Why was Far Cry 1.2 really recalled?

[R1ckCa1n]

Interesting article from someone who knows more than most on this board. Interesting to say the least.

Link HERE

Thoughts anoyone?

Kyle - were you one of the websites ATI sent the new drivers to today?

 

[Lord of Shadows]

Hmm, wouldnt it make more sense to show geometry instancing with wireframe on? Im sure as heck am not going to analyze those shots to find non-axial triangles. And that doesnt really say anything about why the patch was pulled. Dont see why they didnt test the rumor of 16bit precision used "whenever possible".

 

[burningrave101]

Hmm, wouldnt it make more sense to show geometry instancing with wireframe on? Im sure as heck am not going to analyze those shots to find non-axial triangles. And that doesnt really say anything about why the patch was pulled. Dont see why they didnt test the rumor of 16bit precision used "whenever possible".

Is geometry instancing tied to geometry processing performance?

http://www.hexus.net/content/reviews/review.php?dXJsX3Jldmlld19JRD04MDQmdXJsX3BhZ2U9Nw==

In the D3D Rightmark benchmark, the 6800u leads in hidden surface removal, geometry processing, and shader fillrate for both pixel and vertex shader 2.0.

The one that the X800XT PE lead in was Pixel Shading PS 2.0, diffuse + 3 lights. Would that be like the 2.0b path?

 

[SnakEyez187]

of course they're not going to say, the same thing happened with Eidos and tomb raider AOS

 

[Lord of Shadows]

Im no expert on the subject of geometry instancing, but I can tell you its not tied to geometry processing. Geometry instancing if anything greatly reduces the geometry processing workload.

 

[theelviscerator]

I enabled the sm2b path on mine and it did nothing to help the missing textures/binoc/stationarygun/radar issues so I dont think it really has anything to do with speed.
It just hosed the game plain and simple for many including nvidia.

 

[burningrave101]

I enabled the sm2b path on mine and it did nothing to help the missing textures/binoc/stationarygun/radar issues so I dont think it really has anything to do with speed.
It just hosed the game plain and simple for many including nvidia.

Its funny how they didn't have a problem running the game on the X800's when most everyone else is, and its funny how Crytek would include 3Dc in the 1.2 patch when they said not until the 1.3 patch, and its funny why that 2.0b path would be there to start with.

Nvidia has claimed that ATI paid Crytek to delay the patch and include ATI features (the figure mentioned was $500k!).

And like CIWS has said before. When DOOM3 comes out, everyone is going to be saying, FAR WHAAAAA??....

 

[Spank]

Its funny how they didn't have a problem running the game on the X800's when most everyone else is

cat 4.8 beta

and its funny how Crytek would include 3Dc in the 1.2 patch when they said not until the 1.3 patch

i think that the only one talking about 3dc in 1.2 in this thread and in that post on driverheaven is you ?

and its funny why that 2.0b path would be there to start with.

just as funny as sm3.0 being in it

And like CIWS has said before. When DOOM3 comes out, everyone is going to be saying, FAR WHAAAAA??....

yupp, the farcry team can probably take a vacation now, i guess they need it

 

[tranCendenZ]

Someone needs to give driverheaven some cluepons, partial precision is here to stay, and will be in the next-gen cards too. If you are going to use SM3.0, you are going to need partial precision because it would simply be wasteful in terms of performance to use FP32 all the time if its not necessary.

Also Crytek stated themselves in an interview with Firingsquad that fp16 was used only to increase performance on shaders that did not need fp32, never decreasing quality. But, I expect no less from driverheaven

 

[burningrave101]

i think that the only one talking about 3dc in 1.2 in this thread and in that post on driverheaven is you ?

You obviously did not read the original article off xbit in Russia. It talked about having partial 3Dc support.

just as funny as sm3.0 being in it

That makes no sense. SM 3.0 was announced. The 2.0b path was not and you had to enable crap in the console. It wasn't on by default. So what was it doing there?

Firstly open the Farcry Console using the ` key.
For SM2.0b path type (without quotes) “\r_sm2bpath 1” and hit return.
For Instancing support type (again without quotes) “\r_GeomInstancing 1”
Of course if your enabling Instancing you’re going to want to bump up the vegetation detail, to do this you need to change your Farcry settings from (e_vegetation_sprites_distance_ratio,1.000000) to (e_vegetation_sprites_distance_ratio,100.0000). This change removes spite vegetation and replaces it with animated vegetation throughout the scene.

