Far Cry 3 Video Card Performance Preview @ [H]

FrgMstr

FrgMstr

Just Plain Mean
Staff member
Joined
May 18, 1997
Messages
55,648
Far Cry 3 Video Card Performance Preview - Find out what to expect in Far Cry 3 with a GeForce GTX 680 and Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition and also with SLI and CrossFireX performance. We look at several comparisons of quality settings, and let you know about the important graphics eye candy to get you going in your Far Cry 3 gaming experience.
 
My guess on the bug is that it's vsync being forced regardless of what option you are selecting just by looking at the frames. factors of 60 ;) Might try triple buffering (Other problems come with that, but atleast you'll know what it is. ) or forcing it off if you haven't already.

Nice read. I had a feeling there were high numbers to be seen here. heheh
 
Kyle, were the GTX 680s 2gb versions or 4gb versions? Just trying to get an idea of what type of gaming performance I can expect when I swap to dual 4gb GTX 680s and a 2560 x 1440 monitor.
 
I dunno if you guys have tested this. But I have to lower my overclock to keep temps safe and stability. It seems like this game is harder on a GPU then BF3....Quite shocking
 
How long has it been since a game has really pushed boundaries? This is good news. I look forward to the full eval, Kyle.
 
Yeah, I had to lower my overclock as well. I was only running +90 core and +200 memory on my GTX 680, but I would get regular crashes where the game would just go black and the minimize, having to be forced closed. Sadly, I had to eliminate the overclock to fix it. I haven't tried a medium overclock like +50 yet, but it still runs alright as-is.

I also get a lot of weird stutter with the game regardless, though. It's playable but noticeable. Not sure what is causing it as I have tried lowering settings and tweaking VSync values, max rendered frames, etc. Still occurs.
 
This game is hard even on console.. PS3 drop to 20fps... at 720p, LOW/MED setting..

I actually dropped my OC of 20MHZ (ram) because it was heating a lot more than other games (around 69C with Gigabytes 660TI OC) I use Ultra, 1080p with 4XMSAA witch give me around 30-35FPS AVG, i'am not a 60FPS plurist so it's very playable still..
 
to be honest, I'm quite disappointed that you didn't even include a single screenshot as a teaser.

looking at performance charts is interesting, but your words praising the graphics only go so far.

One teasing screenshot would have been a nice touch, imo.
 
MavericK96 said:
Yeah, I had to lower my overclock as well. I was only running +90 core and +200 memory on my GTX 680, but I would get regular crashes where the game would just go black and the minimize, having to be forced closed. Sadly, I had to eliminate the overclock to fix it. I haven't tried a medium overclock like +50 yet, but it still runs alright as-is.

I also get a lot of weird stutter with the game regardless, though. It's playable but noticeable. Not sure what is causing it as I have tried lowering settings and tweaking VSync values, max rendered frames, etc. Still occurs.
Click to expand...

Do you use Nvidia control panel VSYNC? if yes, turn it off, i turned off the VSYNC in game also, you'll get minor tearing and it won't stutter. Personally i prefer minor tearing to stutter any day..

Also, use the newer Nvidia Driver...
 
Good to know SLi and Crossfire are functioning well from the jump.

Have yet to try my EyeFinity on this game. We'll see what transpires later this week.:D

Great article, thanks for explaining the graphics settings.
 
Lord Have Mercy....

Had time to play the radio tower mission last night and ran pretty good on my 5870 on mostly high.and just regular ssao.
 
its clear that AMD has some driver fine tuning left to do. once it clears out the low fps in the cutscenes the HD 7970 Ghz should be atleast 10 - 15% faster.

PCGH tested with HDAO, 4X MSAA and A2C. the HD 7970 Ghz is close to 20% faster. they use 310.64 vs 12.11 beta 11.

http://www.pcgameshardware.de/Far-C...y-3-Test-Grafikkarten-CPU-Benchmarks-1036726/

also there is a mistake in page 2

"You will notice an odd framerate behavior with the HD 7970 GHz Edition video card. Look at the framerates between 0 and 200 frames"

it should be between 0 and 200 sec.
 
