Assassin's Creed PC Requirements

[Telefrog]

Ubisoft has quietly published the PC requirements for Assassin's Creed on their support site. (Login required.) Here's the breakdown (http://www.yougamers.com/news/17001_ubisoft_unveil_the_pc_specs_for_assassins_cr eed/) for the interested:


Supported OS: Windows XP / Vista (only)

Processor: Dual core processor 2.6 GHz Intel Pentium D or AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ (Intel Core 2 Duo 2.2 GHz or AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ or better recommended)

RAM: 2 GB (3 GB recommended)

Video Card: 256 MB DirectX 10.0–compliant video card or DirectX 9.0–compliant card with Shader Model 3.0 or higher (512 MB video card recommended) (see supported list)*

Sound Card: DirectX 9.0 or 10.0 compliant sound card (5.1 sound card recommended)

DirectX Version: DirectX 10.0 libraries (included on disc)

DVD-ROM: DVD-ROM dual-layer drive

Hard Drive Space: 12 GB

Peripherals Supported: Keyboard, mouse, optional controller (Xbox 360 Controller for Windows recommended)

*Supported Video Cards at Time of Release:
ATI RADEON X1300-1950 / HD 2000 / 3000 series
NVIDIA GeForce 6600-6800 / 7 / 8 / 9 series

Laptop versions of these cards may work but are NOT supported. These chipsets are the only ones that will run this game.

NOTICE: This game contains technology intended to prevent copying that may conflict with some disc and virtual drives.

Crysis be damned! I especially like the warning in the last sentence.

[Deadend]

wow.. 12gb installer. They must have alot of LOD texture packs.

[Banacek]

Jesus, I'll just stick with the 360 version. When I get a chance to play it, that is.

[UnderHero5]

Man, I know HDD's are cheap as hell these days, but a 12 gig install for a single game?...
I'll pass.

That's one way to fight piracy. Make your games too large and too demanding to bother with.

Oh wait, that will just make no one bother with it. Nevermind.

[mastergeo7]

WTF!?

And we tough Crysis was step... this POS is ridiculous.

[Disgustipated]

I want this just to see how my 8800GT will handle it.

[PathMaster]

Still waiting for a 360 demo of the game.

[Telefrog]

I know the 3GB of RAM is for the Vista overhead, but why not just go all the way and say "4GB RAM recommended" instead?

[iHap]

Nice to see they finally released the Req. Though My computer is just meeting and under the requirements. Bugger.

[Sensei-X]

NOTICE: This game contains technology intended to prevent copying that may conflict with some disc and virtual drives.

Been there done that, 3 times is my limit Ubisoft, you and your bullshit copy protection can rot in hell. For me XIII was the PC game that made me wonder why I even bothered buying their worthless crap on PC, 2 weeks after the game released the pirates had a improvised DVD version of the game, with no copy protection, that didn't require disc swap, nor did it require a disc in the drive, while me and lots of other people at that point were just beginning to get the runaround from Ubisoft about why the game we purchased from them kept crashing to desktop.

[UnderHero5]

Still waiting for a 360 demo of the game.

They said they aren't making one (http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=84764), so you may be waiting a while.

[Banacek]

They said they aren't making one (http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=84764), so you may be waiting a while.

No demo? No purchase. I've heard too many things about this game to buy it cold.

[Deadend]

Still waiting for a 360 demo of the game.

Blockbuster. The way the game is structured, they would need to do create new content for the demo, or it would be a HUGE demo file.

[GigaFuzz]

I'm glad I bought this for my 360. The memory requirement is what sticks out to me. How many other games state 2 Gig as a miminum?

Edit: 12 Gigs is a lot of HDD space, but not so surprising. Two games on the stack in front of me have 10 and 11 Gigs (Stalker and Medieval 2 (which comes on 2 DVDs) respectively) as minimum reqs.

[iHap]

I'm glad I bought this for my 360. The memory requirement is what sticks out to me. How many other games state 2 Gig as a miminum?

Stranglehold

[GigaFuzz]

Stranglehold

Another 360/PS3 -> PC port. Coincidence?

[UnderHero5]

Blockbuster. The way the game is structured, they would need to do create new content for the demo, or it would be a HUGE demo file.

