What are the best Far Cry video settings for a 9700PRO?

[SickBeast]

I would like to run at 1280x1024 with AT LEAST 30FPS in all situations if possible, since my LCD screen's native resolution is 1280x1024.

Here are the rest of my system specs:

AMD Athlon XP Mobile running at 2500mhz
Abit NF7-S
1024 Infineon DDR400 2.5-4-4-11

I don't think I'm CPU limited at all in the game...it's just the poor 9700 that chokes on the game. Any suggestions? Everything set to maximum brings my computer to a CRAWL...but it looks sooooo sexy. I would like to keep the DX9 shaders enabled if possible, as I find they really do boost image quality.

Thanks in advance!

 

[GeneralGrievous]

On a 9800 Pro I found turning shadows off helped greatly. If I could figure out how to disable AA/AF I'd do that also, I can't play less than 40 fps even.

 

[Jeff7181]

To be quite honest... everything at medium doesn't look bad at all... except shadow quality, I set that at low. That's how I play to maintain decent FPS... I also use 2XAA and no AF. I also use Bilinear Filtering rather than Trilinear because I can't see any difference, but it does help performance a bit.

 

[Gamingphreek]

Hmm make sure your running the latest drivers. Im running a 5900XT w/ a 2500+ OCed and i have setting maxed out. Everything works fine after i play for about 5 seconds. Occasionaly it will slow down but im not even using DDR 400 memory and its in single channel. That 9700PRO should be able to take it. You wont get 1280x1024 in a game like this tho. I would set it at 10x7. The new generation cards have a bit of trouble running the cards at that resolution.

-Kevin

 

[daction]

I maxed out everything at 1024 and got very playable framerates. This is with No AA or AF though but I prefered the other eyecandy in this game over AA/AF.

 

[Jeff7181]

I like a little AA just to take the edge off and get rid of most of the edge crawling. In most games I dislike playing without 8XAF... but it's really not necessary in Far Cry... really the only time you need any AF is on the ourdoor levels where you're looking at a bunch of mountains... then angled textures tend to get blurry. But inside or dark ourdoor levels I couldn't tell you if AF was on or off.

The shadows are what seems to kill performance... especially inside when you have 3 or 4 light sources in view at once.

 

[Regs]

1280x1024 Max Detail, Med-High Texture, Med-Low shadows. No AA/AF.

Time for an upgrade?

 

[VIAN]

Definitely run at 10x7. More performance and free AA. Turn up all the settings to Medium. I never noticed a difference between the Highest and Medium [in the Demo].

 

[Childs]

I would set it at 10x7

Definitely run at 10x7. More performance and free AA. Turn up all the settings to Medium. I never noticed a difference between the Highest and Medium [in the Demo].

I believe he wants to run at 12x10 because he has an LCD. From what I understand deviating from the native res results in poor visuals.

 

[Zephyr106]

Originally posted by: Childs

I would set it at 10x7

Definitely run at 10x7. More performance and free AA. Turn up all the settings to Medium. I never noticed a difference between the Highest and Medium [in the Demo].

I believe he wants to run at 12x10 because he has an LCD. From what I understand deviating from the native res results in poor visuals.

Hell yeah an LCD should be in native res for Farcry. I think my 9800 Pro is able to run the game with everything on high except textures, particles, and shadows on med. AA and AF on lowest in game option. Runs smoothly except when looking at a big vista of trees, then it sort of drags. I had tried 10x7 and was perfectly smooth, but the LCD just couldn't do it nicely.

Zephyr

 

[SickBeast]

OK I ran it like this:

1280x1024
Medium everything, except low shadows, and very high lighting (DX9 shaders I think).

It runs great outdoors where there's alot of water and stuff, but indoors it still gets bogged down. Oh well, I'm planning to upgrade once HL2 and DoomIII come out anyways.

Thanks to everyone for the tips, especially those who reccomended medium detail; I don't notice much visual difference, but the game performs much nicer.

 

[VIAN]

dam, indoors it slows down. Wow, thats strange.

I remember with my 5900 it would score twice the fps it did outside.

 

[Jeff7181]

Originally posted by: VIAN
dam, indoors it slows down. Wow, thats strange.

I remember with my 5900 it would score twice the fps it did outside.

More light sources

 

[Brian48]

I don't like the way it runs at 1280x960 with my 9700Pro so I normally run at 1152x864.

I can't seem to get away from setting all the options on VERY HIGH with water on ULTRA HIGH

I also use HW audio + EAX too, but not FSAA+Aniso though. This is what I'm getting using the Pier timedemo (3 runs). The pier map has a very massive, outdoor scene overlooking that river and seems to be a very good test of the graphics card without stressing the CPU as much.

TimeDemo Play Started , (Total Frames: 3726, Recorded Time: 67.36s)
!TimeDemo Run 0 Finished.
Play Time: 80.20s, Average FPS: 46.46
Min FPS: 34.23 at frame 828, Max FPS: 77.59 at frame 1896
Average Tri/Sec: 8273595, Tri/Frame: 178073
Recorded/Played Tris ratio: 0.80
!TimeDemo Run 1 Finished.
Play Time: 82.64s, Average FPS: 45.09
Min FPS: 31.57 at frame 832, Max FPS: 77.59 at frame 1896
Average Tri/Sec: 8165304, Tri/Frame: 181097
Recorded/Played Tris ratio: 0.79
!TimeDemo Run 2 Finished.
Play Time: 82.79s, Average FPS: 45.01
Min FPS: 30.29 at frame 131, Max FPS: 77.59 at frame 1896
Average Tri/Sec: 8145057, Tri/Frame: 180972
Recorded/Played Tris ratio: 0.79
!TimeDemo Run 3 Finished.

 

[Dman877]

I have my 9800 Pro oc'd to XT and run 12x10 (lcd native res) with medium/high settings, no aa/af. The game looks pretty good, still get occaisional slow-downs though, usually indoors. The shadows in this game are intense if you ever have time to examine them.

On a stock 9700 Pro and a minimum framerate of 30 fps at 12x10 I'd recommend low shadows, medium everything else.

 

[Jeff7181]

The shadows in this game are intense if you ever have time to examine them.

Very true statement. EVERYTHING casts shadows on everything it seems... it's pretty cool... REALLY ads to the realism, but you take quite a large frame rate hit.

 

[SynthDude2001]

I have a 9700 Pro and I run everything at highest detail, except no AA at all - that caused framerates on my machine to drop down below 20 in some complex outside scenes, and that's a bit too low for me. I run at 1024x768 though, because my monitor doesn't do 1280x1024 well, so I can't exactly comment on that resolution, but I'd hope it wouldn't be too much slower. As things are though, I'm pretty sure I don't drop below 35fps ever.

I do wish I could afford to drop half a thousand on that X800 XT though...