Far Cry min playable spec

RicardoSmith

Was wondering what the minimum playable spec is for Far Cry.

I'm on a laptop 5600fx/P4-2.8m/512mb@1280x1024

RobertFoster

*opens manual*

Min:
OS - Win 98 SE
CPU - Pentium 3 1000 Mhz / AMD Athlon 1.0 Ghz
RAM - 256 MB
HDD - 4 GB
GFX - GeForce 2 64mb / Ati 8500
DVD - 4x DVD / 16x CD-Rom

Recommended:
OS - Win 2000
CPU - Pentium 4 2000 Mhz / AMD Athlon XP 2000+
RAM - 512 MB
HDD - 4 GB
GFX - GeForce 4 128mb / Ati 9500
DVD - 8x DVD / 32x CD-Rom

High:
OS - Win XP
CPU - Pentium 4 3000 Mhz / AMD Athlon 64 3000+
RAM - 1024 MB
HDD - 4 GB
GFX - Radeon 9800 Pro / FeForce FX 5950
DVD - 16x DVD

bus77

you should be fine, I got the the demo going on a Radeon9000pro64mb - P4 2.4 - 256mb ram

And the demo was supposed to be more of a system hog than the full version

Edit: grrrr, Robert and his manual:D

RicardoSmith

That sounds good. I don't mind if I have to run without AA or drop the IQ a bit.

CivilServant

Originally posted by bus77
you should be fine, I got the the demo going on a Radeon9000pro64mb - P4 2.4 - 256mb ram

And the demo was supposed to be more of a system hog than the full version

Edit: grrrr, Robert and his manual:D

Errr.. I think it's the other way around. The water reflections aren't done properly in the demo, and they are in the full game.

KdjaCL

I have it running on a 9200SE (200/166 mhz core and RAM) and its runs fine on 1024 with AA off ,tried Ocing card and turning on AA slightly but bad things happened.

Anything less than what i have may have issues as it puts a serious load on the card to draw distances.

kdjac

CivilServant

Well the 9200SE would only allow the game to be played using the dx8 path, therefore will look a lot different to the way the programmers intended. If you want to check how your graphics card is doing, bring up the console (using ~) and type "\r_displayinfo 1". This will give you the fps and some stats.

skipn_easy

I ran the demo on low with a radeon 9000 64mb card on my laptop and it was fine. Can't play the full game though, when it gets into any heavy action the frame rates drop way down and its all jumpy

RicardoSmith

Originally posted by CivilServant
Well the 9200SE would only allow the game to be played using the dx8 path, therefore will look a lot different to the way the programmers intended. .....

Dx8 path? Sorry can you explain that? Which features use Dx9?

This article it would seem to suggest that it looks the same on older cards...
http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/far_cry_nvidia/

RicardoSmith

Originally posted by skipn_easy
I ran the demo on low with a radeon 9000 64mb card on my laptop and it was fine. Can't play the full game though, when it gets into any heavy action the frame rates drop way down and its all jumpy

Whats the spec on that laptop?

skipn_easy

radeon 9000(64mb)/PM-1.6GHz/512mb@1400 * 1050

po0k

Originally posted by RicardoSmith
Dx8 path? Sorry can you explain that? Which features use Dx9?

This article it would seem to suggest that it looks the same on older cards...
http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/far_cry_nvidia/

If your card isn't 100% DX9 hardware, the game fall's back to what is effectively a Dx8 version of the "engine".
So you'll have ver1.4 VS/PS instead of 2.0
And things possibly do look different, but only under scrutiny.

I was running the demo on:
Slot1 P3 800 Cu 256Kb PC100
768Meg PC100 ECC SDRAM
GF4 Ti4200-8x 64Meg DDR (~270Core, 580Mem) @ AGP 2x
Win2000 SP4
Dx9.0b
nV FW ~53.xx

Game settings were all on low at 800x600x16bpp

Was comfortable enough to play, enjoy and finish the demo which is my acid test for performance.

CivilServant

Yeah basically what syxpak said, the settings will change to suit whatever your machine is capable of.

RicardoSmith

I understood from that article that the engine wasn't using any dx9 features

po0k

From the offical site:
" Renderer: Integrates indoor and outdoor technology seamlessly while offering rendering support for OpenGL & DirectX 8/9, XBox using latest HW features, PS2 and GameCube. "
If you have a Dx8 card it'll make do with that (or what ever OpenGL hardware extensions your card supports), if you've got a Dx9 card, it'll take advantage of those features.
It's like a checklist.
Some cards have full Dx8 hardware support and partial Dx9 support, the game will adapt to use what it can (driver and game settings permitting).

Whoever wrote the article you were reading isn't the most clued in w.r.t. the actual technology (like alot of game reviewers).

RicardoSmith

That offical site quote is techo babble. It doesn't give any specifics.

w.r.t. - whats that?

Well at least in the article they gave an example on the different cards and the only difference they found was in the lighting. Even then there wasn't much of a difference.


Like as asked originally. What specific features in the game use Dx9 features? Preferably demonstrated with a screengrab.

