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FarCry SM3.0 patch benchmarked

T

tranCendenZ

2[H]4U
Joined
Jun 6, 2004
Messages
3,844
Some initial results, up to 30% performance gains on 6800 cards over SM2.0

http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=31104

The IQ problems from 1.1 are fixed as well.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.html?i=2102&p=1

FAR CRY SM3.0 6800 VS X800 BENCHMARKS (anandtech)

fc1.png


fc2.png


fc3.png


fc4.png


fc5.png


fc6.png


fc7.png


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fc9.png


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Specific SM2.0 -> SM3.0 shader speed increases (Shadermark 2.1)

sm30chart.gif


Looks like SM3.0 gives huge boosts (50%) in HDR rendering

Also more SM3.0:
http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20040705/index.html

(snippet)
"NVIDIA and Crytek have shown that SM 3.0 can indeed lead to performance improvements over an SM 2.0 implementation. This conclusion flies in the face of what ATi has been preaching for the last few months. In many of our FarCry tests, the NVIDIA cards can now pull ahead of their rivals from ATi. The GeForce 6800 GT makes an especially convincing appearance here, especially considering that, at $399, it costs just as much as its direct competitor the X800 Pro."
 
I thought I would get the 1st reply, since this thread might get real big, and I will feel important.
 
Yea i just saw that thread a minute ago on nV News.

And all i've got to say is...............HOLY CRAP!!!! :D
 
those screenshots do not look any better than what I see with my X800 Pro...... I wanna see what these beta drivers break to make the performance increase.
 
MrHappyGoLucky said:
those screenshots do not look any better than what I see with my X800 Pro......
Click to expand...

Heh I think the VDM/HDR thing is still under NDA, as no one is answering questions about it or posting screenies of it. I'll post screenies of it once they are avail/nda lifted.
 
tranCendenZ said:
Heh I think the VDM/HDR thing is still under NDA, as no one is answering questions about it or posting screenies of it.
Click to expand...

We will see. Something tells me everyone is getting all hyped to see a patch that introduces SM3.0/VDM/HDR in a tiny portion of the entire game.

First things first... lets see M$ release Windows XP SP2
 
What's New in 1.2?
We have, unfortunately, not had the chance or pleasure of speaking with CryTek on the subject, but NVIDIA has given us a heads up on what the new patch includes in the way of SM3.0 support and the features of the SM3.0 rendering path. From what we can gather, there are two performance enhancing developments in the CryEngine made possible by SM3.0 in the new patch.

As for VS3.0, instancing is implemented when rendering grass. Instancing helps to reduce CPU and bus overhead by allowing the engine to send one model to the vertex shader where multiple "instances" of the object are manipulated and moved about the scene as necessary. With all the grass in FarCry, it's easy to see how this could be beneficial.

Under PS3.0, CryTek has apparently implemented single-pass per-pixel lighting. With this per-pixel lighting model, a pixel shader is run that takes into account and processes all light sources in the level that affect a particular pixel in one pass. The PS2.0 implementation apparently uses multiple rendering passes (one for each light) for each affected pixel. This means that in heavily lighted scenes, one (more intense) lighting pass can run, which eliminates the time it takes to setup and execute another pass, even if both implementations have the same result. It is unclear to us exactly why this is possible in PS3.0 and not in PS2.0 (we have even seen examples of technology like this running on PS2.0 hardware). We would really love the chance to go more in-depth with Crytek about their lighting algorithms.

At this point, this is all we know about the new SM3.0 rendering path in FarCry. So, theoretically, running around with your flashlight on in an outdoor (very grassy) night scene with lots of lights everywhere would offer the best performance boost that NVIDIA could see from the new rendering path. There are scenes like this in the game. We actually test a night scene with grass (the regulator level), though it doesn't have an abundance of light sources (or a flashlight).

