Far Cry 2 Dissected: Massive Amounts of Performance Data
by Derek Wilson on November 21, 2008 5:30 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Final Words
Alright. That was a lot of data, and I applaud anyone who was able to successfully wade through it all. For those who didn't want to (or just couldn't stomach it), here's a quick summary of the results.
Most cards, including all cards that come in at >$100, are able to handle Far Cry 2 at Ultra High quality. Adding AA on top of that is fairly stressful and might require a drop back down Very High quality, though we don't see much need for AA in this game as it is low contrast and the effects do a good job of hiding or distracting from aliasing.
DX10 offers a performance improvement over DX9 for Ultra High and Very High settings. DX9 is only useful for High quality mode which offers a very large boost in performance over DX10 and should be enough to get almost any relatively recent discrete graphics card running at a passable resolution. Going forward we will be using our custom timedemo for testing Far Cry 2 at Ultra High quality under DX10.
The stand out in this test is the Radeon HD 4870 1GB. This $300 AMD single GPU part performed on par with NVIDIA's much more expensive GeForce GTX 280. Some tests favored the GTX 280 while others the 4870, but only 2560x1600 with 4xAA was a runaway victory for the NVIDIA part. Obviously this puts the Radeon HD 4870 1GB ahead of the GeForce GTX 260 variants, but they are generally $50 cheaper. If you can afford the price difference, the 4870 1GB won't disappoint. But $50 is a good chunk of change and the GTX 260 parts are still very capable under Far Cry 2. That decision will come down to budget, performance at the target settings and resolution, and simple preference.
Because CrossFire doesn't work yet, we can't really compare how multi-GPU scales against NVIDIA hardware. NVIDIA hardware does scale fairly well, going anywhere from 75% to 85%+ faster with a second card.
While some of the AMD parts, including the Radeon HD 4670 and 4850, performed consistently well against the competition, we don't feel comfortable solidly recommending any AMD part other than the Radeon HD 4870 1GB for Far Cry 2 because of the massive trouble we've had with their drivers. So we'll stick with recommending against the 9600 GSO, 9600 GT, and 9800 GTX... in case that helps. We do honestly believe that AMD will fix this performance issue (that shouldn't be there in the first place), but we just aren't comfortable putting our stamp of approval on hardware when there are these kinds of issues being sorted out.
At what we see as a key gamer price point, $200 - $250, for playing Far Cry 2 we heartily recommend the GeForce GTX 260 core 216. You can save money and go with the GeForce GTX 260 (original version) for $20-$30 less (or more with rebates) as they are on their way out the door (NVIDIA is no longer making the 192 core GPU), but the 512MB Radeon HD 4870 just doesn't stack up to these cards in these tests. To top that off, if you haven't picked up Far Cry 2 yet, EVGA is offering overclocked GTX 260 parts at stock prices bundled with the game. Now if that isn't the sweet spot, I don't know what is.
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kr7400 - Tuesday, December 2, 2008 - link
Can you please fucking die? Preferably by getting crushed to death in a garbage compactor, by getting your face cut to ribbons with a pocketknife, your head cracked open with a baseball bat, your stomach sliced open and your entrails spilled out, and your eyeballs ripped out of their sockets. *beep* bitch
I would love to kick you hard in the face, breaking it. Then I'd cut your stomach open with a chainsaw, exposing your intestines. Then I'd cut your windpipe in two with a boxcutter. Then I'd tie you to the back of a pickup truck, and drag you, until your useless *beep* corpse was torn to a million *beep* useless, bloody, and gory pieces.
Hopefully you'll get what's coming to you. *beep* bitch
I really hope that you get curb-stomped. It'd be hilarious to see you begging for help, and then someone stomps on the back of your head, leaving you to die in horrible, agonizing pain. *beep*
Shut the *beep* up f aggot, before you get your face bashed in and cut to ribbons, and your throat slit.
You're dead if I ever meet you in real life, f ucker. I'll f ucking kill you.