Last edited:
I hope there will be a wide range of cards tested. Not just the top of the line stuff. I have a 6970 crossfire for example.
 
MavericK96 said:
Yeah, I had to lower my overclock as well. I was only running +90 core and +200 memory on my GTX 680, but I would get regular crashes where the game would just go black and the minimize, having to be forced closed. Sadly, I had to eliminate the overclock to fix it. I haven't tried a medium overclock like +50 yet, but it still runs alright as-is.

I also get a lot of weird stutter with the game regardless, though. It's playable but noticeable. Not sure what is causing it as I have tried lowering settings and tweaking VSync values, max rendered frames, etc. Still occurs.
Click to expand...

I too get a strange stuttering. I have tried it with both vsync on and off. I have played with the buffer values as well. I just installed the new Nvidia drivers but have not tested it yet. I will see if that made any difference when I get home. Also it does it both on a single display and on multiple displays.
 
On a side note, it is nice to see another game that supports multimonitor gaming correctly out of the box with no special tweaking or WSG program running.
 
Ryoohki360 said:
Do you use Nvidia control panel VSYNC? if yes, turn it off, i turned off the VSYNC in game also, you'll get minor tearing and it won't stutter. Personally i prefer minor tearing to stutter any day..

Also, use the newer Nvidia Driver...
Click to expand...

No, and I've never really had a problem using in-game VSync before. I force Triple Buffering with D3DOverrider and use a framerate cap as well.
 
I forgot to mention, this game stutters HORRIBLY whenever the fps drops below refresh rate (this is with vsync and triple buffering enabled). I am playing on 1080p50Hz and whenever I have a drop to 40-45, stutter appears.

When I played on 60Hz, I had frequent drops to 50-55 and the stutter was unbearable.

This is on Gitabyte GTX670 OC, latest betas.
 
Simplex said:
I forgot to mention, this game stutters HORRIBLY whenever the fps drops below refresh rate (this is with vsync and triple buffering enabled). I am playing on 1080p50Hz and whenever I have a drop to 40-45, stutter appears.

When I played on 60Hz, I had frequent drops to 50-55 and the stutter was unbearable.

This is on Gitabyte GTX670 OC, latest betas.
Click to expand...

Turn off the v-sync! i have it off on mine.running on my 5870 smooth as butter:)

Seems to be some confusion over my comment.maybe i should also note that my monitor runs at 120hz and it works good:confused:
 
Last edited:
Thank you for the early preview. Were patch 1 and 2 installed on your review?

I took a quick look at multiplayer and it seems to be averaging about 35 FPS on a single 6970 at 5200x1050 on medium settings. It's staying above 30 FPS but it feels sluggish.
I think it looks a lot better with textures on high so I'm in the process of figuring out which options to lower that will have the least visual impact.
 
MavericK96 said:
Yeah, I had to lower my overclock as well. I was only running +90 core and +200 memory on my GTX 680, but I would get regular crashes where the game would just go black and the minimize, having to be forced closed. Sadly, I had to eliminate the overclock to fix it. I haven't tried a medium overclock like +50 yet, but it still runs alright as-is.

I also get a lot of weird stutter with the game regardless, though. It's playable but noticeable. Not sure what is causing it as I have tried lowering settings and tweaking VSync values, max rendered frames, etc. Still occurs.
Click to expand...

Yup same here as well. Completely destroyed my OC on my 680.

I got it running well @ about 50 core and 100 memory.

I am thinking about picking up another 680. Not just for this game but to somewhat future proof my system.
 
J Macker said:
to be honest, I'm quite disappointed that you didn't even include a single screenshot as a teaser.

looking at performance charts is interesting, but your words praising the graphics only go so far.

One teasing screenshot would have been a nice touch, imo.
Click to expand...


Ph.D said:
I hope there will be a wide range of cards tested. Not just the top of the line stuff. I have a 6970 crossfire for example.
Click to expand...

This is just a preview, all these things are coming guys. ;)
 
KrylonArt said:
Kyle, were the GTX 680s 2gb versions or 4gb versions? Just trying to get an idea of what type of gaming performance I can expect when I swap to dual 4gb GTX 680s and a 2560 x 1440 monitor.
Click to expand...