If these are the only differences between the SM2.0 and SM3.0 paths, then all we heard about were the performance enhancing features. We do appreciate NVIDIA providing us with the patch and information before it went live on Ubisoft's website, but we would still rather have had some of this information directly from the source. Obviously, we want to present a fair and unbiased account of what's actually happening, and we should be fine as long as we take proper precautions and consider as many angles as possible.
 
MrHappyGoLucky said:
those screenshots do not look any better than what I see with my X800 Pro...... I wanna see what these beta drivers break to make the performance increase.
Click to expand...

Screenshots are never able to look or reflect the actual in-game visuals perfectly. Its just a little taste.

And the screenshots were just to illustrate that the floor bug was fixed.

Were all glad that your X800Pro looks just as good though lol.

Its just too bad it gets zero support from SM 3.0.
 
tranCendenZ said:
What's New in 1.2?
We have, unfortunately, not had the chance or pleasure of speaking with CryTek on the subject, but NVIDIA has given us a heads up on what the new patch includes in the way of SM3.0 support and the features of the SM3.0 rendering path. From what we can gather, there are two performance enhancing developments in the CryEngine made possible by SM3.0 in the new patch.

As for VS3.0, instancing is implemented when rendering grass. Instancing helps to reduce CPU and bus overhead by allowing the engine to send one model to the vertex shader where multiple "instances" of the object are manipulated and moved about the scene as necessary. With all the grass in FarCry, it's easy to see how this could be beneficial.

Under PS3.0, CryTek has apparently implemented single-pass per-pixel lighting. With this per-pixel lighting model, a pixel shader is run that takes into account and processes all light sources in the level that affect a particular pixel in one pass. The PS2.0 implementation apparently uses multiple rendering passes (one for each light) for each affected pixel. This means that in heavily lighted scenes, one (more intense) lighting pass can run, which eliminates the time it takes to setup and execute another pass, even if both implementations have the same result. It is unclear to us exactly why this is possible in PS3.0 and not in PS2.0 (we have even seen examples of technology like this running on PS2.0 hardware). We would really love the chance to go more in-depth with Crytek about their lighting algorithms.

At this point, this is all we know about the new SM3.0 rendering path in FarCry. So, theoretically, running around with your flashlight on in an outdoor (very grassy) night scene with lots of lights everywhere would offer the best performance boost that NVIDIA could see from the new rendering path. There are scenes like this in the game. We actually test a night scene with grass (the regulator level), though it doesn't have an abundance of light sources (or a flashlight).

If these are the only differences between the SM2.0 and SM3.0 paths, then all we heard about were the performance enhancing features. We do appreciate NVIDIA providing us with the patch and information before it went live on Ubisoft's website, but we would still rather have had some of this information directly from the source. Obviously, we want to present a fair and unbiased account of what's actually happening, and we should be fine as long as we take proper precautions and consider as many angles as possible.
Click to expand...
Where is this from?

Scott
 
This is exciting. Hopefully BB will send a shipping email for my 6800 tomorrow, so once these patches and drivers come out, I will get to see exactly what 3.0 does.
 
See first post :)

4 out of 6 benchmarks the $399 6800GT beats the $499 X800XT at 1600x1200 4xAA 8xAF. 6800U and UE dominate the whole chart. :eek: :eek: :D
 
burningrave101 said:
Screenshots are never able to look or reflect the actual in-game visuals. Its just a reflection of it. A little taste.
Click to expand...

Keep telling yourself that. See your second quote and try and keep it straight.

burningrave101 said:
And the screenshots were just to illustrate that the floor bug was fixed.
Click to expand...

What we will be more interesting is finding out if the new driver fixes the "bug" or the patch.

burningrave101 said:
Its just too bad it gets zero support from SM 3.0.
Click to expand...

That does not bother me one bit since so far it is a non factor as far as IQ
 
MrHappyGoLucky said:
Keep telling yourself that. See your second quote and try and keep it straight.



What we will be more interesting is finding out if the new driver fixes the "bug" or the patch.
Click to expand...