Well, they could just stick the first city in the demo, and let you run around that with a time limit. The Crackdown demo comes to mind. It's a huge open world sandbox game, just like AC, and it had a great demo. They just sectioned off part of the world. Seems like that would be even easier with AC, since the cities are already separate. Just put the player inside the city walls, and close the door. Or use the force field type of walls that are already in the full game (before you gain full access to an area).

I think they are just lazy, heh.

I played the game at my friends house, but not long enough to know whether I wanted it or not. He won't let me borrow it, though, to find out, the bastard (I hope he reads this).

[iHap]

Another 360/PS3 -> PC port. Coincidence?

It's funny how console games are created on a PC, then ported for Console's then ported back onto the PC.

[Speed_D]

that will just make no one bother with it
Don't count on it. A cracked version will be available in less time than it took them to print that warning.

[Steve_Erhardt]

Let me get this straight... this game, which runs on the 360 with a paltry 512 megs of RAM, requires 2 fucking Gigs on a PC? 3 fucking Gigs recommended?

Telefrog touched on a good point... the PC is running more background shit than the 360, but still, this is just ridiculous. I'm fortunate enough to have a rig that should manhandle this game quite nicely, but horsepower on hand or not, these specs are pure comedy.

[UnderHero5]

Let me get this straight... this game, which runs on the 360 with a paltry 512 megs of RAM, requires 2 fucking Gigs on a PC? 3 fucking Gigs recommended?

Telefrog touched on a good point... the PC is running more background shit than the 360, but still, this is just ridiculous. I'm fortunate enough to have a rig that should manhandle this game quite nicely, but horsepower on hand or not, these specs are pure comedy.

I agree that it's a ridiculous amount of ram, for a minimum, but if you look back, I suppose it's not that out of line.

Take NFS3: Hot Pursuit for example. It was on PS1 and PC. The PS1 has 2mb of ram, and the PC version required 16mb. 8x the amount. That's twice as much as AC, comparatively, haha.

[Kamalot]

News articles like this are the reason I've given up on PC gaming.

I'd rather have a more affordable PC, or a more portable PC, and keep my gaming on consoles instead of trying to keep up in the PC gamer-s arms race. Personal preference, but I don't think I'm alone.

[Ancalagon]

It seems like, given a computer with identical specs, Crysis should run better.

Does that strike anyone as strange? Any chance they updated the visuals?

[Rafer]

Funny how the 360 has the same specs as it did in 2005, but the recommended requirements of 360 to PC ports keep going up and up and up.

Like, back in '05 people would say why get a 360 when you could put together a PC that could run COD2 better for just a few hundred dollars more.

[Soap]

Thanks Ubisoft, for making the easy decision to not buy Assassin's Creed on PC. My wallet and bank account especially thank you. My girlfriend would like to buy you a beer, because now, instead of dropping at least $800 to upgrade, hell to buy an entirely new system just to play your game, I'll be spending that money on a Dyson vacuum.

PS - You should have released it on PC first, before going to the console.

I'll be waiting for the system requirements for Fallout 3 and saving up the monies for that fine day.

[Banacek]

Thanks Ubisoft, for making the easy decision to not buy Assassin's Creed on PC. My wallet and bank account especially thank you. My girlfriend would like to buy you a beer, because now, instead of dropping at least $800 to upgrade, hell to buy an entirely new system just to play your game, I'll be spending that money on a Dyson vacuum.

PS - You should have released it on PC first, before going to the console.

I'll be waiting for the system requirements for Fallout 3 and saving up the monies for that fine day.

Dyson vacuums are insanely overrated. You are better off researching another vacuum.

[Mondopest]

I guess purchasing the PC version for me will depend on whether or not there are more features than the 360 version. Those reqs just are not worth it if the game is exactly the same.

[cp#]

Yuck, ew, gross, etc.

Funny how the 360 has the same specs as it did in 2005, but the recommended requirements of 360 to PC ports keep going up and up and up.

Like, back in '05 people would say why get a 360 when you could put together a PC that could run COD2 better for just a few hundred dollars more.

Your arguments hold no merit. The 360 renders AC at 720p max (it may even be less, like CoD4 or Halo 3). Most PC gamers today roll with widescreen at least 1680x1050 native. It's obvious from the specs that this port was rushed and not optimized as much as it should have been. The 12GB install itself is more than what fits on a 360 dual layer DVD.

[Yellowman]

Dyson vacuums are insanely overrated. You are better off researching another vacuum.

