Far Cry 4 PC: Early reports say game is well optimized, "runs like butter"

Ubisoft has had a fairly hard run of things as of late. With the disastrous launch of Assassin’s Creed Unity and numerous other gaming controversies just this year, it seems as though the company has fallen from the good graces of the majority of the gaming community. However, it appears that the company may have done right by their customers with their soon-to-be-released open-world, first-person shooter, Far Cry 4.

Some positive developments have surfaced in regards to the PC iteration of Far Cry 4, as gamers who have obtained early PC copies of the game have reported that it runs exceptionally well on PC.

The overall quality of the PC version of Far Cry 4 may prove that Ubisoft may not have another Watch_Dogs or Assassin’s Creed Unity situation on their hands, seeing that early reports say that the game is well optimized and “runs like butter,” even on a mid-tier gaming PCs.

[porkChop]

Doesn't matter to me. It's still Ubisoft, so I'm not buying it. They continually lie about their games, making empty promises, and all their games play the EXACT same with the same structure. I'm done with them. Not a single game they've made in the past 5 years has been even remotely close to what was promised.

[Psychotica]

Anno 2070 plays like Assassin's Creed Unity? I don't think so..

[Malphite]

Meh. I'm not going to boycott a whole publisher just because some of their games have major problems. AC:U has major performance issues on all systems so I'm not buying it. Far Cry 4 runs great so I'm getting it.

I don't see a reason to punish the FC4 devs for the mistakes the AC:U devs have made. And most importantly I don't see a reason to punish myself by not playing potentially one of this years best games.

[Schizoid]

perfectly said... Far Cry 3 was awesome and I expect even more from this. Really hope the MP is good.

[starchild]

This is how I feel about it too. I mean, I bought AC Unity and it is running fine for me and I'm enjoying it a lot, but I agree with the rest of your post.

I just don't understand that mentality. A very large percentage of Ubisoft's games have scored well, sold well and generally been very well received. But suddenly because Watch Dogs and AC Unity have had less than perfect review scores (although still generally positive) and some controversy surrounding them we're supposed to believe that all Ubisoft games are crap or that Ubisoft is a bad developer in general. Talk about making a mountain out of a molehill.

First of all, Watch Dogs and AC Unity are not bad games. I've enjoyed both of them quite a lot (Unity more than Watch Dogs). A lot of the controversy surrounding Unity is mostly coming from the console camp--people pissed at parity, the fact it didn't release on Wii U, the framerate drops on PS4 and XB1--but it's running very steady for me on my PC and looks incredible so why should I avoid it?

Even if I thought AC Unity and Watch Dogs were bad games, why would I avoid all Ubisoft games in general just because two of their games weren't as good? I mean, I think Guerrilla's last two games--Killzone 3 and Killzone Shadow Fall--were pretty mediocre, but should I write them off forever and refuse to ever buy any game they make?

And that makes even less sense with Ubisoft, because, although we talk about Ubisoft as if it were one developer, in reality it is a publisher with many different development studios across the globe. If one Ubisoft studio (or group of studios) makes a less than stellar game, does that mean that we should avoid games created by other Ubisoft studios? This kind of thinking baffles me.

porkChop says that not a single game that UBisoft has made has been even remotely close to what was promised, but frankly that is a complete load of crap. Such a stupid and blatantly wrong statement. I've known exactly what I was getting with each Ubisoft game I have bought, even with Watch Dogs. Seriously, I'm just scratching my head at his comment. Even if a game goes through changes in development, such as happened with Watch Dogs, it's not like we aren't made aware of such changes. People like porkChop are being disingenuous when they act like we were mislead about Watch Dogs. We knew for over a year before release that the game had been a bit pared back visually. We had plenty of opportunity to learn about the game the same way we learn about any game: watching trailers, gameplay videos, reading previews and reviews, etc.

If I boycotted every developer who ever did something I didn't like or made a mediocre game there wouldn't be anything left for me to play. I simply buy the games (or downloadable content) that appeal to me and avoid the stuff that doesn't.

[Baka-akaB]

Yeah that's kinda ridiculous to boycott a good game for the flaws of other games .

Especially if you are going to reward instead another big publisher with the same practices , be it currenly or in the past .

