Hitman Absolution -- The Living Breathing World

[natr0n]

[Guitarrassdeamor]

So, started playing a bit tonight, and so far I have mixed feelings. I've started on Hard, as I still need some things to be able to learn the game before I do purist. To preface that, I've played Hitman games, but not extensively and I don't remember beating one, but I did get relatively far in Contracts. So anyways, my first "wtf" moment was when I had a checkpoint and I restarted it, and the enemies I had previously killed magically reappeared, leaving me to be spotted by them without me knowing they had spawned again. Once I finished the "tutorial", another thing annoying me is the point system. While it is nice for things like The Sniper Challenge and adds some fun/replay value to the game/missions, it is throwing me off. For instance, if I subdue an enemy, I'm down 160 points - why? I didn't kill him...and if I hide it I get the points back - okay, but I shouldn't have lost them in the first place. Same with killing, if you do it silently and hide the body, you gain the points back, but what is the point of that? Another part was where I disguised myself as a chef, and was told "turning on the radio can provide a distraction" - so I turned on the radio, no weapons in hand, and I lose 1600 points for being spotted as a chef in the kitchen because I turned on a radio???

[natr0n]

I will have to check this out soon. I need more harddrive space.

[Victor286]

So I ran the benchmark test that the game has built in and I have some disturbingly low FPS.

Specs:
i5 3570k
EVGA GTX 680 Superclocked Signature Edition
1600 8GB RAM

Ultra settings 1080P:
31 MAX
25 AVG
21 MIN

Explain to me how this is possible perhaps I need to overclock my CPU/GPU? Or change some AA settings? What is everyone else running this game on? Does it require 60FPS or will these numbers run fine? I played only the first mission before going to work so I havent tested the rest of the game yet with these numbers. However it ran fine during the intro mission so I am thinking it will be okay for the rest of the game. Watching the benchmark test I didn't see any noticable lag.

[HossHuge]

Originally Posted by Victor286

So I ran the benchmark test that the game has built in and I have some disturbingly low FPS.

Specs:
i5 3570k
EVGA GTX 680 Superclocked Signature Edition
1600 8GB RAM

Ultra settings 1080P:
31 MAX
25 AVG
21 MIN

Explain to me how this is possible perhaps I need to overclock my CPU/GPU? Or change some AA settings? What is everyone else running this game on? Does it require 60FPS or will these numbers run fine? I played only the first mission before going to work so I havent tested the rest of the game yet with these numbers. However it ran fine during the intro mission so I am thinking it will be okay for the rest of the game. Watching the benchmark test I didn't see any noticable lag.

Has there been any sort of patch/update yet?

[animal007uk]

Originally Posted by Victor286

So I ran the benchmark test that the game has built in and I have some disturbingly low FPS.

Specs:
i5 3570k
EVGA GTX 680 Superclocked Signature Edition
1600 8GB RAM

Ultra settings 1080P:
31 MAX
25 AVG
21 MIN

Explain to me how this is possible perhaps I need to overclock my CPU/GPU? Or change some AA settings? What is everyone else running this game on? Does it require 60FPS or will these numbers run fine? I played only the first mission before going to work so I havent tested the rest of the game yet with these numbers. However it ran fine during the intro mission so I am thinking it will be okay for the rest of the game. Watching the benchmark test I didn't see any noticable lag.

As far as i know nvidia released beta drivers to improve performance on this game.

[Guitarrassdeamor]

I also got low FPS with my setup when I cranked it up to ultra with all settings enabled. I'm disappointed...I mean I bought one of the best cards on the market to play and I'm getting basically the FPS you posted. I can't play at less than 30 at all, so I had to lower AA to 4, take tesselation off, take SSAO/whatever off, and I got an average of 52 or something with a minimum of 42, easily playable.

