Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag Gets Patched To 1080P On PS4

Ubisoft have announced a patch for Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag that will render the game in native 1080P on PlayStation 4.

The game currently runs in 900P and then upscales to 1080P. “If it’s running at 720p vs 1080p, you’re going to notice the difference, by far,” explains Associate Producer Sylvain Trottier. “But if it’s set at a resolution that’s very close, where most of the pixels are already there in internal processing, most people won’t see any difference.”

Shipping the game at 900P gave the development team the “extra room in terms of the GPU and CPU usage” to ensure the frame rate never dips below 30 frames per second. After the game shipped the team have used the extra time to get the PS4 version running in native 1080P.

Alongside the resolution boost the patch includes a brand-new anti-aliasing technique to make the visuals even crisper, “Pay special attention to finer details like the ropes on the ships if you want to get an eyeful of what we’re talking about,” says Ubisoft.

The Xbox One version of the game will also be getting a patch with the new anti-aliasing technique but will remain locked to 900P upscaled to 1080P.

Source: Ubisoft

24 Comments

  1. so thats 3 games where the XB1 isn’t the same as PS4. I think this shows the PS4 has quite a bit more power. Not that you would probably notice it much anyway, but still.

    • And that’s also another game where PS4 has been patched to 1080p afterwards but Xbone hasn’t. This feels more telling as Ubi have obviously spent time AFTER going gold to improve output for PS4 but either haven’t for Xbone, tried but failed, or it was just not possible.

    • But everyone claiming the systems are “identical” I guess this shows them….

      not a massive difference ( I doubt I would notice 720 from 1080… unless I had two tvs and such.

      • Thats what I thought ’til I got a decent monitor. The difference is quite noticeable. Hmmm… Now it’ll run at native 1080 I might consider getting this – Still in 2 minds.

      • Watching some comparison videos and it was little things such as the seam work on Edwards collar, on the PS3 it was a solid line on a higher resolution you could make out the individual stitches

      • I agree, having a decent screen really does show the difference.. I’m not 100% fussed about 1080p at the moment as long as the gameplay is very smooth. But if that can be achieved in 1080p though it will be fantastic for the PS4.

    • It’s almost as if there’s some contractual agreement to release the games across the platforms with parity. Releasing a PS4 patch after the fact feels like the developers are exploiting a loop-hole…

      PS4 is looking like the place to be for the Multiplats this gen…

      • I’ll buy that ; )

      • It is looking more likely that this is the case with more and more games receiving the 1080 patches after release. Can’t wait until the 29th :)

  2. Only 30 frames though…

    • slow game though, probably wouldn’t really matter. Although like you point out, everything should be at 60fps on next gen

    • Like Second Son, there’s really no need to worry about 60FPS on titles like this. The resource-room that frees up for extra bells and whistles is obviously considerable enough to justify the lower frame-rate. Same goes for anything that isn’t twitch-based gaming.

    • We’ve been playing most games with fluctuations below 20 FPS this gen though. A rocksteady 30 sounds acceptable for a game like this.

  3. A hundred something pixels more vertically..? Ok, now I will buy it. ;o)

    • Go with 633600 more pixels. Feels far better and is true too! :-)

    • Sounds a bit rubbish when you put it like that.

      But if it was running at 1600×900 and it’s gone up to 1920×1080, that’s 44% more pixels. Which is quite a bit more.

      Almost 45% more!

      Which is almost 50% more ;)

  4. Great. This is my ps4 purchase. Can’t wait. Still working through AC3

    • Well now I have the Asda preorder with killzone for £385!

  5. Another game goes 1080p on PS4. Xbone getting left in the dust upto now. Good stuff for Sony.

  6. Where’s the confirmation on the One resolution? It makes no mention of One resolution?

    • “the game, as shipped, is being rendered on next-gen at a resolution that’s very close to 1080p (900p, if you’re curious), ”

      next-gen – ie both consoles.

  7. Might pick Black Flag up in the sales after Christmas. This is brilliant news. Seeing that devs are trying to get the most out of the PS4. As much as I’d like a fair playing field, if this is due to the PS4 being more powerful, not laziness, then AWESOME!

  8. Play it at PlayExpo on PS4. Looked slick so further improvement is just ace :-)

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