Far Cry 4 PC tech trailer

[Carfax83]

Ubisoft and NVidia released their PC tech trailer.

Here are the PC specific features of Far Cry 4:

NVIDIA HairWorks adds dynamic, realistic fur to many of the animals found throughout Far Cry 4's Kyrat. Built using advanced tessellation techniques, HairWorks’ Fur can be fully shadowed and shaded by the game’s lighting, our HBAO+ technology, and our PCSS technology, right down the skin layer of an animal, increasing image quality massively. Additionally, layers react to external forces, such as wind and character movement, as one would expect, improving realism.

NVIDIA HBAO+ adds realistic Ambient Occlusion shadowing and shading around objects and surfaces that occlude light, with a higher degree of precision than other AO techniques, significantly improving image quality in every scene.

NVIDIA Percentage-Closer Soft Shadows (PCSS) add contact hardening soft shadows throughout the game, increasing image quality in every scene.
NVIDIA TXAA temporal anti-aliasing eliminates the distracting movement of anti-aliased lines and edges, and also eliminates other artifacts associated with anti-aliasing, improving every element of the game.

NVIDIA God Rays enhance Far Cry 4's volumetric lighting system with tessellated crepuscular light rays, significantly improving image quality in many scenes.

In addition there is the usual, such as faster frame rates, higher quality assets including textures etcetera..

The Hairworks feature is the most interesting I think. Really makes the wildlife look much more lifelike than when it's absent. But it apparently comes with a heavy performance penalty on AMD hardware, which generally isn't as efficient with tessellation as NVidia hardware is:

Far Cry 4 is a beautiful game, but it still looks decidedly crossgen. Gameplay wise though, I'm sure it will not disappoint. Although since I never finished Far Cry 3, I'm not sure I will get it.

AC Unity on the other hand, is looking to be a real next gen title :biggrin:

 

[f1sherman]

Looks pretty sweet, and stuttery :biggrin: (first 30sec)

 

[Skurge]

Then the 285 should do really if its solely a tessellation thing

 

[Carfax83]

I couldn't detect any stuttering. The video played buttery smooth for me @ 1080p..

 

[caswow]

hairworks doesnt look good at all.

 

[Gloomy]

Hairworks looks awful....

 

[Cerb]

The shadows look awesome. The hair looks funny.

 

[HurleyBird]

Hair works doesn't look that good to me. Like they decided to render fur the same way they do grass. Really noisy too. Nvidia's in house hair works demos look much better.

That said, I'd be interested to see how hair works looks with, you know, actual hair as opposed to fur. Hopefully the performance difference is due to AMD not having time to optimize (TressFX performed poorly on Nvidia hardware back in the day before they were able to optimize for it) and not shenanigans.

 

[Cerb]

Hair works doesn't look that good to me. Like they decided to render fur the same way they do grass. Really noisy too. Nvidia's in house hair works demos look much better.

I think there are two problems:
1. The same models get used with no Hairworks. They should either make it non-optional, or have tweaked separate versions.
2. It's new, so they go for exaggerated motions, seeing a degree closer to natural as hardly worth the trouble.

2 just takes time.
1, however, will need re-thinking of the models, so that the hair will move, but not appear to stretch and sway with the model. Sort of like how they're only just getting around to finally making skin appear to move on faces and joints in a way that doesn't look like rubber suits.

 

[Carfax83]

I think the Hairworks looks pretty good, much better than with it off.

The Tibetan Yak is a hairy beast with very long fur. Granted the Hairworks version is definitely not as course as the real life version..

 

[Gloomy]

No, hairworks is aliased to hell and back. It's shimmering, unstable garbage. If that's how it looks with TXAA on then I pity the souls who can't run TXAA. These are going to be the sparkliest yaks ever.

And the normal models look even worse. So there's no escaping that evil.

 

[AntonioHG]

That Yak hair -- they obviously used Pantene Pro-V. Lots of stuttering which FC3 seemed to suffer from as well.

I watched some gameplay video on YT from Angry Joe and I really didn't like the hostility and the familiarity (coming from FC3) at all. I won't be buying til it's on sale down the line.

 

[f1sherman]

No, hairworks is aliased to hell and back. It's shimmering, unstable garbage. If that's how it looks with TXAA on then I pity the souls who can't run TXAA. These are going to be the sparkliest yaks ever.

