Assassin’s Creed Odyssey PC efficiency assessment

At 130 kilometres squared, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey is the largest world that Ubisoft has created but for the epic historic collection. It’s additionally probably the most visually arresting; after the limitless deserts of final yr’s Origins, it’s refreshing to discover a collection of Greek islands which can be lush with vegetation and dense with fascinating structure.

But how does the PC port fare? With such ambition and scope, there are many potential pitfalls. We all know too properly the story of the open world stricken by bugs and inconsistencies, which is why we’ve put Assassin’s Creed Odyssey to the check in our PC efficiency assessment.

Our efficiency evaluations are written to give you the broadest image attainable, specializing in {hardware} much like what nearly all of gamers have put in of their machines, primarily based on the findings of the Steam Hardware Survey. We check the game on all graphical settings utilizing an i5 powered rig with 8GB of RAM, and attempt to hit 60fps with 4 in style graphics playing cards. Even in case your PC is just not equivalent to our check setups, it’s best to nonetheless be capable of estimate the efficiency ranges you may count on from your personal machine with our outcomes.

Graphics Options

Assassin’s Creed Odyssey has 16 settings cut up throughout 4 classes: normal, surroundings, characters, and postprocessing. These classes every comprise the everyday choices, comparable to shadows, fog, texture element, display screen house reflections, volumetric clouds, and ambient occlusion. There’s nothing above and past to shock you right here, however neither is the choice missing.

There’s additionally an adaptive high quality setting that may be toggled on and off. This is a function that’s usually utilized in console games, and dynamically adjusts graphics settings to assist preserve clean efficiency. When the going will get powerful, Odyssey will make itself look much less fairly to maintain the body charge up. Typically we’d advise protecting away from these sort of choices, however as you’ll uncover later on this assessment, you might discover it’s one thing to contemplate.

Graphics Analysis

For our graphics evaluation we evaluate comparable screenshots taken on the 4 commonplace presets of extremely, excessive, mid, and low. Assassin’s Creed Odyssey does have a ‘very high’ preset, too, so there may be an extra layer of granularity between the settings sampled in these screenshots.

Ultra High

Odyssey is a splendidly fairly game with all its settings cranked as much as extremely. Artistically, it’s much like Origins; a midway home between photorealism and classy idealism. Most putting within the picture above are the shadows, their excessive decision that means each aspect of the casting object is captured realistically, with strong silhouettes from the close by cover, and blurrier ones from the transferring tree branches. As with most fashionable games, a lot of the visible achievements may be put all the way down to the lighting, which emphasises the sharp texture and mannequin work.

While Assassin’s Creed Odyssey is enjoyable to the attention, it’s much less forgiving in your {hardware}. Our check rig manages to push out a mean of 39fps at extremely, with a low of 14fps. That’s not a stellar rating, though there are issues to be considered. Odyssey’s world is dense with detailed surroundings and characters, and the panorama is usually open sufficient to disclose large vistas with spectacular draw distances. This all locations much more stress in your system than a linear game with smaller environments, and so a decrease fps ought to be anticipated.

Last yr’s Assassin’s Creed Origins managed to hit a mean of 53fps on the identical machine, although, which is considerably higher. Both games have close to equivalent system necessities, too. It’s disappointing that Odyssey can’t hit these highs, however on the plus aspect, that is Assassin’s Creed trying its finest at better-than-console body charges.

High

The excessive preset maintains a lot of the visible splendour of extremely, with two notable exceptions: the leaf density of the timber is considerably diminished, and the standard of the shadows has been diminished, eradicating a number of the finer element from the silhouettes. Aside from that, although, it’s tough to identify any distinction between the 2 presets.

In regards to border charge, excessive hits a mean of 54fps on our check PC, making it a lot smoother than on extremely. We’d have hoped for over 60fps, however by being inside touching distance of the god commonplace, excessive presents one of the best compromise between graphics and efficiency.

Between extremely and excessive is a really excessive preset, which appears to be like close to indistinguishable from extremely, however averages at 49fps. Depending in your PC, you might wish to experiment with each the very excessive and excessive presets in case your choice lands on graphics fairly than efficiency.

Medium

A washed-out look afflicts the medium preset, which is because of a discount in lighting and texture high quality. Reduced ambient occlusion forestall the stony results on the ground and partitions from trying as dramatically 3D as they do at increased presets. The diminished texture decision means the smaller particulars bleed into one another, too, and the shadow high quality is decreased as soon as once more, with a lot blurrier edges.

