Assassin's Creed Valhalla PC performance thread

[Kaldaien]

What's weird about the HDR in this game, is they don't have an adjustment for the UI's luminance. I think this is what is throwing everyone off into believing that HDR is not enabled. So then they go the other way, and actually disable HDR and when that causes the image to blow-out and brighten everything -- UI included -- they conclude that they've now enabled HDR.

I think the game may be taking the SDR reference level defined in the Windows HDR Color control panel (that slider you have to adjust) and using it for the game's HUD luminance target. I would do that in my own software, except only UWP DLLs can read those system preferences.

In any event, make sure to play the game in Borderless mode if you want HDR to work correctly. In Fullscreen mode, it does not change the colorspace, it will be SDR in a 16-bit framebuffer.

 

[TinTuba47]

3080, and the performance is garbage.

1440p, I've turned a bunch of stuff off, and shit still stutters constantly, in game and in cut scenes. I would refund if I could

 

[liquidmetal14]

3080, and the performance is garbage.

1440p, I've turned a bunch of stuff off, and shit still stutters constantly, in game and in cut scenes. I would refund if I could

Click to shrink...

Your whole system specs?

 

[Deleted member 12323]

For a TV? YCbCr 4:4:4 is always best. RGB has to be converted to YCbCr for image processing and then gets converted back to RGB. TVs have never been particularly concerned about doing that conversion in as few steps as possible, and this is where their latency issues start to come from. Pipelining a bunch of conversions and processing steps that could be done as a single step, but traditionally have not been to save cost.

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appreciate the info. What about for an actual PC monitor? RGB?

 

[Duck Sauce]

I knew Ubi Soft would fuck this up so I just got it for xbox series X.

 

[Deleted member 12323]

What's weird about the HDR in this game, is they don't have an adjustment for the UI's luminance. I think this is what is throwing everyone off into believing that HDR is not enabled. So then they go the other way, and actually disable HDR and when that causes the image to blow-out and brighten everything -- UI included -- they conclude that they've now enabled HDR.

I think the game may be taking the SDR reference level defined in the Windows HDR Color control panel (that slider you have to adjust) and using it for the game's HUD luminance target. I would do that in my own software, except only UWP DLLs can read those system preferences.

In any event, make sure to play the game in Borderless mode if you want HDR to work correctly. In Fullscreen mode, it does not change the colorspace, it will be SDR in a 16-bit framebuffer.

Click to shrink...

oh man... we have ppl now stating to be in exclusive mode for it to work haha. which one is right!?!? :)

 

[Mercador]

Do you think it will be better in a few patchs or it won't be better than that on the performance level? I got a 1070 but I think I'll wait for my next gpu. I wonder how it runs on old gen...

 

[truncated_pachyderm]

Having HDR enabled but opening the menu and tabbing to Graphics consistently disables HDR. Menu shows it's still on, but it's not. If I toggle off, apply, toggle on, apply, it works again. This is reproducible.

Played for 3 hours last night, from before you rescue your crew until after the first two story objectives at your base, then went to save manually before calling it a night. Game stuck at "saving" screen. Eventually force quit, save didn't take. No auto saves between those two points either, which is insane considering how many mission objectives and new areas I reached.

Performance is OK. Playing from an NVME SSD with Ryzen 3600, RTX 2080, and 32gb of 3600mhz 16 cl ram. Playing at 2160p resolution with HDR, vsync on, res scaling turned down to 70%. Graphics preset on High except for AA, which is on low. Getting 60fps in most cases with some occasional dips down to mid 50s. Haven't made it past your home base, so not sure if there are more graphically demanding areas.

 

[ShadowGP]

High settings is what Ps4 - Xbox One runs it compared to PC?

 

[Faces of Death]

For HDR I've used both Windows and game HDR on, and also Windows off with game on. Both these worked fine for me in fullscreen. I was blown away by the HDR from the start, so I was surprised people were having issues since it worked for me no problem.

Performance has been alright. On a i9 9900KS/3090 I'm in the mid 50s in towns and 60+ everywhere else at ultra settings. Not great, but I'll take it.

 

[Relix]

So everyone else getting ugly dips in cutscenes? Like drops to 40fps? I am playing 4K and generally it's very close to 60 using the Dynamic res option but cutscenes kill my frames

 

[Kaldaien]

oh man... we have ppl now stating to be in exclusive mode for it to work haha. which one is right!?!? :)

Click to shrink...

I don't like to stir the pot, but... I am a graphics programmer with custom tools to trace the execution of graphics engines as they engage HDR.

