It’s been just over six months since the release of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla on 8th and 9th gen. systems. We reviewed the game at release and were impressed with a few things – its meaty combat and its detailed and beautiful world in particular. Since then, we’ve welcomed a patch that lets players chose between ‘Quality Mode’ and ‘Performance Mode’.
With the arrival of its first DLC, Wrath of the Druids, we felt it was a good time to test out both of the AC Valhalla graphics modes. Ubisoft advertise Quality Mode as featuring 4K at 30fps with additional graphical features. Performance mode scales the resolution and reduces graphics quality to hit 60frames per second.
Quality Mode screenshots are on the left throughout this piece; performance on the right.
Distance, Detail and Density
Britain and Ireland present challenges for any outdoor open-world engine. Those rolling green fields intermittently broken up by small woods are difficult to render compared to sand dunes, angular rocky mountains or the line-of-sight breaking sprawl of urban areas. The terrain also undulates just enough to frequently offer huge vistas.
Ubisoft did a superb job populating the nearest areas of a player’s field of view with foliage, grasses and shrubbery. The blending of levels of detail as the game renders different distances is impressive in both modes of AC Valhalla.
Grass and foliage are about as thick on each mode while close to camera but there are differences in perceived depth thanks to lighting/shadows. This is simulated obviously but a lovely effect nonetheless.
The other differences are regulars of our ongoing comparison series and fall under the Level of Detail umbrella. As already mentioned, Ireland’s flora seems to scale gracefully away from the camera in both modes and the difference, though appreciable, is not mind-blowing. Similarly, building and other structural models show some differences in texture quality, bump and relief mapping as well as lighting and shadow quality over moderate to long distance.
Realistic Weather
The Ireland that players explore in the sizable Wrath of the Druids add-on was a difficult place in which to capture matching shots. The weather changes seemingly at random when loading back in after switching modes. In real life, Irish weather does the same when player characters enter buildings, sleep or the skybox is otherwise occluded.
In Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and Wrath of the Druids, there are some small ambient weather differences we found difficult to capture due to the fleeting nature of the game’s atmospheric conditions. We can see a few instances where the volumetric cloud system of the game features fuller, fluffier clouds in Quality Mode.
Generally speaking, the outer cloud layer does more of the work in Performance mode. Instances where the entire sky is filled with clouds that look so low and so real you could almost touch them are confined to Quality Mode. Cloud-filled skies of Performance Mode are still a gorgeous sight but just not a life-affirming vista.
Similarly, fog is nerfed in Performance Mode. Just like in England, morning mists are a common occurence. There seems to be a less-realistic uniformity to blankets of fogs in Performance Mode. Gradients in the mist that expose the relief of ground it nestles on give a more realistic ambiance to Quality Mode. For example, fogs seem to hug the ground or rivers.
Close-Ups
Being a game where players will mostly roam free, AC Valhalla looks best from middle-distance outwards. Textures can look ugly and lack depth when the camera hits the wrong spot at the wrong time. Both Quality and Performance Modes looks quite similar close to camera. The smallest differences in texture colour are visible in small areas but that’s nitpicking. At a push, Quality Mode texture colour seems richer to us.
Tweaking
Performance Mode offers exceptional graphics at a smooth 60 frames per second. Quality Mode doesn’t blow it away in any one area but rather chooses to round out the image and graphics quality. A bump to LoDs, better flora and a marginally better close-up treatment of textures all add up to a game with extra sheen but we suspect most of you would prefer the extra frames over the extra polish.
Do you feel that the 30 frame drop is worth the improvements? Would you have preferred the bump to graphical fidelity be more concentrated in one area? Will any of you be playing at 30 frames per second on any platform?
