What is slowing me down?

[KlumpDud]

While my system (see sig) is not state-of-the-art, it is by no means old.

I downloaded the demo for Far Cry, and in order for it to run smoothly, I have to set all the detail settings to Low.

I was thinking that maybe it's because my graphics card doesn't hardware support DirectX 9. If that is the case, what graphics card do support DirectX 9 and all the other new features out there?

Has anyone else out there tried the Far Cry demo? If so, what detail settings do you use?

Thanks.

[lil Jimmie]

I'd say it's your video card, I have the full game and I run it on high detail settings and have no problems with the game play. My friend has a 9700 PRO and he runs it on very high detal as well with no problems

BTW the full game is better than the 2 demos but the onlline play sux IMHO however the single player and story line are great.

Edit- I double checked my settings as well as my buds and we both run the "very high" detail settings

[Hi Ho]

You need a video card that supports DX9 such as a Radeon 9600 Pro/XT or 9800 Pro/XT. However, for some reason the demo runs fine with everything on high on the system in my signature with a Ti4800.

[DragonNOA1]

My 4200 can run everything on medium settings just fine.

[KlumpDud]

I notice you have a lot more RAM than I. Could that be it? If I get another 512MB would it run smoothly on high detail?

Also, in the demo, under options, what aliasing setting do you have it set on?

Hi Ho, does your 4800 support DirectX 9?

[Hi Ho]

Hi Ho, does your 4800 support DirectX 9?

No, none of the Ti series cards support DX9. That's why I don't know why it works so well. The Nvidia FX series is supposed to support DX9 but the performance has been dissapointing. That is why the Radeon 9600 and up cards are being recommended. The ATI cards have much better performance especially in DX9 games.

[DragonNOA1]

I've heard that the game loves RAM so it might have something to do with it. I uninstalled the game but I don't think I had AA on. What resolution are you running? I was at 1024x768.

[Hi Ho]

I've heard that the game loves RAM

The funny thing that I forgot to mention is that I am temporarily down to 256MB of RAM while I await a replacement for an incompatible stick. What explains the performance I am getting? I have AA on 2x in the Nvidia rivers and it's set on medium in the game and the resolution is 1024x728

[lil Jimmie]

256Mb of ram is the bare minimum for FarCry. I thought you had 512 when I said your video was the weak link.

[Hi Ho]

Originally posted by Hi Ho
The funny thing that I forgot to mention is that I am temporarily down to 256MB of RAM while I await a replacement for an incompatible stick. :)

[DragonNOA1]

Who knows then. I've heard the demo wasn't all that optimized, so maybe its partly the demo.

Klump: 2200+, 512 RAM, 4200... low settings
Dragon: 2100+, 1024 RAM, 4200... medium settings
Hi Ho: 1.8 Ghz (2200+ right?), 256 RAM, 4800... high settings

Between Klump and me my RAM probably helps out, but for Hi Ho your graphics card must be much more important than just RAM. So in the end, I guess it comes down to graphics card and if it can handle all the eye candy. Hey, this is Far Cry remember, the next generation of games.

[Hi Ho]

Maybe background programs? Fragmented hard drive? I don't know.

1.8 Ghz (2200+ right?)

That's another thing. I should update my signature. That is actually an Athlon XP 1800+(1.5GHZ I believe). I don't really know why my signature says that. I am going to fix it now. That just makes it more baffling.

[lil Jimmie]

The full game does run better than the demos did.

[aym]

Hi Ho I'm amazed!

I have a P4 2.4B, GF 4 Ti 4200, down to 256MB RAM too (one stick decided to die before I got the game :( ), at 1024x768, and no AA, the game is very choppy on medium, and levels take forever to load.

It's time for some upgrades I think...

EDIT: typo

[Hi Ho]

Yeah, I don't get it. However, like you, it does take forever to load but once in the game it runs fine and looks amazing.

[KlumpDud]

Originally posted by Hi Ho
Maybe background programs? Fragmented hard drive?

My system is streamlined to the max.

[KlumpDud]

Here's an updated recap:

Klump: 2200+, 512 RAM, 4200... low settings
Dragon: 2100+, 1024 RAM, 4200... medium settings
Hi Ho: 1800+, 256 RAM, 4800... high settings
aym: P4 2.4 Ghz, 256 RAM, 4200... low settings

[KlumpDud]

by the way, in the game's video options there is Anti Aliasing that you can set to Off, Low, Medium, or High.

What the hell is Anti Aliasing? Why do they give you this option in the game? What should it be set at? Why?

[Hi Ho]

Anti Aliasing smooths out the jagged edges on angled objects. It can take a lot of performance out of a game if set to high. This setting is also in the video card drivers. I don't know if the game overrides that driver settings or not.

[DragonNOA1]

In computer graphics, antialiasing is a software technique for diminishing jaggies - stairstep-like lines that should be smooth. Jaggies occur because the output device, the monitor or printer, doesn't have a high enough resolution to represent a smooth line. Antialiasing reduces the prominence of jaggies by surrounding the stairsteps with intermediate shades of gray (for gray-scaling devices) or color (for color devices). Although this reduces the jagged appearance of the lines, it also makes them fuzzier.

source: http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/a/antialiasing.html

Looking at those computer specs makes me even more confused.