My own logs emphatically show that only borderless window mode is doing BOTH: 16-bit SwapChain + Applying Rec 709 + Linear Gamma (scRGB). That is one of the two available HDR formats on Windows for rendering, Rec 709 + 2.2 Gamma is not and that's what you're getting in fullscreen mode.

 

[Relix]

I don't like to stir the pot, but... I am a graphics programmer with custom tools to trace the execution of graphics engines as they engage HDR.

My own logs emphatically show that only borderless window mode is doing BOTH: 16-bit SwapChain + Applying Rec 709 + Linear Gamma (scRGB). That is one of the two available HDR formats on Windows for rendering, Rec 709 + 2.2 Gamma is not and that's what you're getting in fullscreen mode.

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Thanks for this. I'll try borderless to get the full HDR. What about performance? Is it affected by being borderless?

 

[Vic20]

I've noticed something weird in the cutscenes, every time the camera cut to a different angle the textures become muddy and then become sharp again, can anyone check if this happened to them?

 

[Deleted member 12323]

Closest that currently exists is this:

Special K - PCGamingWiki PCGW - bugs, fixes, crashes, mods, guides and improvements for every PC game

www.pcgamingwiki.com

I'm in the process of getting LDAT hardware from NVIDIA to collect data for an upcoming blog series on the design of my framerate limiter. I intend to release it as an open source library for inclusion in as many third-party projects as possible. It does, obviously, work as a standalone product too, but I'm trying to spread the open source love far and wide :)

Discussion on tuning the limiter for this game begins here:

Topic-Free Mega Thread - v 1.11.2020

[API.Hook] LastKnown=128 d3d9=false d3d9ex=false OpenGL=false d3d11=true d3d12=true [Render.FrameRate] TargetFPS=60.0 SleeplessRenderThread=true SleeplessWindowThread=true MaxBusyWaitPercent=0.0 PreRenderLimit=6 BackBufferCount=6 [Render.DXGI] UseFlipDiscard=true SwapChainWait=1...

discourse.differentk.fyi

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1. where do the dxgi files go for valhalla?
2. when running SKIF it defaults to the Steam games list but where do I go to add games from Ubisoft like Valhalla?

 

[Deleted member 12323]

I don't like to stir the pot, but... I am a graphics programmer with custom tools to trace the execution of graphics engines as they engage HDR.

My own logs emphatically show that only borderless window mode is doing BOTH: 16-bit SwapChain + Applying Rec 709 + Linear Gamma (scRGB). That is one of the two available HDR formats on Windows for rendering, Rec 709 + 2.2 Gamma is not and that's what you're getting in fullscreen mode.

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I will of course trust in you above all :)

 

[Deleted member 10629]

Just noticed that I had my ram at 2133 rather than the 3200 it should. Hope that helps :S

 

[hlhbk]

3080, and the performance is garbage.

1440p, I've turned a bunch of stuff off, and shit still stutters constantly, in game and in cut scenes. I would refund if I could

Click to shrink...

I am getting the exact same performance. My specs:

Intel 8700K
32 GB RAM
Nvidia GTX 3080
Win 10
SSD

I am assuming hopefully this will be fixed in patches/drivers in the future.

On another note if I turn HDR on in game everything is far to dark to see anything.

 

[Kaldaien]

1. where do the dxgi files go for valhalla?
2. when running SKIF it defaults to the Steam games list but where do I go to add games from Ubisoft like Valhalla?

Click to shrink...

1. Default would be: **C:\Program Files (x86)\Ubisoft\Ubisoft Game Launcher\games\Assassin's Creed Valhalla**

2. The version that ships with SKIF is not compatible with this game, it was missing IDXGIDebugInterface1 (NVIDIA Aftermath uses that for crash reporting)

Here is a link to an updated pre-release version of 0.11.1 that's compatible with this game:

Topic-Free Mega Thread - v 1.11.2020

Mostly the reason for that is because I can’t tune this stuff in-game, so I just pushed that setting to its limit rather than re-run the benchmark dozens of times 😛 There’s no real harm, probably no real benefit either, but I’m blind without my overlay giving me information in real-time. BTW...

discourse.differentk.fyi

 

[Deleted member 10629]

Well fuck me, setting the right ram speed solved all the stuttering.

 

[icecold1983]

Looks just like Odyssey and performs dramatically worse. Sounds about right for ubi + dx12. Same situation in Watch Dogs.