CivilServant

WRT = with respect to

This link has a few screenshots of what the 6800 looks like using version 1.0 and version 1.1. Version 1.1 uses PS2.0 and the other one PS1.4. No water reflections in PS1.4, and in PS1.1 you might not be able to see through the water. I'm not sure if the 9200SE has PS1.4 even. But anyways you get the picture.

It plays sweet on my machine:

2.1Ghz Athlon Thoroughbred
512 DDR400
9700 Pro

30-50 fps outside, 50-90 fps wandering around inside.


Edit: typos

po0k

Originally posted by RicardoSmith
That offical site quote is techo babble. It doesn't give any specifics.

:rolleyes:

From the offical site:
" Renderer: Integrates indoor and outdoor technology seamlessly while offering rendering support for OpenGL & DirectX 8/9, XBox using latest HW features, PS2 and GameCube. "

I dunno about you, but to me that implies that is CAN USE EITHER DirectX8 OR DirectX9 VERTEX AND/OR PIXEL SHADERS, but then again, I'm just talking through my ass.

KdjaCL

From what i have seen from using CryEditor ,it doesnt really matter whether your card is DX8 or 9.
The shading effect that it uses doesnt seem to differeniate from card to card, example i made a small map of indoor prison with a large leadup (no water or sea well none you can see or get to anyway) just to see how it would perform on a few systems ,its 2 KM in game size and on a few machines noone noticed any slowdown or anything missing.
Tbh from what i have seen bushes look better and ground textures have a better look to them.

Both useless to me as i have to make sure it plays fast online with no FPS slowdown or high VIS areas.
But overall the map performed will on 9800Xts and a Ti500.

Kdjac

RicardoSmith

Originally posted by SyxPak
:rolleyes:



I dunno about you, but to me that implies that is CAN USE EITHER DirectX8 OR DirectX9 VERTEX AND/OR PIXEL SHADERS, but then again, I'm just talking through my ass.

Whats with the Caps?

I didn't think it used higer than PS1.1 dispite what the marketing blurb says. Are PS1.1 in DX8 ?

bus77

Originally posted by RicardoSmith
Whats with the Caps?

I didn't think it used higer than PS1.1 dispite what the marketing blurb says. Are PS1.1 in DX8 ?

Are you designing a game or sumtin?

RicardoSmith

Originally posted by bus77
Are you designing a game or sumtin?

Why on earth would you think that?

Moojuice

I am running it fine on my lap top.

2.8Ghz
512 Ram
64 Nvidia GeForce
Everything is set to medium and there is no slow down during heavy action.


It gets a bit hot due to the graphics card doing a lot of work but it looks spectacular, the water is unbelievable. It also runs on my 1 Ghz 512 Ram, 32 Meg GForce 2 Desktop. Everything is set to low but it still looks good.

RicardoSmith

Originally posted by Moojuice
I am running it fine on my lap top.

2.8Ghz
512 Ram
64 Nvidia GeForce
Everything is set to medium and there is no slow down during heavy action.


It gets a bit hot due to the graphics card doing a lot of work but it looks spectacular, the water is unbelievable. It also runs on my 1 Ghz 512 Ram, 32 Meg GForce 2 Desktop. Everything is set to low but it still looks good.

Thanks. Thats what I was wondering. Is the game any good?

hairball

Far Cry runs very smoothly for me at 1280x 764 at 32 bit with everthing else turned up to highest

System:
P3 3 gig
512 megs of DDR400
Radeon 9800 pro

I'm happy with that for now:)

tman

Originally posted by RicardoSmith
Is the game any good?

yep, an early contender for my game of the year.
pisses all over recent fps's like call of duty and halo.

hairball

ooooops I meant p4 3 gig

tman

Originally posted by hairball
Far Cry runs very smoothly for me at 1280x 764 at 32 bit with everthing else turned up to highest

System:
P3 3 gig
512 megs of DDR400
Radeon 9800 pro

I'm happy with that for now:)

wow, that's very strange... your specs are nowhere near as powerful as even the weakest of modern laptops... how the hell are you getting good performance?

KdjaCL

Originally posted by tman

pisses all over recent fps's like call of duty and halo.

from a great height i would add.

kdjac

hairball

I'll refer you to the correction above...erm..sorry *ahem*

tman

aye, i'd already seen the correction.

i was merely pointing out that saying that far cry runs nicely on your top of the range desktop, isn't very helpful to someone who's wondering wether it'll run on their laptop

po0k

Originally posted by RicardoSmith
Whats with the Caps?

I didn't think it used higer than PS1.1 dispite what the marketing blurb says. Are PS1.1 in DX8 ?

I must appologise for the caps, was getting frustrated tying desperately to convey my point that the game is not strictly DX 8 or DX9. Imho, it is a DX9-generation engine, but can run on multiple APIs.
As for exactly which API calls it makes under Dx8/9/OpenGL 1.x, I don't know and I don't particularly mind as it runs on my machine.

The engine requires ~DX8 hardware as a minimum, but if you've got better stuff, it'll run with that.


This is about the 4th or 5th time this has been explained to you on this thread Ricardo.

