The latest sequel to the Assassin's Creed series, "The Heroes", was released not long ago. The protagonists of this generation were replaced by siblings (Evie Fry and Jacob Fry), and the background was replaced by Victorian London, England.

The latest sequel to the Assassin's Creed series, "The Heroes", was released not long ago. The protagonists of this generation were replaced by siblings (Evie Fry and Jacob Fry), and the background was replaced by Victorian London, England. Of course, the gameplay is not the focus of our discussion here. The game itself has been enhanced by the previous generation of works, the hardware requirements, and how players should set up their own computer configurations accordingly.

The magnificent scene of London

Great urban market scenes often appear in the game

There will be a lot of characters in the same scene

Scenes with dense vegetation and complex projection are also more compatible with graphics cards

The scene of this generation of Assassin's Creed is located in London, England during the Victorian era. The game's pictures are full of industrial revolution style. The game's image engine is quite well portrayed in London's unique rainy and foggy weather, various architectural and mechanical textures. At the standard 1080P resolution, there is basically nothing to be criticized. However, at 4K resolution, the accuracy of the building's materials seems to be a bit poor and looks a bit blurry. Fortunately, not every player can afford the Titan X, and everyone generally only plays at 1080P resolution.

As for the character portrayal, the first thing I want to praise is the artwork. The clothes are still beautifully designed, which conforms to the personality characteristics of each character, and the material is also very fine, which is much more attentive than the materials of the building. However, the character's hair is still very cheap. It doesn't matter at a high level, but at a close point, it's just a wisp of neatly arranged steel wires... It's too rigid. Fortunately, I don’t get so close to look at my hair when I play, and I wear a hat when I sneak. I just feel a little obsessive-compulsive when I see the characters’ awkward hair when I enjoy the cutscene.

In general, the game screen art of "Assassin's Creed: The Heroes" is very good. The 3D engine can only be considered medium-level. It has nothing particularly outstanding compared to the masterpieces of the same period. The material resolution is poor and the character model is not particularly exquisite. Let’s take a look at its hardware requirements.

Not surprisingly, it is indeed a video memory killer

Under the highest image quality of 1080P, the video memory usage has exceeded 4GB

4K+ super high picture quality but anti-aliasing is turned off, 5GB of video memory will also be consumed

Although the screen details are average, due to the grand scene rendering, today's large-scale 3D games are basically video memory killers, and "Assassin's Creed" is no exception. At the highest image quality of 1080P,The storage usage has reached 4174MB, which makes the 2,000-yuan graphics card GTX970, which has standard 4GB graphics memory, burst into tears. If it is 4K resolution, even if anti-aliasing is not turned on, the memory usage will reach 5038MB - no wonder A card needs to produce a series of 8GB graphics cards. Although the GPU is overwhelmed with this setting, the memory capacity is larger, and you should always feel better if you don’t see the red warning. Of course, if you are using a 6GB video memory GTX980 Ti or a 12GB video memory Titan X, you don’t have to worry about this (but at 4K resolution, even the 8,500-yuan Titan X, the highest special effects cannot be guaranteed to reach 60fps at all times).

For mid-range players, choosing medium and high picture quality may be more reliable. The graphics memory occupies about 3GB, and the GTX960 4GB is still a battle. The GTX950 with standard 2GB video memory can only reduce the picture quality (that is, now if you don’t buy a graphics card that costs about 1,500 yuan, you can’t say that you have any quality experience if you don’t buy a graphics card for about 1,500 yuan).

Get the highest picture quality, GTX970 is the beginning

Core i7+GTX970, 1080P highest image quality, such a scene is around 40fps

The difference between the lowest material (left) and the highest material (right) is still very big

The ambient light is turned off (left), the object looks flat, and when it is opened to the highest (right), you can clearly see the projection between the objects

The author used two sets of platforms to experience it, the higher one used the combination of Core i7 2600+GTX970 graphics card, and the memory is 16GB.

