Agreed, this engine is a hot mess, performs like shit for no visible reason but then again I don't remember any AC game ever did at the time it came out ( haven't tested them all out so sorry if I'm mistaken )
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PBR is hard hitting. That's what you get for shaders on top of shader on top of shaders.
I have no idea what the game does here, I haven't played it, but judging by Origins, the quality is higher than most engines. Most open world engines still do not have a full PBR pipeline, whereas this one does, and it shows. Wildlands has optimization issues, yes, but still manages to look better than a lot of games. By "better", I mean technically, not in the artistic details. Yes, being unable to shoot car windshields is retarded. But that's not the engine's fault.
Another considerable achievement is being able to transition from indoors to outdoors with no loading, be it by using the same rendering path or transitioning smoothly between different ones (doesn't really matter).
Other engines that stack up well are, ironically, all Ubisoft. The Watch Dogs 2 engine was good, and the Division engine (Snowdrop). Snowdrop is interesting because it too had optimization issues, but still managed too look very impressive in certain areas (material transition to simulate time of day and weather). but it remains a mystery how scalable it really is; so far we haven't seen a vehicle traverse an open world fast in it.
A game I recently looked at (only technical information and videos, not played) is the new Spiderman game. It looks nice here and there, but I don't think it compares. Flying around in a helicopter in Wildlands produces a much higher quality image from assets such as pedestrians and vehicles, whereas the Spiderman engine needs to resort to cardboard in 2018. It's running on PS4, but still.
For some reason I am not a fan of Frostbite. Yes, it runs fast, but I don't like the output. Not really why, can't put my finger on exactly what, but something is just not right. The polygon count is low, the effects are faked in an unconvincing matter. I don't like it.
Unreal Engine 4 is probably better at both output and optimization, but what was the last big game to use it? The game that would display its technical proficiency? Gears of War 4? And event that is not a technical marvel, it's a corridor shooter.
CryEngine is also up there, but it too is stagnant and unused.
Far Cry engine (Dunia?) is a mess and the output isn't very good (while also lacking in optimization).
Tomb Raider looks good here and there, but falls flat elsewhere. Animation transitions are jumpy, lighting is poor often, sadly.
RDR2 engine remains to be seen. It looks good in videos, but there is just too little of it so far to see.
The 2077 engine is embarassing for a 2018/2019, and it seems to be completely unoptimized, especially for how mediocre it runs.
What else?
I think you guys are under-appreciating how hard it is to push a fully PBR engine at a scale of open world. Can they optimize it further? I am sure they can. But as a 1080ti owner, I like the output and performance I get from this engine. I'd really like a Splinter Cell game set in it.
It could be that this game is a mess. I am basing my opinion currently mostly on Wildlands and Origin.
People complained about Origin too, but I found it delivers a picture quality that is very high when compared to the competition. A game of this scale with this high quality is not often found.
8 of them.
Downside in Origins was that it tended to try and bind all 8 to CPU core #2 I believe and that made the overall CPU load a bit uneven.
(Doesn't seem to do a thing on AMD systems but the game itself is also using a lot of threads anyway so it doesn't really lower the needed CPU core count any.)
Add to that 8 or so task threads and a whole lot of other minor threads and that's why the game is so CPU demanding and preferably needs a 8-core processor to not hit a bottleneck immediately.
Plus while it's built to scale up it does not scale down very well. 6-core CPU's work but will chug periodically.
Overall I am very impressed by the game engine but it's not exactly light on hardware demand and it's inability to scale down and with Intel going for quad cores as the mainstream and even high-end option of choice really hampers things on systems with less processor cores, clock speeds help but it doesn't offset the large number of threads the game requires.
Balance and how these are loaded or scheduled could still be better but for how many threads and cores it's balancing it's pretty impressive and without being totally broken like say Monster Hunter World.
(Something with the counter is off in that one so it goes for 32 cores and gets bottlenecked immediately without SpecialK or if they ever patch it.)
EDIT: Though I suppose even if the engine was to be a technical masterpiece there is a thing to be said about going for hardware that isn't anywhere near mainstream yet so overall results will be that the game stutters, lags or sees periodic framerate drops or little gain from altering the graphical settings for a lot of users due to the developers making the engine against tech that's off in the future or only part of the absolutely newest Intel and AMD processors currently.
(The engine is quite impressive though and I consider it a fairly good early look on what we might see from the next generation of games when the newer gen console hardware is unveiled.)
EDIT: Assassin's Creed 2020 targeting PS5 and XBox One 2 (Or whatever it will be named.) if that is what the team might be targeting next should be a interesting little showcase for what the engine can do when freed of the current hardware constraints too, sure the PC version has some extras but it's mostly visual flair added on top as a bit of a bonus but if the game and newest version of the engine were to be designed for new hardware entirely that will be interesting to see.
