I played Far Cry a bunch of times about a year ago .. or more. Since that time, I've upgraded my PC, and tangled with Gothic 3 and all the patches and tweaks for that. Gothic 3 is essentially Far Cry 2, but now, while we all wait for Crysis to come out .. if ever .. I would like to play Far Cry again. I remember there were lots of problems the patches up through 1.33 never fixed. HDR coming to mind. But also, there were obvious driver problems with shaders and the Advanced Settings. Were any of those problems ever fixed ? I've read the newer posts on this, and most of them seem kind of uninformed, so I don't really trust them.

My new system is now an AMD X2 4400 with 2 gigs ddr400. Video is BFG GF7900GTO. Monitor is Viewsonic 21 inch Wide Screen, and is plenty fast. Is it possible now to use Very High settings on the 7900 without getting into trouble with HDR? I read a little bit about the 1.4 patch, and actually tried it a year ago, and quickly discovered that it did not work on an
nVidia 6800. It did not work well on a 7900 that I tested, but it could be disabled as long as I never used settings above High. In addition, I know about editing the Catacombs.lua file to fix the beach waves problem .. but were any other edits ever discovered .. esp edits that would keep Far Cry from dropping back to lower video settings after a crash. How about the Frogs? Far Cry will cut back on AI for reasons unknown. Was any of that ever fixed ?

I have a 7900 GT, 2 Gigs RAM and an optreron 175 running at 2.9 GHz. A very similar system to yours. Nvidia drivers 93.71 on Windows XP.
I can run very high with HDR enabled.

I do not think the patch addressed the frog issue but single player is better with 1.3 than 1.4 because of an AI see-through walls bug. There may have been some shader issues addressed in 1.4 though.

What is the frog issue???
Thanks.
Best regards, Fattyrat.

Some people claim that seeing frogs and other wildlife like fish and insects is a function of the video card power vs CPU power ratio. The more CPU power you have, the more creatures you see.
The theory is that once you cover the GPU and AI, excess computing power will go to the environmental richness.

Well my card is much older than your 7900 being an X800XT and I see plenty of frogs in the game. I always thought it was more a matter of where you are in the game and whether your spec meets the recommended requirement.

I am doubting that anyone meeting that requirement is going to see less frogs than those with spec that can produce frame rates so high that the excess are only noticed in benchmarks.

There are certain maps in the game with swamp-like environments in night time settings where frogs are placed, along with water skippers and such. If you don't see them elsewhere it doesn't necessarily mean your system spec is too low.

I like that the game is made this way. You shouldn't expect to see nor would you normally see in nature frogs everywhere or throughout the daytime, even on a tropical island.

Pleasantly surprised. Looks like nVidia sorted out HDR in these 97xx series drivers. Far Cry looks great, and FPS is very high. I'm only at the 2nd level, but so far very good. The level that gave us a fit was Bunker. That was where HDR generated see-through and black walls a couple years ago .. esp on the 6800s. I've also returned to Oblivion, which I always found a little boring, but easily the equivalent of Far Cry graphics. Weird to switch 1st person to 3rd person, but in Oblivion, I discovered that I can do both since shooting the bow is only targeted in 1st person. Battling with the sword is definately 3rd person. Waiting for Crysis with the rest of you.

Dropped back to Gothic 3 for a while, and played it in the most challenging mode. Whooeee! That is one tough game in that mode. I had to develop my weapon skills to the max, just to be able to move in that game at all. Just came back to Far Cry, and now it seems too easy. I hope Crysis is leveled higher, but not impossible. Something else I am noticing .. in
Far Cry on my new machine, once again, I have an improvement in AI. In the past, I noticed this every time I upgraded in the slightest. I thought I had maxed out on my last machine, but with this X2, 7900GTO, and 2 gigs ram, I see Far Cry take advantage of it. Kind of a shame in a way. It is telling me that Far Cry was written years ahead of its time, and that is probably why we never saw Far Cry 2. The hardware was just not ready. Same with Crysis, I bet. Something else, the HDR problem ... the new Nvidia drivers have greatly improved that. I could not run Advanced video settings in Far Cry without autoenabling HDR in Far Cry, and getting black screens and see through walls, even on this 7900. Now with the Vista-combo driver, I can run HDR maxed out. Also, Gothic 3 required the latest directx dll library for HDR in that game. I think that had something to do with it too. Apparently, the latest stuff solves some older "smoother" issues. Also, the new nVidia driver fixes the "custom" resolution lock out for wide screen 16:10 monitors. Now, I can set a custom 16:10 resolution in Far Cry, and it looks great, and is stable. I have FPS in the 80s most of the time.