[RCoon]

Originally Posted by Guitarrassdeamor

I also got low FPS with my setup when I cranked it up to ultra with all settings enabled. I'm disappointed...I mean I bought one of the best cards on the market to play and I'm getting basically the FPS you posted. I can't play at less than 30 at all, so I had to lower AA to 4, take tesselation off, take SSAO/whatever off, and I got an average of 52 or something with a minimum of 42, easily playable.

It's usually the SSAO that does it, max everything and turn that down or off, at least i had that issue with my two nvidia cards. I'll test it on my two 7950's tonight.

[Guitarrassdeamor]

Originally Posted by RCoon

It's usually the SSAO that does it, max everything and turn that down or off, at least i had that issue with my two nvidia cards. I'll test it on my two 7950's tonight.

Okay I'll try just that and see if it makes a difference. Just wanted to play so turned a few things down and went in.

[mediasorcerer]

Ah jeez, hope they have done a good job on this, after the reading posts above.

[WhiteNoise]

I'll be skipping this one. I wanted to play it badly but its a mess of a game from what I have seen and read.

[Protagonist]

Originally Posted by Victor286

So I ran the benchmark test that the game has built in and I have some disturbingly low FPS.

Specs:
i5 3570k
EVGA GTX 680 Superclocked Signature Edition
1600 8GB RAM

Ultra settings 1080P:
31 MAX
25 AVG
21 MIN

Explain to me how this is possible perhaps I need to overclock my CPU/GPU? Or change some AA settings? What is everyone else running this game on? Does it require 60FPS or will these numbers run fine? I played only the first mission before going to work so I havent tested the rest of the game yet with these numbers. However it ran fine during the intro mission so I am thinking it will be okay for the rest of the game. Watching the benchmark test I didn't see any noticable lag.

http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages...nchmark,6.html
This is a good place to check, a good answer will be outright AMD Gaming Evolved Title unless a patched update comes

Currently no stock single Nvidia Geforce GPU hits 60FPs except dual GPUs, same goes for AMD Radeon @ 1080p/1200p with ultra settings everything maxed, but obviously the AMD Radeon GPUs are better than Nvidia Geforce GPUs on this title

[Protagonist]

Originally Posted by animal007uk

As far as i know nvidia released beta drivers to improve performance on this game.

I dint think the beta drivers help much judging by what I've seen on the guru3d test. Now my EVGA GTX 670 FTW (For The Win) has become a (What The Fuck) Edition on this game.

[Protagonist]

Originally Posted by Victor286

So I ran the benchmark test that the game has built in and I have some disturbingly low FPS.

Specs:
i5 3570k
EVGA GTX 680 Superclocked Signature Edition
1600 8GB RAM

Ultra settings 1080P:
31 MAX
25 AVG
21 MIN

Explain to me how this is possible perhaps I need to overclock my CPU/GPU? Or change some AA settings? What is everyone else running this game on? Does it require 60FPS or will these numbers run fine? I played only the first mission before going to work so I havent tested the rest of the game yet with these numbers. However it ran fine during the intro mission so I am thinking it will be okay for the rest of the game. Watching the benchmark test I didn't see any noticable lag.

I got the game today and tested inbuilt benching system it has with Ultra settings on my

EVGA GTX 670 FTW
i7-3770 @ Stock Speed
8GB Corsair Vengeance @ 1600MHz XMP
Dell SX2210 @ 1920 x 1080p

I get exactly same results as yours
MAX - 31
AVG - 25
MIN - 21

could it be that the game has been capped to 30fps by the game developer? as I've noticed that the game has no fast paced action that requires 60fps anyway, the game runs smoothly with no lag.

[RCoon]

Originally Posted by st.bone

I got the game today and tested inbuilt benching system it has with Ultra settings on my

EVGA GTX 670 FTW
i7-3770 @ Stock Speed
8GB Corsair Vengeance @ 1600MHz XMP
Dell SX2210 @ 1920 x 1080p

I get exactly same results as yours
MAX - 31
AVG - 25
MIN - 21

could it be that the game has been capped to 30fps by the game developer? as I've noticed that the game has no fast paced action that requires 60fps anyway, the game runs smoothly with no lag.

