[gamegpu] Far Cry 4 performance

[skipsneeky2]

Another title where maximum settings even at a lowly 1080p resolution maxes over 2gb vram usage. Finally had a good look at that performance review and pretty much you are wanting a 3gb card,or 4gb if your 1440p/1600p user.

Wonder how my 2gb 770 will stand at 768p,my resolution i game at.Titanfall is the first game i bought where my vram hurts me even at 768p and this title might be another.

Quite a few games i want are pretty much going to be gimped on my card due to the 2gb, 768p or not i pretty much screwed over unless i drop some settings which i pretty much cringe at..

 

[3DVagabond]

because when it did throttle it was usually only one or two bins which is not even noticeable. running the 290x in quiet mode took a huge chunk of its performance.


http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru...7-nvidia-geforce-gtx-780-ti-3gb-review-3.html

"The GTX 780 Ti’s performance is a model of consistency which should have been evident by now considering the results we’ve already seen in this section. The R9 290X does match its continual framerate but only when used in Uber Mode which boosts fan speeds to uncomfortable levels in an effort to achieve the highest possible stable clock speed.

If anything, these tests should be vindication for NVIDIA’s approach to their GeForce Boost algorithms and their commitment to deliver a pleasant gaming experience. The GTX 780 Ti could have been a loud mess which performed even faster but instead it remains a relatively docile card that can still pump out framerates without sacrificing in other key areas."

I've read that one or two bin before. Look at the chart, it's not throttling by only a little. And sorry, HWC is an awful site for objective reviews.

 

[Gloomy]

Do you even know what ambient occlusion does?

Apparently not. The reason why there is a difference in the distance in those screenshots is because it's in broad fricking daylight..

SSBC is shadowing objects that shouldn't be shadowed in a daylight scene, while HBAO+ is actually processing the self shadowing more accurately by accounting for the amount of light and revealing more detail..

Ambient occlusion is a post-process effect that simulates global illumination by calculating how exposed a pixel is to ambient lighting. It doesn't typically take into account the actual lights in a scene because it is an approximation.

If it did take the lights into account then it would be a type of global illumination and not a post process effect designed to mime global illumination. HBAO+ is no better than SSBC in this regard, and the reason why there's no occlusion calculation in the distance is because HBAO+ isn't doing any, Nvidia has said so themselves.

In any case, the "realism" is beyond the scope of this discussion. What is more important is that you're wrong.

WRONG
R
O
N
G

Also, I'm sure you noticed but you switched arguments from "you're wrong, HBAO+ is the same" to "well it's unrealistic anyway." And you are wrong again. Enjoy being wrong all the time while I'm right. :thumbsup:

 

[Erenhardt]

But when the tessellation effects are enabled, then Nvidia pulls ahead by a wide margin. When the hairworks effects is finally released, I expect that margin to grow..

HardOCP is investigating this claim. But based on numbers from other reviews r9 285 which is superior in tessellation does not gain any ground compared to r9 280 with those effects on.

So I expect there is "alternative" patch in nv drivers when it comes to GW code. NV cards do alternate fur rendering path, meanwhile amd is running furmark on anything furry in the game

 

[Carfax83]

Ambient occlusion is a post-process effect that simulates global illumination by calculating how exposed a pixel is to ambient lighting. It doesn't typically take into account the actual lights in a scene because it is an approximation.

I think you're confused. An approximation still requires processing, and it still relies on the amount of environmental light in a scene.

Here's is the definition according to Nvidia themselves:

Ambient occlusion is a lighting model that calculates the brightness of a pixel in relation to nearby objects in the scene. More specifically, it determines when certain pixels are blocked from the environmental light by nearby geometry, in which case, its brightness value is reduced. It accounts for the general dimming effect when two evenly lit objects are brought close to each other.

And here are screenshots in a complex lighting scene that back up what I'm saying:

SSAO
SSBC
HBAO+

As you can see, there are stark differences between all three implementations. With HBAO+, you see that the areas closer to the light sources (candles and light bulb), namely the ceiling and the woman's face and chest have less self shadowing..

Also, the jars underneath the table with the candles on it have more self shadowing in the HBAO+ pic compared to both SSAO and SSBC, as you would expect since the table is occluding the light..

