Introduction

Lets clear up a few things…

After further analysis with Far Cry, it turns out the game isn’t quite the technological tour de force we suggested in part 1 of our 3D Performance with Far Cry article. In that article, we highlighted the game’s use of 2.0 shaders, and while these shaders are used in the game, it turns out that they’re not used as extensively as we suggested. In fact, from what we can tell, Far Cry mainly uses 1.1 shaders to achieve the jaw-dropping visuals we discussed in the intro.

In laymen’s terms, this means that NVIDIA’s three-year old GeForce3 GPU is capable of reproducing most of Far Cry’s brilliant eye candy, although at a significantly reduced frame rate.

Don’t believe us? Let’s take a look at one of Far Cry’s best features, its water:

GeForce4 Ti 4600

Another GeForce4 water shot

GeForce FX 5950 Ultra

GeForce FX 5950 Ultra water shot 2

ATI RADEON 9800 PRO

RADEON 9800 PRO from second angle

All three cards were running in very high quality water mode. It turns out that Far Cry uses 1.1 shaders for rendering water, even in ultra high quality mode, which renders even more reflections on the water than the other modes:

GeForce4 Ti 4600 ultra high quality water

Second angle of GeForce4 in ultra mode

GeForce FX 5950 Ultra ultra high quality

5950 Ultra second angle

RADEON 9800 PRO ultra high quality water

RADEON 9800 PRO ultra water

We confirmed the use of 1.1 shaders for water on both ATI and NVIDIA hardware, regardless of the generation of the graphics card. We also noted a bug on NVIDIA cards in ultra high quality mode involving the reflection of objects on the water:

Note the huge reflection on GeForce4

Large reflection on GeForce FX 5950 also

ATI RADEON 9800 PRO, note the difference in the size of the reflection

This bug was present on GeForce4 and GeForce FX with ForceWare 56.72, as well as NVIDIA’s upcoming GeForce 6800 Ultra with ForceWare 60.72.

Recently there’s been some controversy surrounding a set of screenshots NVIDIA sent to the press involving shader model 3.0 and Far Cry. In the screenshots, NVIDIA provides a comparison of 1.1 shaders to 3.0 shaders. According to NVIDIA: “The following before-and-after images are from the CryEngine. Developer Crytek uses Shader Model 3.0 techniques (vs. 1.x shaders) to add more depth and realism to the scenes. Notice the more realistic look and feel when SM 3.0 is applied to the bricks and stones that make up the staircase. In the scene featuring the Buddha, the full image comes to life with the use of SM 3.0, with the technique applied to multiple objects.” (Editor’s Note: The preceding quote came directly from NVIDIA’s email to members of the press which accompanied the screenshots) :

Far Cry PS 1.1

Far Cry PS 3.0

Far Cry PS 1.1

Far Cry PS 3.0

Clearly you can see that the water in NVIDIA’s screenshots doesn’t match the output we’ve just shown you using 1.1 shaders and NVIDIA’s GeForce4 GPU. In fact, they resemble Far Cry’s low quality water mode more than anything else (which also happens to use 1.1 shaders). As we discussed at length in our GeForce 6800 Ultra article, the main additions of shader model 3.0 are more instructions and dynamic looping/branching, which is designed to make life easier for content developers and can handle certain operations more efficiently than shader model 2.0 (we mentioned some examples in the preview article). In some cases this looping/branching can also bring improved performance, but can also hinder performance if coded improperly.

The other main highlights of shader model 3.0 have been present in ATI’s DX9 hardware for some time now, with the exception of FP32 support.

So what does Far Cry use 2.0 shaders for? Apparently just lighting, everything else is handled by 1.1 shaders.

With this in mind, we’ve rounded up one dozen GeForce cards, ranging from the GeForce4 Ti 4200 to the GeForce 6800 Ultra. We’ve also run numbers comparing the performance of Far Cry 1.0 with Far Cry 1.1, which contains performance optimizations for GeForce FX cards.

5950 Ultra AF disabled

5950 Ultra 4xAF

5950 Ultra 8xAF