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| Introduction & Screen Shots | ||||||||||
Peruse virtually any PC gaming magazine, or point your browser to any popular gaming web site, and you're bound to find a myriad of information and accolades for Crytek's smash-hit, first person shooter, FarCry. The game has some of the best graphics to hit the PC to date, and except for a few minor issues like its "checkpoint" based save-game feature, the single player portion of FarCry has been almost universally lauded as some of the best first person gaming in years. The game's popularity, the complexity of the graphics, and Crytek's willingness to work with NVIDIA to expose their NV40's Shader Model 3.0 capabilities, brings us to where we are today. We were recently given the opportunity to test the latest patch for FarCry (v1.2), before it was released to the public. When coupled with DirectX 9.0C, the FarCry v1.2 patch enables the game engine to run the previously unavailable Shader Model 3.0 code path. And with the Shader Model 3.0 path enabled, NVIDIA's GeForce 6 series of cards gets a nice boost in performance in grassy outdoor maps that are loaded with trees, and in indoor maps that make heavy use of per-pixel lighting. We installed DX9.0c and the v1.2 patch, and ran some benchmarks at each stage of the process to see if / when / where performance gains would be realized. We also took screen shots along the way to see if SM3.0 has any discernable impact on image quality and had some interesting results...
The screen shots above are from FarCry's "Regulator", "Catacombs", and "Volcano" maps. They were taken with a GeForce 6800 GT (Forceware v61.45) at a resolution of 1024x768, with 4X anti-aliasing and 16X Anisotropic filtering enabled. The shots on the left (without the yellow labels at the top of the screen) were taken using the Shader Model 2.0 path; the shots on the right with Shader Model 3.0. As you can see, there are almost no image quality differences between SM 2.0 and SM 3.0 to speak of. In the indoor shot, the light is cast in a slightly different manner, but neither one looks any "better" than the other. In the outdoor map, there are no noteworthy differences to point out whatsoever.
Unfortunately, with an ATi Radeon X800 Pro installed in our test system, using the Catalyst v4.6 drivers in conjunction with the v1.2 patch, the Radeon had a problem rendering some screens. As you can see in the screen shot above, the patches of the ground were not rendered correctly. Hopefully, ATi can clear this issue up with the Catalyst v4.7 drivers that are do in the coming weeks. |
| DX9.0b vs. DX9.0c | ||||||||||
Because we had to make some major changes to our test machine's operating system, and were patching a game that we normally used for benchmarking, we decided to run benchmarks during each step of the upgrade process to see exactly where the performance gains (if any) were coming from. After installing Windows XP SP2, which incorporates DirectX 9.0c, we ran a batch of timedemos using our custom demo and compared them to some reference scores taken with DirectX 9.0b installed. Then we patched FarCry, and re-ran the same custom timedemo to see how much of a difference simply applying the patch made to performance. Lastly, we ran some new tests with four new demos incorporated into the patch to demonstrate the performance differences between Shader Model 2.0 and Shader Model 3.0 on NVIDIA's GeForce 6800 GT and 6800...
As you can see, installing DirectX 9.0c had virtually no affect on performance. Most of the frame-rates were marginally higher, but in a few tests frame-rates were fractionally lower. After killing a few hours running these tests on ATi and NVIDIA hardware, we can safely say that DirectX 9.0c, in and of itself, has no measurable impact on performance with FarCry. |
| FarCry Patch v1.1 vs. v1.2 | ||||
For this next round of tests, we applied the FarCry v1.2 patch and re-ran our custom timedemo without changing any in-game settings. These frame-rates demonstrate the kind of performance gains the average user will see by simply applying the new patch once it is released...