I can run everything on max with an average of 55fps on my gear, but the second i turn SSAO on to high is drops like a stack of sh!t

[Guitarrassdeamor]

Removing SSAO helped a lot, but not enough. I removed Tesselation, FFAO, and Global Illumination...helped but still not above 30 minimum. Put AA down to x4 and went from 28 minimum to 38 minimum.

Also this point system thing is killing me. Is there a way to disable it?

[RCoon]

Originally Posted by Guitarrassdeamor

Removing SSAO helped a lot, but not enough. I removed Tesselation, FFAO, and Global Illumination...helped but still not above 30 minimum. Put AA down to x4 and went from 28 minimum to 38 minimum.

Also this point system thing is killing me. Is there a way to disable it?

They want the point system to kill you gives the game replayability apparently!
You shouldnt care about it, play how you like, thats the idea. I went through a mission with a shotgun and killed everyone just for fun - felt good, -13,000 points didnt even phase me

Sounds like nvidia took a slap to the face on the optimisation of this game. The main things that eat GPU's alive are SSAO, MSAA, and Shadows, or at least in my case when i was on my gaming laptop. Try knocking those things down and putting everything else up to how you like.

[RCoon]

So I was innocently crawling behind a wall during the prologue, went to take down an enemy - his body instantly spazzed out and flew half way across the tennis grounds and landed in front of two guards. They stopped and i sh!t my pants "oh dear, stealth failure already". They then had light conversation and went their separate ways. I garroted them both and threw their bodies in the bin. Here's what i saw.

[...PACMAN...]

Reallly looking forward to trying this. I loved blood money although requirements look a bit steep

[Frag Maniac]

Just started playing this last night, well, actually past midnight and well into the morning. I have to say this is a beautiful looking game and quite well optimized. For the most part I love the gameplay mechanics. The cover system seems fluid and natural. Now and then there's objects I can't take cover behind that I'd like to, and sometimes there's a little stickiness getting out of cover, but for the most part it's less sticky and finicky than the typical cover systems in games.

I'm not super good at Hitman games generally, due to a lack of patience with the tedium of timing patrol evasion, so I'm starting out on Normal. So far it seems maybe more intuitive regarding good routes and hiding spots, and they give you a fair bit of options, which I really like. Part of what makes evasion intuitive is they have pretty good light and shadow details in the maps, along with the fact that those carrying flashlights are more likely to spot you.

At first I thought the pre-targeting would make it too easy, never used it much in SC Conviction, but I have to say in certain situations it provides a nice alternative to burning Instinct if you have little to spare and/or a questionable disguise. Then there's the fact that they catch you off guard. Just when you think you've gotten through a section, you sometimes find you have barely enough Instinct left to stealth through, but the game certainly gives you the tools to get the job done.

Going loud in this one is not horribly frustrating either. In fact at times it's quite fun. Some of the weapons are quite effective, and at times the kill animations are quite good. I honestly can't see why thus far in my play through that some are complaining about disguises not working and combat being too ineffective. Maybe it's that you can't totally rely on any one element of the game, you have to balance your use of skills, which is what I do.

OK, so I'm only playing on Normal and I'll probably find it much harder on higher difficulty levels, but keep in mind most are playing on levels they're used to playing Hitman on. So far this seems to be a game that has great replay value though. I liken it to Max Payne 3 as far as it's visceral gameplay and ability to find various effective tactics. Whether it's pulling off a perfectly timed sneak or stealth kill, knocking a thug off his feet with a shotgun, or tossing a fire axe into someone's skull, this game keeps you engaged.

That said, I guess about my only gripe so far is the hand to hand uses Quick Time and is based on random Q,E,W Space counter moves that are shown in such tiny fonts even at the mere 1366x768 res I play on that it often results in me button mashing those keys because I can't see the prompts well enough. That and the fact that sometimes every once in a while the hand to hand slow mo cam seems to glitch out and either freeze or just go incredible slow with no apparent reaction to your input. I can also verify that every now and then I get a strange physics glitch as mentioned, where bodies over react to contacting certain things.