Yeah they suck. Hard. In fact a lot harder than other vacuum cleaners.

[Mr.Green]

*points and laugh*

[Disgustipated]

Yuck, ew, gross, etc.



Your arguments hold no merit. The 360 renders AC at 720p max (it may even be less, like CoD4 or Halo 3). Most PC gamers today roll with widescreen at least 1680x1050 native. It's obvious from the specs that this port was rushed and not optimized as much as it should have been. The 12GB install itself is more than what fits on a 360 dual layer DVD.

Actually, most PC gamers are using around 1280x1024 resolution. It'd be more apt to say most PC gamers on EvAv are somewhere around 1680x1050.

[MacD]

Steve_Erhardt, that's exactly what I was wondering.

I have a computer engineering minor, so I do some programming and bare metal work. Now I also read a few white papers, arstechnica, the techie articles on gamasutra, siggraph papers, that kind of thing, and I for the life of me can't understand the HUGE difference in ram needed.
Sure, there's OS overhead, but on XP that's under 200mb (tweaked). Ram is used for texture data (which might be larger on the pc due to higher rez textures, but that should be an ingame slider), sound, AI, physics, collision, GUI. But these things are static in the fashion that it doesn't matter what they are computed on, the memory footprint is the same. I mean, it's not like they have to use a more memory intensive data structure on the pc or anything....50 matrices of AI data on the xbox is just as large as 50 of exactly the same arrays on the pc.

So where does the extra memory req. come from?

edit on chaimpot0k's post:
yeah, but that's all on video ram...resolution does nothing with system ram, but needs a larger buffer on the video card. 32bits per every pixel means 32x(resolution)=amount of bits needed to render screen, which would mean 32x(1920×1080)=32x(2,073,600)=66.355.200 bits, or about 66 megs per frame if you play at 1080p. But that's only on your video card (which also stores textures). Your system ram will hold AI, sounds data, as well as precached data (like likely needed textures etc). Still doesn't AT ALL explain why you need more ram on a pc, or why you would need 4 fucking times the ram of a 360.
/edit

And I hope the game doesn't have any hard checks for those sysreqs; I'll take my chances and see what my p4 2.6c, 2gigsoram and 512mb7800 can do with it. It runs every other 360 port at better settings than the 360 itself...but then, maybe AC is finally a game with real multicore programming.

[Ancalagon]

Yuck, ew, gross, etc.



Your arguments hold no merit. The 360 renders AC at 720p max (it may even be less, like CoD4 or Halo 3). Most PC gamers today roll with widescreen at least 1680x1050 native. It's obvious from the specs that this port was rushed and not optimized as much as it should have been. The 12GB install itself is more than what fits on a 360 dual layer DVD.

Even so, at minimum specs I expect to be able to run 1024x768 with no problems, which is probably less pixels than 720p (what is 1024 x 768 compared to 1280 x 720?)

If you need those specs just for 1024, I shudder to think what you would need for anything more.

[Magnanimous Gnome]

No demo? No purchase. I've heard too many things about this game to buy it cold.

Same here. They lose a sale from me by not releasing a demo. They probably don't give a shit though.

I save $60!

[Magnanimous Gnome]

Developers like Ubisoft are to blame for the "decline" of the PC market IMHO. Releasing sloppy games/ports with copy protection schemes that actually encourage piracy have led us right to where things are today. People are quick to blame PC gamers and the pirates, but I'd lay most of the blame on the developers and publishers.

[Rambilin]

I know the 3GB of RAM is for the Vista overhead, but why not just go all the way and say "4GB RAM recommended" instead?

I think the only reason is because unless you are running a 64 bit version of Windows it only recognizes a maximum of 3.5gigs and not too many people are running XP64 or Vista64 yet. Outside of a couple math programs and Crysis/Farcry I can't think of any 64 bit native/64 bit instruction sets software right now.

[GrinR]

NOTICE: This game contains technology intended to prevent copying that may conflict with some disc and virtual drives. The pirated version, however, will be free and will not conflict with any drives.

Fixt .

[tacitus]

Too many marks against it ...

No demo ...

A probable obnoxious version of copy protection ...

Ubisoft has been behaving like asshats lately ...

Too many strikes against - I guess they have no confidence that people will like the play style ... because a playable demo might have turned around the other issues.

[Phanto]

I know the 3GB of RAM is for the Vista overhead, but why not just go all the way and say "4GB RAM recommended" instead?

