Far Cry 3 Video Card Performance Preview @ [H]

Ryoohki360 said:
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..
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This.

Even tho the BF3 MP more sandbox than the SP, the sheer volume that needs to be rendered in Far Cry 3 is pretty phenomenal.

The visuals are great. The textures are not OMG realistic but the mechanics (gun movement/action, swimming, facial animations), real world applications (shadows, lighting, environmental architecture) are definitely above par with AAA titles today. I really haven't noticed much in the physx deparment but I am sure there are subtle additions.

Just my thoughts. I do feel at times that colors looks a little flat and somewhat cell shaded but overall the realism and immersion was attained pretty well.
 
Ryoohki360 said:
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..
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Apart from huge maps in MP, with large draw distance, there are also open SP missions, like this one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=6OmzmhQH8HY#t=401s

mr_zen256 said:
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.
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Did you check what happens if you do not use D3DOverrider, but force triple buffering in nVidia control panel? I play like this and I never have huge drops from 60->30 or 50->25.

My personal experience suggests that for nVidia card, enabling triple buffering in control panel actually works for DirectX games, not just OpenGL like in ATI card.

[vsync off] Not an option due to screen tearing.
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QFT
 
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Simplex said:
Did you check what happens if you do not use D3DOverrider, but force triple buffering in nVidia control panel? I play like this and I never have huge drops from 60->30 or 50->25.
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Yeah, I did try using the nVidia vsync and triple buffering options but they don't seem to work with FC3. Maybe in a future driver release?

The stuttering also occurs when not using D3Doverrider too. It is even more noticeable since you're locked to 30fps when dropping below 60fps too.

So far the best compromise for me is to run the game at 1920x1200 no AA - HBAO - All settings Ultra. The aliasing isn't too terrible running this res. Definitely worth the trade off for a smooth framerate.
 
Yes! Really looking forward to this. You guys are the only ones that do performance reviews right.

BTW, if you have time can you give a subjective performance comparison of DX9 vs DX11? I've noticed stutter increase in DX11 and while the new drivers helped (AMD), it's still there. Interested in seeing if you experience the same especially because you guys will call that stuff out even when it doesn't come across in the FPS.
 
adrift02 said:
Yes! Really looking forward to this. You guys are the only ones that do performance reviews right.

BTW, if you have time can you give a subjective performance comparison of DX9 vs DX11? I've noticed stutter increase in DX11 and while the new drivers helped (AMD), it's still there. Interested in seeing if you experience the same especially because you guys will call that stuff out even when it doesn't come across in the FPS.
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Strongly would depend on what features are tied to the DX11 codepath after all the DX11 codepath has less overhead but is also more feature rich so any performance gained is filled and overfilled with more eye candy, would said stutter be as prevalent if the scene was identical and the only change is the use of dx9 vs dx11.
 
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.
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What are you smoking? Skyrim has it's moments, but over-all it is an ugly game. The texture work in Far Cry 3 is MUCH better. If you mod the shit out of Skyrim it looks better, but that isn't exactly a fair comparison. FC3's world design is beautiful. It looks a hell of a lot better than most of Skyrim. As for smoothness, I haven't had any problems with FC3 so far even with the frame rate jumping around wildly (I need to install the new drivers still).
 
The Nvidia driver has helped with the smoothness on a single monitor. I am no longer playing this in NV surround. I can put everything at Ultra with 4x anti aliasing.

As for what I am smoking.....I would rather not say.
 
on my 7950 i had to turn my oc from 950 back to its stock 900 to get it so it would go past the first cutscene
 
DASHlT said:
they dont even use the 12.11 Cap2 with FC3, which is suppose to increase performance.

Kind of a fail review.
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yes they do...

"AMD Catalyst 12.11 (Beta 11 CAP 2)"

lower right hand side of the first page
 
MavericK96 said:
I'll try those settings, thanks.

I'll get another 680 when I absolutely have to. :cool:
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I just noticed something last night. Although the game didnt crash with that OC I did have a weird horizontal bar of what looks like a shadow on the lower half for my screen. Returning to normal clocks fixed this obviously.

