Assassin's Creed IV Black Flag

From PCGamingWiki, the wiki about fixing PC games
Assassin's Creed IV Black Flag
Assassin's Creed IV Black Flag cover
Developers
Ubisoft Montreal
Windows Ubisoft Ukraine
Publishers
Ubisoft
Engines
AnvilNext
Release dates
Windows November 19, 2013
Assassin's Creed
Assassin's Creed 2008
Assassin's Creed II 2010
Assassin's Creed Brotherhood 2010
Assassin's Creed Revelations 2011
Assassin's Creed III 2012
Assassin's Creed IV Black Flag 2013
Assassin's Creed Liberation HD 2014
Assassin's Creed Freedom Cry 2014
Assassin's Creed Pirates 2014
Assassin's Creed Unity 2014
Assassin's Creed Rogue 2015
Assassin's Creed Chronicles: China 2015
Assassin's Creed Syndicate 2015
Assassin's Creed Chronicles: India 2016
Assassin's Creed Chronicles: Russia 2016

General information

PC Report
Steam Community Discussions

Availability[edit]

All versions require Uplay.
A controller is highly recommended.

Version differences[edit]

Freedom Cry is available as both DLC and a standalone game.

Downloadable content (DLC) and expansions

Name Notes
Season Pass
Kraken Ship Pack Season Pass exclusive.
Freedom Cry Pack Also available as a standalone game.
The Castaway's Prize Deluxe/Digital Deluxe exclusive.
DLC Aveline Deluxe/Digital Deluxe Edition
Time saver: Resources Pack
Time saver: Collectibles Pack
Time saver: Activities Pack
Death Vessel Pack
Crusader & Florentine Pack
Time saver: Technology Pack
MP Character Pack: Blackbeard's Wrath
Illustrious Pirates Pack
Guild of Rogues

Optional Improvements[edit]

Skip intro videos[edit]

File removal
  1. Go to the installation folder.
  2. Go into videos (for single player) or multi\videos (for multiplayer).
  3. Rename, delete or move these files:
ubi_logo.bik
TWIMTBP.bik
abstergo_logo.bik
ac4bf_logo.bik
warning_disclaimer.bik
warning_disclaimer.bik is in a subfolder that corresponds with the set language.

Game data[edit]

Configuration file(s) location[edit]

System Location
Windows %USERPROFILE%\Documents\Assassin's Creed IV Black Flag

Save game data location[edit]

System Location
Windows <Uplay-folder>\savegames\<user-id>\273 or 437

Save game cloud syncing[edit]

System Native Notes
Steam Cloud
Uplay
Uplay cloud synchronization was disabled sometime in 2013.[1]
There are reports of lost game progress.[2] Preemptively disable Uplay Cloud saving in order to prevent bad synchronization.

Video settings[edit]

Graphics settings.
Graphics settings.
Graphics option Option WSGF Notes
Widescreen resolution
Anamorphic 16:9; use Flawless Widescreen to remove letterboxing.
Multi-monitor
Anamorphic 16:9;[3] use Flawless Widescreen to remove letterboxing. Or if using an AMD card just use Catalyst version 14.4
Ultra-widescreen
See the WSGF entry.
4K Ultra HD
Field of view (FOV)
No manual FOV slider present
Windowed
See windowed
Borderless fullscreen windowed
Possible with a trick, see Borderless fullscreen windowed.
Anisotropic filtering (AF)
Force in the graphics card control panel.
Anti-aliasing (AA)
TXAA (NVIDIA only), FXAA, SMAA (actually SMAA T2X) and MSAA/CSAA (also using FXAA).
Vertical sync (Vsync)
No triple buffering. Can only be enabled with external tools or by pressing CTRL+ALT+DEL and clicking on the game's icon in the taskbar.
60 FPS
120+ FPS
Frame rate is capped at 63 FPS.

Windowed[edit]

Disable fullscreen[4]
  1. Download WinExplorer
  2. Run game and choose a resolution of your choice
  3. Alt+Tab to the desktop
  4. Open WinExplorer and select AC4 from list of running programs
  5. Head over to style tab and tick WS_DISABLED and WS_CHILD checkboxes.

Notes

You may want to further customize the window style with WS_THICKFRAME, WS_BORDER or WS_DLGFRAME options

Borderless fullscreen windowed[edit]

Use this trick to activate a borderless fullscreen windowed mode. This method works on both AMD/ATI and NVIDIA cards. (Tested on both)

Enable borderless windowed mode

Press and hold Alt+Tab , release only Tab , then while holding Alt click with the left or right mouse button.