Crytek didn't say a WORD about all this junk in their interviews concerning the 1.2 and 1.3 patch. So why did they do it?

Sounds like Crytek just got a LARGE sum of money deposited into their swiss bank account via A....T....I....

 

[NEVERLIFT]

^gay

yep yep

 

[SnakEyez187]

Sounds like Crytek just got a LARGE sum of money deposited into their swiss bank account via A....T....I....

Why would Ati pay them to put in a feature which helps their cards, isn't turned on by default, and isn't talked about in any patchnotes, hilarious cheap shot

 

[Spank]

You obviously did not read the original article off xbit in Russia. It talked about having partial 3Dc support.

Uhh nobody have talked about that website in this thread before you did right now right back at you

That makes no sense. SM 3.0 was announced. The 2.0b path was not and you had to enable crap in the console. It wasn't on by default. So what was it doing there?

Crytek didn't say a WORD about all this junk in their interviews concerning the 1.2 and 1.3 patch. So why did they do it?

Sounds like Crytek just got a LARGE sum of money deposited into their swiss bank account via A....T....I....

it was mentioned in the support files that there was a 2.0b path.... I guess that nv stoped paying crytek when they found out that no matter how much money they paid they couldent get the 6800 card to run as good as they wanted, so ati started to fill cryteks pockets instead. But looking at how things have developed it seems that nv still have ubisoft on there payroll.

 

[ny555soul]

I posted a problem i had using 6800U,61.76 drivers,directx 9.0c,and 1.2 patch running in sm 3.0 beta.Everything ran as smooth as a babys @$$ until i got into the cafeteria on the control level.FPS drooped to slide show,and when i quit the game i had some error window up on my desktop.I still havent had any luck finding out if anyone else had this problem,and if it was related to the 1.2 patch,or directx 9.0c.

I enabled the sm2b path on mine and it did nothing to help the missing textures/binoc/stationarygun/radar issues so I dont think it really has anything to do with speed.
It just hosed the game plain and simple for many including nvidia.

 

[burningrave101]

Uhh nobody have talked about that website in this thread before you did right now right back at you

It was the FIRST and ONLY site that has actually posted performance results using the 2.0b path lol. DriverHeaven just talked about percentages they saw on one level.

They didn't know half the crap they were talking about in that DriverHeaven post ither. Check out Beyond3D if you want REAL info and to hear more about the use of 3Dc in the 1.2 patch.

 

[Spank]

It was the FIRST and ONLY site that has actually posted performance results using the 2.0b path lol. DriverHeaven just talked about percentages they saw on one level.

They didn't know half the crap they were talking about in that DriverHeaven post. Check out Beyond3D if you want REAL info and to hear more about 3Dc.

who gives a flying f what that russian site wrote about, this thread is about driverheaven. You brought in some crap talk about 3dc being in 1.2, not talked about anywhere on driverheaven witch this topic is about. And now you you brought in another site that also talks about 3dc witch this thread have nothing to do with.

 

[burningrave101]

who gives a flying f what that russian site wrote about, this thread is about driverheaven. You brought in some crap talk about 3dc being in 1.2, not talked about anywhere on driverheaven witch this topic is about. And now you you brought in another site that also talks about 3dc witch this thread have nothing to do with.

Well so far the only thing that we've concluded is that DriverHeaven has no idea what their talking about lmao.

You need to read the original Far Cry review off that Russian site. Its what started all this fiasco. Then you need to go to Beyond3D because its about the only forum full of people that actually know what they are talking about more then half of the time.

3Dc was talked about in the 1.2 patch. It wasn't fully implemented but was still mentioned being partially used.

There has been several threads posted here on HardOCP today about the original 1.2 patch review at the Russian site. I posted links in one of the threads to two different Beyond3D, 2 nV News, and 1 Rage3D thread that were discussing it all in-depth.

Although the Rage3D one was alot less in-depth and alot more BS lol.

 

[tranCendenZ]

Well so far the only thing that we've concluded is that DriverHeaven has no idea what their talking about lmao

Heh didn't really need this particular article to tell me that

 

[R1ckCa1n]

I think you all guys are down playing the fact that SM3.0 is going to end up a bust on the 6800, which was it's major marketing point. Once all of the facts are exposed, we will see. My thought is the card does not have enough horsepower to push full percision (32bit) SM3.0 code. It will all come out in time.

Kyle never answered if he was one of the review sites who received the beta drivers.

