✅RenoDX: Assassin's Creed Shadows

[grand hull]

https://youtu.be/lsWK6hyqTb8?t=171

[dull swift]

Yeah that’s it

Professional

It’s nowhere near the brightness of regular dynamic tone mapping

I actually had a hard time telling a difference between it and hgig on game optimizer

[grand hull]

It's not dynamic tone mapping

You need to turn the dynamic tone mapping OFF to gain access to the professional menu

[dull swift]

Yeah

That’s what I have it to atm

[brazen sierra]

1000 4000 and 10000 depends on the metadata presented. It will roll off to the values specified (which I assume if you set to max it won't). Not sure it would do for HDR metadata between those ranges. But in my opinion it doesn't make sense to shoehorn options to fit a gaming experience when you have an option already built for gaming.

[grand hull]

Yeah but if you set everything to 100 I think it should work like HGIG

[dull swift]

I just heard it was the most accurate color wise

Think Nx put me on it

[grand hull]

You don't have color booster in the game mode

[dull swift]

Those settings + black level 53 = I can see the number right before 64 on all those black level tests

[grand hull]

and in general FMM should be more accurate ootb

[brazen sierra]

Hmm. Why 10%. That's confusing

[grand hull]

afaik 10% = full tone mapping from the 100% PQ
100% = no(?) tone mapping

[brazen sierra]

Yeah, seems like you can control the panels roll off point. Though I'd imagine that's more math for the processor to do. And in between metadata has some sort of lerping between the 3 peaks

[grand hull]

There's only a frame of difference between game mode and FMM with the PC input or/and 444 chroma forced on

https://youtu.be/o3IZP5M501E?t=234

[brazen sierra]

A frame is enough for me, to be honest. If we're talking 16ms

Depends on the game of course

[grand hull]

16ms with TV set to 60hz
8ms at 120hz

actually a bit less than that

[brazen sierra]

You're not supposed to see 64 or below

[dull swift]

Oh I meant right after

Mb lol

I can’t see 64 and below

But without putting black level on 53, I can’t really see 68 at all

Same with other black level tests

[brazen sierra]

68 can't be seen without being in pitch black

[somber karma]

except on LG Oleds shadow details are very visible usually

[brazen sierra]

Just use your phone to ensure the pixels are lit

[somber karma]

I can see 68 without issues even in a bright room but 64 and below is completely black

[brazen sierra]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1352480742742953984/1356335398053478621/image.png?ex=67ecda06&is=67eb8886&hm=9e529ab8fd93fa136a6b634da8f3421cb9791c0dc4906cacd36aff4f0d28343b&

C3 in gaming mode, all default with my phone at 2x exposure

[dull swift]

Ah

I might turn it back to 52 then

Or maybe even just 50 again

But I feel that was a little too dark even at night with all my lights off

[somber karma]

you should calibrate your dark levels at your usual lighting conditions tbh

[grand hull]

You can use this video to fine tune it

[dull swift]

Yeah that’s the specific one that put me on 53

[somber karma]

if you game in a bright room the game will always feel to dark if you calibrate it like ShortFuse

[dull swift]

https://tenor.com/view/uhm-meeting2-hmm-meeting-hmm-pepe-pepe-meeting-gif-18064240235739253690

[brazen sierra]

I would calibrate it to spec and boost game brightness to your environment

[dull swift]

Gotcha that makes sense

[somber karma]

yea that makes sense of course

problem is a lot of games won't have such control over shadow brightness etc.

so you most likely will have a lot of games looking to dark if you watch content in a bright room anyway

[brazen sierra]

On the G3/C4 there's the color boosting, but I don't have that option on my C3, so I can't speak to it being worth it. But if you can calibrate both modes and doesn't crush in either, then should be fine.

[brazen sierra]

Gotta go all in RenoDX. All in

[dull swift]

Yeah renodx is necessary

Whenever available

[brazen sierra]

I wouldn't want things to light up 64 though. Game optimizer has black stabilizer or something like that.

If it lights up 64, then you won't get proper black bars and "never" have true 0 nit black

[dull swift]

Yeah I’m certain I can’t see 64 and lower

It’s just getting the higher 60s right before 64

To not be 100% black

That’s been a bit of a challenge

[brazen sierra]

I'm also using it a monitor, so I'm up close. And no PC RGB lights 👎

[grand hull]

I don't think you could if you tried

[somber karma]

Yea but your display would start looking like an IPS

black bars would be grey

[brazen sierra]

64 is not supposed to be visible. Hence why I use my camera to ensure no pixels are lit.

[somber karma]

it's actually impossible to even make it visible is what he's trying to say ^^

[grand hull]

Actually you can get 64 to flicker, anything below is just pure black

[somber karma]

you can?

for me if I raise blacks it will not flicker but you can clearly see raised blacks

[grand hull]

I just did by cranking up the brightness

[brazen sierra]

Moving black level could lift 64, I think. Though, maybe on Limited instead of Full it works different

[somber karma]

interesting

[grand hull]

I have CX though, afaik later modes clip near black ever so slightly to avoid the artifacts

[brazen sierra]

VRR is also something that can mess stuff up

[grand hull]

so maybe that's why

[inland shell]

Does HDMI Quick Frame Transport have a negativ impact on HDR? My LG Oled TV just got a firmware update and now i could enable QTF in the game optimizer.

[brazen sierra]

My understanding is it's a standardization of something like Freesync

[inland shell]

Ok. I can enable it even with GSynch. But i dont know if it has any effect

[untold oyster]

I suppose you'll have to find out.

Quick Frame Transport (QFT) reduces latency by bursting individual pictures across the HDMI link as fast as possible when the link's hardware supports more bandwidth than the minimum amount needed for the resolution and frame rate of the content. With QFT, individual pictures arrive earlier and some hardware blocks can be fully powered off for longer periods of time between pictures to reduce heat generation and extend battery life.

[inland shell]

Yeah i will just try it out.

[untold oyster]

Oddly, its seemingly not that new. This is from 2018. I guess it was only recently added to the HDMI spec. https://forums.blurbusters.com/viewtopic.php?t=4064

[toxic ember]

really enjoying the config that's set with the HDR Look button. Gives the game that extra little bit of darkness at night that I was missing

[opal owl]

good news is that it handles areas like the Kofun better than ever, temp bad news is that it made the game crash with SK. good news is that i ran it without sk, shaders did a compilation step, and then next boot no crash with sk

maybe it was due to having settings from the old reshade addon?

[toxic ember]

runs fine with SK for me

I'm also loading ReShade directly from the game folder though, not from within SK.

[opal owl]

Me too

I can only think it was crashing due to shader comp step, or old reshade settings,(or pure coincidence)

All good now though

I'm very happy with this version, I can see in dark places again, and game doesn't look hyper saturated

[dark cave]

have you guys considered building a small installer that automatically applies reshade, detects installed compatible games and can pull renodx addons and place them in the game folders? maybe also checks for updates?

kinda like the ultra plus mod manager

[brazen sierra]

eventually

[sour fox]

mine was hard crashing too. will try now that i recompiled shaders later tonight, but i had to remove SK to get it to load the game again as well

[unreal salmon]

i dont use sk but still got the crash at first boot up, been fine since 🤷‍♂️

[midnight delta]

Hey there, do I need to fiddle with some settings related to Special K's HDR settings to make the game look as it should? Everything appears a bit too bright with both enabled (or I'm gaslighting myself which happens sometimes lol)

[brisk badger]

I loaded the game by having reshade's dxgi and the game's addon64 just in the game folder

not doing the loading through sk stuff

and it works fine like that

you could try opening the SK hdr menu

ctrl + shift + i is the shortcut I think

[midnight delta]

yeah i can run them fine, it just seems like the changes apply from both at once

Maybe I'm really just imagining things because it was winter when I used both and everything is just bright in the snow

[opal owl]

In SK, pick profile 4 and hit reset

It needs to be on native 10 bit

You don't want SK doing anything

[midnight delta]

ahhh

thank you very much!

[untold oyster]

Every evening I sit down to play AC:S and its about 10 minutes of fighting with my PC to get the game to start without just failing to start altogether, crashing to desktop during the shader comp or completely rebooting my PC during the shader comp. Enough SK ini resets though and eventually it'll load and play for hours perfectly.

Its been fun and I'm going to keep at it! lol

[toxic ember]

really?

the only weird issue I have with Shadows is that it won't show on my taskbar, at least when using it with SK

but if I alt-tab into the game it's still running fine in the background

[green laurel]

I fixed this by setting the game to windowed and using SK’s borderless fullscreen mode

[toxic ember]

ahh, good call. Didn't think about trying that

[green laurel]

I also have multitasking-on-top set but don’t think that’s required to get it to show on the taskbar

[untold oyster]

Beginning to think its a complication with the latest Nvidia driver. System is flawless otherwise. Either way, sorry its kinda off topic, thought I was in the SK discord. Been bouncing between them a bunch the last week or so.

[bleak ocean]

o/ Hey, I looked around on this and the SK discord but couldn't find anything, but is there anything I nerd to do to get Renodx working with special K? Interested in trying out the fix for DLSS transformer models.

[halcyon axle]

local dxgi.dll (reshade) and renodx mod, don't use SK to load them

[bleak ocean]

Have renodx and reshade local to the game, so that's working correctly, but still seeing ghosting and framerate cap l.

[halcyon axle]

Also disable reshade compatibility mode in SK if it's on

[bleak ocean]

Ok ill check that.

Reshade compatibility mode disabled. Anything else amiss? Still seeing the 30fps framerate cap and quite a bit of ghosting on the new presets, so not quite there yet.

[halcyon axle]

One of the dropdowns is labeled Assassins creed shadows, check it out

[bleak ocean]

These are my settings, which they defaulted to.

[halcyon axle]

Ah maybe try resetting the ini

If Reshade loads then it shouldn't interfere with SK uncapping framerate and such

[bleak ocean]

Found it!. I disabled the High DPI scaling override and SK is working as expected now. No more ghosting, framerate uncapped.

Not sure why I had it flagged to begin with. I usually only use it for the occasional app that doesn't play nicely with MacType (which I always disable while running games).