I'm really leaning towards buying another 680 after the holidays.

My only concern is a CPU bottleneck for big multi player maps like BF3.
 
That "bar" of shadow across bottom quarter of the screen..like a dark tinting or shadow?? I get it when I use HDAO. Only issue I'm having, other than that running smooth as silk at 60fps @ 1440p on SLI 680 everything ultra except shadows very high and 2x msaa

New drivers fixed all the micro stuttering and quite happy with performance now.

Anyone else getting wierd bar across bottom of screen with HDAO?
 
Holy crap! Awesome review! So many questions I had were answered, can't wait for the full one (need GTX 670 comparisons to finalize a build I'm thinking about).

BTW, Any word on when the next generation of GPUs are coming out from either camp?

Great job!
 
MavericK96 said:
Yep, same issue here. Latest drivers.

I also notice increased Z-fighting and other graphical anomalies using HDAO.
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Mav, that was what I was talking about above. It went away when I went back to stock clocks on my 680.
 
nice to see an evaluation on this game. I'm considering asking for it for Christmas (and then getting the 2nd 680 for SLI in mid-January). Also, I didn't see this answered either reg: the 2gb 680 cards vs. 4gb 680 cards. As someone who is seriously considering the 4gb 680s from eVGA in January, I would like to see this tested if at all possible.
 
Anyone tried this with 7970 xfire with Radeon Pro to smooth the stuttering out ?

i'd try it in an instant but can't game for the next couple of weeks. I'm hoping it runs well on my rig 2x7970s (lightnings) @ 1400/1850 and core i7 2700k @ 5.4ghz. If it doesn't it will truly be one intensive game lol.
 
Orthello said:
Anyone tried this with 7970 xfire with Radeon Pro to smooth the stuttering out ?

i'd try it in an instant but can't game for the next couple of weeks. I'm hoping it runs well on my rig 2x7970s (lightnings) @ 1400/1850 and core i7 2700k @ 5.4ghz. If it doesn't it will truly be one intensive game lol.
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On my EyeFinity system (7970 Crossfire 1125/1400) at 5760 x 1200 this game chugs like crazy. The Afterburner FPS says 65 but the game is clunky to say the least. I have all settings on "ultra" and no AA, SSAO.
Plus the minimap is huge and displaced to the top left on the center screen.
Essentially at these settings and due to some odd HUD problems, the game is unplayable in EyeFinity.
I'm going to try and turn down the graphics demand and see what happens, but I think I'm going to have to play this one on a single screen at 1920 x 1200.

The HUD and maps problem really sucks. I hope it doesn't do that on a single screen.

I'm not the only one, there's a whole thread over at WSGF about it.

Gaming evolved........backwards.:eek:
 
just got the game and so far im playing on ultra and 4x msaa with vsync on and it is playable... will post a benchmark later
 
These numbers don't mean much without the resolution you play at.

I play on Gigabyte 670 and i5-750 @ 3.6GHz (so a comparable GPU to yours, but a slower cpu).
My aim Is to have a constant 50fps to prevent stutter (I am playing on 1920x1080@50Hz).

In order to achieve that I need to disable MSAA completely, resign from HDAO, dial down shadows from ultra to very high, dial down PostFX to medium - and I still get occasional dips below 50.
And there is place in the first town on the new island, where I have a constant 40fps even if I stand motionlessly in one place - when I pan camera in that place the stutter is eye popping (in a bad way).
Many terrain and objects textures are abysmal on closer inspection - maybe not Rage or Dishonored level, but close. Also, the LOD transitions are sometimes really immersion breaking.

Proof that I am not just running my mouth here: http://imgur.com/a/ByY67#0
 
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Simplex said:
These numbers don't mean much without the resolution you play at.

I play on Gigabyte 670 and i5-750 @ 3.6GHz (so a comparable GPU to yours, but a slower cpu).
My aim Is to have a constant 50fps to prevent stutter (I am playing on 1920x1080@50Hz).

