Looks Like Far Cry will support 3dc, AMD 64, and HDR

[Tim]

Serious Sam 2 uses the Crytec engine?

No, I was just a bit confused.

 

[dizietsma]

I wonder what other games will be based on this engine ? The way they keep adding features is nice to see and obviously makes it more financially viable to sell on.

It was an interesting point about HDR giving overexposure and needing to be given a tweak, the images I have seen on the net do show bloom but the indication was that this was done on purpose to show the effect, but does this indicate it was not.

 

[hjs]

what about what's they write at driverheaven about 1.2 and the ati cards?

So, the 6800 has received an excellent increase in IQ, what about the Radeon? Well all is not rosy in the ATI garden. Things have gone from pretty much spot on in patch 1.1 to, well lets be honest, awful in 1.2. There are texture issues on every level which involves an outdoor section and these issues are far worse than anything we saw on the 6800 with previous game versions. The point of whether this affects performance is moot due to the fact that if you have a Radeon you won’t want to play with version 1.2 at all. To better illustrate the issues here are a few screenies, again at 1600x1200 with no aa or af (these texture issues flicker in and out).

http://www.driverheaven.net/articles/farcrypatch/

WTF !?!?!?

 

[Sxotty]

Well it is good to see support for 3dc, now I wonder if they will also support the method that already exists for this, I think they might actually not bother. I am planning to reinstall and play thru farcry this fall once I get a new video card and see how much difference I can tell.

 

[Jabbah]

Well its going to be nice to see how much 3dc will speed up the x800s .

Do we know for sure if 3dc will be used for increasing fps or increasing quality?

I suppose the quality increase would only be available if the source models were detailed enough. But I would personally like to see more detail than faster frame rates in farcry.

 

[Xmas]

Well it is good to see support for 3dc, now I wonder if they will also support the method that already exists for this, I think they might actually not bother. I am planning to reinstall and play thru farcry this fall once I get a new video card and see how much difference I can tell.

Which method? DXT5? NVidia's two-channel format with automatic normal expansion? Or just an uncompressed two-channel format?

Anyway, I doubt they'll deliver new textures, so 3Dc (and maybe another method) will be used for performance, with a small drop in quality.

 

[Dave Baumann]

If they're supporting 3Dc I wondering if they'll be supporting ATI's vertex instancing.

 

[Evildeus]

Ati's doing vertex instancing? I thought it was a VS3.0 offering :?

 

[LeStoffer]

If they're supporting 3Dc I wondering if they'll be supporting ATI's vertex instancing.

Hmm, I'm not sure if I missed something Dave? You're not talking about ATI's recent instancing Demo? (Which AFAIR was about doing some clever vertex program tricks).

 

[Ruined]

The question is, would you rather play with the exclusive HDR Lighting of the 6800 series/NV40, or would you rather play at higher res/aa/af since HDR will likely give you a speed hit?

This is what the NV40 HDR will look like (exposure levels may change):
http://www.reflectonreality.com/images/nv40/farcryhd1.jpg
http://www.reflectonreality.com/images/nv40/farcryhd2.jpg
http://www.reflectonreality.com/images/nv40/farcryhd3.jpg
http://www.reflectonreality.com/images/nv40/farcryhd4.jpg

So, more AA/AF or HDR, what do you prefer (assuming you own or plan to own an NV40)?

I am gonna go the HDR route (gettin a 6800GT), cuz it just looks too cool to pass up

 

[Dave Baumann]

Hmm, I'm not sure if I missed something Dave?

Yes and no. I'd heard something mentioned before, although it was a bit fuzzy. But there was another tip off in these forums a while ago.

You're not talking about ATI's recent instancing Demo?

No. Keep your eyes peeled.

 

[LeStoffer]

No. Keep your eyes peeled.

Jesus F...... Christ Dave, what is it with you and all this teasing you've gotten yourself into?

I think I'll take some of those drinks on the roof now!

 

[K.I.L.E.R]

Vertex instancing is..?

 

[euan]

Update from DH:

UPDATE 05/07/04

We have been in discussions with ATI/Crytek today over the issues we discovered with Radeon X800 rendering as detailed in the above article. Crytek have confirmed that the FarCry 1.2 build released today will no longer have these issues and that X800 IQ will be just as good in Patch 1.2 as it was in 1.1.

http://www.driverheaven.net/#article_15001

 

[PatrickL]

I don' understand. It means that the 1.2 patch reviewers had is not the final 1.2 patch ?

 

[AlNom]

use of 3Dc..... purely bandwidth savings? There are quite a lot of bumpmaps in Farcry, so could there be more performance gains?

 

[Evildeus]

I don' understand. It means that the 1.2 patch reviewers had is not the final 1.2 patch ?

Didn't you see the beta word? :?

 

[pat777]

Vertex instancing is..?

You can send an entire vertex done the pipe instead of sending parts of the vertex down the pipe one by one.

 

[KimB]

This is what the NV40 HDR will look like (exposure levels may change):
http://www.reflectonreality.com/images/nv40/farcryhd1.jpg
http://www.reflectonreality.com/images/nv40/farcryhd2.jpg
http://www.reflectonreality.com/images/nv40/farcryhd3.jpg
http://www.reflectonreality.com/images/nv40/farcryhd4.jpg

So, more AA/AF or HDR, what do you prefer (assuming you own or plan to own an NV40)?

Very nice indeed. Just remember that with a FP16 framebuffer, multisampling is not supported, so you won't get any AA. At the same time, it shouldn't be any more taxing on the graphics card than 4x AA (I would have said 2x, but there is framebuffer compression to think of), and as far as anisotropic filtering is concerned, well, it shouldn't really matter whether a FP16 framebuffer is used or not. I think you'd only care about anisotropic filtering if FP16 textures were used.

 

[Sxotty]

To be honest I think the HDR looks kinda bad. It makes a lovely addition to be sure but it seems to be amplifying other things that look fake, the vines dangling from the roof for instance look very very fake now. Although I do admit it is pretty darn spiffy looking.