![[H]ardOCP](/images/blank.gif){kind=small}
- Date:
- Wednesday, October 27, 2004
- Author:
- Brent Justice
- Google +1
FarCry Patch 1.3 & SM 3.0
Patch version 1.3 for FarCry is here and with it we finally have Shader Model 3.0 support. Does it live up to the hype that we have been hearing about for so long? Does it provide better image quality compared to Shader Model 2.0? Let’s find out.
ATI Radeon X800XT PCI-E FPS Performance
We are going to first take a look at how upgrading from Patch 1.1 to Patch 1.3 affects performance on ATI’s latest generation video card, the Radeon X800XT. We are using the PCI-Express version so the clock speeds are regular X800XT (no PE) 500MHz GPU and 500MHz (1GHz DDR) memory. We are using the latest Catalyst drivers available from the web, version 4.10 with the latest Catalyst Control Center. We are using the default driver settings so Catalyst A.I is at “Low” and VSYNC is disabled. We left AA and AF at application preference so that we can completely control AA and AF from within the game.
Here is how the graphics settings compare between the patches. As you can see with Patch 1.1, PS 2.0 and VS 2.0 are being used, but with Patch 1.3 a new “PS 2.A” is being used. Also note a few new features, HDR Rendering and MRT Rendering, which are “Disabled”. It also lists Geometry Instancing and says it is supported.
We ran all the testing with the highest in-game quality settings available. In Patch 1.1 the highest in-game AF setting is 4X. With Patch 1.3 they have included an 8XAF option. To find out if performance was better at all we left the option at 4X for all testing. We first used the 1.1 patch and found the highest playable setting, which on our system with this X800XT was 1600x1200 NoAA/4XAF. We used this same setting with Patch 1.3 to see if there was any increase in performance. We did a manual-run through in the level “Fort”, which is mostly an outdoors run-through, as well as “Control,” which is indoors and has a lot of lighting shaders.
Outdoors Level Fort
From looking at the graph above that represents our real-world gaming experience, outdoor levels are not getting any performance boost simply from moving from PS 2.0 to “PS 2.A” on ATI’s X800XT video cards.
Indoor Level Control
It is important to note that this particular run-through does not have any enemy characters shooting or reacting to the player, unlike Fort, so there is no AI in use. This is a very good level to test for finding out if pixel shader performance is faster in FarCry.
There are a few places where there are some slight performance increases, but nothing noticeable during regular gameplay.
ATI Radeon X800XT PCI-E Image Quality
Let’s find out if there is any difference in image quality using Patch 1.1 versus 1.3. For these comparisons we set the in-game settings exactly the same between the patches so that we can make direct comparisons. We used 1024x768 with NoAA and 4XAF with all the in-game quality settings at their maximum values.
Full Screen Performance Difference Screenshots
In this first set of screenshots we are going to show you the full-screen versions, because we saw absolutely no difference between them and they do show some performance differences as you can see by the FRAPS frame counter in the corner of the shots.
In the screenshot above we didn’t find anything different IQ-wise, but we did see a 7FPS increase in framerate with Patch 1.3.
In the screenshot above the flashlight is on. While we didn’t notice any difference in image quality, Patch 1.3 provided a whopping 20FPS increase in framerate in this non-gaming instance.
Didn’t see any difference in image quality above, but we experienced the largest increase in framerate looking up at the sun here. Patch 1.3 provided a very large 37FPS increase in performance!
Cropped Image Quality Difference Screenshots
We did notice some image quality differences with Patch 1.3, notably when dealing with the flashlight and water.
In the first screenshot above we have an example of the water difference we noticed. The ladder is less visible underneath the water with Patch 1.3 installed. The second screenshot above shows another example of this difference in water image quality. Yes, the flashlight is enabled in both the Patch 1.1 and Patch 1.3 screenshots for the second comparison. The third screenshot comparison shows us one of the lighting differences we noticed. We also noticed a difference using the flashlight, which you can see in the fourth screenshot comparison.
Here is a full sized screenshot comparison that shows this difference in water quality even more.
There is a 14FPS improvement in framerate using Patch 1.3 here and some very big differences in the image produced, and we really do not find it to be for the better overall.