Of course the hardware requirements are going to be even higher and who knows what the next-gen consoles will even land at specs wise, AMD I guess again and the deal with MS and Sony but that still leaves a lot of possibilities for RAM, CPU and GPU.
(And price, both production cost and the retail pricing of the finalized unit after that.)
Current games also can't bypass PS4 and Xbox One and design exclusively for PS4 Pro and Xbox One X so they have to take into consideration too even if framerate hits 20 or even lower occasionally but it still has to run on these too.
Will be interesting to see, less fun when you take into account the rising hardware prices though for a upgrade would cost but I am curious how it will turn out.
(Expensive! That's how. )
(And of course underneath the shiny visuals you also have gameplay or what remains of it these days ha ha.)
Well initially it'll probably see many cross-platform titles again, getting the most out of the PS4 and XBO models before they are forever retired from further development.
(EDIT: Cross-gen I suppose it should be clarified.)
I'm quite damn embarrassed that I do contract work in this "progressive" city Toronto where one of Ubisoft's office resides. Thank gawd though none of my clients have policies like this.. YET!
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Hah well performance issues aside the biggest detractor seems to be the slow XP gains unless you spend and hour or two doing side quests and how many of the story missions are gated behind higher level requirements than in Origins. (Which used a similar formula but the higher level zones were mostly optional.)
Ubisoft hasn't quite reformed their open world formula but they have tweaked and tuned it a bit though the sheer size of the game is also a factor and can lead to fatigue or just deciding to rush the main story missions from how much there actually is to explore and see.
RPG mechanics were expanded further too with a bigger emphasis on unlockable skills and several major quests or quest chains have decisions that affect the outcome although how or if this ties into any larger overarching narrative I don't think I've seen answered and it might be self-contained.
Spoiler:
A early one focuses on a plague infection for a example.
If you enjoyed Origins from the sounds of it they made it bigger and better though maybe a bit too big but it retains similar gameplay designs though also a few new additions.
EDIT: Although while not EA since it is from Ubisoft it'll probably be featured in a discount sooner rather than later.
Of note is also that Ubisoft remade Assassin's Creed 3 and Liberation for release in March.
(Following updates to Far Cry 3 and Assassin's Creed Rogue plus the early Assassin's Creed 2 update.)
Most of these were not released on PC though besides visual tweaks not really useful for the PC version it was also not too different whereas AC3 is a bigger undertaking changing not just the visuals but also the gameplay though how remains to be seen.
(Sneaky tailing Assassin Connor is probably not being turned into some action hero.)
(They already did that with the CGI trailer though for the game. )
Well they can experience the repetition that is a refund on another one of their games if that truly is the case
The consumer laws and Valve having to accept them must be quite handy for things like that, refund and done.
Valve probably still puts you in restricted mode from doing it but all that seems to actually do is delay card drops until the refund period is over (2 hours.) for I think it's a year and that's pretty minimal overall.
(Plus the time doesn't really apply for how Australian law governs this if I understood correctly from some of the prior posts on the subject.)
EDIT: Far as the game and their Ubi-Open formula for design it felt like Watch_Dogs 2 and AC Origins started getting it right and improving the previous tried and true things they've done but then there's Wildlands and Far Cry 5 swung right back into it again.
(Doubly so for Far Cry 5 with the Mars DLC re-introducing and making the towers mandatory once again which I have no idea if that was the worst gameplay decision ever or them trolling their fan base after the main game itself poking a jab at not having to climb towers all over the area.)
You already sold Origins to me JB, telling me there were ludicrous amounts of treasure to find and stuff to kill, so this better be good.
Oh there should definitively be a fair amount of treasures and things to kill. Going to take a while yet before it gets released here but I'm hearing mostly praise thus far although the criticism that exists is probably also well founded.
(Pacing I'm expecting to be a big divider in this.)
Ahahahaha...very first conversation (with that girl) and it's about money, owing money and how to get money back. Also people buying stuff with money they don't really have.
I feel SO greek right now...great immersion!
Edit: and ofc she wants money, too. Greek girl wants money from guy, make that two stereotypes in one!
Man, this shit's deep. GG Ubisoft. Now lets go on and kill that vineyard guy.
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( haven't tested them all out so sorry if I'm mistaken )
And event that is not a technical marvel, it's a corridor shooter.
I'm quite damn embarrassed that I do contract work in this "progressive" city Toronto where one of Ubisoft's office resides. Thank gawd though none of my clients have policies like this.. YET! 