2GB GTX 680's

Nuby1Canuby said:
Thank you for the early preview. Were patch 1 and 2 installed on your review?

I took a quick look at multiplayer and it seems to be averaging about 35 FPS on a single 6970 at 5200x1050 on medium settings. It's staying above 30 FPS but it feels sluggish.
I think it looks a lot better with textures on high so I'm in the process of figuring out which options to lower that will have the least visual impact.
Click to expand...

Latest patches were installed automatically by steam, v1.02
 
Simplex said:
Personally I think the textures are nothing to write home about, especially compared to fantastically detailed textures in Max Payne 3 - the game was almost 30GB and it showed. Far Cry is 10GB and it shows too.

Here's a good example of a really poor texture quality in FC3:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/6owxef2quoqk7cm/BHlDfV3CYd#f:farcry3_d3d11_2012_12_01_01_27_17_790.png
Click to expand...

I have to agree with this as well. I am not overly impressed with the graphics. I have seen many people refer to this as Skyrim with guns and in the jungle. Skyrim looked better than what I have seen so far and ran a lot smoother. I have only just started the game so that opinion may change a bit. I do like the characters faces and expressions. They feel like they are actually looking at me when they are speaking.
 
People think low fps = actually better graphics but as we saw with crysis 2 it probably just means bad optimization/ lazy developers. The game does look pretty nice still though as did crysis 2 for the most part. And for how the game plays and feels i'd be hard pressed to say that the developers didn't put a lot of thought into that.
 
cocheese256 said:
I have to agree with this as well. I am not overly impressed with the graphics. I have seen many people refer to this as Skyrim with guns and in the jungle. Skyrim looked better than what I have seen so far and ran a lot smoother. I have only just started the game so that opinion may change a bit. I do like the characters faces and expressions. They feel like they are actually looking at me when they are speaking.
Click to expand...

Yeah but Skyrim (by default) has crappy draw distance (tree and foliage) and shadows.. too. It was plague with problems at launch too (Framerate wise)
 
B!nd. said:
Yup same here as well. Completely destroyed my OC on my 680.

I got it running well @ about 50 core and 100 memory.

I am thinking about picking up another 680. Not just for this game but to somewhat future proof my system.
Click to expand...

I'll try those settings, thanks.

I'll get another 680 when I absolutely have to. :cool:
 
Geforcepat said:
Turn off the v-sync! i have it off on mine.running on my 5870 smooth as butter:)
Click to expand...

Won't that cause screen tear? I hate tearing as much as I hate stuttering.


cocheese256 said:
I have to agree with this as well. I am not overly impressed with the graphics.
Click to expand...
Mee neither. I am really surprised why is [H] so amazed with the fact that the game is putting a strain on graphics card - yeah, it does but how the game looks does not warrant such a strain, IMO.

On max settings I have less FPS in Far Cry 3 than in Battlefield 3 and personally I do not think that FC3 has better graphics than BF3.

In my opinion this simply is a badly optimized game, nothing more. So I think should actually be criticised for unwarranted requirements, not praised.

4 year old FC2 still looks great and has way lower hardware requirements.

I do like the characters faces and expressions. They feel like they are actually looking at me when they are speaking.
Click to expand...
Yeah, faces are amazing, especially in the cutscenes, for example:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/n0kblbzf3a7n21g/farcry3_d3d11_2012_11_29_08_32_23_032.png

https://www.dropbox.com/s/rhj0ylfhn0sn0lr/farcry3_d3d11_2012_12_01_00_35_53_340.png
 
Forceman said:
Well, if they used HDAO for the Nvidia cards too, that's why. HDAO is an AMD setting.
Click to expand...

HDAO is the higher, and better quality setting for AO in Far Cry 3

http://far-cry.ubi.com/fc-portal/en-gb/community/detail_news.aspx?c=tcm:21-73246&ct=tcm:6-231-32

DIRECTCOMPUTE ACCELERATED HIGH DEFINITION AMBIENT OCCLUSION
Far Cry 3 implements a new and improved version of HDAO that uses full 3D camera space position data to detect valleys in the scene that should be shaded darker, and attenuates the lighting based on valley angle. In Far Cry 3 this technique has been significantly improved in both performance and quality relative to previous implementations.
Click to expand...
 