Just a quick question. I've got a Geforce 6800 (pretty sure that's it) and Autodetect detects High quality. I also notice lots of lag on Volcano even on only High. Just what do I need to get Very High? A second Geforce card?

Keep in mind that when they make an autodetect feature it's based on the game's original version and in ideal conditions for the hardware it's detecting. Sometimes adding patches actually slows down game performance rather than improves it. You don't need anything more than version 1.3 if you're only playing sp. Make sure your system is set up ideally too. No background programs and non essential services, defrag the HD, have enough RAM, etc, etc. XP alone can easily take up 200+ MB of RAM. Check your virtual memory size too, the default setting Windows uses is pretty low. Besides that there are different models of the 6800, but if it's a GT you should be fine, depends on the resolution though. I assume you know autodetect is implying a 1024x768 res?

As far as what alternatives for AGP slot cards, you may want to decide that after seeing what offerings are in the works. Word is there are going to be more high end AGP card choices soon. For some time the best available was the 7800GS, but things are different now. You do pay a bit more than an equivalent performing PCI Ex card though, as AGP is dying out now. You didn't say how much RAM you have, but if you're only running 512MB of RAM I would try doubling it before getting another video card. Another thing you can check is that your BIOS is set to use as much AGP Aperture (video memory) as your 6800 has.

If you're at all in doubt as to whether your system is set up optimally for gaming, Tweakguides.com is excellent for everything from tweak settings on XP, video cards, and individual games.

Johns, have you tried Just Cause yet? It's a lot more arcadish than Far Cry and has over the top stunts, but it's setting is much more Far Cryish than Gothic 3 in environment and weapons.

How do I go back to 1.3 from 1.4. Is 1.33 what I want for SP then? Do I have to re-install from the start again to go back? Pretty sure I have 1 Gb RAM and the card has 512 mb (or maybe 256 - does that sound right?). Adding a second card would double the graphics memory right?

Also, is there a big difference between High and Very High.

I do not find a big difference between high and very high. Adding a second card to play Far Cry is not worth it IMO.

To go back to 1.3, run the 1.4 installer and choose "remove". If you used the all in one installer then you should be at 1.0. Then simply add the 1.3 patch and you are done.
If you used the stepwise installer, then removing 1.4 should put you at the last patch you installed which is probably 1.33.

1.31, 1.32 and 1.33 are for multiplayer. there were no changes from 1.3 in the single player game.

Your RAM is OK at 1 GB and the video card is probably 256, not 512, which is OK too. Like I said, if it's a GT version of the 6800 it should run the game fine.

If you find the AGP Aperture in the BIOS set it to 256 if your video card's memory is 256. The X800 Pro is pretty close to a 6800GT. I have an X800XT and it auto detects at Very High. You can't realistically expect a 6800 even in a GT to do Very High stock, but then again it's not a good idea to overclock an old card if it's been used a lot.

Go to this Tweakguides.com and read the In Game Settings pages of the Far Cry guide. He doesn't show comparison screenshots like with some games but he does explain in detail the differences the settings will show.

My experience with all the 6800s I tested, was that HDR would not run at all, and I had to stay away from Very High settings in Far Cry. But, when I first got my 7900, I saw the same problem, and called nVidia tech support and told them we had about had it with them never fixing their drivers .. especially their shaders. Well, they finally seem to have done it. So now, the 6800s might handle HDR and the advanced shaders much better. I'm using the latest Vista combo driver, and
it really is much better. Also, you have to have the latest dlls for that driver.

Also, Far Cry really needs 2 gigs of ram. Gothic 3 will barely run in 1 gig.

I haven't see that game mentioned in this thread. I'll give it a look.