Assassin’s Creed: Shadows will be officially released tomorrow. And as I’ve reported, the game already supports NVIDIA DLSS 4 with Multi-Frame Gen. So, in this article, we’ll examine the game’s Ray Tracing effects and the DLSS 4 implementation.
For these benchmarks, I used an AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D, 32GB of DDR5 at 6000Mhz, and NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 5090. I also used Windows 10 64-bit and the GeForce 572.70 driver.
Ubisoft has used Ray Tracing to enhance the game’s Global Illumination and Reflections. So, there are three RT settings in the game. The first setting will only enable it in the Hideout. With this setting, the game does not have any RT effects outside of the Hideout. With the next setting, you will enable RTGI everywhere. And then, with the final setting, you’ll enable both RTGI and RT reflections.
As I wrote in my PC Performance Analysis, there are major scalability issues. And the game’s RT settings are another example of this. So, here are some benchmarks between RT On and RT Off at native resolutions.
As you can see, there is only a 5FPS hit when enabling RTGI and RT reflections. This shouldn’t be happening. And I’m saying this because RTGI can be really transformative in this title. The performance hit should be WAY HIGHER. Yet, for whatever reason, there is only a 5FPS hit.
At 4K with Max RT and Ultra High, the performance on the RTX 5090 is in line with expectations. There is no surprise here. However, the performance at 1080p is questionable. And then, as I showcased, the performance at 720p is not that great either.
Lowering the resolutions and the in-game graphics settings does not bring major performance improvements. And that’s my biggest issue with AC: Shadows. That and the fact that the game runs horribly on NVIDIA’s GPUs. There is something really wrong here when there is only a 10FPS difference between 1080p and 720p (when in both cases the GPU is used at 96%).
At Max Ray Tracing and Ultra High, Assassin’s Creed Shadows is one of the best-looking games on PC. This is a graphical showcase, and it’s one of the few games that prove how important RTGI is. With RTGI, we get amazing lighting at all times. Without RTGI, the game can look really flat a lot of times. This game shows why RTGI is so important to games that use a dynamic time of day. All characters are highly detailed and the game’s environments are among the best I’ve seen. There is also an amazing weather system and an incredible destruction system. Ubisoft has also implemented an awesome hair-stranding system. Plus, pop-ins are kept to a minimum, and I did not experience any major stutters.
Although there is no in-game setting for DLSS 4, you can enable it via the NVIDIA App. And yes, there is also support for Multi-Frame Gen. So, time for some benchmarks.
With DLSS 4 Super Resolution Quality, the NVIDIA RTX 5090 can run the game with 60FPS at Ultra High Settings with Max Ray Tracing. This should please those who own the most powerful PC GPU. Then, by enabling Frame Gen (MFG X2), you can get over 100FPS at all times. And, in my opinion, this is the best way to experience AC: Shadows on the RTX 5090.
With MFG X2, there aren’t major visual artifacts and you won’t notice any input latency issues. After all, the base framerate is over 50FPS. So, this is a game that can greatly benefit from DLSS 4. So, kudos to NVIDIA for adding support for it.
With MFG X3, we get over 160FPS at 4K with Ultra High Settings and Max Ray Tracing. And then, with MFG X4, we get to 200FPS. However, there are noticeable visual artifacts with both MFG X3 and X4. While moving the camera, you can easily see artifacts around Naoe or Yasuke. This is an issue that has plagued a lot of games that used MFG. So, I really hope that NVIDIA will do something to fix it. Because, right now, there is no point at all gaming with MFG X3 or X4 in most games.
All in all, Assassin’s Creed: Shadows looks great with Ray Tracing on PC. Moreover, with DLSS 4, you can get an amazing performance on a high-end GPU. I know that some hate DLSS and Frame Gen, but they are necessary in this game. At least in my opinion.
As I said, the problem with AC: Shadows is its scalability. The game cannot scale well when lowering resolutions or graphics settings. This is something that Ubisoft will have to fix. But when it comes to its visuals, man. This is a really beautiful game. With its RT effects, this is one of the best-looking games on PC. Plus, it does not suffer from any major stutters so kudos to the devs for addressing an issue that plagued all previous AC games. Oh, and HDR looks great here, so make sure to enable it!
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
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