Print Article: 3D Performance with Far Cry - Part 1 ATI



		3D Performance with Far Cry - Part 1 ATI April 21, 2004 Brandon Sandman Bell

Summary: CryTek's DX9 shooter, Far Cry, is earning rave reviews from game publications worldwide for its exciting game play and solid AI. Of course, its 2.0 pixel and vertex shaders are dropping jaws as well. One drawback of this cutting edge title however is its demanding system requirements. In our 3D Performance With Far Cry article we explore the performance of this title with 10 of ATI's DX9 offerings. Which card offers the best performance for your budget? Find out now!

Introduction Page:: ( 1 / 8 )

Often times when we incorporate a new benchmark, we like to examine the performance of a range of cards in that benchmark in greater detail than we may do in a product review. Additional detail settings may be run, and of course we’ll round up as many cards as possible in order to provide data for the largest audience time will allow. We figured our new Far Cry benchmark was a perfect opportunity for one of these articles.

Far Cry, in case you didn’t know, has been developed by CryTek. If you recall, it was CryTek who developed X-Isle: Dinosaur Island, which was one of the technology demos for NVIDIA’s GeForce3 launch. X-Isle utilized 1.x pixel and vertex shaders as well as bump-mapping to create a beautiful prehistoric environment and was actually the original working title for Far Cry (the name was changed to Far Cry in 2002).

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Far Cry’s CryENGINE takes advantage of the latest hardware technologies. The engine utilizes 2.0 vertex and pixel shaders (and 3.0 shaders for GeForce 6800 once DirectX 9.0c is released) as well as supporting the 64-bit extensions found in AMD’s Athlon 64/Athlon 64 FX processors. The end result is a game with the most jaw-dropping graphics we’ve seen to date. (For those of you who are familiar with the early days of 3D, we’d definitely rate Far Cry as a GL Quake experience in terms of awe.)

Far Cry isn’t just a pretty face either, the game features team-based AI. Enemies will use the jungle’s vegetation for cover, and are quite responsive to the slightest noise. The game uses real world weapons ranging from a machete to a gatling-style minigun (perhaps the M61 Vulcan, which is used on all USAF and USN fighter aircraft).

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How we test

Normally when we create a custom demo for benchmarking, we hop on a server online and duke it out with fellow gamers over the Internet. For Far Cry however, this isn’t possible, as the game’s built-in recording feature doesn’t accurately reproduce events such as gun fire, enemies (or objects) being hit, or even the weapon you’re currently carrying during the recording! Therefore, to get around this limitation our Far Cry demo is based on an empty server where we merely walk through the level mp_monkeybay.

The demo starts at the top of the main platform where we then work our way down to the beach, cross the bridge, then work our way back to the other side of the beach, all while looking at various features within the map. Therefore our demo is still based on gameplay, although the action you’d normally encounter online isn’t present.

We’ve rounded up many of ATI’s recent DirectX 9 cards, including the RADEON 9500/9500 PRO, multiple flavors of the 9600 and 9800 line, RADEON 9700 PRO and RADEON 9800 XT, ten cards total. All cards were run in very high quality mode (the highest setting available in the game) with 2.0 and 1.1 shaders being used. In Part 1 of this article we’re focusing on ATI cards, while Part 2 will deal with NVIDIA DX9 hardware, 2.0 versus 1.1 shaders (with screenshots), and the performance improvements the 1.1 Far Cry patch brings.

SIDEBAR: Far Cry Official Website

Test conditions Page:: ( 2 / 8 )

System Setup

Notes

Once again the 256MB RADEON 9800 PRO wins big in comparison to the 128MB board, those of you who spent the extra money for the 256MB card are probably happy right now, as are those of you with RADEON 9500 PRO cards.

SIDEBAR: You can download the Fort single-player demo (503MB) here.

Conclusion Page:: ( 8 / 8 )

While it didn’t get a lot of hype last year (at least in comparison to other DX9 titles), CryTek’s Far Cry is one thrilling first-person shooter. With graphics and game play this good, who needs Half-Life 2 anyway? We have a strong feeling that Far Cry could sell lots of DX9 hardware, especially if a solid multiplayer mod were to catch on.

Like our Call of Duty 3D performance article, we saw tangible benefits for RADEON 9800 PRO 256MB owners once 4xAA was enabled and the resolution was cranked up to 1600x1200. Of course, with that combination many would argue that the frame rate achieved is unplayable, but it’s an interesting development to see nonetheless.

Those of you with RADEON 9500 PRO cards should be thrilled to see your nearly 2-year-old upgrade still paying off. Due to ATI’s reluctance to really go all-out and build a RADEON 9500 PRO killer, the 9500 PRO is still the fastest mainstream offering from the company, at least as far as our testing with Far Cry is concerned. While ATI has cranked up the core significantly on RADEON 9600 XT in comparison to 9500 PRO, memory bandwidth was unchanged from 9600 PRO. In addition, the RADEON 9500 PRO’s 8-pixel pipeline architecture and 275MHz graphics core give the older card more fill rate, and based on tests we’ve run in the past with ShaderMark 2.0, more shader performance as well.

ATI really put together a killer product with the RADEON 9500 PRO, it’s a shame cards disappeared so quickly.

The RADEON 9800 and RADEON 9700 PRO offer the best price/performance ratio among high-end DX9 RADEON cards. Both cards provide nearly identical performance so you may want to pick up the cheaper of the two, but if temperature is a concern to you the RADEON 9800 would be the better choice. ATI incorporated a number of improvements in the board design of the RADEON 9800/9800 PRO (which we’ve discussed at length in both reviews) that were designed to address the amount of heat generated by the RADEON 9700 PRO.

Of course, with ATI set to announce it’s upcoming high-end DX9 part very soon, the hardcore crowd will be watching the web closely for benchmarks. Don’t worry folks, the wait is almost over, and we’ll of course explore its performance in Far Cry.

SIDEBAR: Were you surprised to see the RADEON 9800 PRO 256MB outperform the 128MB in Far Cry? How about the 9500 PRO benchmarks? Chat with others in the news comments!

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