AC4 developer states that optimizing a PC port isn't necessary.

[Shadowstar38]

Okay. So...PC Newbie here. What does optimizing for PC actually do? Because I've been playing the other Assassin's Creed games on steam and I don't see what it's suppose to be missing.

 

[Arina Love]

AC4 runs OK on my middle-spec PC yeah it's not 60 fps but i just don't care. Anyway after trying PC gaming for 2 years now i'm glad switching to PS4 as my main gaming machine.

 

[Zipa]

Okay. So...PC Newbie here. What does optimizing for PC actually do? Because I've been playing the other Assassin's Creed games on steam and I don't see what it's suppose to be missing.

Optimization is basically making a piece of software (in this case games) run the most efficiently while using the least of your computers system resources. Bad optimization is when you get a game like Adventure park (which is very graphically very simple and should run easily on even old GPUs) which freezes up and has framerate drops when someone is running two GTX titans. (see Totalbiscuits WTF on it to see for yourself)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Program_optimization

 

[Hexoplexor]

I avoid anything that has the word Ubisoft on it.

 

[Enizer]

yeah, pc is not dying out, that's ******** too
no matter how cheap and efficient other devices become, there will still always be people who want more powerful hardware.
especially with online game stores so cheap and accessible, and the giant library of old games for the PC

sales numbers are unreliable because sales number reporting is a mess, most end retailers dont want to say how their store is doing, and so dont report how many copies sold.
i understand even steam does not publish sales numbers..

many new technologies see light on the PC first, and then later on other devices, for example:
the occulus rift team recently stated that the new consoles, do not have hardware powerful enough to run the occulus rift properly, so it's looking like the occulus rift will be PC only, at least for now.

i'm sure the demand for virtual reality will just hang back and wait a generation just because the consoles cant run it
/sarcasm

 

[Shadowstar38]

Okay. So...PC Newbie here. What does optimizing for PC actually do? Because I've been playing the other Assassin's Creed games on steam and I don't see what it's suppose to be missing.

Optimization is basically making a piece of software (in this case games) run the most efficiently while using the least of your computers system resources. Bad optimization is when you get a game like Adventure park (which is very graphically very simple and should run easily on even old GPUs) which freezes up and has framerate drops when someone is running two GTX titans. (see Totalbiscuits WTF on it to see for yourself)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Program_optimization

Oh. Well that's a complete pain in the ass.

Carry on.

 

[Vivi22]

The problem is that there are just millions of potential hardware combinations to optimize for, whereas for consoles there is just one. Hopefully Steam Machines will be able to avoid this issue by finally having essentially a PC with standardized parts, so that there are maybe 5 or so combinations to optimize for, at least initially, and will lead to optimized games for the platform.

That hasn't been the case since the 90s. Hardware on PC is standardized and has been for a while, not even different cards of the same brand matter anymore.

Stop perpetuating a lie that hasn't existed in 20 years.

device drivers do the work of that. They handle it. Its the manufacturers that take all the work out of it. Developers have never had it so easy and are just throwing up 90s bullshit.

The only reason any dev would complain about "too much variety" is incompetence. Because that is inexcusable in the modern world.

Its 2013, its time we drop this 90s mindset and all the excuses. Device drivers make development easier. In fact, manufacturers have never made it more easy to make games.

If we needed to code for specific hardware, how the fuck can I play old games on new hardware that didn't exist in that time? How the hell can I boot up startopia from 2001?

Precisely. More often than not, it's the hardware developers who will optimize their drivers for certain games and the specific hardware. As long as developers are coding properly for the available drivers, and work with the PC hardware suppliers to make sure they optimize them as best they can, they'll get good performance. Telling people that they should have to buy more powerful hardware to play games from last gen is a joke and basically an attempt to pass the buck on the developers own laziness.

And a lot of developers certainly are a combination of lazy and incompetent when it comes to PC ports. Case in point: Need For Speed: Rivals. Locking the game to 30FPS was stupid. Having the games speed based on the framerate was even worse. People figured out how to not do things that stupid in the 80's for god's sake.

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

It doesn?t really bother me. PC gamers always want the best of both worlds. They brag about how much more powerful their system is than consoles, and how many more awesome/exclusive games they get...