I'm keeping it straight just fine. I said a screenshot can never replace how it truly looks in-game and most likely its the 1.2 patch that fixed the floor bug, not the drivers. But who knows.

That does not bother me one bit since so far it is a non factor as far as IQ
Click to expand...

Yes, keep reassuring yourself that you dont need SM 3.0 and SM 3.0 will continue to show up in more and more games this year giving the 6800's more and more performance boosts over the X800's.
 
tranCendenZ said:
Some initial results, up to 30% performance gains on 6800 cards over SM2.0

http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=31104

The IQ problems from 1.1 are fixed as well.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.html?i=2102&p=1

FAR CRY SM3.0 6800 VS X800 BENCHMARKS
Click to expand...

First, is the 6800 Ultra EE vapor ware? I can't seem to find that card on Nvidia's website. Here is a copy/paste off the Nvidia website outlining their 6800 product line.

Available models: GeForce 6800 Ultra, GeForce 6800 GT, and GeForce 6800

Second, how much validity is there running benchmarks on beta drivers, beta patch, and beta DX9.0c against ATI drivers almost two months old?
 
..and just where does one get one of these Ultra Extreme 6800's from? :)
 
burningrave101 said:
Yes, keep reassuring yourself that you dont need SM 3.0 and SM 3.0 will continue to show up in more and more games this year giving the 6800's more and more performance boosts over the X800's.
Click to expand...

You are a marketing departments dream catch! ;)
 
notice something when comparing the 2 pictures? look behind the phone on the desk.

showimage.html


showimage.html



optimizations ;)
 
WHAT IS UP WITH THIS?!?!?

NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra Extreme
NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra
NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT
NVIDIA GeForce 6800
ATI Radeon X800 XT Platinum Edition
ATI Radeon X800 XT
ATI Radeon X800 Pro

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.html?i=2102&p=4

What the crap. I thought ATI wasn't going to release a vanilla X800XT and yet here it is in the review??? And there is a 6800u extreme!! The actual card that the X800XT PE is MEANT to compare to!
 
MrHappyGoLucky said:
You should label your cards on the graph so we know it's an overclocked 6800 Ultra.
Click to expand...

Heh, they are Anandtech's graphs. And FYI, the 6800GT, 6800U, and 6800UE are all pretty much the same thing just with increasing clockspeeds (higher yield cores and faster memory). This is why the 6800GT is such a great deal at $399.

All 16x1 pipeline, 256mb GDDR3 RAM:
6800GT: 350/1000 ($399)
6800U: 400/1100 ($499)
6800UE: 450/1200 ($549)

Only the 6800 Standard ($299) has a significantly different setup (12x1 pipeline, 128mb ddr1 ram - 325/700)
 
MrHappyGoLucky said:
Riding the front page of [H]... :rolleyes: copied right off it today
Click to expand...

Its just too bad none of the other hardware sites think its relevant to test in-game and add all the extra variables that come with it lol.

BTW, i just got done doing some testing with FRAPS and FRAPS wasn't able to detect the same frame rates i was getting with the in-game counter in Morrowind. The only time FRAPS and the built-in FPS counter were exactly the same was when i stopped moving.

If you want to ride the front page of [H] your welcome to, i just wouldn't post any benchmarks if i were you because i would hate to have to show you up with my 6800GT when it gets here :p.
 
I like these nuggets from Anand's bias article.

"Also, when we were informed that this patch was coming down the pipe, NVIDIA sent along a couple demos to test the performance difference with the new SM3.0 path enabled."

"Remember, this is an NVIDIA provided demo and highlights the performance benefits of the new rendering path."

Makes you wonder what will happen when tests are ran with available drivers and not a cherry picked demo created by the manufacture. Again, I don't see any IQ improvements with this patch, only speed increases. Then again, it could be those "beta" drivers?
 
MrHappyGoLucky said:
Second, how much validity is there running benchmarks on beta drivers, beta patch, and beta DX9.0c against ATI drivers almost two months old?
Click to expand...