If it did take the lights into account then it would be a type of global illumination and not a post process effect designed to mime global illumination. HBAO+ is no better than SSBC in this regard, and the reason why there's no occlusion calculation in the distance is because HBAO+ isn't doing any, Nvidia has said so themselves.

Need a source for that..

In any case, the "realism" is beyond the scope of this discussion. What is more important is that you're wrong.

Also, I'm sure you noticed but you switched arguments from "you're wrong, HBAO+ is the same" to "well it's unrealistic anyway." And you are wrong again. Enjoy being wrong all the time while I'm right. :thumbsup:

You were talking about rendering distance, which is different from accurate approximation.. In a brightly lit scene like the images you showed earlier, there should be very little ambient occlusion..

Oh well, you can continue believing whatever you want to believe. Ignorance is bliss so they say :whiste:

 

[Gloomy]

Nvidia rep on Neogaf.

Like I said, "realism" is beyond the scope of this discussion. The fact is that by switching to HBAO+ you lose AO in distant terrain. Since this game lacks shadowing for that terrain otherwise the loss is much greater than the gain in IQ. I've posted an entire album of picture proof. Arguing about semantics is pointless. The pictures speak for themselves. When you said:

Didn't take me long to utterly disprove this:

Outdoor SSBC1
Outdoor HBAO+ 1
Outdoor SSBC2
Outdoor HBAO+ 2
Outdoor SSBC 3
Outdoor HBAO+ 3

No difference in occlusion distance, and HBAO+ is much more accurate and reveals significantly more detail. SSBC is reminiscent of that horrible black aura that was in Far Cry 3 when HBAO was enabled..



Yeah, who'd have thought that higher quality would have a higher price? :whiste:

You were wrong. Go away. Also, get your eyes checked cause you may be going blind lmao.

mmm yeah HBAO+ so good Nvidia is always right look at that, I love cardboard trees and landscapes with no depth it reminds me of skyrim I love HBAO+ they should put it in every game so I can look at superflat landscapes :thumbsup:

 

[Carfax83]

Nvidia rep on Neogaf.

Um, link?

If I were a betting man, I'd say you fabricated it. I wouldn't put that past you at all.

Like I said, "realism" is beyond the scope of this discussion. The fact is that by switching to HBAO+ you lose AO in distant terrain. Since this game lacks shadowing for that terrain otherwise the loss is much greater than the gain in IQ. I've posted an entire album of picture proof. Arguing about semantics is pointless. The pictures speak for themselves. When you said:

You can post a thousand pics for all I care, the thing is, you lack credibility. For all I know, you could have AO disabled entirely..

Anyway, you're clearly confused as to what AO even does, so I don't even know why I'm having this conversation with you..

You're an ignoramus that doesn't know any better. So go ahead and cling to your second rate ambient occlusion if you think it's better

Infraction issued for personal attack. Two days off for accumulation of points.
-- stahlhart

 

[Gloomy]

Um, link?

If I were a betting man, I'd say you fabricated it. I wouldn't put that past you at all.



You can post a thousand pics for all I care, the thing is, you lack credibility. For all I know, you could have AO disabled entirely..

Anyway, you're clearly confused as to what AO even does, so I don't even know why I'm having this conversation with you..

You're an ignoramus that doesn't know any better. So go ahead and cling to your second rate ambient occlusion if you think it's better

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=139270999&postcount=248

How can you be so wrong? You go from smug calling me out on something that should be immediately apparent (it's not like you can't see that turning HBAO+ removes shadows in the distance... you do own the game... right?) then when I post screenshots you move the goalposts and say it's not realistic (totally backtracking on your earlier statement) and then you say I'm fabricating... what... I lack credibility? You're such a dunce, you can load up the game and check for yourself, why would I lie?

Next you're going to say that this guy doesn't work for Nvidia, right?

Warning issued for personal attack.
-- stahlhart

 

[Red Hawk]

So you looked at one set of benchmarks and then arrived at this conclusion?