[dull swift]

Seems like whatever version of specialk or reshade I use I crash with fg on

So I just gave up using it

Probably some user error but idk how to diagnose it

[bleak ocean]

Have you tried the nightly versions avail on the SK discord? If you haven't, try that version. If you already have reshade and renodx setup local to the game folder, specialk worked with almost no changes on my end. Detected the game and reshade properly first time. Only issue was that scaling setting I set on my end.

Usually I have a ton of issues with SK in other games, so I was surprised it worked so easily this time.

[dull swift]

I have tried the nightly versions and no difference sadly. All features of SK do work, but the moment I turn on fg, the game crashes

[solid sandal]

I had to roll back to nvidia driver 566.36 to stop all the crashes I was getting. Something is really wrong with the newest drivers. On a 4090.

[bleak ocean]

Just had my first crash tonight at the hideout. Walked outside during a thunderstorm and instant crash to desktop.

[untold oyster]

I'm going to make note of this. I can play the game, fine but only after dealing with the first 10-15 minutes of crashes and unexpected reboots and the like when launching with SK. I did a DDU last night but just reinstalled the latest. I may do it agian tonight and try that drive. Also a 4090. @solid sandal

Never crashed IN game, ever. If I can get to the point where I see the animation right before Naoe appears on screen, we're in the clear. Can play for hours without a hiccup. Just getting the game running has been a struggle.

[clever glen]

I know that swapping out DLSS via NV app crashes my game. Which is fine, did it thru SK instead

[keen basin]

If you're on 40 series rollback to 566.35 - fairly widely known issue at this point even tho NV hasn't acknowledged it. Some game publishers have started giving guidance that ppl with 40 series need to roll back to 566.35 for the games to work correctly. The symptoms are not identical for everyone, for me it's that FG generally does not work/causes game to crash on any newer driver

if you're on a newer driver I'd be like 95% certain that this is the issue

[untold oyster]

Yeah, will do that tonight. Its one of those things where I've seen the stories and all the talk but until this game, things have been fine so I've kinda just ignored it. Now that I'm actually having a problem, its probably time to start paying attention. Thanks.

[keen basin]

no worries. i got the issues early on and wasted so much time troubleshooting/trying different things until finally thinking to just try the last driver i vaguely remembered not having issues with - and everything went back to normal. just trying to keep you from wasting the time i did, basically every time i've seen/heard about these sorts of issues with 40 series lately the driver ends up being responsible 😦

[tight stump]

btw. i switched to a 5090 and it has the exact same random issues with framegen that 4090 does

either you get lucky on this particular reboot and framegen works fine, or it will crash your pc

[keen basin]

Oh, no, that's super frustrating because I assume there's no prior driver for you to roll back to I'm pretty sure it's when they added 50 series support that these issues started.

[dull swift]

Yeah I haven’t had any black screens or crashes, but frame gen on in certain games has caused extremely bad frame times and atrocious 1% lows

In cyberpunk for example, fg on causes my frame rate to go from like 110 to sometimes as low as 25 as a 1% low

Using a 4090 dlss balanced 4k everything else maxed

Also the latency seems higher than usual even with fg. In multiple games

[untold oyster]

Switched to 566.36 a bit ago, been testing launching AC:S with and without SK over and over now, been flawless. Little annoying popup in game about an unsupported driver but I could care less now that things are stable again!

[keen basin]

Yep I get the same msg saying my hardware is unsupported

As far as I can tell that has no impact whatsoever

Glad to hear your problems are gone, sorry to hear that one more card has fallen to NV's insanely shit recent drivers

[hot glen]

I use the newest NVIDIA driver on a 4090 and it works perfectly fine

AC Shadows never crashed for me

[keen basin]

Like all things I assume the vast majority of peeps aren't having issues BC peeps don't tend to post about not having issues. But for whatever subgroup of 40 series peeps I'm a part of, we're all having the same kind of issues with any driver since the introduction of 50 series 🤷

Or more accurately, whatever driver version the problems start at, they are always solved by reverting to a pre 50 series driver

It's kind of comical that devs are publishing release notes on steam saying their game only supports 566.35 on 40 series - crickets from NV tho :/

[steel solstice]

Rebar on? Are you forcing latest DLSS .DLLs via inspector / NVAPP? 24h2?

All the above have been causes for system CTDs

I turn off rebar per game, I manually replaced the .DLLs and don't use NV app at all

I'm on 24h2

That has been a guarantee for stopping system CTDs on my end when FG is in use

[hot glen]

I have: REBAR on, I am forcing the latest DLSS .dll via nvidia app and I am on 24h2, and on newest nvidia driver

works perfectly 👌

[hot glen]

funny

(Oh and I’m using FG)

[steel solstice]

Yeet all the above

Disable rebar in inspector

And manually replaced .dlls

Then test

Oh wait it works for you

Hmm

Intel mobo and CPU? Or AMD?

Just to double check, are you certain that rebar is off per game via inspector / SK?

I have rebar active in the bios sure, but the moment it is enabled for a game .exe via inspector or SK is the moment I get CTDs

[ornate carbon]

I have rebar enabled for this game and the latest Nvidia driver + Windows 11 24H2. I also use NV FG . I had CTDs when I set my TV to 165Hz. I tried 120Hz because i wanted MPO to work and after that no more crashes.

[dull swift]

Outside of special k I haven’t had any crashes, but if anyone else is experiencing the weird frame time spikes, it seems others are as well

https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/forums/game-ready-drivers/13/559991/572xx-framegen-v-sync-stutter-issues-you-are-not/

If you happen to be unlucky like me, seems there is no choice but to revert on drivers or wait for a fix

[hot glen]

9800X3D

[steel solstice]

Truly the drivers are mysterious

I habe the same cpu

[hot glen]

I did not change the default setting for this game, so ReBAR is on in BIOS and default setting for the game

Seems to be off

I think you probably shouldn’t force ReBAR on a new game where NVIDIA didn’t enable it themselves (especially if they didn’t do it even tho they released a Game Ready driver for it)

Just checked to be sure, in general ReBAR is enabled

[steel solstice]

That's the issue, rebar was the cause of my CTDs in games where rebar is whitelisted by Nvidia

Case and point CP2077

[brisk badger]

you're right

I made the sdr tonemapper by luminance and then increased saturation a little bit

still doing highlight rolloff by channel

looks better

channel / luminance

[brazen sierra]

yeah, that essentially what i was saying before. some lerp of luminance for shadows and most midtones and per-channel for highlights

[brisk badger]

ya

[brazen sierra]

but per channel also blowsout

so maybe lerp the hue

which sounds a lot like what i did with upgradetonemapbychannel now that i think of it

[brisk badger]

I'm doing it a kind of ugly way since there's no performance cost

float3 ApplyBlendedToneMap(float3 untonemapped_ap1, float peak_nits, float diffuse_white) {
  float3 sdr_tonemap = ApplySDRToneMap(untonemapped_ap1);

  float hdr_scale = peak_nits / diffuse_white;
#if RENODX_GAME_GAMMA_CORRECTION
  hdr_scale = renodx::color::correct::GammaSafe(hdr_scale, true);
#endif

  float3 hdr_untonemapped = untonemapped_ap1 * GetSDRMidGrayRatio();
  float3 hdr_tonemap = renodx::tonemap::ExponentialRollOff(HueCorrectAP1(hdr_untonemapped, sdr_tonemap, 0.125f), 0.2f, hdr_scale);
  float3 sdr_tonemap_by_lum = HueChromaCorrectAP1(sdr_tonemap, hdr_untonemapped);

  float sdr_lum = renodx::color::y::from::AP1(sdr_tonemap_by_lum);
  return lerp(sdr_tonemap_by_lum, hdr_tonemap, saturate(sdr_lum));
}

[brazen sierra]

float3 UpgradeToneMapPerChannel(float3 color_hdr, float3 color_sdr, float3 post_process_color, float post_process_strength) {
  float3 ap1_hdr = max(0, renodx::color::ap1::from::BT709(color_hdr));
  float3 ap1_sdr = max(0, renodx::color::ap1::from::BT709(color_sdr));
  float3 ap1_post_process = max(0, renodx::color::ap1::from::BT709(post_process_color));

  float3 ratio = float3(
      UpgradeToneMapRatio(ap1_hdr.r, ap1_sdr.r, ap1_post_process.r),
      UpgradeToneMapRatio(ap1_hdr.g, ap1_sdr.g, ap1_post_process.g),
      UpgradeToneMapRatio(ap1_hdr.b, ap1_sdr.b, ap1_post_process.b));

  float3 color_scaled = max(0, ap1_post_process * ratio);
  color_scaled = renodx::color::bt709::from::AP1(color_scaled);
+  float peak_correction = saturate(1.f - renodx::color::y::from::AP1(ap1_post_process));
+  color_scaled = renodx::color::correct::Hue(color_scaled, post_process_color, peak_correction);
  return lerp(color_hdr, color_scaled, post_process_strength);
}

this is doing that

[brisk badger]

float3 HueCorrectAP1(float3 incorrect_color_ap1, float3 correct_color_ap1, float hue_correct_strength = 0.5f) {
  float3 incorrect_color_bt709 = renodx::color::bt709::from::AP1(incorrect_color_ap1);
  float3 correct_color_bt709 = renodx::color::bt709::from::AP1(correct_color_ap1);

  float3 corrected_color_bt709 = renodx::color::correct::Hue(incorrect_color_bt709, correct_color_bt709, hue_correct_strength, 2u);
  float3 corrected_color_ap1 = renodx::color::ap1::from::BT709(corrected_color_bt709);
  return corrected_color_ap1;
}

float3 HueChromaCorrectAP1(float3 incorrect_color_ap1, float3 correct_color_ap1) {
  float3 incorrect_bt709 = renodx::color::bt709::from::AP1(incorrect_color_ap1);
  float3 correct_bt709 = renodx::color::bt709::from::AP1(correct_color_ap1);

  float3 incorrect_jch = renodx::color::dtucs::jch::from::BT709(incorrect_bt709);
  float3 correct_jch = renodx::color::dtucs::jch::from::BT709(correct_bt709);

  incorrect_jch.yz = float2(correct_jch.y * 1.1f, correct_jch.z);  // boost chroma

  float3 corrected_bt709 = renodx::color::bt709::from::dtucs::JCH(incorrect_jch);

  return renodx::color::ap1::from::BT709(corrected_bt709);
}

[brazen sierra]

take ap1 hue for everything above 1.f

[brisk badger]