Aaah shit you're right, lets just handicap the 6800 on immature whql drivers that dont take advantage or arent optimised for the 6800's architecture. Holy crap....the X800 is now beating the 6800 at Farcry, i am totally and utterly surprised, ah well I guess I better buy the X800 now :rolleyes:
 
Wow do you see in the last few benchmarks the 6800GT is nearly twice as fast as the X800PRO... for the same price. Awesome.
 
MrHappyGoLucky said:
I like these nuggets from Anand's bias article.
Click to expand...

Yea its almost as bad as HardOCP trying to show an X800XT able to beat a 6800u at 1600x1200 while the 6800u is only running 1280x1024 lmao.

If you were smart enough to stop and look at the performance difference between 1280x1024 comapared to 1600x1200 you would know that its pretty much IMPOSSIBLE.
 
MrHappyGoLucky said:
Makes you wonder what will happen when tests are ran with available drivers and not a cherry picked demo created by the manufacture. Again, I don't see any IQ improvements with this patch, only speed increases. Then again, it could be those "beta" drivers?
Click to expand...

Do you like to fish? ;) Also, the first two benchmarks, which Nvidia still won by a significant margin (especially the $399 6800GT, which really takes it to the $399 x800pro), were Anand's custom timedemos he had used before, though he stated they did not stress the parts where SM3.0 would really shine.
 
defiant said:
Aaah shit you're right, lets just handicap the 6800 on immature whql drivers that dont take advantage or arent optimised for the 6800's architecture. Holy crap....the X800 is now beating the 6800 at Farcry, i am totally and utterly surprised, ah well I guess I better buy the X800 now :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

Yeah, Nvidia only has had the better part of two months to come up with WHQL'd drivers. Somehow ATI pulls this off month after month so don't pull that BS.

I don't mind if the 6800 actually beats the X800 cards just as long as the drivers used are not breaking more than it's fixing and can be downloaded off their website. The best part of this is if the 6800 series actually lives up to 1/2 of the marketing hype I have no problem sticking my X800 in the good ole HTPC and getting an Ultra. :D
 
MrHappyGoLucky said:
I don't mind if the 6800 actually beats the X800 cards just as long as the drivers used are not breaking more than it's fixing and can be downloaded off their website. The best part of this is if the 6800 series actually lives up to 1/2 of the marketing hype I have no problem sticking my X800 in the good ole HTPC and getting an Ultra. :D
Click to expand...

Just get a GT and overclock it to Ultra speeds (or don't, look how fast it is in the benchmarks at stock speeds)
 
MrHappyGoLucky said:
Yeah, Nvidia only has had the better part of two months to come up with WHQL'd drivers. Somehow ATI pulls this off month after month so don't pull that BS.
Click to expand...

Gee what are the odds of that, ATI dealing with a refresh of an architecture that they already have mature and stable drivers for whilst nvidia is dealing with a totally new architecture that is light years ahead of the NV30. Who would have thought that ATI would be able to pump out whql drivers before nvidia......its a real mystery :confused:
 
MrHappyGoLucky said:
Makes you wonder what will happen when tests are ran with available drivers and not a cherry picked demo created by the manufacture.
Click to expand...



Yeah with WHQL'd drivers come out I feel NVs lead will drop pretty large..considering there is no way NV can do a god damn thing with out cheating,Optimizing or anything right?
dude get off your high horse and face it right now the new 6800 series cards are shaping up to be pretty damn decent, and if the trend those graphs show continue with patches, updated drivers beta or otherwise ATI is really gonna have to do soemthing with this 980...x800 series of cards...I dont know how much more their driver team can pull outta this card since they pretty much allready know what it is capable of doing when runnin gat full tilt. Right now it looks like NV has a slow start...and yes it was very slooowww ther ei sno question about it...but now they are really starting to speed up and this go around they may very well have the card to own...but then again that is my OPINION and you are too wound up in ATi to even see what is on the table for dinner man.
 
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