Or are you guys going to stand by your word and boycott stuff like Dragon Age Inquisition for EA's many many sins (some from not even a year ago) ?

[TekoIie]

Support a good port and stay away from the bad ones. It's worth trying make a correlation between sales, and optimization when it comes to PC.

[Deividas]

Good for you sir. Way to stick to your guns!

But I and many other are going to be playing an amazing game that we will fully enjoy while you miss you out and pout on the internet on how much Ubisoft sucks and that you are done with them. But I am not as strong as you, I just like playing great games too much to do that. Enjoy your hallow and FarCry 4-less victory sir.

[spicelicka]

I agree 100%, voting with wallet concept simply does not work, unless thousands of people do it at once. Game is a recreational activity for me, and I'm not about skip on one of my most anticipated games in hopes of sparking a revolution.

Why don't people just wait a couple of weeks and see if there are issues with the game. Far cry 4 looks amazing and I don't see anything wrong with it. And I'm sure it's made by a different team than Assassin's creed and Watch dogs.

[freshslicepizza]

im sorry but if an actor or actress makes a bad movie i will just be more sceptical next time. i certainly wont boybott mel gibson movies for example because of his personal issues.

why do we need to turn everything into politics? i wont be buying unity until it runs well but why ignore a fun game like far cry 4 just because of who made it? ubisoft has many developers within the company with various teams, some better than others. you reward the good ones and ignore the bad ones.

[Relientk77]

Just found out Just Dance plays like Assassin's Creed, who knew! lol

Dance to kill people everybody

[user5669510]

of course it runs good it came out over a year...... wait this is far cry 4? my badd looked like far cry 3

[Magicite]

sometimes theres a difference between ubisoft published and ubisoft developed games.

[GROTSTOMPA]

Agreed. I have not and will not be purchasing another Ubisoft game for the time being after the way they treated FC3. This is when their business ethics were made apparent to me. I will not say NEVER, but I'll handle it just like I did for EA. Once they apologize and change their ethics like EA finally did, I will gladly support them as should any self-respecting person. The answer is simple, you don't just buy the game because "it's fun" when issues like this arise and are repeated. Gaming and politics are one in the same because they are both run by corporations and want the same thing from you using the same strategies. Ubisoft using low quality servers, DLC ridden games, ignoring their fans asking for help in the forums, outright lying, and promoting poor/broken games. Educate yourselves, there's more than what I just mentioned. Cheers

[KrisButtar]

This is a good sign

[IVanSpinal]

Yes but now the Map Editor is only for Single Player maps

[Somebody]

Of course they have to make it like that. Otherwise how are they going to charge gamers for multiplayer DLCs if they can make their own maps or even better ones?

[BossPuma]

Im just glad it was made with the Cryengine 3. God knows it will probably run better and look better than Far Cry 3

[SnakeCQC]

It uses the same engine as far cry 3 but more updated etc.

[BossPuma]

Haha turns out im full of Sh*t

[Adexus]

It uses Dunia engine actually, not Cryengine :)

[KTF26]

it's not Cryengine 3
it's Dunia 2 a heavily modified Cryengine 1
Cryengine 3 was built from the scratch

FC4 looks good thanks to high res textures and lighting but Dunia 2 can't catch up with new standards

[uth11]

frozen butter, or melted butter?

[Gravity_DoGG]

Just butter.

[Volkama]

Which doesn't generally run.

Whatever, I'm sure my crossfire 290s will run hot enough to melt it lol

[Psychotica]

Far Cry 3 played great on my PC and it's a different dev than AC:Unity..I am buying it.

[Plagasx]

Actually I believe FC4 PC was developed by Kiev as well...

[xX1NORM1Xx]

Gooood pc players get screwed a lot which sucks

[moomoo319]

Dont punish the awesome dev team because you dont like their publisher. FC3 was well optimized and FC4 will be as well they obviously care about each platform!

[DoctorJones]

Looking forward to getting this, I loved Far Cry 3.

[totalrecoilzz]

this game runs like poo its not that well optimized at all..i have gtx 780 and even on medium settings it will go from 60 fps down to 30fps and when that happens it makes the game look like shite...it has nvidia gfx option to well go try that and see how much fps that guzzles up its pointless it even being in the game.i would say to play this game at decent fps you need something better than gtx 780 maybe two maybe even 3 but 1 sucks know that much!!