If you have a GF4 Ti class gpu, 1 Ghz Athlon/P3, 512meg ram, Win32 and Dx8.1 chances are you can run this game.
Moojuice, I assume you were running that GF2 under OpenGL?

po0k

Originally posted by tman
aye, i'd already seen the correction.

i was merely pointing out that saying that far cry runs nicely on your top of the range desktop, isn't very helpful to someone who's wondering wether it'll run on their laptop

Actually, if he had a P3 running at 3Ghz, it'd whip the piss out of a P4 at 3Ghz in calculation speed at elast, though memory bandwidth would be another story.

RicardoSmith

Originally posted by SyxPak
I must appologise for the caps, was getting frustrated tying desperately to convey my point that the game is not strictly DX 8 or DX9. Imho, it is a DX9-generation engine, but can run on multiple APIs.
As for exactly which API calls it makes under Dx8/9/OpenGL 1.x, I don't know and I don't particularly mind as it runs on my machine.

The engine requires ~DX8 hardware as a minimum, but if you've got better stuff, it'll run with that.


This is about the 4th or 5th time this has been explained to you on this thread Ricardo.

Listen I'm not trying to flame you or anything, I was just curious about all the technobabble about these amazing graphics.

Actually I linked to an article explaining that (by my understanding of the pixel shaders) that it doesn't use DX9 features at all, despite what it says in all the offical blurb. You saying it does without giving any specific example of a feature that is Dx9 only. So your just repeating what the blurb does. Thats not giving me more information, thats giving me the same information, again.

AFAIK theres no game that is NOT backward compatible with a previous DirectX version. Maybe I'm wrong, can anyone give an example of a DX9 game that won't run on a DX8 card?

KdjaCL

Originally posted by RicardoSmith

AFAIK theres no game that is NOT backward compatible with a previous DirectX version. Maybe I'm wrong, can anyone give an example of a DX9 game that won't run on a DX8 card?

Battlefield Vietnam ,seemingly, dont know 100% but from posts on TMT has yet to work on a pc with DX8 (not exactly your Q but wouldnt run with DX8 installed) and the error mentions the card as being the fault but when DX 9 is installed it runs.


Kdjac

RicardoSmith

Originally posted by KdjaC
Battlefield Vietnam ,seemingly, dont know 100% but from posts on TMT has yet to work on a pc with DX8 (not exactly your Q but wouldnt run with DX8 installed) and the error mentions the card as being the fault but when DX 9 is installed it runs.


Kdjac

Thats a different issue, and is going to confuse this issue. The software is looking for DX9 installed. That doesn't mean it requires DX9 hardware support. Anyway forget it this is getting boring now.

po0k

If it included a software render, but used Dx9 DriectSound, DirectPlay etc. APIs would it be a DX9 game in your eyes?

Just because it doesn't require DX9 hardware, doesn't mean it won't support/use it.
They've obviously made it as flexible as possible, while still taking advantage of leading edge tech.
This would imply the latest Vertex and Pixel shaders.

A litmus test would be to install DX9 and the latest drivers on your machine (that should take care of OpenGL support), install the demo and try running it.
If it runs, you're sorted, if it doesn't, upgrade your card.
As has been pointed out it will run on a GF2 (Moojuice, could you confirm, I suspect a possible typo?).
Run !=> "run acceptably" mind.

If you want to know what extensions it uses, get yourself a fully compliant DX9 card on a new system, latest driverts, etc. and run a debugger/analyser in the background to see what functions it calls in the course of the game.

RicardoSmith

SyxPak - what did you think of the screenies in that article I linked to? Did you read it?

Moojuice

Yes Far Cry is excellent. Some half-life elements to it but better graphics. I got Manhunt, has anyone else played it? Basically you have to kill people (forced to) to make a snuff movie for this sicko. Its by Rockstar, the GTA boys. I was thinking of exchanging it for Painkiller or Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow. What do you reckon? I would love a decent strategy game, last one I got was Civ 3 but ti took up too much time and took ages to play. Any decent strategy games out there?

Moo

po0k

Moojuice - could you please confirm what graphics card was in that 1Ghz desktop you had and what API you were using to run it (ie DX or OpenGL)??

Moojuice

My Desktop card is a Gforce 2 32MB Card. The API is Direct X. Far Cry installed DX 9b when I was installing the game.

po0k

Thanks

Prisoner6409

Just Finished Far Cry. Excellent game. Best bang for buck I've gotten from a game in a good while. I was running it on a P3 1Gig, 512MB SDRAM, FX5700 Ultra 128MB and WinXP @ 1024x768x32. I had everything on medium except for water which was on high. These settings were choosen by the game at installation, auto-detect. The game ran fine for me, looked great, very odd stutter when all mayhem broke loose but no so as you'd notice much. The only other thing was that when loading a level for the first time it took 20 to 30 secs to load, but when reloading in the game(saves ect) it only took 5-7 secs. When I first bought it I was a bit concerned that it might not run so well cause I'd heard that ppl with better systems had some probs but I did'nt.

RicardoSmith

thnx Prisoner6409

daveg

--Edit-- shít. I replied to the wrong thread...