@clyde46 said:
@Wasdie said:
Apparently I was incorrect. The CPUs for the consoles are too weak. Then again there are still a large number of factors. Could be an instance of them not properly utilizing the cores yet. Multithreading is difficult even for seasoned veterans.
Can you explain to this lot how a weak CPU will affect resolution and graphics etc?
The CPU sets up the entire scene before sending it to the GPU for processing. It processes user inputs to figure out where the camera needs to be, processes all of the AI actor data so it knows where to place each AI entity for the scene and what point during their current animation they are doing, sets up the geometry, calculates shadows (this is split between CPU/GPU, but you do need the outlines of the geometry that are set up by the CPU), and basically anything else the scene needs calculated before it can be drawn. Throw enough AI in the scene and that can slow down that backend update rate.
They said the amount of AI actors they have is their biggest bottleneck which isn't too surprising. The AI in Assassin's Creed isn't like the AI in RTSs and whatnot. Each actor is more complex and is under its own control. So while Total War can do 20,000 actors on screen at once even on an older CPU, the way its actually handling that is much different. Here each single actor is its own entity, running its own animations, under its own set of circumstances, probably has its own pathfinding, and can be interacted with by the player or other AI actors.
They probably capped it at 30fps because during the most actor intense scenes they were noticing drops from 60 to lower numbers. In general, framerate drops on console games really suck as you can't really do anything about it. On the PC you can turn down settings or upgrade so framerate drops are more accepted for weaker machines. With consoles you want a rock solid FPS whenever possible. Framerate drops on fixed hardware a lot less acceptable.
The whole resolution thing is going to be a business decision from a higher up. Maybe Microsoft doesn't want yet another PS4 game to be 1080p over 900p as they see that as bad press. Maybe some higher up simply doesn't want that bad press either. It's certainly not a CPU related thing. Resolution has much more to do with the GPU and RAM than the CPU.
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