Far Cry 2 Dissected: Massive Amounts of Performance Data
by Derek Wilson on November 21, 2008 5:30 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Testing with 4xAA Enabled (Custom Demo)
Running with 4xAA is much more taxing on the cards. It is our opinion that AA in Far Cry 2 isn't highly necessary. The world is fairly low contrast, and with all the effects aliasing is not incredibly noticeable. It is present, of course, but AA isn't a necessity like it can be in other games. Especially at high resolution and small pixel sizes. At the very high end, or in working multi-GPU configurations, go ahead and turn on 4xAA. If you happen to be one of those gamers who really loves AA even when aliasing isn't terribly noticeable in a game, remember that 4xAA with Very High quality settings will generally perform about the same as Ultra High quality with no antialiasing. Of course, this is a trade off. We don't think it's worth it, but what looks good to one person doesn't always look good to another.
The minimum graphics requirement to run with Ultra High quality and 4xAA will be a GeForce 9800 GT or a Radeon HD 4830, but these cards will only get you barely playable framerates at 1024x768.
While the GeForce GTX 280 does regain it's lead over the Radeon HD 4870 1GB in this test, the AMD part still leads its competitors (the GTX 260 cards) at all playable resolutions. And once again, the 512MB part falls behind the GeForce GTX 260. The 512MB 4870 ran incredibly poorly at 2560x1600, though only the GTX 280 and SLI solutions remained playable.
The cheapest playable card at 1024x768 with these settings is the GeForce 9800 GT.
The cheapest playable card at 1280x1024 with these settings is the Radeon HD 4850.
The cheapest playable card at 1680x1050 with these settings is the GeForce GTX 260.
The cheapest playable card at 1920x1200 with these settings is the GeForce GTX 260.
The cheapest playable card at 2560x1600 with these settings is the GeForce GTX 280.
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Brunnis - Saturday, November 22, 2008 - link
I just wanted to point out that my HD4870 1GB stutters to the extreme with this game. I'm running an E8400 @ 3.8GHz, 8GB RAM and Vista 64-bit. It's however worth pointing out that there is no stuttering in DX9, only DX10. I've tried Cats 8.10, the second hotfix and now Cats 8.11. All have exactly the same problem, with horrible stuttering in DX10. The graphs from the benchmark tool clearly illustrate the issue with frequent spikes in them.I also have a friend with a HD4870 1GB and he has experienced the exact same problems. So, the HD4870 is definitely affected by AMD's shoddy drivers.
DerekWilson - Monday, November 24, 2008 - link
the "stuttering" in the benchmark is part of the benchmark -- it just plays back with stutters in it. it's like that no nv, amd -- all GPUs. the only stuttering that is actually stuttering is what you experience in the game.the fps versus frame graphs on my 4870 1GB are smooth, while other cards show spikes.
Slash3 - Saturday, November 22, 2008 - link
What resolution and graphic settings are you using? Is there a particular setting or gameplay situation that makes it worse?Giacomo - Saturday, November 22, 2008 - link
The stuttering issue, with my HIS HD3870 ICEQ3 (running all the latest Catalysts, on Vista x64), shows up at any resolution and quality settings under DX10. The problem shows up when you move around in the scenario: if you just stand, and look around, no stuttering; if you walk, a little stuttering sometimes; if you run, it gets worse; if you drive a car, it's horrible.Giacomo
RagingDragon - Saturday, November 22, 2008 - link
Sounds like it's loading textures (or some other data) from main memory into video memory. For some reason they aren't being preloaded, or are being bumped from video RAM then have to be reloaded. That would also explain why the 512MB have worse issues than 1GB cards.Slash3 - Saturday, November 22, 2008 - link
Would it be possible to make available the custom demo created for this benchmark? A page describing the test setup for the benchmark systems would also be greatly appreciated. Thanks!Willardjuice - Saturday, November 22, 2008 - link
I don't have any issues running the game with my R700 using the second 8.10 hotfixes.4ccmusic - Saturday, November 22, 2008 - link
Did anyone say this was the biggest let down of this year. If I wanted a game like GTA, I would get GTA.toyota - Saturday, November 22, 2008 - link
I have only played about two hours and I think I have had enough. Its a failure in my book.Amuro - Saturday, November 22, 2008 - link
I have a GTX 280 tri SLI system, so the game runs very good. However, I stopped playing it after just an hour of play. The graphics are a joke, not even half as good as Crysis and Warhead, and not to mention the entire game world has an ugly orange/yellow mixed with brown tint to it.