I guess that's basically what I'm doing since i'm blending sdr tonemapper to 1

and the untonemapped with corrected midgray + slight hue correction + exp rolloff is blended above that

[brazen sierra]

Lerp is essentially rolloff but rolloff is more complicated

[brisk badger]

maybe using jch for hue correct is too strong

hm oklab doesn't look good either

I liked the way ACES highlights looked

I could just blend in ACES

no performance cost

[brazen sierra]

look for blue/purple shadows and/or red/orange/brown areas to test the by luminance changes

you could lerp the opposite, take the aces color as base and lerp the by luminance color from 0-1

[brisk badger]

honestly there's 0 reason for me to waste my time with ap1 bullshit

I have to either hue shift or blowout for fires to look right

fires are too saturated anyway

I'll try frostbite

[brisk badger]

ya blowing out instead of hue shifting is better

[brisk badger]

updated with by luminance tonemapping:
https://www.nexusmods.com/assassinscreedshadows/mods/18?tab=files

[haughty prawn]

The newer versions are all soooo dark. Sometimes even outside in the sun stuff is just black if the sun is in the viewport, as if we're using some shitty camera that can't cope with the range 😄

and at night ...

on my main monitor I can see a bit more but on my tv it's basically black for the most part lol

60 nits full screen bightness is quite something

realistic? absolutely. but also destroying my eyes 😂

comparing it to native .... it's also black as fuck, so it's not the mod but the game

time to play with 200% exposure I guess

[haughty prawn]

considering how much better the game looks if I switch from HGIG to DTM maybe they messed up and mastered it with DTM on? lol

[brisk badger]

Do you have local tonemapping off

Turning it off doesn’t work very well

I need to find a better solution

[haughty prawn]

you mean the slider? it's at 100%. I just reset everything to "hdr look"

[unreal salmon]

idk i feel like the newest update has been perfect with the "HDR Look" imo. darker areas have enough shadow detail.

i do try to game in a dark room on my G3 so that could be a factor

[brazen sierra]

just dark, but not crushing anything

looks like 0.90? nits average which is hella dark though

but mathematically, not broken, just dark

[sage quarry]

As a reference I have a 4090, LG C4, HGIG enabled on a calibrated TV. Dark room with some light blue bias lighting. The latest version of this mod looks perfect to me using the HDR look and I have 80 hours in. My settings are here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vQ_-y8FEqZwFatfvwnScaiu89WJkYx0M_8UsKqiOlx7e6HpWJ8swTGBu1pg-jqTSewuLPkRrd-n5qkN/pubhtml

[haughty prawn]

yeah, in a dark room it's ok, but 95% of the time my room is no where near dark

[brazen sierra]

HDR is for 5nit (lux?) room. That's spec. But Game Brightness is meant to counter act. I don't have a room environment math thing. I might make one in the future

[sage quarry]

Correct. Unless your room is like a casket you’ll have to adjust slightly

[untold oyster]

I feel like AC:S does "dark" so well

[untold oyster]

Constantly impressed with how the environment looks moving through the world in the dark.

[toxic ember]

I just wish there was a way to turn off or at least tone down the auto-exposure in the game

it's so annoying

[heavy phoenix]

yeah if you dont move the camera for a bit in the dark interiors it has a chance to adjust and it looks ok until you turn the camera and it ruins everything again

[toxic ember]

yep

[opal owl]

Big patch tmw

https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/assassins-creed-shadows-new-patch-improves-ps5-pro-visuals/

Hope it doesn't break any mods

[untold oyster]

looking forward to it. luckily not playing with any mods

[cunning seal]

might need an update for the latest patch? renodx doesn't seem to be working after the update

[opal owl]

same

[inland shell]

same for me

[brisk badger]

Riperoni

Busy until like 5pm

Did they improve the vanilla hdr

[cunning seal]

which timezone haha

[cunning seal]

seems about the same to me

[opal owl]

Is anyone else having autohdr pop up

Despite having HDR turned on ingame

It's causing reshade to have lilium as sdr analysis

I have to toggle the HDR off then back on for it to then have HDR analysis

But renodx still doesn't work after that either

[raven valve]

yeah I get the autohdr pop up every time

no issues with hdr analysis though (haven't checked after the update yet)

[opal owl]

it only started after the update

[brisk badger]

EST

[hot glen]

FYI: I just checked, Special K version 25.3.20.4 still works perfectly fine with newest update 👌 (you can use this if you just want well working FPS limiter and FG but don’t need all the other game-changing stuff)

[opal owl]

current SK "works"

its just specific fixes that are broken, specifically the uncap menus framerate

[opal owl]

sk just updated so now it should ALL be good xD

[opal owl]

still looks like poop

[dark cave]

hopefully there is going to be a hotfix to address the game crashing when selling items

must have something to do with the new sell-multiple feature

doesn't happen everytime but quite often

[untold oyster]

i'm at work looking at this on the shittiest 1080p Dell work monitor imaginable but, looks pretty good to me. Ignorance is bliss lol

but honestly every screenshot looks bad compared to what I see in person on my C2 at home

[opal owl]

The biggest issue is the gamma mismatch black level raise

Hard to tell when not in person though

But since I've been using renodx for long enough now, going back to without it got me recoiling in disgust

[untold oyster]

I guess it'll take some time. I can't actually tell the difference with or without it but y'all are much better at this so I trust that its the correct way to go!

[fossil harness]

+1 RenoDX not working after the patch.

Back to Khazan for a bit

[somber fjord]

@tight stump Do we have an updated asi for the cutscene cap removal?

The newest patch broke current cutscene cap removal asi I have from this thread.

Never mind, I found ACShadowsFix from Lyall on Github. Updated 2 hours ago to work with title update 1.0.2

[tight stump]

yeah, no point in mine as lyall does it and more

[somber fjord]

Yeah, I should have searched for it on Google before pinging you. Back when you first made the asi mod Lyall didn't have any asi fix for Shadows on Github. At least I couldn't find any back then.

And this asi fix also removing cutscene bars and allowing Frame Generation in them is great for me since I can't use SpecialK personally without sacrifing the Steam overlay. And I was prone to crashes with it.

[visual crater]

yeah. RenoDX in this game is broke. Tried messing with sliders zero change. Hopefully it gets updated soon.

[brisk badger]

i think i found the average brightness change parameter in the local tonemapping shader

meaning turning off local tonemapping isn't completely broken
nvm that wasn't anything, but i found the highlight compression and shadow raise parameters

[brisk badger]

updated
https://www.nexusmods.com/assassinscreedshadows/mods/18

[ornate carbon]

Thanks for the update ❤️

[brisk badger]

lowered ui brightness to 140 nits, good for anyone playing in a dark room

bloom is terrible in this game

makes everything gray

[dark cave]

GOAT

[dark cave]

could you do an even darker one? like 80 nits or something?

[brisk badger]

I’ll upload it later

[toxic ember]

could you just do a UI brightness slider?

[bleak ocean]

Yes! The harsh blue/gray became more apparent when playing yesterday on the new update without RenoDX. Works for some scenes and seasons, but it's otherwise very unnatural.

[untold oyster]

Because i'm always trying to learn, what method did you use to capture this? (so that all the overlays were included)

[brisk badger]

Game bar

[untold oyster]

Interesting. That wasn't on my list of usual suspects LOL

But its good for quick clips, that is true. h264, at that, for discord compatability.

[brisk badger]

80 nit ui

[brisk badger]

fg was breaking it

120 nit UI

[opal owl]

ive got a weird bug

renodx works but liliums keeps thinking the games sdr

[brazen sierra]

update reshade

that bug is old

[opal owl]

this is the beta version, i think labeled 6.4.1.11

is there a newer one?

believe its from 4/6/25

[brazen sierra]

hmm

update lilium's shader?

[opal owl]

i guess its build 3/20

[brazen sierra]

use the one in #🧩renodx-dev

[brisk badger]

I had this issue on newest reshade in god of war

[opal owl]

still happens

in fact i think its because of the new build

[brazen sierra]

are you using SK?

[brisk badger]

you can type csp_hdr10 in the force color space box at the very bottom of hdr analysis

[opal owl]

i just loaded it with no sk

still a problem

[brazen sierra]

new colorspace stuff may have broken it

https://github.com/crosire/reshade/commit/489b95d733060b648cd9c980cc375a42a458500c

[opal owl]

giving me an error

[brisk badger]

all caps

[opal owl]

oh yeah that worked nice

[opal owl]

if it helps hunt the error down, when the game launches, autohdr pops up DESPITE the game having native hdr set

[brazen sierra]

i see it

[opal owl]

ive only had this happen in one other game before, last of us part 1

[brazen sierra]

it never sets the colorspace on swapchain initialization

[opal owl]

@brisk badgerwith the newest build are you playing with exposure at 0 now?

[brisk badger]

-1.2

Local Tonemap shoulder 100
Local Tonemap toe 50
Bloom 25

Rest default

[opal owl]

[toxic ember]

to fix ReShade thinking the game is in SDR, just turn HDR off and on in-game

fixed it for me

I'm using the compiled build of ReShade that is current as of April 3rd

[brazen sierra]

yeah, reshade currently assumes it's SRGB unless the game calls SetColorSpace. it doesn't read the actually initial colorspace

so if it boots with HDR, it won't know it's HDR

[lyric knot]

I need to test older ver of the mod nexus doesn't allow to downlaod them

[untold oyster]

Does look normal to you? All looks great to me but I've learned being here that I don't know what the heck i'm looking at. (RenoDX defaults, 800 max luminance and 0.0 exposure set in game, LG C2)

It sure looks great on my end.

don't really use gamebar recording ever, looks like crap playedback but i guess the visualizer is what matters here

[brisk badger]

looks fine to me

lower bloom if you haven't already

I set it to 25

[untold oyster]

Will do!

[sage quarry]

it looks fine to me, however I've hit 100 hours and finished both stories so I think it's' time to try something else in HDR 😂

[charred horizon]

Hi guys, I'm new to oled and hdr in general and this is my first time using reshade/renodx. From my understanding, I just need to enable HDR in the game after installing everything right? I don't need to adjust anything within the renodx menu (set a preset #1)? I attached some screenshots just to make sure everything looks good.