 

[TheMadTitan]

The constant stuttering -- not even microstutters -- and frame drops into the teens are really starting to get on my nerves. No matter what framerate I choose, vsync option, or graphical settings, I can't even get the drops to just settle around the 40s. If people with 3080s are having issues, I'm not sure how I'm gonna fare with my 1080 long term.

 

[-Tetsuo-]

Oddly enough, I updated my drivers today and was getting worse performance and some pretty bad stuttering. Rolled back to 457.09 and it is fine again.

 

[bodine1231]

I'm not having any issues at all with my 3080,running 4k 60+,usually 60-65 in busy areas/towns and 70+ when adventuring. Playing on 77 CX with gsync/HDR. If you are having micro stutters using gsync and you use Rivatuner,make sure to uncheck anything with 'power' in the monitoring. It causes microstuttering with gsync.

These are the settings that helped.

Lower clouds to high
Shadows very high
Anti aliasing to low (10fps increase,dont need full AA at 4k)

Everything else maxed.

 

[Nintendo]

For a TV? YCbCr 4:4:4 is always best. RGB has to be converted to YCbCr for image processing and then gets converted back to RGB. TVs have never been particularly concerned about doing that conversion in as few steps as possible, and this is where their latency issues start to come from. Pipelining a bunch of conversions and processing steps that could be done as a single step, but traditionally have not been to save cost.

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What about for HDR? YCbCr 4:2:2 12bit?

 

[Tankshell]

Well fuck me, setting the right ram speed solved all the stuttering.

Click to shrink...

Glad to hear it. That is now several people in this thread that have found large improvement from checking their ram speed.

Definitely worth checking people if you haven't yet.

 

[Kaldaien]

What about for HDR? YCbCr 4:2:2 12bit?

Click to shrink...

Contemporary TVs do not need 12-bit for the range of luminance they support. You are better off without chroma subsampling, if you have a choice between 12-bit 4:2:2 and 10-bit 4:4:4, 10-bit is better.

 

[Kaldaien]

The constant stuttering -- not even microstutters -- and frame drops into the teens are really starting to get on my nerves. No matter what framerate I choose, vsync option, or graphical settings, I can't even get the drops to just settle around the 40s. If people with 3080s are having issues, I'm not sure how I'm gonna fare with my 1080 long term.

Click to shrink...

Have you tried Special K? A few posts prior, I linked to it. If there's one thing SK's good at, it's removing worst-case performance spikes. That's literally the entire reason it was built.

 

[Deepo]

This is a bit off-topic, but I just tried the game on Xbox Series X using a VRR display (LG C9), and I'm really struggling to see any real differences from my 3090 equipped PC at Ultra. A bit of pop in here and there, but that's about it. Very impressed!

 

[Lockjaw333]

This is a bit off-topic, but I just tried the game on Xbox Series X using a VRR display (LG C9), and I'm really struggling to see any real differences from my 3090 equipped PC at Ultra. A bit of pop in here and there, but that's about it. Very impressed!

Click to shrink...

Agreed. Bought it on series x, playing on a sony x950g. Also subbed to a month of uplay+ to check it out on pc. The series x version looks like it's at the very least equal to the Very High preset, some things maybe on ultra. 60fps lock pretty much, no idea if resolution is dynamically scaling to hit that but it looks like native most times.

On pc with a 3080 and 10700k I'm having trouble keeping it at 60fps, and that's with AA in low which is probably some sort of sub native reconstruction like previous games. Graphics wise the game looks the same as series x, I'm using the Hardware Unboxed settings which only turn down a few things.

It also loads faster on series x when fast traveling and such, it's like instant. I'm playing on a SSD on pc and it's just not as fast. Add in the instant resume and it's just better on X right now IMO.

Very impressed with the series X version.

Also the cross platform cloud saves are not working quite right. Seems my progress on the console is uploading to cloud but I can't see that save on pc until like hours later. Seems to be the same in reverse to. Not sure if anyone else is experiencing that.

 

[dgrdsv]

Assassin's Creed Valhalla im Techniktest: Prachtvolles Meucheln - erstmals unter DirectX 12

PCGH macht den Technik-Test bei Assassin's Creed Valhalla und prüft, mit welcher Hardware Sie für die Eroberung Britanniens gerüstet sein sollten.

www.pcgameshardware.de

 

[Addnan]

Anyone have issues with tabbing in and out of the game. Just now the game wouldn't go back to rendering at full speed, was at like 5fps, game had to be restarted. I love going in and out of game

 

[Slammey]

3950x
Mem at 3600mhz
Strix 2080ti
Win 10 latest version

Everything maxed out at 1440p 100% scaling
HDR ON
Reshade
LgCx 48"

Cutscenes are indeed 30-40s

But gameplay wise.. Getting from 55-60 to 80-90 depending night or day.. Just got to my home settlement.

