architecture for the rest of the gen. we all know the consoles will get as full optimization as they can get for ubisofts main cash cows. the pc, on the other hand, isnt always as lucky. AMD already has the deal for free basically, but nvidia NEEDS to make such a deal. by the info on this article makes me believe Ubisoft is going to laze out pc ports this gen again. reason, the article doesnt mention Physx among the nvidia features that will be used(the source link is broken by the way). why would they not include the feature nvidia brags about the most if this is a "optimization deal"? because consoles dont support it. anyone get where Im going with this?