[brisk badger]

yes you need to enable hdr

it hijacks the game's own hdr sliders

so set in-game peak brightness slider as you usually would

and the in-game exposure slider is now a working brightness slider that just raises and lowers brightness without distorting contrast/saturation/hues, set that based on your preference

[keen basin]

and depending on what "kind" of HDR look you are looking for, hitting the HDR Look button at the bottom of the RenoDX window is a pretty great starting point imho - @brisk badger im not sure if the "HDR look" values are the default ones now, but iirc they are not?

so depending on the level of change you want from the original image/or increase in the impactfulness of HDR for lack of a better word the HDR look values are 👍

[brisk badger]

ya hdr look isn't default

[keen basin]

alternatively if you are in a pitch black room, @brisk badger has also shared these values that he uses previously - the top one is the in-game exposure setting

[keen basin]

yah thats what i thought - the default is pretty much just trying to match the SDR picture without any of their fuckups or?

at least thats how i understood it as someone who barely understands this xD

[brisk badger]

sort of

like contrast wise

saturation and hues are different

I adjusted the sdr tonemapper to be by luminance

so it doesn't do things like turn peoples skin red

[brazen sierra]

luminance tonemapping = true tonemapping

i'm thinking per channel is from the era of SRGB/Gamma where you could do things per channel and it wouldn't break

[keen basin]

like the default much more so than the HDR look (which still looks nice and restrained in a good way imho) might seem less impactful to people as its mostly fixing the deficiencies in ubi's tonemapping, whether that's hues shifting "wrongly" or a raised black floor, etc but otherwise closer to the SDR "artistic intent" than the HDR look option

or am i way off base 😅

[brazen sierra]

Idk. I haven't tried this, but ubi's Immortals Fenyx Rising is all sorts of broken.

I did get used to it after a bit though

[keen basin]

all i know is i booted the game up on release day, turned on HDR and went 🫤 and as soon as i grabbed the first version of renodx that had the HDR look button i went 😌 and never looked back lmao

im happy to leave the details to you guys ^^

[brisk badger]

I did change HDR look in an update

before it adjusted the shadows, contrast, highlights

now I just keep those the same and adjust the other things

[keen basin]

the latest version defs looks best to me

[brisk badger]

ya

turning down the bloom is huge

[keen basin]

or i dunno if best is even the right word, its my most preferred look so far

[brisk badger]

it creates a foggy veil around every light source at night

ruins shadows

[keen basin]

i probs wouldnt be able to tell what i like better about the picture until you point out the specific diffs to me

[brisk badger]

I need to upload better comparisons to nexus

the opening scene is nice cause it shows how fucked up the skin tones are

but I cant use photo mode or get a good still cause its a cutscene

[keen basin]

yeah that was literally the part that made me jump onto the discord to check whats happening before i even finished the intro lmao

[keen basin]

LMAO YES! the guy on the left!! 🤯

i feel like it was even more pronounced when it was happening live on my TV

[keen basin]

does nexus support upload & display of screenshots in HDR? and even if yes theres like diff formats supported by different browsers and lots of peeps who run their desktop in SDR anyways isnt there. i always find image comparisons quite difficult for HDR unless im watching like a HDR youtube vid. lilium's graph is always a rly helpful inclusion bc it shows the impact on black floor and highlights so clearly

tho i guess in ac shadows specifically the skintones are so fucked in default HDR that it comes across even in a tonemapped to SDR screenshot haha

[brisk badger]

not in the media tab but I think you can embed hdr pngs into the mod description

[charred horizon]

Ah, thanks all. I got it! It looks great btw, amazing work!

[red stirrup]

has anyone managed to get reshade/renodx working with SK in this game? I took a break from it, and after updating everything, I can't get it to work. The game launches fine with just reshade/renodx, but when I try to run it with SK, it gets stuck on the launcher with high CPU usage

and if yes, how did you load it? Did you load it through SK, or independently from the game directory? For me, it doesn't work either way

[brisk badger]

works fine for me

loading through the game directory

never touched any of the SK settings

dxgi.dll

not reshade64.dll

[red stirrup]

which version of SK are you using?

[brisk badger]

oh right i havent updated in a couple days

25.4.9.3

that might be newest idk

i think i did actually update

[red stirrup]

this isn't the newest nightly build but it's still quite recent, I'll try reverting to that one

@brisk badger and it actually works that way now. Thank you!

btw do you know if they've fixed the DLSS ghosting issues yet?

[brisk badger]

i think thats from forcing transformer model

I'm using the game's default DLSS and it looks fine

[red stirrup]

yeah that's what I meant, if forcing transformer model doesn't cause those issues

but I'm guessing it hasn't been fixed

[opal owl]

correct, its still blurry mess, stick to profile E

[dark cave]

Why e specifically?

[opal owl]

because thats the best profile that isnt blurry mess

[dark cave]

For ac shadows specifically or all games?

[opal owl]

ac shadows only

[dark cave]

Ah ok

[opal owl]

99% of other games, K looks best

[dark cave]

Both forza games also ghost a lot on preset k, will try it there too

[opal owl]

E is the best CNN profile, K is the best Transformer profile

yeah if you have another game ghosting to heck like that, give E a shot

[dark cave]

i've been playing 62 hours on preset k in shadows 💀

i thought the ghosting was because of frame gen or a bug

[opal owl]

its particularly rough in ac shadows because theres a ton of particles in the air, and fog

[dark cave]

yes fog and winter season are the worst

[opal owl]

E is not quite as sharp as K but at least it doesnt smear

[untold oyster]

Watching @brisk badger live! 😆

[keen basin]

global injection for SK, local reshade (dxgi.dll) for Reshade works great. make sure you have the latest version of SK (from the discord server - not the site)

[brisk badger]

I should add film grain

don't have access to the paper white value though in the shader I would need to add film grain

[brazen sierra]

the reshade fx works so you can try it with that

just to get a feel

[brisk badger]

I could just skip the lutbuilder inside the lutbuilder and just have the tonemap run in the per frame lutbuilder

prob would barely affect performance

[brazen sierra]

if there's ACES and you're bypassing with an ACES match, then it'll be fast enough. i don't remember how optimized the film grain is

i feel like it's more expensive than tonemapping

[brisk badger]

not aces

its something custom

similar to lottes, not expensive

[tight stump]

@brisk badger i dont think the fire was pinkish like that in vanilla

i'll check

[brisk badger]

There’s a hue shifting parameter

I opted to not hue shift as much

But I can increase it

Well it’s hue preservation so lower it I mean

[tight stump]

vanilla

[visual crater]

Is that exposure 1.2 or -1.2?

[brisk badger]

negative

[visual crater]

oh In renodx keep that exposure to 1?

[brisk badger]

I keep that one to 1 and then the in game slider is the normal brightness adjustment

I like it at -1.2 in a dark room

[visual crater]

hmm if I am in a room with light should I lower that or no?

[brisk badger]

0.0 maps to 203 nits diffuse white which is standard for dim to moderately lit room

ultimately its a mix of preference and viewing environment

[visual crater]

I do have a AOC Miniled monitor.

[brisk badger]

AOC Q27G3XMN?

[visual crater]

yea

[brisk badger]

maybe keep tonemap toe at 100 then

i think i have the hdr look button set it to 50

that works fine for OLED

but might make it too hard to see shadows on miniLED

[visual crater]

50

[brisk badger]

the effect of tonemap toe is dependent on area

[visual crater]

100

[brisk badger]

like if you go into a dark area it raises shadows more

so 50 in a dark area might be too dark

[visual crater]

ah Gotcha. I've noticed inside towers at night are like pitch black almost.

[brisk badger]

ya the only thing I 100% recommend is lowering bloom

I made the hdr look button set it to 33 I think but I lowered it even further to 25

[untold oyster]

I can't quite figure it out. Some interiors (with no lights, obviously) are nearly pitch black but sometimes there is like an ambient glow.

[warped igloo]

Is there any ETA on AC Odyssey if that is still planned? No rush ofc, just wondering as I am putting off my playthrough until then lol. Any setting for peak brightness sub 1000 nits breaks the sun rendering worse than in Origins. Sun looks deep fried

[brisk badger]

i gave up cause it was a pain in the ass

and shortfuse actually likes that game so i was hoping maybe he'd do it

I had to figure out how the paper white slider was scaling the exposure parameter

[warped igloo]

Ah that’s a shame to hear. I asked in the wishlist, hopefully it will get picked up 🤞

[bleak ocean]

Is renodx working with today's update?

[toxic ember]

We have temporarily deactivated the multi-sell feature in shops due to some unexpected issues. We appreciate your patience as we are working to fix the issue and bring the feature back in an upcoming patch.

[quartz umbra]

Seems to be! Just tested 🙂

What I don't know is if it will require an update to correct values, but I don't think they've tampered with HDR this hotfix

[dark cave]

ayo i called it

[clever glen]

that crashed my game out (multi-sell)

[dark cave]

yup

if you sold items from different categories

like a helmet and armor

within categories it was fine, like only selling helmets, only armor etc

[untold oyster]

Huh, I thought you couldn't sell things from more than one category at a time

i'd select things from both, then hold Y to sell all and it would only sell the items on the screen in focus

🤷‍♂️ either way, it never crashed for me

[somber fjord]

It would sell everything for me. But would randomly crash.

Though I don't know if that maybe had more to do with AC Shadows Asi fix from Lyrall with the Frame Gen option unlocked for cutscenes and menus.

[dark cave]

yeah same

[brisk badger]

https://www.nexusmods.com/assassinscreedshadows/mods/18?tab=files

new update

better retention of highlight detail and more hue shifting on highlights (e.g. fires are more orange)

[keen basin]

faaark yeah - ty mate

[main pewter]

1.0.4 coming out tomorrow, this will need an update again?

[brisk badger]

hopefully it won't

i'll be busy until evening tomorrow

[somber fjord]

Seems like the HDR fix still works with 1.0.4.
At least I can't see anything out of the ordinary and the Addon loads in without any problems.

AC Shadows Fix from Lyall also still works. But any forge mods seems to either not work or just crash the game.

The defog map mod from Sliderv2 crashes the game, and the headgear in cutscene mod just doesn't work.