With a mean body charge of 68fps, although, that is the choice to take for these seeking to steadiness graphics with stronger efficiency.

Low

At its lowest settings, Odyssey is noticeably cut up into two. Its fashions stay spectacular, and the world maintains an extended and detailed draw distance. But there’s a major discount in texture high quality, with each merchandise and floor on this planet patterned with blurry skins. While texture high quality is diminished from setting to setting, that is probably the most drastic change.

The low preset averages at 76fps, and so doesn’t provide an enormous benefit over the medium preset. However, in case you’re discovering your PC is struggling – which you definitely will in case your machine makes use of a card a era older than our GTX 1060 – this can be your solely possibility for a clean expertise.

Performance Benchmarks

To see how Assassin’s Creed Odyssey performs on varied {hardware} setups, we check the game on 4 graphics playing cards – two from Nvidia, and two from AMD. We’ve sampled in style playing cards from the present and former era of GPUs primarily based on the findings of the Steam Hardware Survey with the intention to provide probably the most helpful info.

All 4 playing cards are examined on the highest settings, with each texture possibility set as excessive as they’ll go, and each graphical impact turned on. For this check now we have used the in-game benchmarking instrument, which renders a fly-through of one of many game’s areas to generate a mean body charge depend.

In the graph under you may see how all 4 playing cards carry out.

Assassin’s Creed Odyssey is brutally punishing in your rig, and each present and former era playing cards endure. Simply put, extremely settings aren’t for mid-range setups. This might simply be an indication of the occasions – what we think about mid-range has to turn out to be low-end ultimately. However, it’s value remembering that final yr’s Assassin’s Creed Origins was fitted with two types of DRM that had a heavy impression on efficiency. It could also be that the identical is true of Odyssey, which might clarify its low figures.

From private expertise, I can attest that issues are higher on a GTX 1070, with a mean of 41fps at 1440p – it produces comparable stats to what the GTX 1060 can do on the a lot decrease 1080p decision.

How to run Assassin’s Creed Odyssey at 60fps

For anybody operating playing cards akin to our R9 380 and GTX 970, the one solution to squeeze 60fps out of Odyssey is to go for the low preset. This means you’ll be seeing Odyssey’s world at its ugliest, however you’ll be capable of get one of the best out of its fight on the increased body charge.

When it involves extra fashionable playing cards, these with the GTX 1060 can comfortably go for the medium preset. Alas, the RX 580 struggles to hit 60fps even at medium, and so that you’ll have to go for low with playing cards of an identical energy providing.

While it received’t allow you to hit 60fps, in case you’re taking part in on a machine that’s actually struggling, it might be value contemplating turning on the adaptive high quality possibility to assist strike a steadiness between appears to be like and no matter efficiency may be garnered.

Conclusion

Assassin’s Creed Odyssey is just not significantly pleasant to the common PC, and there are a couple of attainable causes for this. Firstly, there’s the possibility that Odyssey merely isn’t properly optimised. Origins is comparable in scope, design, and system necessities to Odyssey, and it merely ran higher. If this isn’t the case, then it may very well be that Odyssey’s huge, detailed world merely requires extra juice than the desolate dunes of Origins’s Egypt, and thus leaves lower-end playing cards within the mud.

Alternatively, it may very well be that Ubisoft is experimenting with one other aggressive DRM system that calls for an enormous chunk of processing energy on high of the game. Origins employs two types of digital rights administration, together with Denuvo, and the 2 put a whole lot of stress on PC programs. If comparable programs are getting used for Odyssey, it might clarify the failure to fulfill 60fps on something apart from the lower-end settings.

But, whereas efficiency is poorer than we’d like, it have to be stated that Assassin’s Creed Odyssey is a properly put collectively port. The choices menu is strong, and presents the now-standard Ubisoft tooltips for every setting, which is particularly useful for PC gamers inexperienced in graphics tech. The benchmarking instrument gives detailed readouts, and anybody seeking to tweak and nudge the game into one of the best efficiency attainable will discover it useful. The game can be notably steady for an Assassin’s Creed game: don’t count on folks’s faces to inexplicably fall off and go away their eyeballs floating in mid-air.

With the choices and instruments out there, and the overall extra of energy that the PC has over consoles, you’ll get prettier 1080p at commonplace console efficiency with the PC model. But after a collection of ports from Ubisoft which have marked a excessive level for triple-A console ports, we’d hoped for significantly better from the developer’s flagship game of 2018.