 

[CIWS]

If you want to ask Kyle a question your best bet is e-mail him. Especially if you're asking it in a thread he hasn't posted in.

 

[^eMpTy^]

Why would Ati pay them to put in a feature which helps their cards, isn't turned on by default, and isn't talked about in any patchnotes, hilarious cheap shot

Umm...because it ups performance and everyone magically knew about it the day after the patch came out even though it wasn't in the patch notes. At this point it's a good idea for ATi to do whatever they need to to get some positive buzz about thier cards. There's nothing wrong with giving money to a developer to help get your capabilities properly implemented, even though I doubt any money changed hands...

Yet another post from snakeyez with the word "cheap shot" and a rolls eyes smiley...do I see a pattern forming?

 

[@trapine]

Sounds like Crytek just got a LARGE sum of money deposited into their swiss bank account via A....T....I...

Thats a crock of shit burningave.And yet you are saying Carmack isnt taking $$$ with doom3 sing with me B<I<A<S<E<D! Over at Beyond3d there is a thread that states it was actually UbiSoft that pulled the patch because it was way too buggy

http://www.farcry.ubi.com/index.php


Far Cry patch 1.2 has shown unexpected behaviour on specific hardware configurations. These matters are mainly due to incompatibilities with several optimisations brought lately to the code, with the intent to please a large number of users.

We’re currently asking CRYTEK to work on delivering a new patch as soon as possible. Until then we have decided to remove the patch 1.2 from the official UbiSoft websites.

 

[burningrave101]

Thats a crock of shit burningave.And yet you are saying Carmack isnt taking $$$ with doom3 sing with me B<I<A<S<E<D! Over at Beyond3d there is a thread that states it was actually UbiSoft that pulled the patch because it was way too buggy

Why would Carmack need to take any money with DOOM3 from nVidia? They didn't have to do anything special to make it perform better on the nVidia cards. Just make its graphically intensive and build it around OpenGL lol.

And it doesn't matter WHO pulled it. It was pulled.

 

[@trapine]

Originally posted by Burningrave101

And it doesn't matter WHO pulled it. It was pulled

obviously it matters to you with baseless bullshit like this quote from you

Sounds like Crytek just got a LARGE sum of money deposited into their swiss bank account via A....T....I...

?Care to show us any proof you have about ATI taking money to pull the Patch?one from nvnews perhaps

 

[^eMpTy^]

obviously it matters to you with baseless bullshit like this quote from you?Care to show us any proof you have about ATI taking money to pull the Patch?one from nvnews perhaps

I have to agree...that comment from burningrave was uncalled for...I seriously doubt any money is actually changing hands here...and if there was...there sure as hell isn't any proof...

 

[burningrave101]

obviously it matters to you with baseless bullshit like this quote from you?Care to show us any proof you have about ATI taking money to pull the Patch?one from nvnews perhaps

I wasn't even talkin about pulling the patch there bud lol. I was referring to the delay it took Crytek to get the 1.2 patch out from the start. They took alot longer then they were suppost to.

And i wasn't trying to PROVE it. NOR do i HAVE to. Its a rumor and there are several good reasons to believe ATI was in on all this. I mean seriously, 3Dc and a new 2.0b path showing up already when it was made no mention off in any of the Crytek interviews?

And my accusation came right off of DriverHeaven aka ATIHeaven. nV News is alot more unbias then the rest of these sites like DriverHeaven and Rage3D. A websites name doesn't make it loyal and bias to that brand. You'd know that if you had ever been on the forums before lol. They dont put up with alot of fanboyism there and they WILL ban you.

Nvidia has claimed that ATI paid Crytek to delay the patch and include ATI features (the figure mentioned was $500k!).

 

[@trapine]

From what is being said over at Ubi forums.People who installed the 1.2 Patch werent able to load from there AutoSave anymore Pretty piss poor effort from Crytek on this one?

 

[R1ckCa1n]

Why would Carmack need to take any money with DOOM3 from nVidia? They didn't have to do anything special to make it perform better on the nVidia cards. Just make its graphically intensive and build it around OpenGL lol.

And JC just made the whole Nvidia optomized path in Doom3 for free? Don't think so. Come on.... you know Doom3 was written for Nvidia and the 6800 was designed around Doom3. There's nothing wrong with it either except the game has very little replay value and will lack real MP. By the time we all finish Doom3, HL2 will be out. This is going to be a great next few months.

My point is this, something very serious is happening behind the scenes that we don't know but quite a few websites are hinting to it.