Then expect console developers to cater to them too, and whine when they don't get an awesome console release.

Meanwhile console players get to sit around daydreaming about all the awesome PC games and how we wish we could get a few. When we do it's typically a dumbed down version of the games that only appeal to small niche groups, like Sims 3 etc.


If you want these games so bad, buy a console. A PC player won't hesitate to tell you the same thing.

That kind of comment helps absolutely no one. PC gamers do not brag about how much more powerful their system is and how much bigger the library is and then expect devs to bend over backwards. Assholes and elitists do that the average PC gamer doesn't. There are just as many "Console Gamers"(assholes and idiots ie not real console gamers) that like to shit on PC gamers as much as "PC Gamers"(same as before) shit on console gamers.

 

[kasperbbs]

I already skipped all of the AC games after the second one, i guess i'll skip the latest one too since it will probbaly work like shit and i'm not quite ready to buy a new PC. Now i understand why my system can't even meet the minimum requirements for Watchdogs, instead of it being some kind of next gen beast of a game the devs simply didn't give a fuck about making a proper port.

 

[FrozenLaughs]

It doesn?t really bother me. PC gamers always want the best of both worlds. They brag about how much more powerful their system is than consoles, and how many more awesome/exclusive games they get...

Then expect console developers to cater to them too, and whine when they don't get an awesome console release.

Meanwhile console players get to sit around daydreaming about all the awesome PC games and how we wish we could get a few. When we do it's typically a dumbed down version of the games that only appeal to small niche groups, like Sims 3 etc.


If you want these games so bad, buy a console. A PC player won't hesitate to tell you the same thing.

That kind of comment helps absolutely no one. PC gamers do not brag about how much more powerful their system is and how much bigger the library is and then expect devs to bend over backwards. Assholes and elitists do that the average PC gamer doesn't. There are just as many "Console Gamers"(assholes and idiots ie not real console gamers) that like to shit on PC gamers as much as "PC Gamers"(same as before) shit on console gamers.

I agree with you 100?. Perhaps I'm just jaded by years of reading those exact comments on forums across the internet. The world would be a better place if more stuff was cross platform, especially games with large communities. I loved being able to play FF11 with PC, PS2 and 360 players as one unified community. Too bad it doesn't work that way for everything.

 

[Hawkeye21]

This guy is an associated producer, I seriously doubt this guy knows how to turn PC on, much less which side of the keyboard to press. In either case AC4 runs pretty bitchingly good on my 4 year old inexpensive PC.

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

It doesn?t really bother me. PC gamers always want the best of both worlds. They brag about how much more powerful their system is than consoles, and how many more awesome/exclusive games they get...

Then expect console developers to cater to them too, and whine when they don't get an awesome console release.

Meanwhile console players get to sit around daydreaming about all the awesome PC games and how we wish we could get a few. When we do it's typically a dumbed down version of the games that only appeal to small niche groups, like Sims 3 etc.


If you want these games so bad, buy a console. A PC player won't hesitate to tell you the same thing.

That kind of comment helps absolutely no one. PC gamers do not brag about how much more powerful their system is and how much bigger the library is and then expect devs to bend over backwards. Assholes and elitists do that the average PC gamer doesn't. There are just as many "Console Gamers"(assholes and idiots ie not real console gamers) that like to shit on PC gamers as much as "PC Gamers"(same as before) shit on console gamers.

I agree with you 100?. Perhaps I'm just jaded by years of reading those exact comments on forums across the internet. The world would be a better place if more stuff was cross platform, especially games with large communities. I loved being able to play FF11 with PC, PS2 and 360 players as one unified community. Too bad it doesn't work that way for everything.

Well with the architecture of consoles becoming closer to PCs maybe that won't be too far off.

 

[Ender910_v1legacy]

Okay. So...PC Newbie here. What does optimizing for PC actually do? Because I've been playing the other Assassin's Creed games on steam and I don't see what it's suppose to be missing.

Here's an example from Assassin's Creed 2:

http://www.wsgf.org/f/u/imagecache/node-gallery-display/contrib/dr/398/ingame_4x3.jpg
http://www.wsgf.org/f/u/imagecache/node-gallery-display/contrib/dr/398/ingame_16x10.jpg

Notice the black bars? That's letterboxing. Basically any monitors that aren't in a 16:9 ratio are forced into using that, which really can ruin a game's immersion. That's also one of the issues that's supposedly going to come up in Assassin's Creed 4. It's almost always impossible to mod or tweak that.