In order to achieve that I need to disable MSAA completely, resign from HDAO, dial down shadows from ultra to very high, dial down PostFX to medium - and I still get occasional dips below 50.
And there is place in the first town on the new island, where I have a constant 40fps even if I stand motionlessly in one place - when I pan camera in that place the stutter is eye popping (in a bad way).
Many terrain and objects textures are abysmal on closer inspection - maybe not Rage or Dishonored level, but close. Also, the LOD transitions are sometimes really immersion breaking.

Proof that I am not just running my mouth here: http://imgur.com/a/ByY67#0
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mhmm did another run... now i average 33 fps... lol i think i probably forgot to apply the settings when i did that first bench... that ones with ssao, i think... lol forgive me
 
Yeah, that makes MUCH more sense, I was just about to question your results :)

FC3 is resource-hog but the graphic is not THAT good to justfy it.

I mean it is good, but the optimization is horrible. I am surprised this was not mentioned in the review, ubi should be criticised for this, not praised.
 
very true. although it does look gorgeous if you have the AA cranked up with hdao too bad you need sli/crossfire for that though... certainly does not warrant a 700-1000 dollar investment
 
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.
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Turn on adaptive vsync in the drivers....that what it is for.
 
Simplex said:
Yeah, that makes MUCH more sense, I was just about to question your results :)

FC3 is resource-hog but the graphic is not THAT good to justfy it.

I mean it is good, but the optimization is horrible. I am surprised this was not mentioned in the review, ubi should be criticised for this, not praised.
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I'm not disagreeing but "optimized" is such a bullshit term. There is absolutely no way to accurately quantify how optimized something is or isn't. Unless you're a developer and know the ins and outs of the game and the engine it's stupid to claim we know what can and can't be done or even how the game utilizes resources.

Also, it was a PREview, not a review. As in they haven't played the entire game or had the time to study it and make a final conclusion on how it runs.
 
This game has quite a few problems, for one the SSAO implementation is overdone, looks terrible at times. The HUD is annoying and can't be turned off. It also seems to have severe optimization issues, try turning PostFX to medium for example with everything else cranked up. You'll get like 30-40% more frames with very little visual difference.

Max Payne 3 was a better PC conversion.

It's one of the better looking games on PC when all is said and done, though doesn't look better than Crysis 1 and 2 and IMO runs worse. don't think the fact that it's open-world is an excuse, Crysis levels were huge and comparable in terms of draw distance, so it shouldn't matter.

I am enjoying it but it's clear Ubi half-assed the DX11 implementation.
 
Derangel said:
I'm not disagreeing but "optimized" is such a bullshit term. There is absolutely no way to accurately quantify how optimized something is or isn't. Unless you're a developer and know the ins and outs of the game and the engine it's stupid to claim we know what can and can't be done or even how the game utilizes resources.

Also, it was a PREview, not a review. As in they haven't played the entire game or had the time to study it and make a final conclusion on how it runs.
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you know a game is unoptimized when, graphically, it does not look all that good but runs terribly on high end hardware.

your argument does hold credibility, because we truly dont know the inner workings of developing a video game.

but i think that far cry 3 could have been made to run better on this gens hardware.

a good example would be toning down the SSAO effects to give it a more practical effect (shadow halo's in npcs? really?)

another thing would be to give us more AA options such as FXAA and MLAA
and maybe some post effects options like motion blur

in all i think as of now the game is okay... but graphically i am not terribly impressed by its offerings

specifically because i know crysis with a couple mods could easily trump the image quality of far cry 3

maybe later on when drivers mature well see better performance

in all honesty though i think the devs could have done more to further "optimize" this console port to the pc
 
I noticed that disabling in game antialias and enabling aa from nvidia drivers gives you 20fps more at least.
There should be some problem with in game aa.

Disable in game aa and use the one offered by drivers.

In this way with ultra settings at 1920x1200 with AA 4x I easily get an average of 80fps-70fps with the config in signature.
 
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dinlee23 said:
a good example would be toning down the SSAO effects to give it a more practical effect (shadow halo's in npcs? really?)

but graphically i am not terribly impressed by its offerings
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You want the graphics options toned down, and lessened, but you are not happy with the graphics visually and think they should be better, paradox much?
 
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