Far Cry 4 GPU Benchmark – Unplayable on AMD; GTX 980 vs. 290X, 770, More

GamersNexus: "Our Far Cry 4 GPU FPS benchmark analyzes the best video cards for playing Far Cry 4 at max (Ultra) settings. We tested lower settings for optimization on more modest GPU configurations. Our tests benchmarked framerates on the GTX 980 vs. GTX 780 Ti, 770, R9 290X, 270X, 7850, and more. RAM and VRAM consumption were both monitored during playtests, with CPU bottlenecking discovered on some configurations."

[decrypt]

So again Nvidia runs great, While AMD is crappy. AMD need to get their act together. Never buying an AMD card in this situation.

[SnakeCQC]

The crap amd performance was done on purpose as it was an nvidia game. Amd doesn't pull this crap with their releases nor do they have bs proprietary settings.

[RedDeadLB]

I saw a video on youtube benchmarking the game with a GTX 760 and an R9 270X. The 270X apparently won by 5-10fps with the same settings preset (Ultra).

[cutthroatslim]

Yup NVIDIA dnt play fair at all,makes me dislike them as a company. I do, however, still like their products.

[r1sh12]

Dude its not AMD's fault.
Nvidia stepped in and had the game optimised for their GPUs.
Its a backhand shady deal clearly and its not in the interest of consumers.
I love my GTX 760 x2 card, but this sort of BS shady sh*t is not the way business should be done.

Imagine how bad it could be for consoles, without proper optimisation?

[pumpactionpimp]

less about optimization, and more about what sdk they're using to make the game. Ubi has switched to nvidia's gameworks to make games. This of course should give nvidia a natural advantage. But using gameworks, over mantle, and other like programs to make games has shown that nvidia cards will preform practically flawlessly, while amd cards are almost unusable. All but the highest end cards are rendered worthless through gameworks.

Of course Nvidia claims they have nothing to do with it, its just a happy coincidence that their competitors equipment seems to suffer to the point of unplayable.

And yes I have an amd card, a 7950 with boost. I have been very anti-Ubisoft lately mainly for this reason. In fact I can't think of a single gameworks made game that runs decent on an amd card.

the day a 3gb higher end video card, (regardless of who its made by) isnt good enough to adequately play games, even on lower settings, shows that a game is either highly un-optimized. Or that Nvidia is in fact to blame. And seeing as how Nvidia cards don't seem to struggle at all with the game, I'm leaning torwards gameworks being the problem.

[r1sh12]

@pumpactionpimp..
It is about optimisation and the way in which various textures and different bits of data are fed through different threads (cores) in the GPU.

Its how data is passed through and processed, e.g Im not 100% sure but some of the cut scenes are passed through some form of h264 engine on each GPU - via ffmpeg or another way.
But both AMD/ Nvidia have them and using FFmpeg to do it is the best way since it works on both...
But if the code which does lookups/ pass through, rendering etc is optimised via ffpmeg for the nvidia GPU then of course its going to work better.

Dont forget the AMD ceo said the reason some games were not optimised for AMD GPUs is because nvidia were the only ones allowed to provide optimisation in the code for their cards.

I work with Nvidia on various enterprise security solutions and a guy from their defence division (they provide cards for facial rec etc) even said AMD cards are good but we have them beat with third party devs.

If you dont believe me, there might be a PDF online for NEC neoface requirements..
Tesla K20c minimum for production environments, and for Herta (Another facial rec company) its a similar story.
No mention of AMD even though they work quite well, Ive tested them in our lab..

[Testfire]

I'm very new to the PC gaming world, but common sense would dictate that Ubi (you know the ones making the game) would be to blame before AMD. As a newcomer to PC gaming, its very sad to see even more rampant fanboys than in the console industry. I guess immaturity knows no bounds.

[badz149]

Nvidia with their shady tactics knows no bounds!

[cutthroatslim]

shady indeed

[DevilOgreFish]

There's nothing wrong with AMD, Ubisoft are Nvidia supporters. Splinter cell blacklist, watch dogs, Black flag and AC: Unity have "the way it was meant to be played" stamps on them. Ubisoft should seriously start optimizing their stuff properly for everyone.

[hiredhelp]

See this is ppls perception cos the card runs poor on FC4 its cos AMD.
So how come there plenty other games run fine you really need to understand the reasons behind it all.
Give you a rough idea of why AND sonetimes outperforms when a game being developed for PC you get games that have Badges eqither Nvidia way its meant to be played. Or AMD GAMING EVOLVED.
This is a indication to sometimes drivers gonna be optimised first for that brand.
But theres been some ruthless tactics that many dont realise DLL files witch have coded program to do certain things i wont go into that will effect the opposing teams performance.
Basicly its not uncommon for say Nvidia pay couple thousand or more to have there game run better at launch till AMD gets proper set drivers.
Excuse my writing but im in hospitol feel like crap.

[anticlimax]

Unplayable on AMD, these headlines are always such flamebait.

It's running just fine on my old 6950.

[wollie]

I gots that card as well. I'm getting about the fps this article suggests. the stuttering is pretty bad as well.