[timbit]

Klumdud etc... i don't know if this will help, but when i was having some trouble with unreal tournament, i had to change the aa and the af in my driver. i would suggest knocking them down to "application preference" or lower if possible... also, in my driver at least, there are options to change the texture and mipmap detail settings. moving these down would help as well. hi ho, by any chance have you oc'd your system?

[Hi Ho]

hi ho, by any chance have you oc'd your system?
Nope. I'm just very baffled.

[KlumpDud]

Well, i'm gonna start with the cheapest upgrade: 512MB more of RAM will put me at a total of 1024 and costs about $70 on pricewatch. I'll let you guys know if I see a difference.

[aym]

BTW, UT04 works just fine with high frame rates on medium.

[tomster2300]

UT04's demo works fine for me when I play online. A Ti card can handle UT04 and I'm sure it could handle Far Cry---u just wont get the eye candy that you would with a card that supports Direct X 9. The FX series is Nvidia's solution to entering the Dx 9 market.

[KlumpDud]

I don't have UT so there's no point in making a comparison.

[tomster2300]

Download the demo, that's all I did. It'll give you a relatively good thing to compare too.

[KlumpDud]

You're drifting away from the topic, though. I'm trying to figure out why I can't run the Far Cry demo smoothly on anything but low detail.

[Hi Ho]

Here are two screenshots I took:

Screenshot 1 (http://community.webshots.com/photo/59503293/131914135rXviwM)

Screenshot 2 (http://community.webshots.com/photo/59503293/131914222gfLARi)

Am I missing any eye candy?

[DragonNOA1]

Originally posted by KlumpDud
Well, i'm gonna start with the cheapest upgrade: 512MB more of RAM will put me at a total of 1024 and costs about $70 on pricewatch. I'll let you guys know if I see a difference.

Definitely report back on how it goes. I guess you have all chipset drivers, vid/sound drivers, and OS updates right?

Hi Ho... looks good to me. What is your resolution and AA set at?

[Hi Ho]

Resolution = 1024x786

AA = Medium (in game) 2x (in Nvidia drivers) not sure which one counts.

[aym]

Looks similar to mine when set to medium, the difference is that on my computer the game is very laggy.

EDIT:
Well, looking more carefully, and after running the game, I don't have the lighting effects, and texture quality was set to high, setting it to medium didn't help much.

[KlumpDud]

what do you guys get when you click "Auto Detect"? Mine sets evertying to low except for texure quality which is set to medium

[lil Jimmie]

Auto detect sets mine to "very high" except for the texture which is medium

[KlumpDud]

Well, I can understand why: you have a faster processor, twice as much ram, and a 9800 pro

what about everyone else? auto detect settings?

[DragonNOA1]

I don't have the game installed anymore but I do remember for sure everything was stable with no lag at all medium settings because I tried high and it was too slow to play. Some games you will lag but still play, but not this game. If you can't handle it, then you ain't playin. I *think* it auto'd to mostly low settings. Sry I can't be more helpful.

[Jaggannath]

I'd never seen or heard of this game before, but looking at the screenshots Hi Ho posted I'm impressed, definitely will be looking out for it when it comes out in Australia
(Thanks btw Hi Ho)

[Ryjor]

Using 1.4 athlon, ti4200, and a gig of RAM my autodetect goes to medium(this is retail version of the game). Farcry is geared toward dx9 features and runs in direct3d9, not openGL.

There is a way to edit the system.cfg file to get it to run in openGL, this provides a much improved framerate and overall performance hike. I was able to run it on medium/high lvl 1024x768 in advanced options in openGL with great performance as compared to low/medium 800x600 in d3d9 with ok performance. But openGL came with some graphical corruption and a bug in the save/load system.

I ended up using d3d9 because it was just too frustrating messing around with the BS that openGL gave me.

Also, I think the load times are related to RAM. Loading a new map with a gig of RAM takes me about 30-40 sec and less than 10 sec to reload after death.

[lil Jimmie]

Jaggannath, it is a great game and I would think the game is out world wide by now.
Here is a link to the official site where you can find download link to the demo and more screenshots
http://www.farcry-thegame.com

[tomster2300]

Isnt there a problem with the demo though? I rermember you guys saying it was horrible and didn't run very well compared to the retail version.

[lil Jimmie]

Both demos played fine for me, however the second one (research) seemed to run smoother for most so if you can get it.

[Jaggannath]

Oooh, I can't wait now
Trying to find it in Australian stores, looking next weekend (grrrrr Easter closing stores LOL)

[KlumpDud]

Ryjor,

You seem to have a similar system to me, except that you have a gig of ram compared to my 512. Since yours auto-detects to medium and mine to low, I have come to the conclusion that this game likes a lot of ram.

I'm going to buy another 512 of ram (for a total of 1 gig).