 

[Koldanar]

1. Default would be: **C:\Program Files (x86)\Ubisoft\Ubisoft Game Launcher\games\Assassin's Creed Valhalla**

2. The version that ships with SKIF is not compatible with this game, it was missing IDXGIDebugInterface1 (NVIDIA Aftermath uses that for crash reporting)

Here is a link to an updated pre-release version of 0.11.1 that's compatible with this game:

Topic-Free Mega Thread - v 1.11.2020

Mostly the reason for that is because I can’t tune this stuff in-game, so I just pushed that setting to its limit rather than re-run the benchmark dozens of times 😛 There’s no real harm, probably no real benefit either, but I’m blind without my overlay giving me information in real-time. BTW...

discourse.differentk.fyi

Click to shrink...

Has anyone done this with the Epic games store version of the game? I've so far had no luck - I assume something must be running in the background that's interfering. I've turned off RTSS, XBox Game bar, and kill just about every process I can before running with no luck.

 

[Relix]

Just played a few hours. Dropped resolution scale to 90 while keeping adaptive quality. Managed to hit 60 most of the time. Everything ultra high except shadows and volumetric clouds on a slightly OCed 3080.

 

[JudgmentJay]

This is a bit off-topic, but I just tried the game on Xbox Series X using a VRR display (LG C9), and I'm really struggling to see any real differences from my 3090 equipped PC at Ultra. A bit of pop in here and there, but that's about it. Very impressed!

Click to shrink...

Honestly the solid performance on consoles together with the fact that it's not on Steam means I'll probably just get this on PS5 if I do ever decide to play it. I wish Ubisoft put more effort into their PC ports.

 

[Deepo]

The HDR on the Xbox Series X looks exactly the same as on the PC version by the way, which is to say, not very good imo.

 

[Shifty Capone]

I'm not having any issues at all with my 3080,running 4k 60+,usually 60-65 in busy areas/towns and 70+ when adventuring. Playing on 77 CX with gsync/HDR. If you are having micro stutters using gsync and you use Rivatuner,make sure to uncheck anything with 'power' in the monitoring. It causes microstuttering with gsync.

These are the settings that helped.

Lower clouds to high
Shadows very high
Anti aliasing to low (10fps increase,dont need full AA at 4k)

Everything else maxed.

Click to shrink...

To anyone on a 4k display or similar, follow this. This boosted my FPS so much. I am on a 3090 and was getting somewhat frustrated with certain aspects. Putting AA to low etc barely changed what the game looks like but I now average 90 FPS, but the more important part is my drops went from 20fps to 60. 5120x1440. Thanks, didn't even think of doing it earlier for some reason.

 

[Deleted member 12323]

All credits to HardwareUnboxed, but I find it handy to have the optimized settings in an image in a thread like thism for reference<

Click to shrink...

Adapt

Contemporary TVs do not need 12-bit for the range of luminance they support. You are better off without chroma subsampling, if you have a choice between 12-bit 4:2:2 and 10-bit 4:4:4, 10-bit is better.

Click to shrink...

how come my samsung q90t and 2070 super only has the 8-bit 4:4:4 option and not 10bit ?

 

[Deleted member 12323]

1. Default would be: **C:\Program Files (x86)\Ubisoft\Ubisoft Game Launcher\games\Assassin's Creed Valhalla**

2. The version that ships with SKIF is not compatible with this game, it was missing IDXGIDebugInterface1 (NVIDIA Aftermath uses that for crash reporting)

Here is a link to an updated pre-release version of 0.11.1 that's compatible with this game:

Topic-Free Mega Thread - v 1.11.2020

Mostly the reason for that is because I can’t tune this stuff in-game, so I just pushed that setting to its limit rather than re-run the benchmark dozens of times 😛 There’s no real harm, probably no real benefit either, but I’m blind without my overlay giving me information in real-time. BTW...

discourse.differentk.fyi

Click to shrink...

all I see at that link is an immediate post that has a download that only contains the dxgi .dlls not a new SKIF specialk download

 

[hlhbk]

I'm not having any issues at all with my 3080,running 4k 60+,usually 60-65 in busy areas/towns and 70+ when adventuring. Playing on 77 CX with gsync/HDR. If you are having micro stutters using gsync and you use Rivatuner,make sure to uncheck anything with 'power' in the monitoring. It causes microstuttering with gsync.