[starchild]

That's the name of the game on the internet: hyperbole and exaggeration.

It's like with Unity, you have these people claiming it is a "broken mess", yet the game is very solid on my PC and runs quite well considering how massive the scale is and how good it looks. I also haven't had any kind of game-breaking bugs or significant glitches, nothing that has even affected my gameplay. I'm sure there are people who have had more issues than me, but I think in general the whole thing is being greatly exaggerated.

[jay2]

Anyone know how it runs on a 3gb hd 7970

[mixelon]

Hey, we're GPU twins. :D

I can't imagine it performing too much worse than FC3? Which ran pretty great.

[Rubberlegs]

7970 here and it plays great. There also new beta driver out that address performance issues for Far Cry 4 and the new Dragon Age.

[Deividas]

Well I have one of my PCs using a R9 280X, which is very similar to that card. I get a solid 50fps on Maxed out, jumping between 45 and 60. but stays at a high 50's really. You should be fine and getting a nice framerate with some minor tweaks with maybe AA

[Sir_Simba]

I get a lot stutter even tho i have a GTX 970

[dmeador]

Really? That sucks. I've got the same card. Hard to believe already there are games that I wouldn't be able to run full throttle.

[Sir_Simba]

But I have an amd 8 core CPU
FX 8320
should be fine tho

[starchild]

I was going to say, lot's of benchmarks show the GTX 970 easily able to average well above 60fps. With certain settings though there do seem to be occasional drops below that.

We'll see. I have a GTX 970 on the way.

[RVanner_]

Have a 970 too with 8350. Try lowering textures to high too stop/reduce the stuttering.

For me run it runs at 60fps with odd stutter but FPS really takes a wack when the action kicks off dropping to 40-45 ish. So I have reduced settings to high all round to avoid these drops. Slightly annoying.

[Parhelion69]

AMD has just released beta drivers which improve performance by 50% for this specific game, this has been confirmed in NeoGAF.

[Testfire]

Nice, because I was planning on getting an R9 270x for my current build. Thanks, bubbles to you.

[badz149]

why don't you spend just a bit more and go for 280X instead? if you have the money of course but the cost difference is not much. although the RX 300 series is still a way off, the RX 200 series cards are over a year old now and it's wiser to go for the 280X rather than 270X.

[Testfire]

@badz149, I may do that, but it all depends if I can find a decent priced 280. I just got an email from Fry's Electronics for an FX6300 for $74, so I'm excited about that and I'm picking that up today. Before you say "why not the 8320?" I'm on a budget lol.

[borntodie007]

If i were you i would take advantage of the r9 290 sudden price drop on ebay because of the 970. you can get one for $199. I am getting one too.

[badz149]

I'm not gonna suggest a better CPU than what you already aiming though but just the GPU is you're really gaming focus. of course 290X would be the best now seeing its price dropping in many places due to the arrival of the newer GTX900 series but the jump in price from 270X to 280X is almost negligible but comes with significant performance boost.

[reaper24]

Well I own a 270X, but with 4GB of VRAM. Do you people think that this will make a difference? The VRAM consumption seems pretty high.

[starchild]

This game uses up to around 3.5GB of VRAM if it is available.

Games in general are starting to require more VRAM and I would suggest anybody buying a card today to try to get at least 4GB on their cards. It's not that with 2GB or 3GB you won't be able to play games, it's just that you won't be able to run ultra textures and things like that.

[ABBAJESUS]

Ubisoft needs to fix the graphic issues and AMD needs to release some new drivers for GPU`s.

[roksolid]

I have played around 5 hours of Far Cry 4 on my i7-4770k@stock and Gigabyte oc R9 290, all ultra with v-sync on, and runs smooth as at 60fps. Sure occasionally it dips down but not to the 20ish EVERY CARD TESTED IN THIS ARTICLE GETS TO! Something must be wrong.
It is more the playable on mine. And on my missus i5-3570k @3.9hz with a 7970oc it runs fine with everything on ultra and v-sync.

Just another fan-boy article i think. What ever the article writer was doing... he was doing it wrong. And in my mind 22fps is just as pathetic as 18fps. ANYTHING under 30fps is just garbage and quote "unplayable".

Article writer is probly getting kickbacks from nVidia for this biased horse-s***.

[Ice006]

Yeah, someone is testing cards here without half a clue.
I was running Windows 8.0 last week, on my i5 2500k (OC to 4.5ghz) with my R9 290 Tri-x, and the game was running mint on Ultra at 1080p at 60fps for the most part. This drops to around 42fps when in a village (due to the tessellation or geometry on stones perhaps?) and some minor stuttering was encountered in vehicles.
I have now upgraded to Win 8.1 to capitalise on AMD's latest "11.2" beta drivers and the slight vehicle stuttering has gone. There is still a mild (to 42fps) drop when in a village area which I am yet to pinpoint the cause of, though for a game that looks so good on my ageing PC to always sit at 60fps (vsync) when exploring the wilds and capturing outposts, I'm impressed!
Maybe I'm one of the lucky ones because it sounds like the average Nvidia owner is having more trouble than me ;)