After the release of the 1.3 patch for Far Cry yesterday, I've taken some time to get acquainted with the new features on offer, examining what they have to offer from both a performance and image quality standpoint. The standout addition to this patch is of course that of HDR support for GeForce 6x00 boards, but I've briefly covered all of the major changes to the graphics engine in this new release.
We're all used to modern games being patched frequently these days. We're also used to patches that add extra content, such as new multi-player maps and the like. What we aren't so used to is game patches that add a lot of new features to the game's rendering engine.
However, Crytek, developers of Far Cry and the engine it uses, are something of an exception in this regard. We first saw their intentions in the briefly released 1.2 patch for the game, which added in beta support for both ATIs Pixel Shader 2.0b capabilities and geometry instancing as well as nVidia's 3.0 shader functionality. Sadly, the patches official lifespan was short-lived due to a host of stability problems and the like, which meant that it was soon pulled from general release and forgotten.
Elite Bastards
However, Crytek, developers of Far Cry and the engine it uses, are something of an exception in this regard. We first saw their intentions in the briefly released 1.2 patch for the game, which added in beta support for both ATIs Pixel Shader 2.0b capabilities and geometry instancing as well as nVidia's 3.0 shader functionality. Sadly, the patches official lifespan was short-lived due to a host of stability problems and the like, which meant that it was soon pulled from general release and forgotten.
Elite Bastards
