Even if it doesn't have an equivalent to AMD Mantle, it has GameWorks

Jun 5, 2014 09:53 GMT  ·  By

In what might spark another volley of accusations that NVIDIA is sabotaging AMD performance while working to optimize certain games, NVIDIA and Ubisoft have joined forces.

You see, Ubisoft is preparing the latest installments in the Assassin's Creed and Far Cry franchises.

NVIDIA has decided to be directly involved in the development process of those titles: Assassin's Creed Unity and Far Cry 4.

For that matter, the collaboration will extend to The Crew and Tom Clancy's The Division as well.

Ubisoft and NVIDIA intend to do what they did in Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Blacklist, Assassins Creed IV Black Flag and Watch Dogs: add “visually stunning effects” like soft shadows, HBAO+ (horizon-based ambient occlusion), advanced DX11 tessellation, and NVIDIA PhysX technology.

The NVIDIA GameWorks team will collaborate closely with the devs at Ubisoft over the next several months. Realism and immersion will be the result.

It will be interesting to see how this matches up, or clashes with, AMD's influence on the gaming industry. Obviously, Ubisoft won't be using Mantle, despite it being able to port to DirectX 12 as easy as you please.

For those who want to learn more, we've already taken a deeper look into what the NVIDIA-Ubisoft partnership will lead to.