AMD’s 64-bit instructions, instruction limits

FiringSquad: In addition to SM 3.0, Far Cry will also be patched to take advantage of AMD’s 64-bit architecture in the future – what changes are you implementing in the 64-bit version of Far Cry?

Cevat Yerli: We’ve done it mainly for content development creators and mod creators, there will be huge benefits from it. For the gameplay it will be more beneficial to the environment, you will have some specific content for 64-bit. There will be a 64-bit version of Far Cry, a separate one eventually. That will be essentially content-wise slightly improved over the 32-bit version but it’s not something which, I mean people with the 32-bit version can still compare to the 64-bit version, but it’s optimized for the 64-bit experience. And the user of course will benefit from the 64-bit CPU architecture, which is more registers, better memory controller, but also more addressable memory.

FiringSquad: Will it look any better, or are you just going to use 64-bit to enhance performance?

Cevat Yerli: Well you will have a better experience, not necessarily “the look”; well you will have more environmental objects. If you consider that a better “look”, then yes, but the experience will be better because more things will be happening on screen.

FiringSquad: How many 2.0 instructions are you using in Far Cry today with the 1.2 patch? How many 3.0? When do you think games will begin to hit 3.0’s current maximums?

Cevat Yerli: 2.0 maximum or 3.0 maxium?

FiringSquad: 3.0 maximum.

Cevat Yerli: I think we’re far away from that, but we’re actually hitting the 2.0 maximums now. For 3.0 we don’t really use the amount of instructions really. Our instructions are 96 instructions tops right now.

FiringSquad: Oh really, you’re at 96 instructions with 2.0 now?

Cevat Yerli: Yes, and we’re not using more because we don’t need more. If you look at the image quality you can achieve with 2.0 – with 2.0 you can achieve pretty much any quality you want for right now. And the key benefit between 3.0 and 2.0 is performance really and so we’re using 3.0 for performance gains, not an image quality gain. The image quality you can achieve with 2.0 is good for now so there won’t be any real technology differences other than the performance difference.

Final thoughts

As good as Far Cry is now, it’s about to get even better in the near future. With AMD-64, 3Dc, HDR, and additional performance improvements all on the way in upcoming patches, Far Cry will continue to push the state-of-the-art in gaming technology. This should not only make it popular among gamers, but game developers as well, who could potentially license the CryENGINE for use in games well into next year.

We eagerly look forward to checking out future versions of Far Cry, as well as any follow-up titles CryTek will be working on. We’d like to thank Cevat for taking a few moments of time out of his busy schedule to talk with us and wish CryTek all the best in the future!