These are the settings that helped.

Lower clouds to high
Shadows very high
Anti aliasing to low (10fps increase,dont need full AA at 4k)

Everything else maxed.

Click to shrink...

I'll try this and report back.

 

[Raydonn]

Assassin's Creed Valhalla im Techniktest: Prachtvolles Meucheln - erstmals unter DirectX 12

PCGH macht den Technik-Test bei Assassin's Creed Valhalla und prüft, mit welcher Hardware Sie für die Eroberung Britanniens gerüstet sein sollten.

www.pcgameshardware.de

Click to shrink...

What's interesting to me is how the 5700XT performs near a 2080Ti/3070 in 1080p, but as the resolution increases the performance drops down to 2070 Super.
I'm guessing the game is not very Nvidia friendly, especially with all the mentions of stutters from the 3080 crowd.

 

[Deleted member 10629]

Glad to hear it. That is now several people in this thread that have found large improvement from checking their ram speed.

Definitely worth checking people if you haven't yet.

Click to shrink...

Yeah I encourage everyone to give it a look with CPU-Z. I beat the first boss and his 'stage' without problems.

 

[Rodrigues solitaire]

Does anyone else get 100% GPU in conversations only? It's frying my laptop, have the game locked to 30fps so load is far less during gameplay but somehow during conversations it stays at 30fps but the GPU load skyrockets.

 

[CrichtonKicks]

Yeah I encourage everyone to give it a look with CPU-Z. I beat the first boss and his 'stage' without problems.

Click to shrink...

I really think there is something about this RAM speed thing. I don't know how it's possible that I'm running at a locked 60 fps at 4K (80% resolution) with Very High settings on a 2080 Ti/6700k when people with 3080s and 3090s do worse at 1440p. And I'm deep in the game at this point (haven't got to London yet though) so I don't expect it to change. Outside of the occasional cutscene stutter this game is performing flawlessly for me.

 

[Deleted member 10629]

I really think there is something about this RAM speed thing. I don't know how it's possible that I'm running at a locked 60 fps at 4K (80% resolution) with Very High settings on a 2080 Ti/6700k when people with 3080s and 3090s do worse at 1440p. And I'm deep in the game at this point (haven't got to London yet though) so I don't expect it to change. Outside of the occasional cutscene stutter this game is performing flawlessly for me.

Click to shrink...

I also dropped the environment detail to medium because it would kill my framerate. I haven't tried bump it up again to high and check if it can hold it.

 

[hankenta]

After landing in England my experience with the game is considerably worse from what I assume are VRAM issues on a GTX 970. Usually I have framerates ranging from 40/50 to the rare 60 which is fine enough for me on the aging card. I prefer fluctuating higher framerates to locking to 30.
But in England performance will suddenly tank to 20-30 and stay there until I restart the game. I've had no issues like that in Norway. When this happens even the menus are below 30 instead of 60.

 

[Ravelle]

I'm averaging on a 54 to a 60 with drops to the 40's at spots on a 2080 Super/i7 9700K on 1440p And this is around the starting area where it's just snow and water. Cut scenes hard cut to a locked 30 which is very jarring.

This can't be right

 

[hlhbk]

I'm not having any issues at all with my 3080,running 4k 60+,usually 60-65 in busy areas/towns and 70+ when adventuring. Playing on 77 CX with gsync/HDR. If you are having micro stutters using gsync and you use Rivatuner,make sure to uncheck anything with 'power' in the monitoring. It causes microstuttering with gsync.

These are the settings that helped.

Lower clouds to high
Shadows very high
Anti aliasing to low (10fps increase,dont need full AA at 4k)

Everything else maxed.

Click to shrink...

Tried it and the FPS went up and never dropped below 60 FPS but the microstutters were still present as soon as the benchmark went over the water. Hopefully this is patched by Ubi.

 

[SunBroDave]

Anti aliasing to low (10fps increase,dont need full AA at 4k)

Click to shrink...

Tried it and the FPS went up and never dropped below 60 FPS but the microstutters were still present as soon as the benchmark went over the water. Hopefully this is patched by Ubi.

Click to shrink...

It's not AA and it's not 4k. The AA setting controls what internal resolution is used to reconstruct up to the chosen output resolution. AA set to High means you're running your set resolution (so 4k), AA set to Medium means you're running at 90% of your set resolution and then reconstructing up to your set resolution, and then AA set to Low is the same thing but 83%. Same as Odyssey was.