NVIDIA is powering Far Cry 4 with HBAO+, God Rays, Fur and much more

Far Cry 4 will feature multiple NVIDIA technologies, including HBAO+, PCSS, TXAA, God Rays, Fur, and 'Enhanced 4K Support'

Published
Updated
1 minute & 35 seconds read time

NVIDIA Editor's Day 2014 - Ubisoft is a very close partner of NVIDIA, with the hardware giant helping the software giant in most of its games, including the soon-to-be-released Far Cry 4. In Monterey Bay last week, we were greeted with an early peek at the GeForce GTX 980, as well as a slew of games, one of which was Far Cry 4.

NVIDIA is powering Far Cry 4 with HBAO+, God Rays, Fur and much more 03NVIDIA is powering Far Cry 4 with HBAO+, God Rays, Fur and much more 04
VIEW GALLERY - 10 IMAGES

We found out that Far Cry 4 will be utilizing a bunch of NVIDIA technologies, with an injection of features that will ensure that the PC version of Far Cry 4 will stand far and away from the console versions, current-generation consoles included. We have HBAO+, PCSS, TXAA, God Rays, Fur, and Enhanced 4K Support, as well as NVIDIA's just-announced MFAA, DSR and much more.

NVIDIA is powering Far Cry 4 with HBAO+, God Rays, Fur and much more 05

Starting with HBAO+ or horizon-based ambient occlusion, a technology that improves on ambient occlusion, which provides a much more realistic shadow around objects that occlude rays of light.

NVIDIA is powering Far Cry 4 with HBAO+, God Rays, Fur and much more 06

Above, you can see the difference between no AO, and HBAO+, which is a big difference.

NVIDIA is powering Far Cry 4 with HBAO+, God Rays, Fur and much more 07

PCSS, or percentage closer soft shadows, provides "an effective solution for developers wanting to add contact-hardening, realistic soft shadows to their games". PCSS shadows will soften as the distance from the casting object increases, something that increases realism. PCSS also features high-quality shadow filtering technique, something that reduces the prominence of shadow aliasing.

NVIDIA is powering Far Cry 4 with HBAO+, God Rays, Fur and much more 08

Another technology that will be baked into Far Cry 4 is TXAA, or temporal anti-aliasing. TXAA helps create a "smoother, clearer image than any other anti-aliasing solution", something that is done by "combining high-quality MSAA multi-sample anti-aliasing, post processes, and NVIDIA-designed temporal filters".

NVIDIA is powering Far Cry 4 with HBAO+, God Rays, Fur and much more 09NVIDIA is powering Far Cry 4 with HBAO+, God Rays, Fur and much more 10

God Rays, oh yeah. God Rays are simply light rays, light shafts, or to the gaming and technology community: God Rays. They are "crepuscular rays coming from strong light sources where bright shafts of light are visible within the environment of the game, all delivered with less impact on performance by NVIDIA". This means you can have beautiful streams of light coming through leaves on a tree, without taking a huge performance hit on GeForce-powered PCs.

NVIDIA is powering Far Cry 4 with HBAO+, God Rays, Fur and much more 11NVIDIA is powering Far Cry 4 with HBAO+, God Rays, Fur and much more 12

NVIDIA HairWorks is something that will amplify the already impressive graphics within the world of Far Cry 4, where the technology will be used to provide animals with a very realistic look, with "physical accuracy of hair and animal fur".

Anthony joined the TweakTown team in 2010 and has since reviewed 100s of graphics cards. Anthony is a long time PC enthusiast with a passion of hate for games built around consoles. FPS gaming since the pre-Quake days, where you were insulted if you used a mouse to aim, he has been addicted to gaming and hardware ever since. Working in IT retail for 10 years gave him great experience with custom-built PCs. His addiction to GPU tech is unwavering and has recently taken a keen interest in artificial intelligence (AI) hardware.

Newsletter Subscription

Related Tags