Brent, I think you've just been ninja'd with the link to ubisoft Far Cry 3 PC page :)

Brent_Justice said:
HDAO is the higher, and better quality setting for AO in Far Cry 3

http://far-cry.ubi.com/fc-portal/en-gb/community/detail_news.aspx?c=tcm:21-73246&ct=tcm:6-231-32
Click to expand...

I have the same impression - on SSAO and HBAO there are often strange black "halos" around characters, which kills the immersion for me. I tried enabling HDAO on GTX670 and it looked better, but the performance hit was immediately noticeable.

Did anyone notice strange "morphing" of objects, especially when you turn around and move away? This is perfectly visible in the house of the stoner doctor - try moving between the rooms downstairs looking at the round rugs on the floor. Something really weird is happening to them when you move away - at least for me, I wonder if this is reproducible on other rigs.
 
I went home at lunch and loaded up the game. I am on the hilltop where the doctor lives in the white house if that tells anyone about the graphics detail and open views that location dictates. I have two GTX 580 cards running on three 24" monitors at 5760x1200. The new beta Nvidia driver did not make any noticeable changes. So I started with all settings at low or off. The stuttering stopped. I started to creep each setting up one notch to see where the issue would become apparent again. I did not have much time so I have some more checking to do. I first noticed it when I went over 2x anti aliasing. So I backed it back down to 2. With it at 2x and everything on low or off the game ran smooth. So I then moved Alpha Coverage to enhanced. I had big time stuttering. Moved it down a setting and the stuttering was not as bad. I turned it back off and the stuttering was gone. I will play with it some more tonight. I just thought there might be some information here that may help someone.
 
Simplex said:
Did anyone notice strange "morphing" of objects, especially when you turn around and move away? This is perfectly visible in the house of the stoner doctor - try moving between the rooms downstairs looking at the round rugs on the floor. Something really weird is happening to them when you move away - at least for me, I wonder if this is reproducible on other rigs.
Click to expand...

Yeah, it's like there are weird black artifacts on stuff and then they disappear. Usually happens to me when you turn too fast after an area has just loaded. Some sort of rendering lag I'm guessing.
 
Ryoohki360 said:
Yeah but Skyrim (by default) has crappy draw distance (tree and foliage) and shadows.. too. It was plague with problems at launch too (Framerate wise)
Click to expand...

I think the draw distance (by default) in Skyrim was handled just as good as it is handled here. I had no problem with running the game with tweaks to get the draw distance pushed up quite a bit. Here in Farcry 3 I see noticeable changes in objects as I get closer. It is not bad but it is also nothing out of the ordinary either. I am sorry that I used Skyrim as an example. I do not want to turn this into a comparison thread. I just don't feel like the graphics look like they are all that demanding compared to some other open world games I have recently played.

In retrospect, this may be a good thing. Game performance may be increased by a game patch or future graphics drivers.
 
Yeah, also shadows are eating a lot of juice too.

I mean Leaves cast shadows on plants that are semi transparent and show the shadows thru them it's pretty cool.

BF is different, the MP look ok, the SP look quite nice and stylized but again Open Forest vs Corridor City, IMHO city are way easier to render than nature, because of the 'Block' nature of buildings. It's pretty much a fact that Sandbox games taxes systems way more than corridor games..
 
Simplex said:
I forgot to mention, this game stutters HORRIBLY whenever the fps drops below refresh rate (this is with vsync and triple buffering enabled). I am playing on 1080p50Hz and whenever I have a drop to 40-45, stutter appears.

When I played on 60Hz, I had frequent drops to 50-55 and the stutter was unbearable.

This is on Gitabyte GTX670 OC, latest betas.
Click to expand...

THIS

I have to run 1920x1200 no AA with a 680 to keep the FPS above 60 and avoid the stuttering with vsync enabled. Prerender frames setting doesn't help. Also using D3Doverrider to avoid any 30fps frame lock and its all smooth as butter.

Geforcepat said:
Turn off the v-sync! i have it off on mine.running on my 5870 smooth as butter
Click to expand...

Not an option due to screen tearing.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top