[main pewter]

I fucked up and reset my SK config file yesterday by mistake while troubleshooting Split Fiction

@opal owl gonna need your help when I get on it, lmao. I forgot what settings I had applied there to make it work with SK + RenoDX.

Game wouldn't launch at all via SKIF yesterday, rekt.

[opal owl]

@brisk badger the color grading sliders all work, the tone mapping and bloom slider dont

[opal owl]

it wasnt anything special, just local dxgi for reno

global inject sk

[main pewter]

Yeah, that I have setup

[opal owl]

if its crashing its because you didnt compile your shaders first or something

[main pewter]

But I think there was something in the config file itself

Nah, this was before patch.

Was working last night via SKIF when launched, just stopped working after I reset the config.

I'll troubleshoot and see what's up.

Will update the game for now.

[opal owl]

@main pewter

knock yourself out

but i dont think i did anything special at all

[main pewter]

ayyyy ty

Updating game now.

But also working, so will check later

[main pewter]

Monitor still here?

[opal owl]

im waiting on dell, but pretty sure they ship to me first

im not going to go without a monitor for who knows how long

[main pewter]

Noice

[fierce hollow]

where can I find the AC Shadows Fix from Lyall?

[green laurel]

https://github.com/Lyall/ACShadowsFix

[fierce hollow]

thanks so much!

[main pewter]

Updated the game, updated SK.

I try to launch the game with SK without RenoDX, and it just crashes.

With that MGS sound. RIP.

@sudden pendant I see you updated the latest version with support for AC Shadows plug-in for patch 1.0.4, did anyone with Steam copy confirm it working?

[keen basin]

fwiw i'm using the ubi+ version and also instant crash on start up - unhandled_access_violation for "loadingthread"

[main pewter]

Which log reports that?

[keen basin]

the one in the SK profile folder for the game

crash.log

[keen basin]

i thought i fixed it by resetting my sk config ini for the game - because it launches now - but crashes with a dialog now (DX12 Error 0x8007005) during splashscreen

[main pewter]

That dialogue was related to ...

ugh, fuck my memory, I forget what caused that.

There was an easy fix for that.

[keen basin]

argh

please remember 🙏

[main pewter]

I wanna say NV App overlay but not sure.

[keen basin]

😛

dont have NV app installed :/

[main pewter]

I mentioned it here and in SK server as well, but can't remember now lmao

Yeah then it was something else

[keen basin]

i think i havent disabled the u+ overlay - will try

[main pewter]

25.5.4.1 launches game but framerate limiter doesn't work

Sometimes game launches, but stays on blackscreen.

Doesn't do anything.

This is also without any RenoDX and stuff btw.

[keen basin]

same

i had the black screen & doestn do anything

reset sk profile

now it gets to the epilepsy warning before crashing with the DX12 error dialog

FYI for the RenoDX team - someone's probs mentioned it already as ive not caught up on the whole thread - but the current version of the plugin all controls seem to work (as far as I can tell) except for the color grading ones, which have no effect

[main pewter]

Yeah, this is my crash.log after I try latest version, and reset profile.

It just crashes.

[main pewter]

That's crashing now too.

Crashes silently, without sound with this log.

[keen basin]

yep this is same as what im getting

[main pewter]

rip

Big sadge.

Man, I had a nice profile working, I just don't remember what settings I had applied to make it work.

Big sad.

[keen basin]

did some googling re the DX12 error and it seems that there's really only three experiences ppl have that stand out: disabling overlays fixes it, deleting AC's config files and shader cache fixes it, or nothing they do fixes it

so ima try 1 and 2 now and hope for the best 🤷‍♂️

[main pewter]

Good luck!

Really don't wanna play this game without SK

[keen basin]

@main pewter its some kinda compatibility issue between renodx and Sk again 😢

after nuking my shader cache, it works great with just SK

and it works with just renoDX but no SK - tho not all reno sliders work

but both in combination - game crash on launch

[main pewter]

Where did you do that?

I'll try doing that, too.

[keen basin]

documents/my documents folder/whatever its called based on your version of Windows/Assassin's Creed Shadows/delete the ACShadows ini (resetting your settings) and delete the cache folder

both will be recreated on launch

lmk how you go

[main pewter]

Can I launch the game without SK first, like normally without any ReShade?

And then launch via SK?

Or just launch via SK directly?

[keen basin]

thats the order i did it in just to be sure

nuke shader cache

boot without SK

set all my visual settings

quit

launch with SK

works great

[main pewter]

bet

trying now

[keen basin]

then however, my usual combo of local reshade (game dir dxgi.dll and RenoDX addon) = instant CTD on launch

[sudden pendant]

No, nobody is dumbe enough to buy this game on Steam :P)

[main pewter]

Ubisoft copy also running into same issue.

[keen basin]

trying the other way the SK dialog troubleshooting instructions - ie Reshade64.dll - and that results in the DX12 error on launch

[main pewter]

But seems like it's a RenoDX compatibility thing again, checking it again without that now after shader cache removed.

[keen basin]

so both latest SK and reno work in isolation since latest patch, but not together

[sudden pendant]

Ah, ReShade.
🤷
I don't use ReShade / RenoDX, way too many headaches.

[keen basin]

i imagine it might be bc reno has not been updated for latest patch yet

[main pewter]

yeah, I know. I thought it was failing even without ReShade. Just nuked shader cache, launched without it, worked fine.

Let's see with SK now.

[main pewter]

These two, right?

Okay, this worked. But I had to launch directly via SK this time.

First I deleted folder, launched without SK, and then with SK, and it failed.

[keen basin]

i did forget - i did run a verify files in ubi connect prior to deleting shader cache

and it did say it found files that needed repairing

[main pewter]

ReShade Central Installation works, too.

[keen basin]

i know its a constant struggle but im almost always able to get SK and Reshade/RenoDX to play nicely via global SK, local Reshade, and that's how it was working fine up to patch this patch. given youve looked at whatever ubi changed in the code to update SK, does it seem likely/possible that the combo will resume working once RenoDX is updated for 1.0.4? dunno if it helps, but this is my SK crash.log using SK's Reshade64.dll injection method:

[main pewter]

Ah, my sweet sweet HDR screenshots via SK are back

[keen basin]

@sudden pendant and this is the crash.log using the local dxgi.dll method

[main pewter]

Can't bug Kal about this anymore, beyond SK at least working. Now it's up to ReShade debugging, that's on us.

Hopefully Musa's new update might fix it. Let me try RenoDX via central install real quick.

[keen basin]

@sudden pendant hoping any of this might be helpful to you or the Reno guys, maybe I'll chuck the Reshade.log in here for the RenoDX folks in case that helps

[main pewter]

Ah, it seems like it's crashed the moment I enabled FG in settings.

Do you use FG, alpha?

[keen basin]

yes you are right. @sudden pendant sorry for all the pings - given that SK works with 1.0.4 since nuking the shader cache i feel bad bothering you further. SK + RenoDX just make such a brilliant combo when working together 😅 . gotta say im pretty resentful of the fact that ubi connect doesn't let you rollback to prior game versions a la steam, bc none of their "fixes" in 1.0.4 are worth losing the combined SK + Reno experience i had up to yday :/

[main pewter]

Oh, feel free to bug him, I meant that for myself, wasn't telling you not to bug him xD

[keen basin]

nah nah i think youre basically right. i mean i will bug him regardless bc im relentlessly annoying, but youre still right xD

[main pewter]

Okay, yeah. FG is broken with latest one for SK for me, I disable FG and it works. I enable FG, and it doesn't.

Are you using FG, alpha?

[keen basin]

yeah i do, and now that you mention it, when i was googling around reddit threads earlier, there were a fair few peeps mentioning that the DX12 error i was getting was happening to them even with the vanilla game, and deleting the ACShadows.ini so that FG is disabled by default allowed them to get into the game

and i wish i could remember now - might have to go thru my history - there was someone who outlined a specific order of steps in relation to turning on FG and HDR that allowed him to have both and not have the CTD

[main pewter]

Try and see if you can make vanilla game + SK work with FG enabled.

No ReShade/RenoDX in the mix.

[keen basin]

yep will do now

report back shortly

[main pewter]

Kal has some solid FG improvements added in SK for this game, so it might be breaking something up.

[sudden pendant]

No, the game just randomly crashes on startup now after they changed DLSS code.
Because it can't cleanup its old SwapChain.

I am tempted to add code to just restart the game when it does that.

[keen basin]

lmao you gotta be fucking kidding me

HOW IS THAT A PATCH UBI

[main pewter]

Okay, enabled it, works now. Had to reboot.

[keen basin]

yeah no issue here - SK + FG works fine as long as i leave reno out of it

[keen basin]

makes sense but jfc

between capcom's "DRM" and ubi's... whatever this patch is (that also now blocks/prevents the game from loading any .forge based mods), im really over these practices

its one thing when youre having to fix a dev oversight or they didnt understand the NV documentation correctly or wtv

im getting sick of these issues that seem to arise out of them like, actively trying to block modification of their game/code/wtv

its so fucking user hostile

[main pewter]

SK + FG + Central ReShade = works fine.

Tried adding RenoDX to that central install, instant crash at launch.

[keen basin]

yeah, there are games where id be willing to trade SK for Reno if forced to choose but this defs isn't one of them

[main pewter]

With this.

[keen basin]

the stock HDR is kinda borked but the stock reflex/frame gen/etc is way more fucking borked, i cant imagine playing without SK

[keen basin]

over on the SK discord Kal was saying he had to figure out how to work around some new code from ubi that basically seemed designed to prevent modifications to their code if i understood the msg correctly

not quite capcom DRM level, but still v frustrating

[main pewter]

Oh wow

[keen basin]

wouldnt be surprised if thats part of whats fucking this up

ya know, in addition to the thing Kal just mentioned about them changing their (already incorrect) DLSS implementation to something even worse that just causes random crashes on launch even in the pure vanilla game now

just brilliant engineering 😍

[main pewter]

Same

I love Reno, especially in stuff like MH Wilds

But over here, vanilla HDR is okay enough for me that I can't live without Reno.

[brisk badger]

I didn't update it

[main pewter]

But SK is essential with all the stuff Kal has added.