From what I've seen, the current results seem split down the middle. The PCGH.de benchmarks favor Nvidia, and so do the Gamersnexus ones. GameGPU and Techspot seem to favor AMD, and what those benchmarks have in common is that they used the stock ultra settings, unlike the PCGH.de and Gamersnexus benchmarks which have the Nvidia effects enabled.

PCLabs.pl's benchmark had HBAO+ and PCSS enabled, and the results were fairly close between the two but with Nvidia having a slight edge.

So when you summarize everything, it seems that AMD is very competitive when running the game without Gameworks effects, and is slightly behind when HBAO+ and PCSS is enabled.

But when the tessellation effects are enabled, then Nvidia pulls ahead by a wide margin. When the hairworks effects is finally released, I expect that margin to grow..

Anyway, like I said earlier, the final results for Far Cry 4 won't become known until a few months from now when the patches and driver optimizations have been fully implemented.

No, it was my impression from looking at several different benchmarks. And HardOCP's analysis found there was no significant advantage to Nvidia with the HBAO+ feature enabled, just with the enhanced godrays. Other games use HBAO+, such as Dragon Age Inquisition, without an advantage to Nvidia.

Pulling the "we need to wait for driver optimizations" card seems hollow here. AMD has a performance advantage now, and since it's an Nvidia sponsored game AMD should have had less of a chance to optimize than Nvidia. AMD stands to gain just as much if not more from a longer period to optimize, so it's unlikely both sides doing optimizations will turn the tables.

 

[Abwx]

Is that purepc.pl review underclocking the GPUs? The Gigabyte G1 GTX 970 in that review was running at 1050 MHz, but the actual stock clock speed is 1178 MHz. I know this because I have two of them!

Stock speed is 1050.

http://www.hardware.fr/articles/928-5/specifications-geforce-gtx-980-reference.html

 

[Ryanrenesis]

Has AMD released a CrossFire profile for Far Cry 4 yet? It's been awhile...

 

[guskline]

Has AMD released a CrossFire profile for Far Cry 4 yet? It's been awhile...

Not that I'm aware of.

 

[Ryanrenesis]

Not that I'm aware of.

Any other profiles or settings you guys have tried that worked well Crossfiring Far Cry 4?

 

[moonbogg]

Am I crazy for thinking the game looks just as good with no AA at all? I get a lot more performance with no AA and I don't notice much difference in visual quality with or without it. Seems like kind of a mess to me. I enjoy the game though, despite the skips and stutters from only having 2gb Vram for 1080p.
I am now convinced that the increase in Vram requirements doesn't have much to do with an increase in visual quality. Its either because of consoles or simply to sell new GPUs or something. They could have stayed within the 2gb barrier and kept visuals just as good. Not upgrading for this grainy mess.

 

[kasakka]

Am I crazy for thinking the game looks just as good with no AA at all? I get a lot more performance with no AA and I don't notice much difference in visual quality with or without it. Seems like kind of a mess to me. I enjoy the game though, despite the skips and stutters from only having 2gb Vram for 1080p.
I am now convinced that the increase in Vram requirements doesn't have much to do with an increase in visual quality. Its either because of consoles or simply to sell new GPUs or something. They could have stayed within the 2gb barrier and kept visuals just as good. Not upgrading for this grainy mess.

There is no VRAM cap at 1080p really. Even at 1440p 2 GB is enough. The game stutters no matter what hardware you run so it's a bug in the game. Hopefully they'll fix it soon.

I'd prefer SMAA if it only worked properly with SLI. For now I've force FXAA via Nvidia control panel.

 

[Grooveriding]

Am I crazy for thinking the game looks just as good with no AA at all? I get a lot more performance with no AA and I don't notice much difference in visual quality with or without it. Seems like kind of a mess to me. I enjoy the game though, despite the skips and stutters from only having 2gb Vram for 1080p.
I am now convinced that the increase in Vram requirements doesn't have much to do with an increase in visual quality. Its either because of consoles or simply to sell new GPUs or something. They could have stayed within the 2gb barrier and kept visuals just as good. Not upgrading for this grainy mess.

I'm using 2x MSAA and it looks fine, also looks good without any AA. Some games don't suffer aliasing as much as others imo and this is one of them.