So far what I have taken is:

1. Nvidia is not rendering in 32bit while in SM3.0 path?
2. Nvidia is only exploiting the SM3.0 features that don't require big horsepower (ie. things that can be done in SM2.0b)
3. ATI can do most the feature, if not all, in SM2.0b and gain performance
4. ATI always renders in 24bit versus Nvidias mix of 16bit and 32 bit
5. Why did the patch get pulled the same day the review sites were going to shock a lot of people?

 

[^eMpTy^]

From what is being said over at Ubi forums.People who installed the 1.2 Patch werent able to load from there AutoSave anymore Pretty piss poor effort from Crytek on this one?

I thought the whole not being able to load savegames was intentional...you know to encourage everyone to play through the game again..

 

[^eMpTy^]

And JC just made the whole Nvidia optomized path in Doom3 for free? Don't think so. Come on.... you know Doom3 was written for Nvidia and the 6800 was designed around Doom3. There's nothing wrong with it either except the game has very little replay value and will lack real MP. By the time we all finish Doom3, HL2 will be out. This is going to be a great next few months.

My point is this, something very serious is happening behind the scenes that we don't know but quite a few websites are hinting to it.

Jesus christ how many times does this have to be said...

THE NV PATH FOR DOOM3 WAS DROPPED MONTHS AGO.

THEY RUN THE SAME PATH.

THERE IS NO PROOF WHATSOEVER THAT ANY ONE HAS PAID ANYONE.

I'm tired of this ignorant conjecture from half the people on this forum. ATi sucks in Doom3 because they didn't rewrite thier garbage OpenGL driver...don't believe me? go look at some benchmarks in some other OpenGL games like CoD or KOTOR...

1. Nvidia is not rendering in 32bit while in SM3.0 path?
2. Nvidia is only exploiting the SM3.0 features that don't require big horsepower (ie. things that can be done in SM2.0b)
3. ATI can do most the feature, if not all, in SM2.0b and gain performance
4. ATI always renders in 24bit versus Nvidias mix of 16bit and 32 bit
5. Why did the patch get pulled the same day the review sites were going to shock a lot of people?

1. No idea what you're talking about here.
2. With the sm2.0b numbers that just came out, this seems to be true for now in FarCry.
3. Definitely can't do all, there are still a TON of things in PS3.0 that haven't been tapped yet.
4. This is the way of the future...ATi's next hardware will have mixed precision, NV has had it since the FX series.
5. I don't think anyone was shocked. Or was going to be shocked for that matter. But this is just pointing to another conspiracry which doesn't exist. Everyone wants to find something sinister going on, but there simply is no proof of anything even remotely shady going on.

 

[@trapine]

My point is this, something very serious is happening behind the scenes that we don't know but quite a few websites are hinting to it.

I agree with this post I really feel ATI have got something up there sleave with the X800XTPE?And i also feel all this Doom3 NVidia OWNZ is very premature to say the least.If X800's Performance with SM2.0B And 3dc in Farcry is anything to go by.And all with a buggy patch.And looking at how the SM3 was less that steller Then i think we could be in for a very intresting last couple of months.

 

[R1ckCa1n]

I thought the whole not being able to load savegames was intentional...you know to encourage everyone to play through the game again..

Now that would suck!

 

[R1ckCa1n]

Jesus christ how many times does this have to be said...

THE NV PATH FOR DOOM3 WAS DROPPED MONTHS AGO.

THEY RUN THE SAME PATH.

THERE IS NO PROOF WHATSOEVER THAT ANY ONE HAS PAID ANYONE.

I'm tired of this ignorant conjecture from half the people on this forum. ATi sucks in Doom3 because they didn't rewrite thier garbage OpenGL driver...don't believe me? go look at some benchmarks in some other OpenGL games like CoD or KOTOR...

Slow down..... Do you think id made that SPECIAL NVIDIA path for FREE even though they decided not to include it? That was my point and nothing more.

You think a game manufacture is going to let a company advertise their product on a box for free? PLEASE It cost big money.

You are not going to be any aquements from me that ATI's OGL drivers are severely lacking. I hope, for the sake of competition, they can turn that around in the near future.

 

[^eMpTy^]

I agree with this post I really feel ATI have got something up there sleave with the X800XTPE?And i also feel all this Doom3 NVidia OWNZ is very premature to say the least.If X800's Performance with SM2.0B And 3dc in Farcry is anything to go by.And all with a buggy patch.And looking at how the SM3 was less that steller Then i think we could be in for a very intresting last couple of months.