[main pewter]

Game works fine with your mod, just not when using with SK.

But if after an update it works, even better

[keen basin]

and just in case you hadnt seen my msg above - i think Reno will need an update for this patch - most of the sliders still work but the tonemapping/colour grading ones no longer do anything

🙏

[main pewter]

[keen basin]

??????

[main pewter]

Got it to work with SK + RenoDX

[keen basin]

HOW

[main pewter]

Central, but I think FG will break it.

Let me check more.

[keen basin]

what combo of what where

right yep

lmk

i know ive said this like four times now but between this and them purposefully taking away most modding functionality, ie blocking all .forge mods from being loaded

fuck id love if ubi connect had steam's version rollback functionality

id go back to 1.0.3 in a heartbeat

[main pewter]

• Install ReShade via SK Central Installation
• Launch the game via SK, enable ReShade from SKCP then close the game
• Install RenoDX via SK's Central Installation i.e. put .addon64 file in Special K\Profiles\Assassin's Creed Shadows\ReShade\AddOns
• Launch the game again, and it works.

But not sure if RenoDX is actually working, the UI doesn't seem to get capped. Sooooo ...

[keen basin]

omfg this might be the first time/game in a long time that the method i wish worked for every game - centralised SK setup - is the one that works

[keen basin]

gotta run, ty mate will give this a go later

[main pewter]

Unless max luminance is set to 269.062, @brisk badger?

For your mod.

I thought it was 202

[brisk badger]

Broken then

[keen basin]

given that some of the reno sliders are no longer working post patch i think we wont really know what is or isnt working until musa updates it anyway

[brisk badger]

Either mod is or with sk it’s not working

[main pewter]

Yeah, it's 202.XX something right?

[keen basin]

seems like the patch has broken every mod in existence

[main pewter]

Nah, mod works fine on its own, I've checked. As in, it caps it.

With SK, it's loading but not working.

When I use via Central Install.

So, will wait for you to patch it and hope it works.

[brisk badger]

Rip

[sudden pendant]

Just give up, I have on RenoDX.

[main pewter]

Will have to, in the end. But gonna wait to see if Musa's patch helps.

[sudden pendant]

Don't have the patience for it anymore, and I'm perfectly happy with SK HDR because it never crashes or has these problems 🙂

[main pewter]

That is true, crashless experience easily surpasses anything else.

But it's honestly a game by game basis thing for me.

Split Fiction and AC Shadows? I can play with native HDR if I can't make RenoDX work.

[sudden pendant]

I forced over-the-air DLSS updates off in AC Shadows, it seems to help with the Streamline crashes.

[main pewter]

MH Wilds? Makes a HUGE difference there with RenoDX, so I'd have a consideration of not using SK there.

But thankfully, RenoDX + SK works fine for me there, all via Central Install so.

[main pewter]

Perf, lemme check. Will use that version and report if I run into any crashes. I plan on resuming this game, so will be playing it from later today regularly (hopefully).

So, I can keep testing and report back.

[sudden pendant]

Spoke too soon 😕

05/07/2025 07:25:05.966: C:\Program Files (x86)\Ubisoft\Ubisoft Game Launcher\games\Assassin's Creed Shadows\NVStreamline\production\sl.interposer.dll:  [03-25-05][streamline][info][tid:22552][5s:370ms:803us]pluginManager.cpp:579[setFeatureEnabled] Feature 'kFeatureDLSS_G' unloaded
05/07/2025 07:25:05.966: C:\Program Files (x86)\Ubisoft\Ubisoft Game Launcher\games\Assassin's Creed Shadows\NVStreamline\production\sl.interposer.dll:  [03-25-05][streamline][info][tid:22552][5s:370ms:877us]pluginManager.cpp:1297[processPluginHooks] Plugin 'sl.dlss_g' is disabled, not mapping any hooks for it

[main pewter]

FWIW, 25.5.6 is working with SK + vanilla game + FG + ReShade Central Install.

Just not with RenoDX in the mix, so it's fine.

oh rip

[sudden pendant]

Streamline randomly forces DLSS frame generation off during startutp.

Yeah, it's always RenoDX. ReShade comaptibility with SK is fine.,

[main pewter]

Yeah, as you know I love using central install of ReShade with SK.

So, I can use Lilium's shaders in any game on the fly I want.

[sudden pendant]

Yeah, that much is fine.

[main pewter]

And I never ever run into ReShade + SK issues.

And that's honestly is what I always used, RenoDX is recent for me. MH Wilds was first, and this is second.

I used OptiScaler + SK on Split Fiction yesterday, it worked fine.

Introduced RenoDX UE Universal one, it crashed.

A'ight, looks like game is good and running, FG enabled, rock solid bar. We off to races.

If you make any changes to new stuff for this game that you need testing, just @ me here and I'll stress test it for you.

Otherwise, will let you know if anything comes up or crashes after few hrs or w/e.

Thanks again on cache + ini tip, @keen basin

Absolute champ, mate.

[keen basin]

Do you have the same slider issue with Reno or just me? It works in the sense that it loads and some of the sliders affect the image

But I don't have full functionality I had with 103, for example the tone mapping/colour grading sliders no longer so anything. Curious if that's smthn with my setup or same for you

[keen basin]

De nada mate 👌👌

Glad it worked

[keen basin]

Honestly this would sbe my approach by now if not for the fact that global SK + local Reno ends up working fine in almost all games - almost all the ones I play anyway

I almost wish that weren't the case then it would be easier to give up haha

[sudden pendant]

I don't know wtf is up here, I think something to do with uPlay's overlay, but if you ever restart this game like 50 times and then it stops loading and just black screens, sign out of windows and back in or reboot your system.
This has happened a few times to me today.

[main pewter]

Are you using FG?

I'm troubleshootin that rn.

[sudden pendant]

It's the Ubisoft client probably, just sign out and back in.

Nothing to do with framegen.

If you launch the games too many times trying to debug something, uPlay goes nuts.

Or Ubisoft Connect, whatever they call this crap now 😛

[main pewter]

Setting frame_generation_type=0 to 0 makes me able to launch it, but if it's 1, it black screens and crashes.

So, I can start it with 0, then go in menu, enable it, and works.

File can be accessed in Documents\Assassin's Creed Shadows folder.

That's the only way I can make it work with SK consistently, otherwise it just messes up

[main pewter]

I still feel weird calling it that, uPlay was just much better branding 😛

[main pewter]

I have tested and recreated this behaviour just fine multiple times now, btw.

Not sure if we can do something on SK's end to fix it, so don't have to do that manual step each time I wanna launch the game.

[main pewter]

No, Reno slider issue is there. Darktalon had same issue, that's something Musa has to fix.

I meant that mod works in the sense it's capping the UI.

@keen basin I got it working.

203.750 max nits.

• launch game via SK vanilla, set all your settings, make sure Frame Gen is disabled
• close the game and launch it again, make sure it's working fine. Go in your load file.
• close the game, and then put dxgi.dll next to game exe basically
• launch the game again, it should work.

Here's how my UI looks rn, 203.750 capped.

[main pewter]

Once you're in the game, you can enable FG and it will all work fine.

But to launch the game, FG needs to be disabled. So, for that .. follow this: #1352480742742953984 message

[keen basin]

JFC. Ty but wtf Ubisoft. @sudden pendant is their DLSS fuckery on launch fixable or smthn we have to live with until/of uno ever fixes it 😮‍💨

[sudden pendant]

Dunno anything about that, it works fine for me.
Just need to exit the Ubisoft client.

Also, don't uyse local injection.

[main pewter]

Using SKIF

I’ll try closing Ubi client and launching again and see if it works with FG staying enabled.

[sudden pendant]

Then why are you talking about dxgi.dll?

[main pewter]

Oh, that’s for RenoDX. I made it work again.

But that FG issue is there with or without Reno.

I never use SK locally, I don’t get the idea behind it. Global is just more convenient.

[keen basin]

Yah I only ever use global SK

But so far it's the same for me - even the vanilla game, no reshade, Reno, etc - will only launch with SK of FG is off

If I don't use SK it launches fine with FG on

I'm sure it's a Ubisoft fuck up more so than an SK fuck up given these are the devs that literally didn't have working reflex as part of their FG implementation lmao but JFC

Surely the NV documentation on how to do this correctly is not that lacking

[sudden pendant]

It's possible your problems are unique to the Steam version, since Steam Input breaks DLSS after all.

[main pewter]

He has Ubisoft version, I think?

I do have Steam, yeah

[keen basin]

Yeah I'm playing the Ubi+ version. In any case I see there's other peeps having this issue on the SK Discord so I'm just gonna move this discussion there given the issue occurs without RenoDX being used

[main pewter]

I can't discuss it there, so can you share solutions here if you find a solution, pls?

[keen basin]

just an FYI for anyone else - this works - tysm @main pewter. tho i have some doubts that the RenoDX custom tonemapper is working correctly post patch 1.0.4 - the other sliders still allow for a level of HDR adjustment but i imagine most of the benefit comes from the tonemapping implementation

yah, have just been playing around with it, and the tone mapping defs doesnt appear to be working. the color grading sliders do stuff, but the tone mapping ones dont. i saw a comment on nexusmods that the aces version still works so i might give that a shot and see how i go with that in the meantime

[opal owl]

i reported the same thing

#1352480742742953984 message

[main pewter]

To be honest, I never used any of the sldiers inside the mod itself. Kept it default, and only touched the whitepaper stuff from within game's menu that Musa said will adjust that instead now

So, technically should work fine.

[main pewter]

Did you read the more recent one? Game can't be launched with FG enabled.

Is it same issue at your end or nah?

Also, did you finish the game already?

[brisk badger]

Assuming that isn’t broken

Should be pretty apparent if it is

The vanilla hdr made everyone’s skin pink

[main pewter]

However it looked with mod as default, that's how I kept using it, tbf. So, I'd have to do A/B comparisons.

But they both saying it's broken, so I trust 'em. I didn't really touch sliders in mod ever, so I'm a bad source to test it.

[opal owl]

no im playing other stuff

as soon as they showed a roadmap, i put it into my #patientgamer backlog

the longer i wait the better the base game will be

[main pewter]

trueeeee

I been itching to play it, so I might start it soon. And then play it again with the expansion.

