Far Cry 6 at 8K almost crushes the Nvidia RTX 3090 – but AMD comes to the rescue

(Persona credit: Ubisoft)

Our 8K psychometric test system

PC collective by Chillblast

Motherboard: Asus ROG STRIX Z390-E GAMING
Central processing unit Cooler: Noctua New Hampshire-U14S
Case fans: Noctua NF-A14 PWM Chromax 140mm
Processor: Intel Substance i9-9900K, 8 Cores / 16 Threads
GPU: Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090
Storage: 500GB Samsung 970 EVO Plus M.2 PCIe
Secondary Storehouse: 2TB Samsung 860 QVO
Business leader: Corsair RM850x 80 PLUS Gold 850W PSU
Case: Fractal Design Vector RS Tempered Glass
RAM: G.Science Trident Z RGB 32GB DDR4 3200MHz
Monitor: Dell UltraSharp UP3218K

Far Yell 6 is the latest entry in Ubisoft's open world prototypal person shooter franchise, and alike past games in the serial publication, it's a stunning-superficial unfit, peculiarly connected PC.

Of course, that means that we couldn't expect to raise it up on our 8K test carriage and see just how good IT looks – and how well it performs – at 7,680 × 4,320. For these tests. we're exploitation the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090, currently the most powerful consumer nontextual matter lineup in the world.

We've been doing these 8K tests for a while now, and we've seen an exciting increase in visually-impressive games managing to hit that magic 60 frames per instant, such as Cyberpunk 2077 and even Red Dead Redemption 2 thanks to a past patch.

This is thanks to Nvidia's DLSS technology, which uses machine learning and artificial intelligence to upscale games running at turn down resolutions so that they appear to constitute running play at higher resolutions, with nominal impact to image quality.

It's impressive stuff, and it's allowed games that support DLSS to hit 8K at playable frame rates connected compatible hardware, while games that don't musical accompaniment it barely run at much luxuriously resolutions.

No DLSS present

What's interesting, is that Utmost Cry 6 doesn't musical accompaniment Nvidia DLSS. Instead, it comes with AMD's similar FidelityFX technology.

Piece it doesn't usance AI or machine learning like DLSS, AMD FidelityFX too takes games running at lower resolutions and cleverly upscales them so they seem to be running at higher resolutions, and there's a like uptick in execution as well.

In our tests, IT allowed us to wager the visually-demanding Far Squall 6 at 8K and at 60 frames per second (Federal Protective Service), which is precise impressive indeed. Best of all, unlike DLSS, which is inner to Nvidia's RTX range of graphics cards, AMD FidelityFX can run connected AMD surgery Nvidia GPUs, which is wherefore our 8K rig with the RTX 3090 could benefit from it.

Far Cry 6 8K performance

To Begin with, we typeset the Far Cry 6 resolution to 8K, but put all the settings on 'Low'. Reported to the game, this takes up 8.57GB of VRAM – little than half of the 24GB available connected the RTX 3090.

We kept AMD FidelityFX off, and in our tests we hit 33fps on average. That's non dreadful, as we consider 30fps as the minimum for an acceptable playing experience.

However, despite it being 8K, the game looked pretty base with the 'Low' settings, and there was quite a tur of pop-in, especially around the grass over.

And then, we upped the graphics settings to 'Medium', which requires 9.77GB of VRAM, and our machine averaged 30fps. IT looked better, but still not good enough, and that 30fps frame rate isn't that impressive when you've paid $1,499 (£1,399, around AU$2,030) for the RTX 3090 along its own.

So, we decided to put to sleep the pressure connected a bit more, and turned the graphics settings on 'High'. This requires 10.28GB of VRAM, so even the mighty RTX 3080 wouldn't be able to handle it.

That being said, it doesn't look ilk the RTX 3090 can either, as we ran the gamy to benchmark it... and information technology promptly crashed.

AMD FidelityFX to the deliver

We tried it a couple of more times, and Far Cry 6 fair wouldn't lading ahead. So, we at last relented, and turned AMD FidelityFX happening, with the background on 'Extremist Quality'. This setting means that the impact to visuals should be minimal, but also the performance gains won't be as tall.

