Game:

Assassin's Creed Unity (2014)

Duration: 14:35

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14

So, don't know if you've read the news about Ubisoft taking so much heat for ACU's buggy and unoptimized release, not to mention the review embargo. There was even a rumor that says Ubisoft violated DX11's limit of handling a max of 10,000 draw calls (request to draw an object on-screen -- such as materials, lighting, shadows, etc.) per frame, by imposing more than 50,000 of them in the game. Whether the game is unoptimized or Ubisoft intentionally botched the game to sell more consoles for their partners, no one but Ubisoft knows for sure at this point. What is known that the game is crazy huge and ambitious for many gamers (especially PC gamers), and you need a monster rig to run it well.

The game is said to be packed with 5,000 NPCs and a staggering amount of detailed architecture (impressively accurate, with fully furnished interiors for most of them that you can seamlessly access) on an extremely vast map to traverse in. Even consoles that are known for incredible optimization are almost barely running the game at 30 fps. Taking into account all these things, PC gamers have it hard mostly, as they need a hefty quad-core CPU and a killer GPU to run the game at a playable framerate on High settings and in 1080p, which suits the game best. These being said, laptop gamers are doomed. Well, not quite.

On the Y410p, which is now a mid-low tier laptop for gaming, thanks to the arrival of the more efficient 800M and 900M series this year, runs the game in an okay-ish manner -- as long as you keep your resolution at 1366 x 768 at most and expectations grounded. Depends on how you define "playable", really. The weakest link of the Y410p is its single 750M GPU. Based on my observation, the CPU isn't being worked to its fullest whether I try limiting its performance to 95% or leave it at 100% (thus, letting Turbo Boost loose for an extra 1 GHz max). Remember, ACU boasts sheer size of NPCs, detailed structures, and square mileage. In this context, the 750M isn't fast enough to draw all of them on frame, so the CPU basically levels with the GPU's working capacity and appropriately restrains itself. Adding another 750M in SLI is likely a different story. Other findings that support this theory:

Performance advantage between current and other graphics settings:

Environment Quality (High vs. Ultra High) - Up to 2 fps
Texture Quality (High vs. Ultra High) - ~300 MB
Shadow Quality (Low vs. High) - Up to 1 fps
Ambient Occlusion (SSAO vs HBAO+) - Up to 2 fps

These might also say something about the narrow performance gap for ACU's minimum and recommended GPU requirements (GTX 680 vs. GTX 780).

Maximum Operating Temperatures (1 hour of gaming):
CPU - 87 to 89 °C
GPU - 86 °C

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## Model Configuration ##
Lenovo IdeaPad Y410p-20216
Windows 8, 64-bit
1366 x 768 Native Resolution
Intel Core i7-4700MQ "Haswell" @ 2.4 GHz (3.4 GHz turbo)
GeForce GT 750M GDDR5 2 GB VRAM, SLI ready
8 GB DDR3 Samsung RAM @ 1600 MHz (single channel)
1 TB Seagate HDD @ 5400 RPM
JBL Dolby-certified Home Theater v4

Notes:
OS Version - Windows 8.1 Single Language
Nvidia Driver - 344.65 WHQL
GPU - Dedicated, Single
CPU Tweaks - 95% Performance Level
GPU Tweaks - 85 °C temperature limit; -175 MHz memory clock speed
Recording Utility - Nvidia Shadowplay
Input Device - DualShock 3 gamepad

Other Statistics