Assassin's Creed 2 CPU Bottleneck?

Something weird that I've seen in AC2. Besides the HORRIBLE texture and shadow pop-in there also seems to be some strange CPU bottlenecks.

I was in my own villa, standing still and looking at some lights on the ceiling. My FPS goes to 31 even after I changed to a lower resolution. At that time my GPU was only being used about 45%.

Other times there just seems to be randomly 30 FPS and GPU usage is about 50%.
In cities if i'm in a bit crowd it goes to 30 sometimes, mostly above 35 though.

Settings are all max 1680x1050 with 2xAA

Specs:
i5-430m
4gb ram
5870

 

It could be that Assassin's Creed II is a poor Xbox 360 port or something. ;(
Idk really as i only play that on my PS3.

 

PC version of AC2 is a horrible console port. And unfortunately there ain't much you can do, the developers simple don't care about PC players.

 

Whats all this with ac2 being a bad console port? I run the game fluently at full high def with my intel t7300 2 ghz core 2 duo (for refference: a t9500 2.6 ghz core 2 duo is even weaker than a core i3 330m).

My gpu is: ati hd 4670.

Btw: Maybe its some sort of problem in the game with connection to the real server? I used a crack so I could play the game offline (ye I know its illegal but if you buy the game I don't see any bad moral in using it the way you want).

 

This game plays quite well with no pop-ins on my Core 2 Quad Q9650 + 2x9800m GTX.

It could be that your i5-430m is not up to the game's requirements?

 

Nope- I've tested it on i5-430M with no problems whatsoever.

 

Agreed really horrible frames and bottlenecks my CPU.

Changing the settings does nothing to improve the performance either.

On low 27fps average. On high with full AA 27fps average?!!! V-sync makes no difference and my load stay very high throughout.

Gotta be poorly optimised. For the graphics compared to xbox its not worth it.

 

no popin? youve gotta be kidding me because the amount of pop-in is insane. even on youtube videos

 

I play on i7 620m+5870m crossfire) and works really smooth. Maybe try different drivers or something?

 

Dual 280m, didn't have an issue at all with it. Plays great maxed out.

 

would turning on Physx help in CPu intensive games like it did in my sig or would it just affect GPu's graphical performance?
I need to know if I can run NBA 2K11 well.

 

(for refference: a t9500 2.6 ghz core 2 duo is even weaker than a core i3 330m).
.[/QUOTE]

there is no way that is true in actual game performance unless your saying that the i3-330m is faster than a desktop e8400 which my t9600 matches in every benchmark.

 

There's not one bottle anything in your specs, when a port is bad, then the game isnt optimized...The 1st one was pretty smooth IMO, this went down hill though.

 

My envy played the game on max settings and had no issues with any fps...specs in sig

 

Make sure you have the latest drivers from ATI and the AI graphics setting disabled.

 

hmmm back when i had my g51 (P7450 + gtx260m) i could nearly max it out with smooth frames, around 30-40avg. Maybe you have some driver problems

 

Yeah that is not true.

 

Yeah that is not true.

 

there is no way that is true in actual game performance unless your saying that the i3-330m is faster than a desktop e8400 which my t9600 matches in every benchmark.[/QUOTE]

I expected notebookcheck to be a bit more reliable then. Here's the link to where I got my info from:
Intel Core 2 Duo T9500 Notebook Processor - Notebookcheck.net Tech

 

Played it at max settings, 900p, no AA with a 360 controller and it was great.

 

Ran silky smooth maxed-out on a Clevo W870CU with 820qm and 5870 at 1080p and also on an HP DV6-3064 with a Phenom N930 and 5650 at med/high 768p.

 

Great performance, silky smooth and other descriptions are still subjective. I don't think it helps the poster much unless we are talking about specific fps really.

 

The issue is that it's usually above 40 FPS, but then in some regions it gets slow and drops down to around 26-30 FPS.

 

Are you sure you dont have another process kicking in during the game (email, chat, file sharing)? Also, do you have your PC on High Performance power settings? Your CPU and GPU could be throttling due to differing work loads.

I did not experience any slowdowns on either of my quad core laptops, but the game was unplayable on a Gateway ID49c with i3 and 330m. I completely forgot about that system, sorry. You may be right, this game may really need 4 physical cores (not 2 with HT).

When I get my M15x (should be here this week) I will test and report back. For the time being it will have an i3-350.

 

Thanks for testing.

Nothing else is interfering with the game. It happens at the same locations every time.

It is probably my CPU being the bottleneck, because it seems to happen where there's a lot of people, like a crowd.

The game's engine is just terribad. I'd be okay with the game if it was just the slowdowns, but the biggest gripe for me is the amount of pop-in.

Textures change, shadow appears out of nowhere, jagged shadows becoming more detailed, etc. Each time I walk towards a location it's almost guaranteed to change its look at least 3 times before I get there.

 

On my Clevo - max settings, 4x AA, very smooth game play. Though it does put some load to my CPU, seldom does any game run my i7 820QM to 72C.

 

Your specs are similar to the clevo w870cu I just sold on here and my experience was similar. The 820qm helps, but also our 5870 cards have no powerplay - which lends itself to smoother gaming.