Farcry Patch Gets Nvidia Shader Engine Boost

An anonymous reader writes "Anandtech has posted a detailed article on good-looking PC FPS Farcry's forthcoming 1.2 patch which takes advantage of Nvidia's Shader Model 3.0 engine. The patch is supposed to boost Farcry performance for all video cards, but with Nvidia [supposedly] getting the biggest boost from SM3. (Further details on Nvidia's SM3 engine can be found via HardOCP) Benchmarks are included in the Anandtech article." The article also notes: "ATI assures us that they have also been working with CryTek on their efforts. Since we have seen a performance improvement with the latest driver and new 1.2 patch, we don't have any reason to think that anything extraordinarily fishy is going on behind the scenes between NVIDIA and CryTek."

Re:Online?

[Pluvius]

Every PC FPS worth a crap has competitive multiplayer. Might as well ask if you can play an MMORPG online.

Rob

Re:Online?

[Poseidon88]

Every PC FPS worth a crap has competitive multiplayer.

That's a broad and categorically false statement. The Thief series, Morrowind, System Shock 2, Deus Ex... All wildly popular FPS games that had no multiplayer at all, but instead focused on making an excellent single-player game.

But to answer the original question, yes Far Cry has competetive multiplayer modes, including Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, and Assault. Assault is the most fun. One team is on attack and the other is on defense. The a

Re:Online?

[Pluvius]

That's a broad and categorically false statement. The Thief series, Morrowind, System Shock 2, Deus Ex

The only one of those that's an FPS is Thief, and even that's being a bit loose with the definition of "FPS" (your general objective is to sneak, not to shoot). The others are FPRPGs.

Rob

Re:Online?

[Gundragon]

The term "First Person Shooter" is not a very good term to describe games like FarCry. First Person is a viewpoint, games like Heretic II (old, yes) use exactly the same mechanics as a traditional FPS (hell, it's built on the Q2 engine) but are set in Third person. Calling Thief an FPS is like calling Splinter Cell a "3rd Person Shooter". It doesnt do the game and it's conecpt justice.

Um, don't get too excited about that 15%

[stoneymonster]

The 15% speed boost is in "run" speed, i.e. the speed with which your character places one foot in front of another while fleeing drooling monsters, not a 15% FPS boost on your video card. The poster is confusicated.

Re:Um, don't get too excited about that 15%

[Dizzle]

Cleverly worded though. I guess that means a 15% increase in walk speed too.

Re:Um, don't get too excited about that 15%

[Marc_Hawke]

Probably not. You have an 'endurance' meter. You can 'sprint' (ie extra speed burst).

In the article is said there was a 15% run speed increase, and a 30% run duration increase. So, I'm guessing they are just talking about sprinting. That means normal movement is probably unaffected.

Or if you don't have a 6800

[Cornflake917]

The patch only takes advantage of the Geforce 6800. And if you look at the benchmark's it adds about 2 fps. Not something I would spend 400 bucks on.

6800

[vehn23]

I picked up a GEForce 6800 "nu" last week after doing some research etc. The couple games I tried I was very happy with. And then.. I try to install Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow, which came free with the card - and it tells me it doesn't support the card even after patching. Awesome.

Re:Um, don't get too excited about that 15%

[dzym]

And the way I read the patch document, it was only for multiplayer. So you're still not going to be able to outrun those pesky drooling ape trigen monsters.

Re:Um, don't get too excited about that 15%

[Zed2K]

And that speed boost in running has ZERO to do with nvidia optimizations and therefore ZERO to do SM 3.0 benefits. That is just an adjustment to game balance.

Um, poster was right. Maybe you check facts too?

[Vaevictis666]

Actually no, he's right. Check out link number 3 (the actual benchmark) and go to one of the tests.

For example, on the "Level Analysis: research" page, at 1600x1200 no AA/AF:

Card SM2 SM3 Increase
GF6800 Ultra Extreme 76.4 87.9 17.4%
GF6800 Ultra 67.9 77.6 14.3%
GF6800 GT 60.9 70.0 14.9%
GF6800 39.0 47.9 22.8%
Radeon x800 XT Plat 69.6 69.6 0%
Radeon X800 XT 64.9 64.9 0%
Radeon X800 Pro 49.8 49.8 0%

I'd say that looks like a 15% or more increase for nvidia cards...

Originally it said 15% for ALL video cards.

[stoneymonster]

Thanks for playing.

Re:Um, poster was right. Maybe you check facts too

[notamac]

Or a 15% boost for cards supporting SM3... given that that's *not* the Radeon X800... well you don't see an increase do you?

Umm...

[veritron]

Whoever moderated this informative is a drooling idiot. It's an obvious joke.

Think about it - for a patch changing VIDEO CARD SETTINGS to only affect the character's movement speed would basically mean that the patch screws up the gameplay by making it easier. It makes absolutely no sense at all - and the links don't support that either.

For the last time.

[stoneymonster]

I didn't suggest there was no improvement to any video cards. The ORIGINAL POST said that there was a 15% across the board (all video cards) improvement, which must have come from the first line of the changlog for 1.2, which if you READ it states: 15% increase in run speed. The original post was then corrected, making my comment look out of place. If you read the anandtech article, you'll see that there is some improvement on Nvidia boards (which support SM 3.0) though it varies between none and 15-20% de

What get's me about AnandTech..

[Anonymous Coward]

is that they moan and bitch like this:

"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 precau

Dynamic branching on ATI cards

[unassimilatible]

HardOCP also reports on dynamic branching by non-PS 3.0 cards [campus.luth.se]. Pic here [hardocp.com] and downloadable demo link here [campus.luth.se].