“Ahoy there me shivering matey, heave-ho!” … is, fortunately, how none of the pirates talk in Black Flag.
Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag is available on the PC today for those in certain regions (the US and … maybe others,) and to accompany its release Nvidia has issued a new set of drivers and a fancy-pants advert/guide to performance. The former should help make the best use possible of the Nvidia-specific extras like HBAO+, TXAA anti-aliasing and super soft shadows, while the latter mostly tells you about what those features are.
In addition, the 331.82 WHQL drivers include a beta version of Nvidia’s ‘ShadowPlay‘ system. That’s the tool which can record your gaming prowess in the background, ready to be shared with other people in ten or twenty minute chunks. It’s claimed this can be done with “minimal performance impact,” which, if accurate, would be quite impressive.
Going back to Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, the performance guide also has a chart with specific recommendations for the various graphical aspects (textures, shadows, AA etc) to use depending on which card you have. You’ll find that towards the end of the page.
It’s a little early to be getting reports about how well optimised the game may be, though it has already been noted that the in-game Vsync is the type that will drop the FPS to 30 if it dips below 60 (so maybe turn that off if your framerates are fluctuating.) In the course of reviewing the game I ran into some strange issues where lowering the texture or environment quality had no effect on FPS whatsoever; only turning Ambient Occlusion off really did much for me.