[dark needle]

@sudden pendant

Nobody is forcing you to use the tool, but you don't have to shit on our stuff in our house

We don't go over on the SK discord, and start reeing about potential issues, if anything we go out of our way to help SK users who want to load reshade/addons via SK -- and Shortfuse even messes around with adding SK compatability

No tool is perfect, and constructive feedback is always welcome -- and I know you've helped Shortfuse out a lot

But just coming out and going "Don't use renodx" over on the renodx/hdr den discord is just straight up obnoxious man

[somber fjord]

Agreed. There are things I could point out about SpecialK that have given me a headache too.
But that doesn't mean the tool is outright bad.

I've used SpecialK alot on Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order and in Assassin's Creed Mirage in order to get a better HDR image. I think it works great there.

But that hasn't been without any obstacles either.
For AC Shadows, I simply prefer to just use ReShade and RenoDX since I'm using Reshade's Shader Toggler add-on to remove the game's depth of field.

[keen basin]

I can't speak for anyone else, but to the degree that I was pinging Kal in this thread, etc. I'm sorry for any part I played. I can understand why it can be annoying to both SK and RenoDX devs when users are badgering you about interactions with the other tool on the other tool's server. Perhaps I shouldn't have done that here and I don't think it's fair of any users (including myself) to expect third party peeps doing amazing dev work on both sides to ensure their stuff works well together on top of all the effort they're already putting in... it's just that both SK and RenoDX have become such an indispensable part of my PC gaming experience (and usually work well together more often than not!) that I'm just always hoping I'll be able to use both in whatever broken game I'm currently playing 😬 🙏

[main pewter]

I get where Marat's coming from, but I don't think Kal meant that in the malicious way, tbh. That's just how he talks, even regarding his own software that he has created 😛

If an Xyz tool becomes shit now, that used to work before. He would flat out call it shit and tell you not to use it. So, I don't think he's coming from a place of ill intent towards Reno/ReShade or anyone.

But Marat's valid with his comment, too. So, idk.

[main pewter]

True. Albeit, I will say that Kal has gone out of his way numerous times to make sure SK is compatible with other tools, as I'm sure others have done that, too. But I have only had a front seat with Kal's work, so can't comment on others.

This particular one consistent of Reno and SK both, thus convo regarding that is valid in this thread, IMO. Unless there' s a rule against that? It's just activity and helps other users as well, I don't think it was drowning anything.

[keen basin]

I'm with you mate, and maybe I didn't express myself as clearly as I should've, you did a better job with your reply haha. I just meant it as I don't think any of us are or want to be the type of entitled users demanding perfect compatibility between XYZ so just sorry if I caused any frustration. The whole convo is borne out of the fact that both tools are invaluable and I've seen heaps of instances in the past where Kal and Shortfuse have worked together productively

That was the whole intent, nothing more

[brisk badger]

hopefully Nexus users are capable of reading the red text

[main pewter]

Oh, yeah. Wasn't disagreeing with you either, was just adding my personal input is all 😄

[main pewter]

You don't enjoy replying to every complaint in the comments telling them to 'read'?

Also, did you make any changes to the mod, or just adding that instruction? Tonemapper was working with previous build, but required a restart?

[keen basin]

Let's see, I've just made use of that random time travel device I keep on the cupboard just to check and... Nope. Your repeated, red notices in the UI repeating what you've stated on the mod page and several times thru out the instructions have had zero impact on Nexus user complaints whatsoever 👍😅😅

[brisk badger]

its just an option to change the tonemapper

previously I hardcoded it to vanilla+

now you can toggle the vanilla tonemapper or ACES if you want

[main pewter]

OIC

[brisk badger]

Added support for Title Update 1.0.4:
https://www.nexusmods.com/assassinscreedshadows/mods/18

[brisk badger]

Assassin's Creed: Shadows
In-game exposure 0.0, peak brightness 1000
Vanilla HDR / RenoDX Defaults / RenoDX "HDR Look" (lowered bloom to 33 and shadows to 42)

[main pewter]

Nice

Thanks for naming them, too lol

HDR Look really nice there.

Default isn't bad either, tbf. It's very scene specific for me.

I'll check it in that dark basemnet area when I play, lol. If I find it again, that is.

Cause that was like the most horrible test, couldn't see shit!

Man, all these updates they doing.

I wish they'd add a torch 😦

It'd shine so much in this game with the HDR and GI.

[brisk badger]

vanilla HDR makes everyone pink

[main pewter]

lololol

They just have allergies, ok?

[sudden pendant]

Good point, I'm tired of being pinged on this server about RenoDX, I'm gone.

[dark needle]

[main pewter]

[bright warren]

Damn how often did u guys ping him lol

[quartz umbra]

Well this is uh, something I guess

[grand hull]

Dunno what you all expected

[brazen sierra]

A non-zero amount

That's basically the cycle. New AAA game comes out. The people demand a HDR fix. We make one. Compatibility issues arise. People ping Kal. Kal gets frustrated.

Swiss army knife, but also one-man army.

[grand hull]

I agree with him that if a program is causing issues, you shouldn't use it
I don't use SK, hardly ever have issues with reshade/renodx

People need to understand that SK is one of the most invasive injectors out there, it's designed to hook its claws as deeply as possible in order for all the features to work

[brazen sierra]

That's not what Marat's comment was about, fyi.

[grand hull]

And that will always cause compatibility issues, especially if you try to daisy-chain it with other injectors

[grand hull]

Yeah I know

[brazen sierra]

He's talking about the negative attitude and sarcasm with which he speaks about RenoDX and in turn the effort/work of the authors.

That's vocalized frustration talking, most probably.

[grand hull]

He has that attitude towards just about everybody from what I've seen, except maybe the DF crew because they spotlight SK in their videos from time to time and allow him to essentially advertise on their discord

[brazen sierra]

He's like a hermit sage, not in an offensive way. I think twice about pinging him, even for technical stuff. He really doesn't like to be bothered.

[grand hull]

Yeah

[quartz umbra]

On second thought I can totally understand

Anyways, I uninstalled AC Shadows to make some space until the mod was updated, so I gotta redownload now

[keen basin]

I think you're right across the board, which is why I felt I should apologise for having pinged him on here

It's just a Sophie's choice type sitch as an end user lol bc both tools are so impactful for PC gaming atm - and imo (at least from what I could observe publicly) you guys have worked together several times to make things work for those of us using both tools

My sense is he's kinda had it with Ubi's work on AC Shadows atm, I completely empathise with Marat's message because this is "your house" but I think all of us know it's, like you said, vocalised/misdirected frustration and not anything beyond that

[keen basin]

tbf SK and RenoDX work together perfectly in almost every game where I would want to use both - whether that's due to specific effort put in by any of the authors or just luck I don't know - if that wasn't the case and it felt like I just "had to choose one" it would suck but be easier bc the default expectation would be it won't work. the fact that it usually works fine and in Ass Creed Shadows was working fine until Ubi's latest patch is what makes it so frustrating. I'm sure it's 100x more frustrating when you're an SK or RenoDX dev who's already spent too much time working around Ubi's shitty code and then they break it again and you've instantly got users like me jumping down your throat asking you to make your fixes work not just with the game but also with another mod/tool/wtv

obvi someone like me doesnt understand the technical side well enough to know why interoperability can be an issue - the way i understood it all the under the hood changes Reshade was making and introducing the add-on system etc was supposed to resolve exactly these types of situations and make it easier for multiple tools to do stuff to the swapchain and reshade would take care of them being aware of each other to the degree required but it seems like either that clearly hasn't worked out as intended or i completely misunderstood what theywere going for 😅

[steel solstice]

https://tenor.com/view/wesker-albert-albert-wesker-resident-evil-resident-evil-4-gif-5143688443782660001

TLDR - Ubislop should be avoided

Here is a case study

[keen basin]

youre not wrong

[steel solstice]

Causes unnecessary blood boiling

[keen basin]

not a big ass creed guy at all usually, dunno why tf this one in particular has sucked me in hard

it be pretty i guess

[steel solstice]

The weebness

Japan = good

[keen basin]

ehhh not usually a big thing for me

but who knows

[steel solstice]

But big oofs that Kal left

[keen basin]

japan = seasons look naice for sure

[steel solstice]

I'd rather kms metaphorically then not use SK and Reno

[keen basin]

he's a solo dev building a fairly insanely efficient tool (size of codebase vs features wise) that tries to fix every fked game under the sun which... these days is every game so :/

changes are he'll be back - think he's just had enough of ass atm

[steel solstice]

Someone has to carry the world on their back

I don't have the skill set to do so for gaming sooo

Kal it is

Reno for HDR it is

Maybe in 2050, we'll finally have usable out of the box HDR in most games

And non fucked frametimes and stuttering

[keen basin]

thats the frustrating part tbh, theres the majority of gaming audience who either doesnt notice or doesnt care about any of these issues. and then those that do care are likely to have quite a bit of overlap between wanting the best FPS limiter/frame time stabilisation/reflex implementation/etc etc and wanting the best HDR experience

just wish this stuff was easier to solve bc tbh in the vast majority of games where i use both, i use both with no issue

but in games where its a problem or it used to work fine and then a patched fucked it, it seems to become almost unsolvable

which fkn sucks 🤷‍♂️

[brazen sierra]

Most people with issues mix mods, don't follow instructions, and/or don't properly report the details of their issues. Also most people don't have issues.

There are edge cases of course, but troubleshooting gamers is a chore

Nexus Mods is the worst. At least in GitHub, I can slap a "awaiting user feedback"

[steel solstice]

G*mers are cattle

[brazen sierra]

Gamers get fat off placebo

[steel solstice]

I can agree on the troubleshooting part

[brazen sierra]

Gamers

[keen basin]

Yah like I said I find that by just following the advice/instructions Kal and you/other RenoDX peeps have given there's no issue in the vast majority of titles

[brazen sierra]

If people are willing to troubleshoot with devs, those issues usually get worked out. But not everyone is.

[keen basin]

Which is why I thought it was probs appropriate for me to apologise to everyone actually dedicating their time to any of this for my instant pinging the second Ubi's latest patch fucked... something

I'm just daydreaming/wishing about "it just works" xD - or a world where neither after market solution is needed at all but alas

[brazen sierra]

Games with no HDR are definitely more unstable than those with when it comes to modding.

