Topic: Assassins Creed PC to have extra content

[MysterD]

EDIT:
And here's an interesting amalgamation: Assassin's Solid

Oh, that's freakin' hilarious!
How'd I miss that one on April Fool's??? 

[Xessive]

It was cool and I like how Kojima shows up at the end hehe

By the way, apparently a lot of people (especially nVidia card owners) have been having heaps of trouble with AC!

I have an 8800GTS 320mb and I've had practically zero problems. I've had a random crash happen recently but I'm using a fixed exe (crack), so that could be the culprit.

Either way, hopefully the patch will resolve most if not all of the major issues.

[MysterD]

It was cool and I like how Kojima shows up at the end hehe

By the way, apparently a lot of people (especially nVidia card owners) have been having heaps of trouble with AC!

I have an 8800GTS 320mb and I've had practically zero problems.

That's good.

I've had a random crash happen recently but I'm using a fixed exe (crack), so that could be the culprit.

Hmmmm...any idea if the game was laced w/ copy-protection built into the game (and its quests itself) like Iron Lore did w/ Titan Quest??

Either way, hopefully the patch will resolve most if not all of the major issues.

Hope so.

[Xessive]

Hmmmm...any idea if the game was laced w/ copy-protection built into the game (and its quests itself) like Iron Lore did w/ Titan Quest??

Not really.. Nothing noticeably intrusive anyway.

I use cracks mainly because I hate having to put the disc in the drive every time I wanna play.. Mainly when I have more than one game installed.

[MysterD]

Not really.. Nothing noticeably intrusive anyway.

I really wonder if we'll see more companies go on to do the Iron Lore thing, lacing the game itself w/ some sort of their own copy-protection -- and that if the game senses no disc or that it might be pirated, it'll kick you right out the game.

I use cracks mainly because I hate having to put the disc in the drive every time I wanna play.. Mainly when I have more than one game installed.

I understand that.

[MysterD]

Interesting read here on ACPC.

So, here's the situation w/ ACPC.

Currently, the batch of ATI Radeon Cards that are supporting DX 10.1 are having NO PROBLEMS w/ running the game on Vista, performance-wise -- b/c there's one less passed needed on DX 10.1, causing performance to be much better and allowing for you to pump the graphics quality up.

If you have a NVidia card and running Vista, ACPC will run and look nowhere as good -- since they don't really support DX 10.1.

That's right, and as you know, ACPC is being Patched by Patch 1.01 to completely remove DX 10.1 support. Doesn't that seem odd? I mean, do ATI Radeon users owning DX 10.1 cards really need DX 10.1 removed in a patch?

I wonder why, especially for Radeon users, Patch 1.01 won't give an option to let the user switch b/t using DX 10.1 or DX10.0 Mode? Would something like that be a pain-in-the-ass to implement?

[Xessive]

As I recall, they said they are removing DX10.1 support temporarily until they rework it.

I've got it running on XP at max settings (except multisampling) at 1680x1050 and it's running beautifully. The only so-so gripe is that my screen is a 16:10, so there slim black bars across the top and bottom but it's no big deal. AT first I tried using a custom 16:9 resolution (1680x945) which was alright but everything is very slightly stretched. Then I resorted to the thrid-party Aspect Ratio Fix. It's pretty handy for people with resolutions where the black bars are too obvious. To figure out the Aspect value for the AR-Fix just divide the vertical by the horizontal i.e. 1050/1680=0.625.

I also recommend visiting the Assassin's Creed Tweak Guide for all sorts of tweaking for max performance.

[MysterD]

As I recall, they said they are removing DX10.1 support temporarily until they rework it.

Yes, this is absdolutely true.

It's funny though that rumors are floating around that NVidia (who has their logo in the ACPC game like many other games NVidia throws money at -- no ATI endorsement in there) and that they wanted it pulled b/c they have their money invested in this game and were thinking of pulling it b/c it runs better on a ATI Card; namely, the DX 10.1 supported Radeon cards. Don't know how true it is or isn't, but -- who knows.

I've got it running on XP at max settings (except multisampling) at 1680x1050 and it's running beautifully. The only so-so gripe is that my screen is a 16:10, so there slim black bars across the top and bottom but it's no big deal. AT first I tried using a custom 16:9 resolution (1680x945) which was alright but everything is very slightly stretched. Then I resorted to the thrid-party Aspect Ratio Fix. It's pretty handy for people with resolutions where the black bars are too obvious. To figure out the Aspect value for the AR-Fix just divide the vertical by the horizontal i.e. 1050/1680=0.625.

I also recommend visiting the Assassin's Creed Tweak Guide for all sorts of tweaking for max performance.

Awesome.

I'd probably need that tweaking guide, if I decide to run this thing on my Single Core Processor -- I won't buy ACPC until it gets cheaper; since a single-core ain't supported. Tjough, some on the boards have claimed to get it going fine, as long as they have a bad-ass video card (like say a GeForce 8800 GT).

If I had a double-core, I would've bought this thing already -- when it was on sale at Gogamer that time. I've been looking forward to this for the PC for a long time.

[MysterD]

ACPC has been Patched to Version 1.02.
35 MB download.

Assassin's Creed v1.02 Update



================================================================================



* Fixed a rare crash while riding the horse in Kingdom

* Fixed a corruption of Altair’s robe on certain graphics hardware

* Cursor is now centered when accessing the Map

* Fixed a few problems with Alt-Tab

* Fixed a graphical bug in the final fight

* Fixed a few graphical problems with dead bodies

* Fixed pixellation with post-FX enabled on certain graphics hardware

* Fixed a small bug in the DNA Menu that would cause the image to disappear if the arrow was clicked rapidly

* Fixed some graphical corruption in Present Room with low Level Of Detail

* Character input is now cancelled if the controller is unplugged while moving

* Added support for x64 versions of Windows

* Fixed broken post-effects on DirectX 10.1 enabled cards

[scottws]

I still don't have this.  I think I'm waiting for it to get really cheap.