[KTF26]

"from 60 fps down to 30fps"
this means triple buffering isn't enabled
if there is no option to enable it from the game
then you have 3 solutions
1. disable vsync
2. force adaptive vsync from nvidia control panel
3. force triple buffering using 3rd party tool called nvidia inspector
forcing triple buffering from nvdia control panel won't work

[baraka007]

Hopefully 4 runs well. I've gotten all three of the Farcry games and Blood Dragon on PC and they have always ran well for me. AC games and watchdogs not so much tho...

[MaxwellBuddha]

I'll wait for Digital Foundry's analysis. I don't trust Ubisoft to deliver a polished experience anymore.

[Maxor]

This game isn't as visually impressive as Unity I'm sorry to say.

[starchild]

Well, this is true and brings up a good point. Far Cry 4 is a cross gen game, while Unity is only on current gen consoles and PC. Although Far Cry 4 does look quite good, it isn't as fully "next gen" as Unity is in terms of its tech. It isn't reasonable to expect Unity to run as well as Far Cry 4.

Some PC gamers, especially those new to PC gaming, tend to have this attitude that anything that runs well on their PC is "well optimized" and anything that doesn't run well is "unoptimized". But this isn't the correct meaning of the word.

I like to peruse user reviews on places like Steam, metacritic and amazon, and I have seen literally every graphically advanced game this generation be called "unoptimized" by some PC gamers. Shadow of Mordor, Ryse, The Evil Within, Wolfenstein, AC4, Lords of the Fallen and others have all been criticized by some as being "poorly optimized". People have this expectation that every game should run at 60fps on their average gaming PCs and they don't understand the technical aspects of games so these games get labeled "unoptimized".

But really what is happening is that people got spoiled by a long console generation in which nearly every game these past few years could be maxed out and run at 60fps by any decent PC. So some people carried over this expectation that every new gen game would be running at 60fps on their setups as well. However, now we are finally starting to see the real "next gen" games make an appearance (instead of all the cross-gen and last gen ports we had been getting) and these games are naturally more graphically advanced and don't run nearly as well.

So, what's more reasonable? That most developers are talentless hacks making "unoptimized messes" for PC or that some PC gamers simply have unreasonable expectations? I think it's clearly the latter.

[starchild]

I was going to go into much more detail about what "optimization" actually is and how the term should be properly used. But then I remembered that Durante, the well known modder responsible for the GeDoSaTo downsampling tool and other popular mods, had written on this very subject and he covered it quite well.

"Performance at "max" settings, without context and deep understanding what these settings entail, is completely irrelevant for judging the technical quality of a game, and it's highly damaging how often it seems to be used to evaluate the same. I've wanted to make a thread about this for a while, and seeing how there is right now another one on the front page with "max settings" in the title it seems as good a time as ever.

These days, many people seem to judge the "optimization" (a broadly misunderstood term if I ever saw one!) of games on how they run at "max" settings. What does this mean in practise? Let's say I'm porting a game to PC, and I'm trying to decide which options to include. I could easily add the option of rendering shadow depth buffers at 32 bit precision and up to 4096x4096 instead of the 16 bit and 1024² default. But what would this actually cause to happen? Basically, it will improve IQ and image stability, especially at very high resolution. However, let's assume for the sake of argument that it also halves the framerate of my port, when enabled.

In the prevailing simplistic mindset, I just went from a "great, optimized port" to a "piece of shit port" showing how my company is disrespectful of PC gamers merely by adding an option to my game.

I hope everyone can see how fucking insane this is. As a developer aware of this, I basically have 2 options:
Only allow access to higher-end settings via some ini file or other method which is not easily accessible.
Simply don't bother with higher-end settings at all.
The first point wouldn't be too bad, but it seems like the much more rare choice. If the prevailing opinion of my game's technical quality actually goes down by including high-end options, then why bother at all?

Of course, gamers are not to blame for this exclusively. Review sites got into the habit of benchmarking only "max" settings, especially during the latter part of the PS360 generation, simply because GPUs wouldn't be challenged at all in the vast majority of games otherwise."
http://www.neogaf.com/forum...

[Shinuz]

Cool! I got farcry 4 for free with my purchase of a gtx 970, cant wait to play it, the third one and blood dragon were awesome games!