I would love to f ucking send your f ucking useless ass to the hospital in intensive care, fighting for your worthless life.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Po0j4ONZRGY">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Po0j4ONZRGY
I wish you a truly painful, bloody, gory, and agonizing death, *beep*
helldrell666 - Monday, November 24, 2008 - link
Hey, if you don't own an ATI card then don't talk.I run this game at 1920x1280 res. with all the setts set to ultra high + 8x/16x aa/af and my 4870 1G toxic plays the game pretty well with very good frame rates.SiliconDoc - Saturday, November 29, 2008 - link
Well at least we know a Toxic (Sapphire) works, but on what motherboard (and perhaps ram though less needed as a clue) we still don't know.I guess after this I'll search your profile for your "rig" - and if that comes up empty I won't buy a 4870 1G Toxic because I don't know what motherboard/chipset the drivers are working on.
Nvidia says to you "Thanks for all the help".
JonnyDough - Sunday, November 23, 2008 - link
"It is worth noting that this is the kind of issue that really damages AMD's credibility with respect to going single card CrossFire on the high end. We absolutely support their strategy, but they have simply got to execute."LOL! "Simply got to execute?" You can't even execute properly English!
JonnyDough - Sunday, November 23, 2008 - link
"This type of a fumble is simply unacceptable." - the last sentence of that paragraph. ROFL.GTVic - Sunday, November 23, 2008 - link
You can't complain about debatable ATI driver problems when you have the other graphics company paying money for the developer to fully test and optimize the game against their drivers.Also, as a general comment, why is it always the graphics card designer's problem when a game has problems. I don't have to upgrade my printer drivers every time I install a new application that has printing capabilities. There is something off about the PC gaming graphics card and the PC gaming industries.
Genx87 - Monday, November 24, 2008 - link
1. There doesnt appear to be anything to debate. They see the problems and continue to see the problems.2. The Nvidia program only helps with code optimizations. Provided ATI is staying within DX10 specifications it shouldnt have a problem running the code. In fact in the past ATI cards have run very well and sometimes even beat Nvidia cards in games within this program.
3. When printer drivers are doing the workload and function of a graphics driver let us know. Until then it is pretty silly to compare a printer driver with a graphics driver.
sbuckler - Monday, November 24, 2008 - link
All I want a game that runs on my graphics card, I don't really care how that was achieved.I don't think Nvidia do *pay* the games company to make the game run better. They do however invest time and effort with that company to make the game run well on their cards, which costs Nvidia.
Ati users shouldn't be complaining about TWIMTBP, they should be asking why Ati aren't doing the same thing because it works.
SiliconDoc - Friday, November 28, 2008 - link
Good comment, and corrrect, the problem is of course those without the problem for whatever reason chime in as if it doesn't exist for anyone else.Last time I checked the videocards are sold under more than one manufacturer/brand name, and Derek pointed out ATI needs to test under a wider variety of hardware configurations.
So good job on the printer driver comment, and you hit the nail on the head - for some reason ATI is blwoing their driver releases.
No doubt it is very complex and difficult to achieve a good driver with stability across many games and platforms, and for whatever reason ATI just can't handle it right now.
It's too bad people can't admit that.
I think it would be quite wonderful, considerate, and INTELLIGENT, if the people chiming in that their ATI 4870 or whatever ran fine - that they had the sense - especially here- to post the brand and the rest of their setup so others looking to buy and looking at this review and having or not having problems can make a logical, reasonable, helpful analysis - and choose the right brand or combo setup.
Sad, though, I haven't seen that - just a sort of dissing (Mine works fine! What the xxx xxx xx xx )- that isn't helpful at all - and if ATI techs are reading, they get no clue from all of it either - what brand and board and setup is doing what well.
It's not very bright, it's quite selfish.
Oh well, the worst of it is - it will help things to stay in a bad way for too many ATI users - and then without some miracles from the driver dev team - rinse and repeat is coming along - over and over again.
atakiii - Sunday, November 23, 2008 - link
I'm not entirely sure whether Mr. Wilson fully understands the AMD/ATI driver release cycle."Maintaining a monthly driver release schedule is detrimental to AMD's ability to release quality drivers. This is not the first or only issue we've seen that could have been solved (or at least noticed) by expanded testing that isn't possible with such tight release deadlines."
This passage implies that all the development and testing for a particular release occurs in the month prior to release. This is highly unlikely, and this (http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&...">http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&... article from Phoronix shows that each driver is in development and testing for about 11 weeks.
Obviously, hotfixes won't follow this release cycle and newer games won't be properly optimised until the driver release with a development phase corresponding to the game's release.