FOV (Field of Vision) is another major optimization issue: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=464152
Sometimes it's only a minor annoyance, other times it can make a game unplayable to the point of causing major headaches or nausea. Usually this is tweakable (in more extreme cases it might require hex editing), but sometimes it's nigh impossible.

 

[blackrave]

The problem is that there are just millions of potential hardware combinations to optimize for, whereas for consoles there is just one. Hopefully Steam Machines will be able to avoid this issue by finally having essentially a PC with standardized parts, so that there are maybe 5 or so combinations to optimize for, at least initially, and will lead to optimized games for the platform.

That hasn't been the case since the 90s. Hardware on PC is standardized and has been for a while, not even different cards of the same brand matter anymore.

Stop perpetuating a lie that hasn't existed in 20 years.

device drivers do the work of that. They handle it. Its the manufacturers that take all the work out of it. Developers have never had it so easy and are just throwing up 90s bullshit.

The only reason any dev would complain about "too much variety" is incompetence. Because that is inexcusable in the modern world.

Its 2013, its time we drop this 90s mindset and all the excuses. Device drivers make development easier. In fact, manufacturers have never made it more easy to make games.

If we needed to code for specific hardware, how the fuck can I play old games on new hardware that didn't exist in that time? How the hell can I boot up startopia from 2001?

^THIS^
It is lazy excuse for those who knows little about tech behind shiny moving pictures
To simplify games run on OS, OS runs on BIOS, BIOS runs on hardware
BIOS is the thing that evens out most hardware differences
OS evens out remaining hardware irregularities
If anything remains it is fixed with drivers
So games have little adaptation to do (if any)

It is like complaining that you can't reach same results in running as some other guy, just because you live in desert, but that guy reached the results in mountainous area. Then you go on claiming that rocky background is much more suitable for running than sand of your location.
When in reality you both run on equally good paved running track.

 

[cerebus23]

This just in, Assassin's Creed 4 associate producer Sylvain Trottier is a fucking idiot.

I honestly don't know why I vouch for Ubisoft time after time after time. Their treatment of the PC base is absolutely ridiculous.

Because they actually make solid games at a better clip than ea or whoever? Out of the major publishers ubi for all that is wrong with it still makes good games, sure they have over used ass creed and etc but they still are good games. Vs the grind machine at EA that utterly rips the heart and soul out of games and cranks them out year after year.

 

[Weaver]

As a side note I HAVE noticed games simply running worse but not looking any better than they did like 2 - 3 years ago.

Quite frankly, if your game is graphically inferior to the Metro series but somehow runs worse, you're doing something really wrong. If you can't beat 35 Ukrainians slaving away in a small office without heat in, basically, oppressive conditions that would be illegal in most 1st world countries with 1/10th the budget of most AAA games I'm not even sure why you're making games.

No seriously, read this if you haven't:
http://www.pcgamer.com/2013/05/15/4a-games-working-conditions/

This rag-tag bunch of rebels basically made one of the greatest graphical engines like this and Ubisoft with 500 people working on a game can't make a fucking port work correctly.

 

[shrekfan246]

So you see no problem with being accused of being a criminal when you're innocent?

I don't feel like I'm being accused of being a criminal,

Well you should, because that's what Ubisoft said you are.

I feel like those fuckwit pirates have ruined it for the rest of us. Don't blame a company for being frustrated that their product is being stolen en masse and protecting their bottom line.

I'm not blaming the company for their games being pirated; I'm blaming them for using that as an excuse to belittle and insult part of their consumer base. No company should ever do that, because it's bad business.

Honestly you reek of entitlement,

I'm just going to stop here, because apparently wanting to not be accused of being a bloody thief means I have a false sense of entitlement (which is the proper term you're looking for, by the way; I'm perfectly entitled to be angry at Ubisoft for calling me a pirate when I'm not, as it so happens). Responding to anything further you've typed would inevitably just wind up with me getting a warning, and I enjoy having no warnings on my record here.