Far Cry 4 vs Far Cry Primal GTX 980

[AdmnPower]

I found out something interesting about the new Far Cry game. It looks to me like there are much fewer video quality adjustments on Primal. Oddly enough, I feel like Far Cry 4 can push my system more than Primal can.

A little background on my system and the game performance.

System Spec
Intel i7-4790K 4.00GHz
32GB DDR3 1600 Memory
Nvidia GTX 980
1 x 250GB SSD
2 x 1TB Seagate Desktop Drive (Raid 0)

To keep an even paying field I used the GeForce experience app to turn the settings on both games all the way up.

Far Cry 4 gives me about an average of about 30 fps with a low around 22 and a high in the upper 40's

Far Cry Primal gives an average of about 60 fps with a low in the 50's and high in the 80's


I guess what I'm wondering is if they dummed the game down or if it's just that much better optimized than Far Cry 4 was. If you look at the recommended system requirements they are quite a bit higher on Primal than on 4.

I'm not complaining that the new game runs better, I'm really just looking to start a conversation because the whole situation just seems strange to me.

 

[Darren]

Sounds like something with 4 is borked, either settings or game wise.

I have no experience with either game, so I may be wrong too.

 

[AdmnPower]

Fresh load of windows and fresh install of both games. Windows and Far Cry 4 were installed when I did a fresh load on windows 10 about 3 weeks ago and Far Cry Primal was installed when it came out yesterday. Not really much else on the computer other than office and chrome.

Also, if I use the preset option of Ultra within Far Cry 4 the performance is about the same as Primal, the settings just actually go higher than the in game Ultra preset if you manually adjust them. Far Cry Primal's settings don't seem to go any higher than the in game Ultra preset.

 

[Darren]

Can you give a screenshot of both games settings?

I wonder if 4 is using some sort of super sampling or something.

 

[AdmnPower]

I just grabbed images of the settings from the GeForce experience app. I did however verify in both games that there aren't any additional settings that the GeForce experience is missing or can't adjust. Everything listed here is everything that's available.

Primal


FC4


Also worth noting that the "current" settings on FC4 yield about 60 - 80 FPS and the recommended optimal settings are higher than what I currently have it set at.

 

[Darren]

So the "Optimal" settings are the ones you're using in FC4 that give you worse performance than Primal? But the "current' settings for FC4 are about on par with Primal?

If that's the case, then there's a couple things that stick out to me. For starters you've got Environment, Post FX, and Textures set to High in Primal while Ultra in 4. That 3 settings off the bat that are two notches higher. Terrain, Volumetric Fog, and and Water are all Very High on Primal and Ultra on 4. Another 3 settings a notch higher. 4 also seems to have a "Fur" option, which is most likely using Hairworks, notorious for murdering frames. If the "Optimal" settings are used then you'd make use of HBAO+, Soft Shadows, and TXAA x4, all of which will hit your performance.

You mentioned that both games are all the way up. If that's true, it seems that 4 has a lot of settings that go higher than Primal based on what I see here.

This might be worth perusing to give you a thorough explanation of each setting and performance impact.

http://www.geforce.com/whats-new/guides/far-cry-4-graphics-performance-and-tweaking-guide

 

[AdmnPower]

That's an awesome guide, thanks!

 

[lincsman]

I agree with that however I think that Far Cry 4 wasn't very well optimized for PC. I can honestly run Assassins creed Syndicate, which has higher requirements and is a brand new game (also looks better imo) on Ultra settings except for the double anti-ailising and ultra shadows. I actually get average of 40 fps with such settings, sometimes going up to 60 fps with a GTX 770 and AMD fx 6300 overclocked, whereas in Far Cry 4 I get 30 fps even without the Nvidia special features on ultra 1080p.

 

[AdmnPower]

Nvidia needs to hurry up and release their new line of video card so I can throw more power at the wall to see what sticks. haha