Far Cry 3 An optimization success

  After the disappointment Far Cry 2 was i was quite reluctant to buy FC3 despite all the good reviews it was getting ( Fc 2 got some good reviews as well ). Finally i cave in and bought it thanks to greenmangaming for just 30 euros

    First thinks first . This game is everything FC2 supposed to be. Sure FC2 had great graphics huge open world gameplay but in the end it was boring and repetitive. FC3 on the other hand took the open world approach and made a great game out of it. There is an interesting story behind it lots of  varied side quests to do and a big world to explore but above all it doesnt end up feeling the chore FC2 was. There are some flaws that could have been avoided , the most serious one is lack of manual save ( though there is a save on main menu it actually only saves your last checkpoint ) so when you are exploring  for nearly 1 hour collecting artifacts and animal skins and all of a sudden an enemy comes and kills you then you can understand the importance of a quicksave function  ( its a matter of convenience devs not a matter of been easy ). The other minor annoyance is unscipable cut scenes ( dont wanna imagine playing the game again and have to watch them all over again ). But aside some minor flaws the game is great

  

  The title of the post though is FC3 an optimization success and thats what i'm gonna talk about. How great looking and how well optimized FC3 is. I hear people saying but but but it runs poorly on my pc.

                                                                  Take that Crysis 

    Some people need to understand the graphic settings and what do they do. Adding MLAA to an open world  game is gonna take its toll on hardware even the most powerful hardware such as a 7950/gtx 670. Even 2xAA takes alot of performance toll . This is an open world game with lots of stuff to draw on screen so adding antialising expect fps to go south fast. Dont compare it to say Crysis 2 and say but Crysis 2 runs better. FC3 is a different kind of beast . Crysis 2 is a more linear game. 

  

   If you omit any AA options and use SSAO method then Far Cry 3 for an open world game that looks that good runs great even on modest hardware. I have a phenom II 955 at 3,5ghz and a 6850 yet with every setting at very high and no AA i'm getting an average 35fps with minimum at 27-28fps. The small range of fps ( between 27-40fps ) shows the game engine is well balanced and well optimized so you dont see sudden fps spikes and drops 

  

   Another think FC3 does excellent is Cpu optimization. We are in 2012 and most games still use only 2 cores and rely either on CPU ipc ( instructions per second so the higher the merrier ) or high frequency . Fortunately there are games that take advantage of quad cores and their number is increasing ( so finally us who bought a 200 euro quad core cpu back in 2009 for future proofing can feel good about it ) and Far Cry is one of those games. Looking at Cpu usage during gameplay brought a tear of joy ( finally that phenom II of mine is stretching its legs ) . At all times the cpu usage remained between 60-80%.  while gpu usage remained 99% all the time. This shows gpu is the limiting factor here ( as it should be ) and the engine is taking advantage my cpu as much as it needs to keep my gpu busy ( my cpu still has cycles to spare so a faster gpu will require more from my cpu and FC3 engine been this flexible means even with a fast gpu such as a 7950 my old phenom II will still be enough  )

    

   Ubisoft did  great with FC3 and deserves credit for it ( as much as it deserves criticism about FC2 ). If you want a great open world fps the choices are few and Far Cry 3 is one of them. Alongside Stalker series and Crysis, Crysis warhead FC3 are the true next generation gaming experience 

                                         

Know what PETA? F** you this is just a game and i dont feel bad about killing animals ( i never and i will never heart an animal btw been a big nature admirer )