Farcry HDR+AA on X1800, patch preview with lots of screenies! (56K nogo)

[Apple740]

http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=988870







Moderator: A few images in one post was quite enough.

2nd Moderator Notice: ONE post with the above pictures is quite sufficient.

 

[gordon]

I like the Farcry night scenes, they look so nice. Maybe I'll try to finish this game someday :/.

 

[Skrying]

Nice. This very much proves that HDR and AA together are very possible, very very possible.

 

[cho]

here is some offical benchmark results.
http://news.gzeasy.com/itnews/2005-12-11/itnews_4215.html

 

[Apple740]

here is some offical benchmark results.
http://news.gzeasy.com/itnews/2005-12-11/itnews_4215.html

Good to see that Crossfire is benefitting FP HDR performance, if i remember correctly SLI doesn't help (much) over a single card.

I can state the single card fps numbers, 1280x1024/4xAA/8xHQAF was good playable (~45 avg), but @ 1600x1200 the fps collapse. Even with only 2xAA the avg was not good to be enjoyable (often dips below 30).

 

[Moloch]

Did I miss something?
How did they manage to get 1800XT crossfire numbers?

 

[Mintmaster]

here is some offical benchmark results.
http://news.gzeasy.com/itnews/2005-12-11/itnews_4215.html

Couldn't they do some other resolutions? I'm hoping some other sites will follow suit.

BTW, Apple740, you're right about SLI. Can't imagine why this is the case, though.

 

[Ailuros]

I can state the single card fps numbers, 1280x1024/4xAA/8xHQAF was good playable (~45 avg), but @ 1600x1200 the fps collapse. Even with only 2xAA the avg was not good to be enjoyable (often dips below 30).

That sounds perfectly adequate to me and the scores are quite impressive.

As a general note 1280*xxxx is still a high resolution (just for those that think that anything below 1600*1200 is some sort of "crime" these days).

 

[no-X]

Did I miss something?
How did they manage to get 1800XT crossfire numbers?

X1800 CrossFire will be released soon, it's nothing unusual to find some leaked information.

 

[ChrisRay]

Couldn't they do some other resolutions? I'm hoping some other sites will follow suit.

BTW, Apple740, you're right about SLI. Can't imagine why this is the case, though.

SLI in Far Cry would work if the game was compatible with AFR2. If you turn on AFR2 in Far Cry. You get massive boosts in performance in indoor scenes with SLI running AFR. Unfortunately the outdoor scenes arent entirely compatible with AFR2 so it causes stuttering outdoors. Which is why the game is default to SFR. Which isnt compatible to HDR rendering. Since its an un official rendering mode of the game. I honestly dont ever expect Nvidia to fix this. You can make your own HDR profile which will give significant boosts. Fortunately this problem is only confined to Far Cry.

 

[fallguy]

So AFR can work with HDR in Farcry? Is there a FAQ that can better explain the different rendering modes, and which I should use better than whats on NV sites? Thanks.

 

[ChrisRay]

AFR technically does and doesnt work with Far Cry. In indoor areas. It provides even higher performance boosts higher than SFR ((With HDR it gives about 60% boosts indoors)). In outdoor areas the performance is similar but you may experience stuttering. I know I do. But others have claimed they dont. So I wouldnt go as far as saying its compatible. If you'd like to test it yourself. The 3dmark05 profile generally works well with Far Cry in AFR mode. I havent tested this in a while. So it could have changed some in recent drivers. As Nvidia always seems to be tweaking there SLI drivers.

 

[Mintmaster]

ChrisRay, thanks for the info, but what I meant is I don't see why CrossFire gives a performance increase and SLI doesn't. Maybe Crossfire has the same problems you mentioned, but the drivers can handle data flow between cards a bit better.

Anyway, I still think multiple cards are useless. A lot of good special effects are incompatible with it, basically whenever something is used from one frame to the next, like GPU simulated physics (cloth, water, particle systems), some HDR effects (delayed auto-iris, image burn), motion trails, and I'm sure many others. Plus you only get the memory of one card, there's more power consumption and noise, etc. But if the market wants SLI, the market gets it, I guess.

 

[ChrisRay]

Mintmaster. But I did answer your question. They are obviously using different rendering methods Far Cry was one of the first titles which SLI supported. And its rendering profile was developed before HDR was patched in. AFR2 solves almost 95% of the issues you mentioned.

 

[bigz]

I have noticed (some) performance improvements with HDR in Far Cry - not quite as dramatic as other games using FP16 HDR, though.

Many reviewers didn't see performance benefits in timedemos.

 

[MistaPi]

here is some offical benchmark results.
http://news.gzeasy.com/itnews/2005-12-11/itnews_4215.html

CRC2005 4xAA and SS2 Med AA on GeForce 7800? Does these games use INT HDR?

 

[SynapticSignal]

 

[MistaPi]

Well, Im sorry for being ignorant but it does say "High Dynamic Range Performance" and CRC2005 and SS2 is running on a 7800GTX with AA AFAICS.

 

[MistaPi]

Is FarCry the only game sofar that supports AA with FP blending HDR?

 

[pakotlar]

afaik SS2 uses floating point buffers, dunno about CRC2005