Nvidia launches GeForce 310.64 Beta for Far Cry 3
Nvidia's latest GeForce graphics drivers provide a claimed 38 per cent performance boost to Far Cry 3, along with numerous other enhancements and fixes.
GeForce 310.64 Beta, as the driver package is known, is claimed to boost framerates in the game by up to 38 per cent at the most popular gaming resolutions when using Nvidia's latest GeForce 600-series graphics chips - certainly nothing to be sniffed at as a free upgrade for those who were planning on playing the title at launch.
'The release is just the latest example of how Nvidia works closely with game developers to tune its software to deliver the best performance for the year's biggest gaming titles,' explained Nvidia's Chris Daniel of the driver release. 'Two weeks ago, Nvidia released a new GeForce R310 driver that delivered up to 26 per cent faster performance for Call of Duty: Black Ops II and up to 18 per cent faster performance for Assassin's Creed III.' An improved SLI profile for Far Cry 3 is also provided for multi-GPU systems.
The claim of a 38 per cent improvement come from Nvidia's own internal testing, which saw the company run the game at 1920x1080 resolution with graphics options maxed out, SSAO Ambient Occlision selected, Transparency Supersampling set to Standard and 8xMSAA enabled. The test system used a Rampage IV Extreme motherboard with Intel Core i7-3960X processor running at 3.3GHz, 8GB of RAM and a GeForce GTX 670, GTX 680 or GTX 690 depending on test.
In addition to the Far Cry 3 enhancements, the new beta driver also includes the previously-released tweaks for Call of Duty: Black Ops II and Assassin's Creed III, along with general performance tweaks that see popular games including Battlefield 3, Skyrim and StarCraft II boosted by up to 16 per cent. Fixes to the driver's TXAA support for high-quality anti-aliasing have also been incorporated, fixing shimmering problems in Call of Duty: Black Ops and Assassin's Creed III when using the feature with previous driver releases. Finally, a new Sparse Grid Supersampling option provides improved image quality.
The new GeForce 310.64 Beta drivers can be downloaded now from the official website.
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They've obviously cranked the eye-candy right up, but that's a good spot - even with the new drivers they weren't hitting 40fps with a 670 or a 680
reduce it to 4 and you would see 60 fps np.
Console porting or does the game just look F'king awesome? Genuine question, haven't played it. The console version may be the equivalent of low settings.
Like yellow color on the ground in certain places.
Also I get ~60fps@1920x1080 with Ultra and no MSAA in Battlefield 3 with my GeForce GTX 560Ti.
This card just doesn't like AA much at higher resolutions.
What is the point in that?
HD7850 wouldn't be able to max out Hitman Absolution, Sleeping Dogs or Far Cry 3. Would you rather get a free ugly looking console port like Black Ops 2 as opposed to a good game with great graphics? I'd rather take Far Cry 3 and have to tone down settings on a 7850 than get a free Assassin's Creed 3 and then be stunned how a game that ugly can run so bad with MSAA.
The more frightening development is that all these new games barely look better than Crysis Warhead from 4 years ago but perform much worse. It seems the next level of graphics will require 5-10x the GPU power we have today as GTX680/HD7970Ghz are already not enough for 60 fps in the latest games at 1080P. None of these games are even true next gen DX11 games...ouch. I have a feeling Crysis 3 and Metro Last Light will make current high-end cards look like toys.
They want you to crossfire/SLi to max it? Who knows?
Borderlands 2 was recently given away with most Nvidia cards but if you crank the settings up to max you will be below 30fps on anything below the 660ti.
Far cry 3 is part of AMDs game bundle among other games. Across there entire range you get a game free at the minute 7850 7870 just get far cry 3 but most of the bigger ones are getting 2-3 games.
Remember
8x MxAA is far from normal 4x MxAA is alot closer and you might double your FPS setting it to that level.
If you expected to set 8x MxAA on a 7850 your in dreamworld. or SSAO for that matter both suck performance from cards. Just cause 2 can go from a flawless 100+fps to below 30fps if you enable SSAO and mxaa to high levels on most cards out there at the moment ( 7970 670 and above excluded)
SSAO and MxAA are best avoided on anything but the high end cards running in sli or crossfire.
Have to say the graphics are good, but there is a few issues with the game for me.
Single Player I can pull over 100fps, with these new drivers from Nvidia on my GTX 680 and all the settings cranked up to the max including the AA, but as soon as I go on Multiplayer that drops to 30fps and the game feels awful to play.
It's using the stupid P2P hosting system, so you get the "Host Migration" when you are in the middle of match and the host quits because they are getting owned, you get clunky game play and massive amounts of LAG.
I also have to bind all my keys everytime I want to play the game, and there is no option for the Aim Down Sight Toggle so that you are either ads or not, instead you have to hold the button down on your mouse the whole time.
This for me is a failure of a game at the moment, because of the issues with the low fps on multiplayer, the constant need to bind the keys and a few other things.
Look's like I will only be playing the single player side of the game and will leave the multiplayer alone till they fix it, and unless you want to only play the campaign side of the game then I suggest you avoid it for now as at the moment, I don't think it's worth paying for.
My performance in Assassins Creed 3 dropped with these, though.