And the normal models look even worse. So there's no escaping that evil.

actually no. I see no distracting shimmering

the only problem with that yak's hair is it's UTTER CLEANLINESS,
lack of dirt, sweat & mud tieing individual strands together in larger groups

which should be pretty easy to add.

That Yak hair -- they obviously used Pantene Pro-V. Lots of stuttering which FC3 seemed to suffer from as well.

exactly - pantene pro; too clean and wavery

 

[Carfax83]

Lots of stuttering which FC3 seemed to suffer from as well.

I still don't see any stuttering. Lots of factors can affect smooth playback of YouTube videos, so I wouldn't assume the actual raw footage is at fault.

It could be something on your end.

 

[toyota]

lol hairworks looks ridiculous and not the least bit natural or realistic.

the game itself looks better than FC 3 though. I never understood why it was so demanding as its graphics were not all that great and even a little cartoony.

 

[f1sherman]

I still don't see any stuttering. Lots of factors can affect smooth playback of YouTube videos, so I wouldn't assume the actual raw footage is at fault.

It could be something on your end.

No, first 30sec is really stuttery.
I doublechecked.

Decoded Frames || Dropped Frames

1030 || -​

 

[DiogoDX]

The biggest problem of this game is Ubisoft moving away from steam.

 

[AntonioHG]

The biggest problem of this game is Ubisoft moving away from steam.

LOL JUST READ IT. Well, that just about does it for me. I bought SC:BL and while I enjoyed the game, man it's just one more thing to remember to launch and deal with. I really don't want to be bothered as it is less convenient. Funny enough though, I do not mind Origin. I like the NFS series and ME and the free game thing pulls me in. Ubiplay has nothing to offer...

Everything else I mentioned before + this = forget about it. Can't be bothered.

I still don't see any stuttering. Lots of factors can affect smooth playback of YouTube videos, so I wouldn't assume the actual raw footage is at fault.

It could be something on your end.

Maybe something else is wrong, but I don't believe anything is wrong with my end. I looked at some other gameplay videos of other games and no problem with 'em.

 

[HurleyBird]

the game itself looks better than FC 3 though. I never understood why it was so demanding as its graphics were not all that great and even a little cartoony.

That's down to the really [inferior] implementation of HBAO which makes everything appear to have a solid black outline. Game looks miles better with HDAO, or even no AO filter at all.

Profanity isn't allowed in the technical forums.
-- stahlhart

 

[chimaxi83]

Another cool Nvidia advertisement. Unfortunately, HairWorks and TXAA (which you unsurprisingly didn't bold, I wouln't have either) look like fresh horse manure. Meh.

 

[monstercameron]

The biggest problem of this game is Ubisoft moving away from steam.

me no likey uplay, me thinky dat is trash!

 

[tential]

LOL JUST READ IT. Well, that just about does it for me. I bought SC:BL and while I enjoyed the game, man it's just one more thing to remember to launch and deal with. I really don't want to be bothered as it is less convenient. Funny enough though, I do not mind Origin. I like the NFS series and ME and the free game thing pulls me in. Ubiplay has nothing to offer...

Everything else I mentioned before + this = forget about it. Can't be bothered.

If a game isn't on steam chances are I won't play it very often. I agree completely. Ubiplay games? Forget it, exact reason I didn't play Farcry Blood Dragon that much at all.

Steam, Ubiplay, and Origin don't all need to be running and IMO there has to be an agreement they can make with Valve to get their games on Steam and still keep their profits.

 

[monstercameron]

If a game isn't on steam chances are I won't play it very often. I agree completely. Ubiplay games? Forget it, exact reason I didn't play Farcry Blood Dragon that much at all.

Steam, Ubiplay, and Origin don't all need to be running and IMO there has to be an agreement they can make with Valve to get their games on Steam and still keep their profits.

valve might lose its bargaining powers if people feel that the bigger players are getting special treatment.

 

[Rezist]

I usually don't have the patience to deal with the state of PC games that Ubisoft releases. Might not be bad on PS4 though.

 

[Haserath]

lol hairworks looks ridiculous and not the least bit natural or realistic.

the game itself looks better than FC 3 though. I never understood why it was so demanding as its graphics were not all that great and even a little cartoony.

I actually don't care how real it is. There are so many things that aren't real that it would be nice if they were.

I like the flowing fur.