Input settings[edit]

Controls settings.
Controls settings.

Audio settings[edit]

Audio settings.
Audio settings.
General settings.
General settings.
Audio options Native Notes
Separate volume controls
Sliders for music, effects and voices.
Surround sound
Autodetection up to 5.1 setups.
Subtitles
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost

Localizations

Language UI Audio CC Notes
English
Simplified Chinese
Czech
Danish
Dutch
Finnish
French
German
Italian
Norwegian
Polish
Portuguese
Brazilian Portuguese
Russian
Spanish
Swedish

Network[edit]

Multiplayer types

Type Native Players Notes
LAN play
Online play
2-8

Connection types

VR support[edit]

Issues fixed[edit]

Crash when installed in a Storage Space[edit]

The game will refuse to run when installed on a drive which is managed by a Storage Space on Windows 8 and later.

Creating a junction to the folder "sounddata" to a non-Windows Storage Space drive seems to solve the problem.
Installing the Game on a drive that is not a Storage Space will fix this issue.

The image freezes but the game still runs in the background[edit]

Sometimes the game might appear to be frozen, but you can still hear the sound and the HUD works.[5]

Enabling "Volumetric Fog" fixes the issue.

FPS drops to 30 when Vsync is enabled[edit]

This is caused by lack of triple buffering in the game.

Use D3DOverrider to force triple buffering

Don't force VSync in D3DOverrider, only triple buffering. Enable VSync in game options (or force it in NVIDIA control panel or NVIDIA Inspector). If you're using SweetFX or another injector, it probably won't work (use workaround below).

Use RadeonPro to force triple buffering

Download and install RadeonPro, Launch RadeonPro, Add a profile pointing to AC4BFSP.exe or AC4BFMP.exe, Select the exe profile by clicking on it, Go to the tweaks tab leave vsync to driver default and check triple buffering. Tested on Win8.1 with CFX 7970s

Use Ctrl-Alt-Del workaround to force triple buffering

This method was actually only tested on Windows 7 SP1, on a PC equipped with an NVIDIA graphics card, and Windows 10 with an AMD graphics card. Press Ctrl-Alt-Del, then click the cancel button (or use your Escape key) to return to your desktop, then go back to your game by clicking its icon on the taskbar. DO NOT use Alt-Tab because it won't work. This workaround makes possible the use of SweetFX or other injectors with triple buffering.

Nvidia PhysX performance issues[edit]

Disable Shadowplay[6]
Change process affinity[6]
  1. Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to open Task Manager.
  2. Navigate to the tab Details.
  3. Right click ac4bfsp.exe and select "Set affinity".
  4. Uncheck the last CPU core and hit OK.
  5. Go back to the same menu and re-enable it.
  6. Close Task Manager.

System requirements[edit]

Windows
Minimum Recommended
Operating system (OS) Vista SP2 7 SP1, 8
Processor (CPU) Intel Core 2 Quad Q8400 2.6 GHz
AMD Athlon II X4 620 2.6 GHz
Intel Core i5 2400S 2.5 GHz
AMD Phenom II X4 940 @ 3.0 GHz
System memory (RAM) 2 GB 4 GB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 30 GB
Video card (GPU) Nvidia GeForce GTX 260
ATI Radeon HD 4870
512 MB of VRAM
Shader model 4.0 support
Nvidia GeForce GTX 470
AMD Radeon HD 5850
1 GB of VRAM
Shader model 5.0 support
Supported video cards include: Nvidia GeForce GTX 260 or better, GT400, GT500, GT600, GT700 series or AMD Radeon HD4870 or better, HD5000, HD6000, HD7000 series.
Laptop graphics cards may work but are not officially supported.
Dual core processors will, despite the minimum requirements, most likely work.[7] (only LGA1150/LGA1155 dual core processors will, under most circumstances, deliver a playable frame rate - LGA775/LGA1156 and AM2/AM2+/AM3/FM1/FM2 dual core CPUs are unlikely to suffice due to significantly lower IPC)

References

  1. Ubisoft Customer Service Screenshot
  2. I've lost nearly all of my progress - Steam Community Discussions
  3. Assassin Creed 4 Black Flag - WSGF forums
  4. Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag [Steve's CT Release] - Cheat Engine forums
  5. Steam Forums: AC4 freezes but the HUD still okay???
  6. 6.0 6.1 (Finally) Assassins Creed 4 Physx Performance Fix!! - GeForce Forums
  7. Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag - PC Performance Analysis