I would prefer to use SMAA, but there is a nasty bug with nvidia's current drivers and SMAA in Far Cry 4 with SLI where you get a ghost image everywhere. If they manage to fix that I'll switch to SMAA again.

 

[moonbogg]

I'm using 2x MSAA and it looks fine, also looks good without and AA. Some games don't suffer aliasing as much as others imo and this one of them.

I would prefer to use SMAA, but there is a nasty bug with nvidia's current drivers and SMAA in Far Cry 4 with SLI where you get a ghost image everywhere. If they manage to fix that I'll switch to SMAA again.

I used SMAA and didn't notice any issues. The performance is good with SMAA, but it smears the image. Isn't that the shader based AA where it just smears everything? Anyway, hopefully the hitches and skips aren't a result of 2gb Vram and hopefully it gets fixed. So far the game is fun and looks a little crisper without the AA in my opinion. I think the AA is good for mostly telephone lines and stuff like that in this game. The trees look like a mess no matter what settings you use, IMO.

I think the thickness of the trees and how they all wave around, it ends up looking like a bunch of pixels just blinking at times. The game looks generally good, but it has a lack of crisp sharpness and clearness that other games have. Also, what's with the hazy look at times in the forest? Looks like I'm looking through dirty glasses at times. Also, at night, the scene gets pitch black and I can't see a damn thing. Kind of annoying. I mean, its pitch black like some sort of graphics shadow issue or something at night.

 

[Grooveriding]

Also, at night, the scene gets pitch black and I can't see a damn thing. Kind of annoying. I mean, its pitch black like some sort of graphics shadow issue or something at night.

It's the ambient occlusion setting. It's broken in the game as well and some things appear far darker than they should.

 

[Dankk]

I'm not using HBAO+, but the setting just below that (forgot what it's called) and the game looks fine at night. No visibility issues at all.

 

[psolord]

Has AMD released a CrossFire profile for Far Cry 4 yet? It's been awhile...

Nope!

Also Assassin's Creed Unity still waits for a cfx profile.

Ryse Son of Rome gives negative scaling on both my 5850s and 7950s.

All of these work fine on my 570 SLI btw. There''s something weird going on in AMD's offices.

 

[3DVagabond]

It's the ambient occlusion setting. It's broken in the game as well and some things appear far darker than should.

There's an SLI shadow bug.

Disappointingly enough, this patch does not address the stuttering or the SLI “black shadows” issues that have already been reported.

 

[moonbogg]

So do you guys with 3 or 4gb of Vram get stuttering as well? It happens the most when flying around with the copter or driving fast when scenes are rapidly updating.
Oh yeah, also I can't steer upward with the hang glider. Down works though, but up doesn't. Maybe I should avoid playing for another month or two.

 

[toyota]

even Far Cry 3 stutters a bit so I doubt it will ever be fixed in Far Cry 4.

 

[PPB]

Mentioning AO and realism in the same sentence should be prohibited, really.

AO is just a method to enhance detail in tenuous light situations by simulating the effect of dirt in a material and thus rendering some shadows in the borders between objects. It has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with realism and global illumination. They are not comparable nor they compete in the same space, heck, they can even be used in a complementary way to enhance detail when the illumination is just tenuous and the GI, even tho giving you a pretty good approximation of the lighting in the scene, doesnt cut it to give enough detail on small objects or objects too close o each other. GI isnt the holy grail either btw, but there are some pretty efficient biased methods that give you good results.

Also, disregard completely the lighting techniques used by the cryengine when trying to talk about realism. If you wanna compare lighting fidelity between what a video game engine and a real rendering one can give you, you can compare Lumion (based on CryEngine2) vs Vray or any path tracing engine.

Video game artists really resort to a awful ammounts of trickery to achieve certaing degree of realism in their games, but do not be fooled by those efforts, they aren't even doing 1/100 of the calculation work to process GI and realistic lighting.

 

[Dankk]

So do you guys with 3 or 4gb of Vram get stuttering as well? It happens the most when flying around with the copter or driving fast when scenes are rapidly updating.
Oh yeah, also I can't steer upward with the hang glider. Down works though, but up doesn't. Maybe I should avoid playing for another month or two.

It's a Ubisoft game. It will always have stutter, it will likely never be patched.