[keen basin]

the posts tab is the worst. bc sometimes you'll need to go to it to see if its being used for updates or more detailed change logs etc but every comment except the authors' gives you instant brain cancer

in the latest version of the shadows reno add-on Musa has put instructions in red text into the actual plugin overlay repeating the instructions everyone on nexus has been ignoring

and i fully expect that it will have zero impact on the volume of people coming back to him with the same questins about why no work

🙃

[brazen sierra]

That's why I ask for a screenshot of people's settings. Either I see the big red text, or the old build date

I need to add the red text to Unreal Engine for resource upgrades

Also, logs say what other stuff they're running.

[keen basin]

its always, invariably, "nothing except this" and then 10 comments deep after the mod author has spent who knows how long trying to help them troubleshoot it comes up as an aside that they're using like 3 different "engine optimisation" .PAKs

"how would i know thats what you meant when you asked if i was running any other mods, i dont see how these are relevant at all. make your thing suck less pls"

ive taken out all the swearing and belittling directed at the person providing you with a free service in my example convo lmao

:/

[grand hull]

You are far from the first or the last person having SK/reno compatibility issues, and Kal has chosen to write what he wrote instead of just saying that it's not his monkeys and not his circus

[brazen sierra]

Most people will come to a reasonable conclusion that something they have done that may cause their setup to be different. Other people rush to victimization and take no responsibility in their own actions. Everything must cater to them first.

A lot of us modders are nice and will work through issues, but we literally can't do the troubleshooting for you.

[obtuse laurel]

human vs ape

age old cain an abel

[grand hull]

One way or another this is not the first time he rage quit one discord or another, he probably will be back once he cools off, there's probably no point in dragging this discussion

Imo

[obtuse laurel]

nice but a fucking rare commodity in a swamp of shit.

thank you for putting up with it

[keen basin]

I hope this comes across the right way as English is not my first language - and yes this is almost never an issue but every now and then i worry about making some semantic mistake that changes what im trying to say. I'm not sure how constructive it is for us to have a convo about peeps personalities in a public forum. Suffice it to say it's not my place (nor my desire) to defend or excuse anyone's actions or words, it's more that I think there's quite a wide range of ways to react that are basically equally valid. For sure words have meaning and peeps are obvi allowed to take other people's words literally. Personally I read the situation more along the lines of how ShortFuse responded earlier - frustration easily becomes misdirected, whether fair or not

[keen basin]

on that we agree 💯 so we might as well leave it at that

[somber fjord]

I'm the complete opposite. I am, or was a big Assassin's Creed fan, but I honestly have a strong dislike for Shadows at the end of the day.

[brazen sierra]

I still need to play it. I like the series in hardest difficulty mode

[keen basin]

im nowhere near finished and the way the non-linear story has completely lost focus on anything reeeally set up in the prologue has me feeling like its gonna be a pretty huge letdown from a plot perspective

[brazen sierra]

It makes stealth feel required. If I can quick time event random fights stealth feels optional

[keen basin]

but in terms of minute to minute gameplay this and odyssey are like, peak AC for me

movement just feels good

"real stealth" is back in this one

[brazen sierra]

Conversely samurai being stealth feels wrong and I never played GoT in stealth.

[keen basin]

the vistas and visuals are just 🤯

[velvet dirge]

Same here. Going through mirage right now. Max difficulty is still too easy lol

[keen basin]

tbh im playing this game like, 99% naoe and its fucking great

[brazen sierra]

It's easy if you play right, but get caught and it's like, uh oh.... Run run

[keen basin]

there are a few - lucky few so far - sequences where you're forced into using yasuke

and tbh ive got nothing against the character or even his fighting style - just not what i want from an AC game

[brazen sierra]

I think I remember dying from arrows in 2 seconds when getting seen (talking about another AC game)

[somber fjord]

Once you get certain gear and skills, stealth becomes optional then too. Even on the hardest difficulty with Naoe.

I have 120 hours, done everything except for side missions that requires you kill 100 of different enemy types and complete 2 more Legendary Sumi-e drawings.

[brisk badger]

Max difficulty is fun in this game since you have a good amount of tools and movement options

And stealth is more involved now

[keen basin]

yeah shadows feels amazing on high difficulty imho exactly bc of what both musa and shortfuse said

[brazen sierra]

I remember doing Odyssey max difficulty and seeing enemies, seeing their level and being like, "nope, need to find another way". But normal difficulty is: lol press X to win

[keen basin]

bc of the tools and movement options youve got you literally feel like an untouchable god - whether youre in and out unseen or slaughter everybody unseen - but the second youre discovered, youve got like a millisecond to make use of the tools and movement options youve got and if you dont hit that sweet spot

youre dead on the spt

spot

the contrast between being the literal grim reaper and made of glass is so satisfying

[brazen sierra]

There is fun and being down to your underwear and going "u wot m8" and 1v1'ing "bosses" though

[somber fjord]

I honestly believe Origins & Odyssey's highest difficulty were more challenging than Shadows, but that's just me.

[keen basin]

i... probably? dont disagree with you? just bc there are more options i reckon to potentially save yourself when discovered

whether its some of the new tools or the movement system, you get a tiny bit more of a chance to unfuck yourself

[somber fjord]

Yeah, but I'm referring more to combat difficulty in general after being spotted.
Not in terms of the stealth difficulty.

[brazen sierra]

AC is 85% repetition, so you have to find your fun in the repetition. Couldn't with Valhalla, changed to story mode, 100%, and cancelled by U+ subscription

[somber fjord]

Origins and Odyssey are much easier to stealth on higher difficulties than Shadows, but I found the combat difficulty to be a bigger challenge overall.

[keen basin]

total same here - i gave up on valhalla so early on tbh, just couldnt get into it at all

whereas the core gameplay loop or wtv the cool industry term is in odyssey and shadows

its like crack to me

they could just sell me a random castle to clear generater and id be in

[somber fjord]

Hot take: I honestly do not enjoy the RPG Assassin's Creed games and want Ubisoft to stop making them and rather go back to more action style oriented entries moving forward.

[keen basin]

i gotta be honest its been a minute since i played them and ill take your word for it 😅

[keen basin]

its always felt like a waste of the IP to me - and this is not just an AC problem, a lot of game IP has this issue - why does it only have to be one type of game at a time?

[brazen sierra]

I actually liked the interactive museum aspects of it. I mean, I wouldn't pay $60 for an interactive museum, but I appreciated it. But I paid ... $5? to beat Valhalla. If I paid $70 I'd start complaining

[keen basin]

montreal or quebec or whichever is clearly the best at making the RPG ones

so keep making those

[brazen sierra]

I think the value of U+ works well with the disposability of AC games. I don't know how people pay $70 for it

[keen basin]

theyve got a bazillion studios and very few franchises they still care about so make the more linear, stealth action entries too

why does it have to be one or the other

[keen basin]

yeah ubi+ is the ultimate 1-2 months a year sub

just perfect for the types of games they are

[brazen sierra]

I also modded it and uh, modified character models

[keen basin]

i played odyssey on xbox so no thicc kassandra for me

[somber fjord]

Yeah, but they should really start having separate branches of AC entries.

One branch focused on the RPG stuff, and another that is more about the action-adventure style that the older games were generated towards.

Not saying they should bring back the old games, warts and all, but create a completely new gameplay engine that is heavily inspired by the older games.

[keen basin]

re valhalla i never got far enough to even look at mods

[keen basin]

couldnt agree more

theres clearly demand for both or at least different types of AC games

and the IP can easily support more than one type of game

and more than one core story line, which lets be honest, is non existent in the RPG ones anyway

[brazen sierra]

AC games have always hit my neurotic need to have upgrades and completion. Climb that massive tower for 6 minutes to tick off a checkbox? Yes please.

I'm a simple man and I like checked boxes.

[keen basin]

at this stage whichever psychologists they employ to make this shit feel as addictive as possible have actually gotten this down to a science tho

[brazen sierra]

Do the spinny eagle thing.... Ahh yeah... That's the stuff

[keen basin]

if you tried to explain to me in the abstract how perfectly satisfying it feels to step onto that eagle symbol and the music kicks in and you get the camera spin showing off the world around you

like wtf

i can do that 200 times and the dopamine hit is the same the 200th time as the 1st

[keen basin]

OMFG

we typed that simultaneously hahaha

[somber fjord]

The last AC game I actually liked and enjoyed was Mirage, even if it's painfully short at times.

But that is because it's trying to be like the older games, despite running on the same RPG gameplay engine.

Yet there is nothing indicating that Ubisoft are gonna create different style games besides RPGs, multiplayer and Remakes.

[keen basin]

with shadows specifically its not lost on me how much of a factor being a graphics nerd is contributing to the enjoyment as well

[quartz umbra]

Naoe is a Shinobi, Yasuke, who is the samurai, does not play aroudn stealth, but rather being a fucking menace

[keen basin]

like odyssey was a fucking gorgeous game, but mostly bc of art and how they implemented time tested rendering techniques

it wasnt like, a tech showcase, but still looked great

shadows is a legit technical showcase

on almost every level

[quartz umbra]

Like, Yasuke's animations are brutal

[brazen sierra]

I liked Odyssey because its script. Saints Row director for sure showing. First mission ended with sticking some thing up a goat's ass.

I didn't take it seriously, and neither did the game

[brisk badger]

The guys “eye”

[keen basin]

after going from origins to odyssey to valhalla i was kinda starting to fear that anvil was stuck in a kind of eternal limited improvements sitch with quickly diminishing returns

[brazen sierra]

Also every time she said Malaka, I felt that

[keen basin]

really wasnt expecting shadows to be a graphics of the year contender

[somber fjord]

I honestly would have sacrificed the technical showcase aspect for an action style oriented game.

I know, shoot me.

[keen basin]

^ i dont think thats an objectionable opinion tbh

i just know this about myself by now - the visual presentation probs has an outsized impact on my enjoyment vs most peeps

gotta embrace mah shallowness xD

[keen basin]

thinking about it, it really is one of the funniest "not specifically a humor game" video games

[brazen sierra]

They gave him Fenyx Immortal Rising and it was too Saints Row. To the point it was dumb. No established IP like AC to rein him in