First, in the game, simply set the picture quality to the highest, the resolution to 1080P, and the scene is on the train with the second level. The frame rate at this time is about 39fps to 47fps (so, it doesn't matter if you turn on vertical synchronization to avoid tearing the picture, it doesn't reach 60fps anyway). The overall performance of the game screen is pretty good, and the texture and light and shadow of the surrounding objects are relatively real. In fact, games like Assassin's Creed are not like FPS games. They must be 60fps to enjoy, and it is not much different to play around 40fps. However, in other large scenarios (such as the third level train station), although the frame rate is still more than 40fps, there will be slight lag after playing for a long time, which may be because the graphics memory occupies more than the physical graphics memory of the graphics card.

It seems that the GTX970 is the minimum requirement for playing "Assassin's Creed" under 1080P and the highest picture quality. If the graphics card is lower than this level, the picture quality can only be reduced.

Ambient light mask has a great impact on frame speed

To make the computer configuration not reach the GTX970 level playerIt can also be played smoothly. The author has studied the impact of various special effects in the game on frame speed. You can refer to the test results to selectively set the game picture quality.

●Environmental Quality

This determines the fineness of the scene in the game, with the highest closing and opening, and the frame rate difference of about 15% on the GTX970 platform. In the game, the difference between "off" and "highest" screen is still quite obvious. For graphics cards with a level of less than 1,500 yuan, setting it to medium is a relatively reliable choice.

●Picture quality

If the texture quality is too low, you will see that the texture on the surrounding objects becomes very blurred. However, it is worth mentioning that the quality of this map does not seem to have a big impact on the protagonist. When it is opened to the lowest level, the protagonist's map is still acceptable.

This item is opened to "lowest" and "highest", and on the GTX970 platform, the frame speed will be around 10%. However, I can't stand the vague map anyway. Even if I lower the other items, it's best not to lower this item. It is recommended that everyone choose the highest level unless your graphics card is too low-end.

●Shadow Quality

This item has a great impact on the game's frame speed, and the "off" and "highest" can also be less than about 17%. Whether there is light and shadow, the picture will be very different. The author recommends that mid- and low-end players choose medium-sized ones, and never choose to close it. The picture will be too bad after closing.

●Ambient light mask

Unlike the shadow quality item, this item shows the light and shadow projection between objects, making the objects in the picture appear more three-dimensional and realistic. This item has a great impact on performance. The frame rate difference between "off" and "highest" and "HBAO+ Ultra" can be as much as 30%.

In fact, the author thinks that a little bit of ambient light mask is enough. Although SSAO and HBAO have different visual effects, it is not as big as expected. For mid- and low-end players, it is better to open a first-level ambient light mask. Compared with the full opening, it is quite worthwhile to get a game speed increase of about 10fps.

●Anti-aliasing

This item needs no explanation, everyone knows it is a "dog tooth". However, "Assassin's Creed: The Heroes" supports FXAA and TXAA, and can be opened up to be mixed with TXAA4× and FXAA. Compared with super sampling, it is more efficient while ensuring visual effects.

With the resolution of 1080P, turn off anti-aliasing and turn on to the highest level, the GTX970 platform will have about 18% to 20% frame rate changes, but the difference in video memory usage will be comparedObviously, if you open a little lower, the chance of slight lag will be greatly reduced after playing for a long time. It is recommended that mid- and low-end players consider turning off anti-aliasing, after all, screen jagging under 1080P is basically acceptable.

Special experience: Old antiques also come to be "heroes"

Please upgrade the driver for the old antique graphics card, otherwise it will instantly become a "zombie creed"

Is there any hope for old antique machines to play "Assassin's Creed: The Hero"? The author has an antique computer with E8400+GTX460+4GB memory, and I also tried it.

First of all, we can be sure that we can only turn on the lowest picture quality, and all options are turned on to the lowest. Even so, the game frame speed is only about 10fps, so you can barely play (in fact, the minimum picture quality is not as bad as imagined, maybe because the character modeling has not been reduced).

Secondly, the game has defaulted to 720P resolution, completely destroying the author's hope of reducing resolution and increasing frame speed.

So, if you just want to experience the game plot of this kind of old antique computer, you can basically run it after upgrading the graphics card driver, but if you want to play it, you should upgrade the hardware.