I don't think D3D performance (ATi's strong suit) is a good indication of future improvements in OpenGL performance (ATi's weakness).

They could get OpenGL performance up to par, they have the hardware for it. But they simply haven't done it in over 2 years now, so I can't recommend holding your breath.

Not that OpenGL games are unplayable on ATi hardware...they just aren't anywhere near as fast as they should be, or as fast as the competition for that matter.

 

[R1ckCa1n]

I don't think D3D performance (ATi's strong suit) is a good indication of future improvements in OpenGL performance (ATi's weakness).

They could get OpenGL performance up to par, they have the hardware for it. But they simply haven't done it in over 2 years now, so I can't recommend holding your breath.

Not that OpenGL games are unplayable on ATi hardware...they just aren't anywhere near as fast as they should be, or as fast as the competition for that matter.

I think OGL will not be a factor once HL2 releases and the hundreds of mods start to appear. HL has survived for over five years as the number one online game, just imagine what HL2 is going to do......

 

[^eMpTy^]

Slow down..... Do you think id made that SPECIAL NVIDIA path for FREE even though they decided not to include it? That was my point and nothing more.

You think a game manufacture is going to let a company advertise their product on a box for free? PLEASE It cost big money.

You are not going to be any aquements from me that ATI's OGL drivers are severely lacking. I hope, for the sake of competition, they can turn that around in the near future.

Game developers have to write code for all cards. Do you think Nvidia paid Valve to write a special path for thier cards too? Or do you think the game developers just want to have thier game running well on all cards so they sell more games?

As to the TWIMTBP sticker...I'm not even sure that's on the Doom3 box...but if it is it's probably because Nvidia is the only that took heed and built a card and a driver set that really shine when playing Doom3.

I don't think spending money on box stickers is a negative thing...I just think to say that money was spent to get a company to code specifically for your cards and not someone else is wrong. TWIMTBP is marketing, and that's fine. These codepaths are different, the developer pretty much has no choice but to make them so they can sell more games.

 

[burningrave101]

And JC just made the whole Nvidia optomized path in Doom3 for free? Don't think so. Come on.... you know Doom3 was written for Nvidia and the 6800 was designed around Doom3. There's nothing wrong with it either except the game has very little replay value and will lack real MP. By the time we all finish Doom3, HL2 will be out. This is going to be a great next few months.

My point is this, something very serious is happening behind the scenes that we don't know but quite a few websites are hinting to it.

Have you ever played Splinter Cell MP before?

And i would say that the replay value of DOOM3 will be every bit as much as Half Life 2.

And the X800's perform piss poor in all OpenGL games. It isn't this special path thats keeping them from competing. Its ATI thats keeping ATI from competing. Their too busy trying to find new ways of cheating in D3D to boost their benchmark numbers to worry about trying to put out decent drivers.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2113&p=11

Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy 1280x1024 w/ 4xAA + 8xAF

X800XT 69.5 fps
6800nu 75.8 fps

Neverwinter Nights: Shadows of Undrentide 1600x1200 w/ 4xAA + 8xAF

X800XT 42.3 fps
6800nu 45.2 fps

Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory 1280x1024 no AA + AF

X800XT 90.9 fps
6800nu 94.7 fps

And if ID did anything special for nVidia over the fact that ID produced it on OpenGL, then ATI deserved it for taking the DOOM3 Alpha and trying to do a halfassed job of making it playable.

 

[^eMpTy^]

I think OGL will not be a factor once HL2 releases and the hundreds of mods start to appear. HL has survived for over five years as the number one online game, just imagine what HL2 is going to do......

I agree...OpenGL has nothing to do with Half-Life 2...

 

[^eMpTy^]

Their too busy trying to find new ways of cheating in D3D to boost their benchmark numbers to worry about trying to put out decent drivers.

Can't we just not use the word "cheat" anymore...all it does is stir up trouble...

Nice benches though, for those that don't realize that's a 12pipe 6800 NON-Ultra whipping the XTPE right there...this is what I was talking about...ATi SUCKS at OpenGL and has for a long time.

 

[Mav451]

Lol the same people who say ATi cheated are the same that look the other way at the whole 3dmark2k3 fiasco.

Both companies cheated (quake/quack and 3dmark2003).

And especially since ATi only "quacked" back in the dark days prior to Catalyst drivers, I have easily 300% more faith in ATi not cheating vs. nVidia cheating RIGHT NOW.