I'd really like to see them address these things in a patch, especially making hand to hand prompts more legible and intuitive. I'd prefer no quick time at all with the hand to hand. I liked Max Payne 3's melee much better, and something like that would have fit this game's combat mechanics and the protagonist's elite killer persona better too. There are however many ways you can avoid face to face melee, and I guess many consider that a last resort and an indicator you've not used stealth as well as you could have. So far this is kinda a sleeper GoTY potential title though I think.

[newtekie1]

Honestly, the Hitman games have always run pretty poorly. However, they aren't action packed games, generally you are rarely even running in the game. They definitely aren't your typical run and gun games, so 20-30FPS is entirely playable in this game, and is actually rather smooth.

[Frag Maniac]

Originally Posted by newtekie1

They definitely aren't your typical run and gun games, so 20-30FPS is entirely playable in this game, and is actually rather smooth.

I was going to add a bit on my settings and hardware to back up my optimization comment, but this seems a better time to do that.

On a mere i7 950 (@ 3.2GHz), with GTS 250 1GB (@ 760 core, 1800 Shader & 1000 Mem) and 6GB of 1600 RAM, I average 40 FPS in the in-game benchmark at these settings:

Resolution - 1366x768
Textures & Level of Detail - High
Anisotropic filtering - 16x
Global Illumination - On
Antialising type - FXAA
Shadows & Reflections - Medium
SSAO - Normal

The benchmark is a pretty good one too because it uses one of the most resource intense scenes in the game, and although it is a mere fly-by with no combat, I've yet to see any part of the game while using combat to dip to laggy levels, including the orphanage level where I used nothing but SMGs and shotguns to take out all the thugs.

That said, I'm going to run DxTory's FPS meter while in game on my next session to see what I average during gameplay. Normally I always do this when first playing game, but I was so engrossed with the graphics, performance and gameplay, I forgot to. LOL

[newtekie1]

I just ran the ingame benchmark on my main rig.

i7 875K@4.0GHz
8GB DDR3-1600
ASUS GTX670 4GB @1015/3600(core/mem)

With Ultra Settings and 4x MSAA @ 1080p I get the following results:

Min: 32FPS
Max: 108FPS
Avg: 38FPS

This is with the latest 310.61 drivers.

[t77snapshot]

Originally Posted by newtekie1

Honestly, the Hitman games have always run pretty poorly. However, they aren't action packed games, generally you are rarely even running in the game. They definitely aren't your typical run and gun games, so 20-30FPS is entirely playable in this game, and is actually rather smooth.

I agree.

I have always been a diehard fan of Hitman ever since the first one and I never run-n-gun, stealth is the only way to go for HM fans. Yes all of them have had a lot of bugs and glitches, but it never annoyed me to the point of not finishing the game because the story structure was always entertaining for me. I can't say anything about this new one yet, as I haven't played it yet. It's a shame the developers didn't do more testing before releasing it to us gamers.

[Protagonist]

Originally Posted by Guitarrassdeamor

Removing SSAO helped a lot, but not enough. I removed Tesselation, FFAO, and Global Illumination...helped but still not above 30 minimum. Put AA down to x4 and went from 28 minimum to 38 minimum.

Also this point system thing is killing me. Is there a way to disable it?

I dint find removing SSAO necessary. on the other hand with everything ultra plus High SSAO with MSAA off the game Avg is 66fps

with everything ultra SSAO Normal and MSAA off Avg 79fps

MSAA has a big performance hit than SSAO.
But as most people have said including me, this is not a fast paced action game so with everything ultra and 8x Max MSAA the game is still plays fluidly at list that's what i noted. no difference with when Avg 79fps and when Avg 28 at Ultra settings, all feel same to me while playing the game.