The next big Assassin’s Creed game, Unity, looks like it’s going to be very pretty and very French. Both are good things in my book — though given that I can’t actually speak French and my last name is “LeJacq”, I might be a tad biased. There’s one thing we can all agree on, however: its PC requirements are insane.
Here’s the rundown of Unity’s PC specs, as posted on Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed blog earlier today:
64-bit operating system
Required
Supported OS
Windows 7 SP1, Windows 8/8.1 (64bit versions only)
Processor
Minimum
Intel Core i5-2500K @ 3.3 GHz or AMD FX-8350 @ 4.0 GHz or AMD Phenom II x4 940 @ 3.0 GHz
Recommended
Intel Core i7-3770 @ 3.4 GHz or AMD FX-8350 @ 4.0 GHz or better
RAM
Minimum
6 GB
Recommended
8GB
Video Card
Minimum
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 or AMD Radeon HD 7970 (2 GB VRAM)
Recommended
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 or AMD Radeon R9 290X (3 GB VRAM)
DirectX
Version 11
Sound Card
DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card with latest drivers
Hard Drive Space
50 GB available space
Peripherals Supported
Windows-compatible keyboard and mouse required, optional controller
Multiplayer
256 kbps or faster broadband connection
Supported Video Cards at Time of Release
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 or better, GeForce GTX 700 series; AMD Radeon HD7970 or better, Radeon R9 200 series
Note: Laptop versions of these cards may work but are NOT officially supported.
50GB of free hard drive space sounds like a lot, though that’s fairly standard for Assassin’s Creed-sized games at this point — as is the 8GB of RAM, and the base-level CPUs. What stands out to me are the minimum requirements for video cards. Making something like Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 680 the base level requirements means that you’ll pretty much have to be running a PC with a high-end GPU that came out in the past few years years. For a point of comparison, many of the season’s other powerhouse titles like Call of Duty: Advanced Warfareor Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor have a base-level requirement of a GTS 450 or GTX 460 respectively.
Lest we get caught in the illegible acronym-riddled weeds of graphics cards comparisons, the important thing to note here is that both of these other games say that you’ll be able to play them with tech that’s quite a bit older, and quite a bit cheaper, than what Assassin’s Creed Unity is asking for. Granted, Unity is also a next-gen only game, and Ubisoft has promised that it will boast the biggest city ever seen in the series’ history, so maybe the steep requirements will be worth it at the end of the day.
In either case, Unity isn’t out in the wild yet, so (as always), take Ubisoft’s statement about its recommended specs with a grain of salt. Come November, the PC gamers among us should also keep watchful eye on how Unity’s performance is affected by whether its running on an AMD or Nvidia card, since Ubisoft inked a deal with the latter company that covers the new Assassin’s Creed game — a deal that could prove to be fodder for yet another chapter in the card makers’ ongoing tiff.
UPDATE: Some people have observed that my use of “très magnifique” in the headline isn’t technically correct. I intended for this to be a joke. Seeing as I’m a semi-French person with an exceedingly French name who doesn’t actually speak the language, however, I should have been more careful in my presentation. I apologise for misleading or confusing people unnecessarily.
Comments
21 responses to “Your PC Must Be Très Magnifique For Assassin’s Creed Unity”
I don’t doubt that Unity is an exceptionally pretty game, nor that a city the size of Paris with the number of NPCs they’re talking about would be resource intensive.
However, there has been something of a trend lately (I’m looking at you, Call of Duty) to release outlandishly high recommended specs, basically for the marketing hype. “Ermagehrd, this game NEEDS an i7 and a 780Ti, it must be the best!”
Ubisoft don’t exactly have a stellar history with PC ports either, which is why despite my PC being over and above the recommended specs here, I’m picking Unity up on PS4.
This, they do it all the time.
Absolutely. It’s frustrating, because for people with systems that are more “borderline” (for want of a better word), it actually makes it very hard to estimate what kind of performance they can expect.
I’m not saying you’re wrong I completely believe Ubisoft could and would do something like that but surely halving the PC market wouldn’t make up for higher class PC player hype?
True, I’m not actually sure Ubisoft do it, but other publishers like Activision certainly do. As a result, I wouldn’t be surprised if Ubisoft do. But you’re right, I don’t actually have any proof.
Their piss poor optimisation/ports are a different story though.
EDIT: Also, I could be wrong, but it’s hard to underestimate just how much of a factor e-peen measuring is in the PC market haha. And that’s coming from someone who owns a PC.
My favourite thing about indie developers? They don’t inflate game specs to drive sales of the console version.
These specs are pretty crazy. It would be good to know what these specs actually get you though. For example, do the minimum specs give you the same performance as on the ps4/xbone i.e. 900p/30FPS? Is the recommended specs 1080p/60FPS?
Its not that the game needs these specs, its that they just ignore optimisation on PC in favour of going ‘Hey you want to play this on pc, then drop a few hundred dollars on new parts, or you know buy a console’
The minimum processor is an Intel Core i5 quad core launched in 2011 with no hyper-threading (So 4 threads) running at 3.3 GHz with turbo to 3.7 GHz…
My current CPU is an Intel Core i7 dual core launched in 2013 with hyper-threading (again, 4 threads) running at 1.8 GHz with Turbo to 3 GHz – I am not entirely sure if it’s up to the task.
The video card I am currently using is an nVidia GeForce GT 740M which SHOULD be enough to run the game at minimum settings
A 740M is a lot less then a desktops 680, then again I have a desktop 670 and I would be surprised if my rig struggles with this game, considering a 670 is more powerful then either first gen console.
Got a
i7 3770 @ 3.4
16 gig ram
SLI gtx 970
I bet I sill will not get steady 60 fps.
But that’s part of the pain of being in the master race. Have a PC that beats the specs of a brand new game. However want to play at a higher resolution and frame rate that requires turning settings down 🙁
You only need to turn it down cos it’s badly optimized.
I pass. Not that I can see myself playing it.
That’s more requirements then Ryse and they ran like balls on it’s recommended 660 ti. Bad PC port incoming, developers always skimping on the PC optimization…
I was expecting the GTX 660 to be the minimum – that was my previous card. I have a R290 now.
Does seem suspect that I need something orders of magnitude more powerful that what either Xbox or PS has to play.
Definitely want to see a PC vs console comparison with those required specs.
The minimum PC specs are far better than the Xbone and PS4, so I would hope to be getting a hugely superior game on the PC.
Or (as Im expecting) because of the games poor optimisation you need a beast of a machine to get the game to run decently.
Off topic but you’d say ‘vraiment magnifique’ instead of ‘très magnifique’.
(I studied and taught French for many years just so I could write this comment!)
It was a bad joke.
I know, but I couldn’t help playing it straight – gotta use my knowledge of French somehow, now that I’ve given up teaching 🙂
I am French and I got your joke and it was funny.
Running a HD7950, Im going to take the risk and see how it goes.
Phenom 2 x6 black edition 3GHz.
2x Radeon 7950 3GB.
8GB “HyperX” DDR3 system RAM.
Or the Alienware 17. Either one should cut it pretty well.
They usually say that and it ends up using much less. Its all for the marketing hype. Besides if you are a graphics whore like me surely you should have a killer rig that could run this at minimum 1080p60. Console players are the ones that should be upset, its running at 800p30 for them.
The minimum and recommended AMD processors appear to be the same… typo or bias towards AMD over Intel..?