Far Cry 2 vs Far Cry 5 shameful physics, a lone exception or the trend this generation?

Someone posted a video comparing FC2 physics with FC5 physics, results are shocking, FC2 was released 10 years ago and still looks leaps and bounds better than FC5. It's like the roles are reversed!

FC2 enjoys massively better foliage physics, destruction and object manipulation are far superior, car physics and car deformation are massively ahead, advanced rag dolls and advanced cloud simulation are present in FC2 and are better in every way. Even water and rain simulation is better as well. It's like FC5 is a PS3 game and FC2 is the PS4 one! Not to mention AI is smarter in FC2 as well.

I really feel like this isn't just a random thing, this whole generation exhibited major step backs in the physics department. It's utterly disappointing.

 
More realism also affects gameplay. Sometimes, it's simply a design choice.

But i agree, if we only consider physics, it's a massive downgrade.

However, some realistic things in FC2 are simply boring from a gameplay perspective.
 
Last edited:
they're not labled which is which

the first scene, player outlined in red behind a corrugated iron fence
vs the other

not sure whats more realistic? I assume bullets from a rifle would go through the fence (gfx in the first look better but more cartoony)

'realism' in physics is often prolly not desirable, remember that jurassic park game from the 90s.
 
Looks to me like different design choices and priorities. It is unfortunate to see how much better the animation looked back then, as well as the thought put into how fire affects trees etc. Could it be done today? Technically, of course. But that's what we're getting, different developers, different choices, .
 
^That too, but can't we agree on this being a global tendency? If that is the case, why? CPU power hasn't kept up with the power increase in other aspects, such as GPU, RAM, etc., IMO.
 
Honestly, I don't think it's a CPU limitation, not exclusively anyway. For better or worse, today's console CPU are much more powerful than on older consoles, even as rubbish as they are.

It's a design choice, and perhaps budgetary too. There are games today with incredible animation and physics, others without. With what it costs to produce a (big) game today, I'm not surprised that 'corner cutting' is more pronounced today.

And furthermore, these differences are even more evident today, as a game that looks really good such as FC5 (IQ being the main priority today) would be accompanied by physics and animation that are not on the same level of polish. It looks even weirder.
 
How hard is it to show exact physics behavior between two players playing together on different consoles/PCs online ?
Maybe it's toned down so each player sees the same things, and complex physics would not be identically reproduced for each player ?
There are already things that happen differently when playing with my friend, like yesterday, he blew up a truck, on my screen i saw the truck sliding backwards on the ground some ten meters away, then reapearing where it was supposed to be, but on my friend's screen it never moved.
 
It's not something that started this generation, but in fact began during last-gen.

This video is biased because many things are better in GTA5 and those things aren't showed in the video :
Most of the differences are creative or gameplay differences, there are some things GTA 4 definitely does better, and others GTA 5 definitely does better. All in all the situation is not the same as Far Cry 2 vs Far Cry 5 or Dead Rising 1 vs Dead Rising 4, those games have glaring and shocking differences in the underlying fundemebtal physics simulation itself.
 
Jaguars behave quite well actually... Almost like a quad core @ 3,6 - 3,9 Ghz... The i5-6500
Of course not, that Core i5 is pushing far more fps than the Jaguars, that's why it's utilization is being pushed to the max. The jaguars are only pushing 30fps, the i5 is pushing 90fps on the RX 480. Generally the i5 is serveral orders of magnitude faster than the Jaguars.

I am starting to think it's truly the Jaguars that are holding things back, current games do a lot of GPU Compute to compensate for their lackluster performance, and several developers spoke to Digital Foundry stating that simulation complexity had to be scaled back because of the Jaguars.
 
Back
Top