The good news, all the same, was that it allowed the game to load, and it hit a very decent 41fps.

It also looked a set punter with 'High' settings and AMD FidelityFX on, than at 'Medium' settings with AMD FidelityFX soured - and it performed advisable. That's certainly a win in our books.

Next, we turned HD Textures to 'on'. This is an facultative download that adds higher resolution textures to the game. This bumped up the VRAM use to 11.3GB, but in our tests it didn't impact performance, hitting 41fps again. The impact to how the game looked, still, was definitely noticeable.

Adjacent, we changed AMD FidelityFX's setting from 'Ultra Quality' to 'Proportionate'. Eastern Samoa the cite suggests, this means AMD FidelityFX tries to strike a balance between performance and image quality, so information technology runs the game at a lower native resolution, but it should hopefully still look beautiful good at 8K.

It certainly did the trick, as our test PC hit 62fps on normal, passing that golden 60fps milestone. The gimpy looked fancy as well, though in that respect is a discernible shimmering round whatever moving objects. It's a small thing, and non immersion-break, but IT's an exemplar of the compromises you have to realise when using an implementation the like AMD FidelityFX OR DLSS (we saw something standardised with Red Dead Redemption 2) rather than track the game at a native firmness of purpose.

We upped the graphics settings to 'Ultra' and put AMD FidelityFX back to 'Ultra Quality', and the VRAM exercis was 11.80GB. Performance took an expected drop to 35fps. Non awful, but away turn AMD FidelityFX to 'Balanced' we got IT up to a respectable 55fps.

Finally, we turned on DXR Reflections and DXR Shadows, which uses ray tracing for more naturalistic personal effects. These are stringent settings, and it castrated our physical body rate to 45fps, which upping VRAM custom to 12.4GB - meaning only the most strong, and expensive, GPUs could tally this. With a bit of tweaking, we'd be able-bodied to get a nice mix of graphical effects and hit 60fps at 8K with Far Cry 6. Very impressive indeed.

However, just to see how demanding 8K was, we unbroken those settings only dropped the resolution down to 4K. This saw our framerate leap to 73fps, and there was piffling, if any, noticeable difference in image quality.

This is because, while you can play Distant Cry 6 at 8K, Ubisoft has clearly concentrated on 4K functioning, as 8K-surefooted computer hardware is yet so ecological niche. That substance textures and effects induce been successful for 4K displays, so increasing the resolution to 8K doesn't exchange a whole lot - especially considering the performance impact it brings.

A peachy showing for both Far Cry 6 and AMD FidelityFX

Overall, these results are a real testament to the Far-off Cry 6 developers and art team up, who have created a gorgeous world that looks fantastic, and runs substantially on the ironware we tested it on.

Naturally, the Nvidia RTX 3090 should also yield a bow. It's one of the only GPUs that could even dream of track Far Battle cry 6 at 8K resolution, and the fact that it manages to proves that it corpse your best means of playing games at 8K.

AMD FidelityFX has also proved to be an excellent tool for getting games to run at high resolutions and effects, without hitting performance excessively much. It enabled United States to air past that 60fps milestone at 8K along an incredibly just looking for courageous, and the results were on the whole rattling good.

The fact that it runs on both AMD and Nvidia hardware (as well as older GPUs) is commendable, so we have to give AMD props for going that route.

And, while gaming at 8K still isn't quite a worth it, this all bodes well for how AMD FidelityFX can help people with older, less powerful, artwork cards, run advanced games like Far Cry 6 in almost all their glory. With GPUs still adamantine to get, this is the real revolution we need.

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Last Computing editor in chief

Matt (Chitter) is TechRadar's Senior Computing editor program. Having written for a number of publications much as Personal computer Plus, Personal computer Format, T3 and Linux Data format, on that point's no aspect of technology that Matt International Relations and Security Network't lusty about, especially computation and Microcomputer gaming. If you're encountering a trouble Oregon need some advice with your PC or Mac, bead him a production line on Twitter.