Because of 64bit issues?? Or perhaps because most people use Windows XP or Vista 32bit..?

Anyway, honestly how many games have come with a "Copyright Protection", and there is always a group that break it...take Bioshock for example.

[Banacek]

Yeah they suck. Hard. In fact a lot harder than other vacuum cleaners.

Do a price vs. performance comparison between a Dyson and say a higher end Dirt Devil. Both clean your carpets well. One just costs about $300 more.

Hey, it's his money to burn. I was just letting him know the feedback I got from users before I went to buy one.

[ascl]

Sweet my PC makes the mark very easily!

That said, the anti-piracy stuff might put me off... maybe I'll just get it on 360 where that is less likely to be an issue. Sigh.

[Opsin]

News articles like this are the reason I've given up on console gaming.

I admit it's mostly down to the fact I have to have a machine capable of running a DAW, but it means all I have to do is stick a decent graphics card in and I've got a great gaming machine too. I'll grab a console of this gen when I can, like last time round, but 'til then...

[Uniqueusername]

Still waiting for a 360 demo of the game.
If they made a demo, it would basically give you the entire game. There's really only a couple of things to do, repeated over and over.

I got bored after an hour or two, and found it quite frustrating by the end. Not even worth a rental, imho.

[Disgustipated]

Here's my thoughts on the PC requirements:

Perhaps, for performance/loading reasons, they've changed it from streaming everything from the DVD.

This would explain the 12 GB of space. Everything is uncompressed and unloaded in its entirety onto your hard drive.

This would also explain the huge RAM requirement. Instead of streaming, it's just going to precache everything from your hard drive right into your system RAM, which should result in better performance and much improved load times over the console versions (which would stretch up to 20-30 seconds per load)...

Just a thought. With RAM and HDD space being as cheap as it is, it makes sense for the game to take advantage of all this.

Of course, it could also be an unoptimized, buggy piece of shit.

[Magnanimous Gnome]

Of course, it could also be an unoptimized, buggy piece of shit.



Ding ding ding! I'll go with door number 2! :D

[Kagger]

Has any other game REQUIRED a Dual Core?

[H.Bogard]

With reqirements like those, the game should look 4D and output a free kitten and a cherry pie after every 5 seconds of gameplay.

[Chainblast]

Like a lot of Ubisoft games, it's developed for the 360 and haphazardly ported to other platforms.

[drakkarim]

talk about "we're too lazy for a proper port so we'll just dump the code and say whatever".

[rvieira]

For a game that already sells millions of copies, I think if they can they would shutdown this PC port, why bother with thousands of rig configuration, patches and angry mobs of pc gamer getting at customer service because of copy protection to sell at most 200k copies.
If games like UT3 and Crysys, that are typical PC games, aren’t selling why expected a game that has a console appeal sells well with this big minimum PC Requirements.

[fiercey]

I've had this game since Christmas for the 360, but it's still in the shrink wrap. Too busy with CoD4 and Halo 3. :\

-f

[gojira]

Ouch... I barely meet the minimum requirements.... and I have a laptop. I.e., I have the laptop version of the GT 7900. I'm out I guess. And it's a brand new laptop too.

Guess I'll be waiting to buy a 360 also. After it comes down $50 in price. And Assassin's Creed comes down $20. And there's even less hardware problems reported on the 360.

[Tel Prydain]

Assassins Creed is a great game, and if you are a fan of sand-box games you need to look into it. It's the child of Crackdown and Prince of Persia.
The specs are a tad insane, but that's how PC gaming seems to go these days - don't worry about optimisation, just use more power.

[J Arcane]

Yawn. Everyone on this site loves to hate on AC.

Where was the unbridled rage at the sysreqs for GHIII for PC? A game that, as well, has higher sysreqs than bloody Crysis does, without looking even remotely as pretty as either Crysis or AC?

[H.Bogard]

For a game that already sells millions of copies, I think if they can they would shutdown this PC port, why bother with thousands of rig configuration, patches and angry mobs of pc gamer getting at customer service because of copy protection to sell at most 200k copies.
If games like UT3 and Crysys, that are typical PC games, aren’t selling why expected a game that has a console appeal sells well with this big minimum PC Requirements.

Because UT3 and Crysis' sales were not because of their requirements, but a game called COD4. PoP and Splinter Cell games have always sold well on the PC.