Assassin's Creed Odyssey

Troubleshooting

Persistent severe stuttering, hitching, or freezing

• tl;dr (1) Disable hyperthreading in the BIOS, (2) Volumetric clouds medium or lower, (3) set Ultra Low Latency + disable Multi Frame Sample AA in NVIDIA Control Panel
  • First, disable hyperthreading in the BIOS for a big reduction in multisecond freezing. This takes the game from interolerable to tolerable but still not great.
    • Yes, must be done in the BIOS, in my experience. Just setting a CPU affinity to real P-Cores (ie. not hyperthreading cores) was not enough.
    • I'm wondering if hyperthreading isn't a net loss for games, anyway. Newer CPUs are removing hyperthreading in favour of real P-cores and E-cores so why not disable hyperthreading. Probably helps with older games more, too, as they're even less aware of threading intricacies.
  • Second, lower Volumetric Clouds in-game to medium or lower. This seems to be the main graphics setting that affects stuttering/hitching/freezing. This takes the game from tolerable to acceptable.
    • I figured it would be some problem setting in-game but it's always hard to find the exact one. Luckily, I saw a random post on reddit that gave me the idea to try it. I think I've heard about performance with volumetric clouds in other games, too, so it makes sense.
  • Third, set Ultra Low Latency and disable Multi Frame Sample AA in the NVIDIA Control Panel for AC Odyssey (you may have to add the game by hand). This takes the game from acceptable to mostly enjoyable.
  • There are some remaining microstutters, maybe 1-2 ms-level stutters every 30-60 seconds, maybe less, but the whole experience is so much smoother. Even things like going to the map, inventory, abilities, or other menus feels much better.
• System: 12700KF/32GB/3080/4K
• Terms: Stuttering, Hitching, Freezing

Notes:

• Limiting CPU affinity to P-cores, or first 4 P-cores, did not seem to show a net positive improvement, so I left it unrestricted
  • Interesting observation: Limiting to first 4 P-cores resulted in higher GPU usage while still capped at 60fps ie. higher GPU usage for no extra benefit. Letting it use all the CPU cores again lowers the GPU usage to between 70-90% on average.