Applying the v1.2 patch significantly affected performance on all three of the cards we tested. The largest performance gains were seen on the GeForce 6800 cards when anti-aliasing and Anisotropic filtering were enabled concurrently. Performance gains were in the neighborhood of 5%-20% on the 6800 and 6800 GT. The Radeon X800 Pro's performance went up across the board as well, but by much smaller margins. It seems Crytek has been optimizing as well as stamping out a few bugs. |
| Regulator Map - SM 3.0 vs. SM 2.0 | ||||
The FarCry v1.2 patch should include four new demos that can be used for benchmarking and, as NVIDIA happily pointed out, clearly show the performance gains associated with using Shader Model 3.0. Although we didn't see any major differences in image quality, using SM3.0 with FarCry means NVIDIA's GeForce 6 series of cards can run some shaders in fewer passes, versus cards like the X800 Pro that comply with Shader Model 2.0.
The 12-Pipe GeForce 6800 and 16-Pipe GeForce 6800 GT both gained a few frames per second by enabling the Shader Model 3.0 code path, but the differences weren't dramatic in this map. The SM 3.0 path cannot be enabled with the Radeon X800 Pro, so there will be only one set of numbers for the Radeon from this point forward. |
| Training Map - SM 3.0 vs. SM 2.0 | ||||
The "Training" demo should also be included with the FarCry v1.2 patch. This demo takes place in a large outdoor scene with lots of grass, trees, and water...
The GeForce 6800s gained some performance by enabling the SM 3.0 path in the Training demo as well, but the deltas were quite small. Once again, the largest gains were realized when anti-aliasing and Anisotropic filtering were enabled concurrently, which also happens to be the configuration where the Radeon X800 Pro performs at its best. |
| Volcano Map - SM 3.0 vs. SM 2.0 | ||||
The Volcano demo takes place mostly indoors, and uses a lot of per-pixel lighting. Unlike the Regulator and Research demos, Shader Model 3.0 drastically affected performance this time around...
Both the GeForce 6800 GT and the GeForce 6800 significantly benefited by using the Shader Model 3.0 path in with the Volcano Demo. Performance gains with this demo varied from about 9% to almost 30%. Once again, it's when AA and Aniso are enabled together that the largest gains are realized, but even when anti-aliasing and Anisotropic filtering were disabled the NVIDIA card's performance increased by a few frames per second at both resolutions. |
| Research Map - SM 3.0 vs. SM 2.0 | ||||
Per-Pixel lighting is heavily used in the Research demo as well and, like the Volcano demo, performance in this map increases greatly when using the Shader Model 3.0 code path...
At resolutions of 1024x768 and 1600x1200, regardless of what settings were used, the performance of both the GeForce 6800 GT and GeForce 6800 increased significantly when the Shader Model 3.0 path was enabled. With this demo, the performance gains were quite large when AA and Aniso were disabled, but when anti-aliasing and Anisotropic filtering were enabled performance increased dramatically as well. |
| Summary & Conclusion |
Benchmark Summary: When using the SM 3.0 path, the 12-pipe GeForce 6800 ($299) was able to outperform a 12-pipe Radeon X800 Pro ($399) in only two, lower-resolution tests with AA and Anisotropic filtering disabled. When AA and Aniso were enabled, the X800 Pro outpaced the 6800 across the board. The similarly priced GeForce 6800 GT ($399), however, beat the Radeon X800 Pro in all of the default tests, as well as when 4X AA was enabled. It was only when anti-aliasing and Anisotropic filtering were enabled concurrently that the X800 Pro was able to score a few victories over the GT.
The FarCry v1.2 patch is somewhat of a milestone for NVIDIA. When DirectX 9.0c "ships", FarCry, when patched to v1.2, will be the first readily available game to take advantage of the GeForce 6 series Shader Model 3.0 capabilities. And although image quality is generally unaffected by the SM 3.0 in FarCry, the performance gains associated with using the SM 3.0 path are significant. If the types of performance gains we've seen here today are typical, more game developers may begin to use SM 3.0 to give their projects a boost. If this happens quickly, NVIDIA's GeForce 6 series may overtake ATi's X800's in more and more games, putting NVIDIA in a much more comfortable position. |
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