View Full Version : I think DSOGaming review is Flawed. Here are my results.

11-28-2013, 12:31 AM
I think DSOGaming made a innacurate review on non supported multi-gpu driver and a multi gpu video card (GTX 690)
They claim ''the latest version of the GeForce ForceWare drivers '' but the analysis came out before multi gpu ready nvidia drivers ofr AC4. (I think AMD users are still waiting for theirs)
Also we dont know if they are using DDR2 or DDR3 memory witch can play a big role too.

So here is my results.

Running :
i7 920 @3.94ghz (HT off/no HT support for this game)
6gb ram @1600mhz triple channel
(single) EVGA GTX 780 SC @1124mhz on core and 7ghz on memory. (no overvoltage)
Installed on Muskin Chronos deluxe 120 GB SSD
Win8.1 (thanks to BF4)
Nvidia drivers 331.82

Recorded on shadow play.

In-game settings are shown at the beginning of each videos.

EVGA precision's first % is gpu load and 2nd % is fan %
Mem = Vram

https://imageshack.com/user/Loucmachine <-------for CPU load pictures. (I was in game when i took them but print screen wont see Ac4, this is why you see my desktop) (NBP prefix means ''no background process''. I added these because someone wanted to know if the results were the same without recording program running.)

1st video : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSMVwt1tzq8

Note that when there is alot of people on the screen (in town) the CPU gets utilized more. This is the reason of the drop @ 40Sec. (50-55 fps with 80% GPU load), On ''CPU City'' picture, the 78% is about the average i get in the city(standing still), but it can go from 60% to >90% depending on whats happenning.

Note also that when I go into the vegetation (after the funny bug) when my fps drops below 60fps my GPU load is always >90% (96-98 most of the time) The cpu is about @ 60% in this case if you look at CPU jungle picture.

Also (I can take another video if you absolutely want a proof) when i put everything to low on the same place, I get 62 fps and about 60% GPU load, witch makes it about double performances.

My theory is that many people get bottlenecked by their CPU in cities and get bottlenecked by their GPU in vegetaion (vegetation is hard on about any GPU atm), so they seems to always get poor framerates.
I also think with different balances in hardware, some people get more out of low settings than others. It seems like <<Balanced>> setups will get the more use of their capabilities with this game.

2nd video : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0HQlTogOWg

This is a rain scene. This scene is very demanding on CPU and GPU.
Note that I posted 2 CPU pictures, one looking at people, and one not looking at them. The difference is from 32% to 75% load on CPU, and you can see in the video that GPU load get closer to 99% when looking at people and drop to 65% range when not. Also note that when you hit 60fps, your cpu and gpu load will throttle to stay @ 60fps.

Also its important to note that when there is lightning, global illumination kicks in and gpu fluctuate from 85 to 98% and there is some drops to 55fps from time to time.

I wanted to take a video in naval combat with Epic waves vs a heoric ship, but for some reason Shadow play only recorded sound in the ''open world'' part, Aka. sea. I still have uploaded the CPU screenshot.
I feel naval part is the lightest part... unless you provoke 5 ships and there is a ton of smoke. Smoke is heavy as always but if I'm not mistaken, they use volumetric smoke witch is heavier.

3rd video (Dual core emulated video): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewSPD7YA9uQ

There is a HUGE difference in performances between 2 and 4 cores.
(note that Cpu usage is keeping itself in the 85% range to keep some room for the windows process, but dosnt go down either because its already not enough to only feed the gpu)

The max GPU load I can see is 75% (about 40%in city cuz cpu calculate AI) (98% on GPU with quadcore CPU) and dosnt even always clock to its max speed, so I cant believe dsogaming are able to feed a 690 with a Q9650 dual core emulated anyways !!!
My framerate only goes up when there is about nothing on the screen, otherwise in town i have 20 to 35 fps (25-30 most of the time) except when i look at the sky or a wall, while I was @ 60fps almost 100% of the time on quad core.

Also to note, I get a little bit better performances in the vegetation compared to town now because there is no AI and the CPU can focus all its power just to feed the GPU. But still, the GPU dosnt get fed enough to be loaded 100%. I still get worst performance than with the Quad.
Also to note I get bad stuttering and overall gameplay on dualcore

I wanted to point out too that the first reason why I think DSOGaming analysis is flawed is still that their analysis came out before multi gpu support drivers on a GTX 690 witch have been proven multiple times to hurt performances instead of enhancing them ! A 690 @ >90% load on both gpu does 60fps EZ in this game.
btw, with latest nvidia drivers Ac4 is one of the best game for SLI scaling

P.s. shadow play looks good and dont take much performances, but youtube on 1080p looks like caca, and Ubi screenshots too :(

TL;DR Take the time to read lazy guy !!

11-28-2013, 02:25 AM
Whel there you go mate
Settings same as yours + god rays high though i did install nvidia newest beta driver performance improved a llittle bit also i noticed the game dosnt chrash my gpu overcloack anymore

Not much diffrence as you can see though game did feel more slugish on dual core and there was lot more stuttering as you can see fps droped to zero at one moment on dc that happend when storm started but after half a second it went back normal:confused: i guess my cpu compensated for lack of 2 cores with raw power but then again could it be os? i heard win 8 utilizes multi core cpus better i have win7 sp1 x64:confused: i did the test roaming around havana btw so lot of npcs i would do a video like you but my upload speed is horse.... LOL. also i played little bit less with dual so i guess thats why i got 2 fps more if you want me to test anyizhing else ill do it

11-28-2013, 02:54 AM
What GPU are you using ?
Also what are your GPU and CPU loads when you have about 50 fps ? are the loads similar in town and in vegetation @ 50fps? How are the load on each cores ?
I dont know about the os.... maybe ??but many people complaining do run on win8.1 ....