I just looked and the import version is $29.90 on Gogamer.  The domestic version is $47.90.  They are both Director's Cut DVD-ROMs.  Why is the domestic copy so much more expensive?

[MysterD]

I still don't have this.  I think I'm waiting for it to get really cheap.

I just looked and the import version is $29.90 on Gogamer.  The domestic version is $47.90.  They are both Director's Cut DVD-ROMs.  Why is the domestic copy so much more expensive?

This is how Gogamer does business. They often sell the import version at a lesser cost than the US version here.

I'm sure that a fair deal of US Gamers want the US version of the game, not the Import Version -- even if it's the same exact English version of game completely and uses the same exact patches.

Why? I don't know -- often, the US and UK versions are the same in its language (English), game content and copy protections regards, if it's published by the same publisher in both regions. To me, if it's exactly the same, it doesn't matter which version I get.

Usually when US Gamers care is if the Europe version is an uncut version, while the US version was censored for some reason -- see Indigo Prophecy (US)/Fahrenheit (UK), The Witcher, or Sacred.

Also, this is something else to aware of -- sometimes, the US and European versions of the same game, some games might be using different copy protections; especially if the same game is published by a different publisher in Europe than it is in the US. The Adventure Company published Syberia in the US and didn't have Starforce, though Syberia 2 did have StarForce in the US. Ubisoft published both Syberia 1 and 2 in Europe w/ StarForce -- and they also did so w/ The Syberia DVD Collection in the Europe.

[gpw11]

I bought this but still haven't played it.  I think I'll wait until my card is upgraded.

[Xessive]

I think there's some difference in the pricing of the European and North American prices, most notably in Ubisoft games.

All our games, here in the UAE, are imported from Europe (specifically the UK). The average PC game price is around 169 AED, which is about $46 USD. Lately, all new Ubisoft games have been goin for 149 AED ($40 USD) and less. Also all EA games have jumped in price to 199 AED ($54 USD).

[MysterD]

We all knew Patch 1.02 would remove DX10.1 support.
There were originally plans for Ubi-Soft to reimplement it, in a later patch.
But, check this out...
...In this interview w/ PCGH, UbiSoft has now stated that there will be no reimplementation of DX 10.1 into ACPC.

PCGH interview with Ubisoft
Ubisoft: No Direct 3D 10.1 support for Assassin's Creed planned
28.05.2008 02:45 Uhr - Ubisoft told PCGH that there is no plan to reintegrate Direct X 10.1 with a future patch.
Assassin's Creed & DirectX 10.1: Ubisoft is not planning to reintegrate D3D10.1

You might remember: The enormously successful Assassin's Creed was the first game to have DX 10.1 support. But the patch 1.02 removed this feature.

PCGH was able to get some more information about this business. Below you will find an email interview with Ubisoft.

PCGH: D3D 10.1 support in Assassin's Creed was a hidden feature. Why do you choose not to announce this groundbreaking technology?

    Ubisoft: The support for DX10.1 was minimal. When investigating the DX10 performance, we found that we could optimize a pass by reusing an existing buffer, which was only possible with DX10.1 API.

PCGH: What features from Direct 3D 10.1 do you use with the release version? Why do they make Assassin's Creed faster? And why do FSAA works better on D3D 10.1 hardware?

    Ubisoft: The re-usage of the depth buffer makes the game faster. However, the performance gains that were observed in the retail version are inaccurate since the implementation was wrong and a part of the rendering pipeline was broken.
    This optimization pass is only visible when selecting anti-aliasing. Otherwise, both DX10 and DX10.1 use the same rendering pipeline.

PCGH: Why do you plan to remove the D3D 10.1 support?

    Ubisoft: Unfortunately, our original implementation on DX10.1 cards was buggy and we had to remove it.

PCGH: Are there plans to implement D3D 10.1 again?

    Ubisoft: There is currently no plan to re-implement support for DX10.1.

[Xessive]

That's a kick in the nads for people who were using it; primarily ATI & Vista users.

From what I hear it's not a big deal at all though.

[MysterD]

That's a kick in the nads for people who were using it; primarily ATI & Vista users.

That's what I'd say.

I mean, ATI users w/ DX10.1 cards and Vista users got no issues w/ it...
It's namely the Nvidia users w/ the issues...

From what I hear it's not a big deal at all though.

But still, they should've at least kept the feature as a selectable option for gamers to use, if they want. Hey, the game could give a message that they're at their own risk if they wanna use it -- like Doom 3 does if you wanna run it on Ultra.

[gpw11]

So, this game is pretty bad-ass eh?  I just love killing the hell out of people and sneaking up behind roof top guards.


ahhhhh....good times.

[idolminds]

Heh, yeah. I still have to pick this up despite my mini-addiction at OWmeet. Lots of people like to complain about the repetitiveness of the game, which I can sorta see where they are coming from. On the other hand, you're playing the game wrong if you just go do one mission after another in a straight line. Go out there and have some fun, kill some people, smash some stands, and climb shit.

[PyroMenace]

Yea thats how I feel Idol. Id mix things up alot, I found so many things to mess around with. I never got tired of how rich the world was.

[MysterD]

Dammit, this PC game needs to drop in price (to like $20), so I can actually not feel like I'd be taking a risk to run it on a single-core processor, where it might run like crap.

Man, if I had a double-core processor, I'd already have bought this thing...