At Ubidays 2008, we heard a number of very impressive things — but as to what we saw, there was little that could surpass the technical prowess of Far Cry 2. And though the live demonstration we viewed has apparently not made it to primetime, Ubisoft did provide journalists with a concise tech demo that shows off the game’s incredible use of light, shadow, and flame. Hit the jump for some procedural effects guaranteed to make graphics (and emergent gameplay) junkies giddy with excitement.
If you want to get your news straight from the zebra’s mouth (so to speak), we highly recommend checking out today’s CVG interview with the development team. PC gamers will be happy to know the game is quite scalable, according to technical director Dominic Guay:
As the new engine takes advantage of multi-core processors, what sort of system requirements can we expect for Far Cry 2 on PC?
Guay: That is still in flux. This said, the game is very scalable, including to single-core processors and GPUs that are many years old.
We keep all game features across the quality settings, it is only the detail and quality of the rendition of them that is changed. A little while back, I played the game on a gaming PC that is almost 4 years old.
At the other extreme, I sometimes play the game on a 4 core system running in dual GPU mode. Our development team uses a large array of PCs and they all run the game.
We are still focused on optimizations but as we near the ship date we will be able to give clear requirements.
While console gamers might take offense at the knowledge that their experience is only middling.
How are the PS3/360 versions shaping up and did they impose any limitations on developing the PC version?
Pharand: The console versions look and play great. They’re stunning!
After the Games Conventions in Leipzig last year, the engineering team had as a mandate to port our engine (DUNIA) to console. So it could be used by other Ubisoft titles.
The team wanted to push its limits and decided to use Far Cry 2 data. The game looked great and we decided at that point to do some R&D to see the feasibility of having the same game on consoles.
They did it! So why not have more gamers enjoy the experience? That being said we started as a PC game and we are still a dedicated PC team. Since we want to have as many PC gamers enjoy the experience, the console developments actually helped the mid-requirement settings on PC.
That’s the long answer, the short one: we did not impose limitations on the PC version.
Full interview at CVG.
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