If your gpu load is >90% @50fps it means its possible your cpu compensate 2 cores with horse power. there is some years between a i7 920 and an i7 4670k :P But the Q9650 DSOGaming is using is older.... I still think that if they had 331,82 drivers they would have seen the bottleneck...

I need to try the new beta drivers tho !

P.s. Nvidia said that high godrays and soft shadows will be more optimized with upcoming patches (prolly when they get physx in) so thats why I leave them aside for now.

11-28-2013, 03:16 AM
Gpu is asus gtx 760 the first stage where there is alot of vegetation 1core is at 99% second at 50% and other two are barely used when im in town and fps is 50 looking at lot of npcs cpu usage is higher by lets say 15% overall than in areas with foliage 1st core is stilll prety much always at 100%

11-28-2013, 03:23 AM
Cool, and whats your gpu load when @ 50fps?? (forest and city)

use evga precision or msiafterfurner, they are both great monitoring tools.

If you gpu stays in the >90% load area, that means your ''Balance'' between CPU and GPU is favoring more the cpu side. You dont see the difference between 2 and 4 cores because you have enough power on 2 cores to feed that 760, and your CPU is waiting for your GPU- > the reason why its not going up to 85 %.

If your GPU load stay low, now we have an issue ;)
But a 760 with 50 fps avg with same settings as me + High godrays... its pretty Legit :)

I gotta go, i ll be back later to watch your results !! Thanks for sharing :)

11-28-2013, 07:14 PM
Gpu usage is prety much always at above 90% though i still think cpu could be used a little bit more in some areas,performance in havana is prety good 45-60fps on ultra with fxaa
though i still think there is room for improvement with optimization in forest areas lets just hope for a patch that will even things out its a shame that you need 780 ti to max this out,and it
dosnt even look that good as some other games out yet it performs worse but than again it was ported by ubisoft kiev thats all from me.

11-28-2013, 07:44 PM
Oh and one more thing im getting better framerate in unigine valey extreme preset 8x aa than in ac4 in forest areas LOL and there is much more stuff hapening
in that benchmark than in ac4 this just shows game needs more optimization

11-28-2013, 10:35 PM
your gpu is maxed in load, your CPU cant be used more. it gets the job done, and cant ''help gpu render more things'', it can only ''feed'' the gpu. In fact, your cpu can only bottleneck.
Again the reason why you dont see difference in FPS between 2 and 4 cores is that 2 cores is already just enough for your gpu. You see stuttering because @ 2 cores, you have alot less headroom on your CPU, so when there is spikes, you drop alot deeper.

At this point, when you know your hardware is working as intended, its more of the domain of speculation to say ''it could run better''. I wont pronounce myself about this cuz i have no idea. only devs have an idea... it depends on the tricks they can do to optimize calculations... but nobody can tell for sure if their calculations are optimized or not... and with time new ideas can make this or that effect less power hungry. But nobody can flame ubi for speculations they make.

Also about Unigine Valley, I just want to point out 2 things.
1. there is no 3d plant models, and no reaction to weather.
2. draw distance is not very far compared to ac4 with very high environment setting.

You can have the opinion that you would prefer 2d models only and better performances for example, but cant really blame devs for their choice.

P.s. you might say, ''well GSOgaming had a 690 with an old Q9650 so the CPU should have bottlenecked with your explainations''
Yes indeed, BUT the review was made with pre-release or pirated version and the it came out few hours before the 331.82 drivers comes out (multi gpu support).
the driver they had before was just not able to scale the game on 2 gpu. therefore the CPU was on full load to feed all that gpu power (690 is alot of GPU power), but the final results in FPS didnt change because the bottleneck was at the GPU software level.

In fact i posted my result to show that with latest software all this misinformation wouldnt have happened. And I explain to you what happens on your machine so you understand why both cases are different even if both cases seems to give the same final result.

11-28-2013, 11:06 PM
Whatewer i still think optimization could be better there are out there games that look better than ac4 and perform better thats the last thing i will say oh and one more question how is it then that fc3 an sc blacklist use more of my cpu than ac4 in those games cpu utilization seems much more even.Regards

11-28-2013, 11:30 PM
''Whatewer i still think optimization could be better there are out there games that look better than ac4 and perform better thats the last thing i will say''
This is an opinion... you can think what you want... thats exactly what the 2nd paragraph of my last post is about.

fc3 is first person so there alot less stuff on the screen so they can push details for the same perf. cost. Also blacklist is less gpu intensive than AC4. These games are made by the same compagny, why would they only optimize other games more than AC4 ?? what would be the point ?

''how is it then that fc3 an sc blacklist use more of my cpu than ac4 in those games cpu utilization seems much more even.''

I dont know why your cpu load is less than in other games... in fact, it dosnt matter as long as your gpu is in the 90-99% load range more cpu load wouldnt give anymore performances anyway... in fact the less is the cpu load the best it gets when there is spikes.