Tip: AMD users, please update your drivers to Catalyst 12.11. HUGE and I repeat, HUGE performance boost for HD5000/6000 series cards. 7000 series cards sees a big bump in performance too.

Use HDAO instead. Don't know why, but SSAO causes flickering on the game for Nvidia cards. Weird.

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Added on November 30, 2012, 3:51 pmPlay SP offline, uPlay is horribly stupid.
Just add -offline prefix to Steam start up for the game.

If you aren't using Steam, then add the -offline prefix to the game: Right click shortcut > Properties > Target > -offline at the end.

This post has been edited by SSJBen: Nov 30 2012, 03:51 PM

After spending more than an hour tweaking the game's configs yesterday... I have concluded that DX11 implementation in FC3 is total sh!t.

Believe it or not, DX9 actually has better draw distance, nearly as good image quality (honestly, I don't see the difference, even if tesselation is "disabled" on DX9) and most importantly, A LOT better performance.
The only thing DX11 has over DX9 is HDAO and MSAA.

Some say they don't see the God Rays in DX9, which isn't true. It's there.

You can always add the AO settings in the game's config to override to get nearly HDAO quality on DX9 though, without the huge performance hit of course.
As for AA, you can use an SMAA injector like SweetFX to get the best of both worlds. MSAA in FC3 is stupid beyond comprehension as of right now.

Really, the only reason to go DX11 is if you want to use HDAO and MSAA... both of which makes no sense when you lose over 40% in fps for such minimal quality improvement.

Another shitty port from Ubisoft after AC3.

EDIT:

Here's someone's screenshot from Guru3D regarding the further draw distance DX9 has over DX11 (and also the similar image quality).

DX9 - http://www.abload.de/img/dx95sx6a.jpg
DX11 - http://www.abload.de/img/dx11viz7e.jpg

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Added on December 1, 2012, 1:38 pmYou can add an in-between HDAO setting under DX9 mode.
Go to your GamerProfile.xml file under users/my documents/my games/far cry 3.

Then change SSAOLevel = "x" to 5. It's not as good as HDAO, but it's much better than the ridiculous black aura you get from SSAO and HBAO.

This post has been edited by SSJBen: Dec 1 2012, 01:43 PM

No crash for me.
Are you sure you are running SweetFX on DX9 mode with FC3? Because DX11 crashes.

Kepler users, what drivers are you guys using?
Seems that the latest beta driver (310.64) isn't quite so stable. A lot of people are getting black screen crashes too.

Also, for Kepler users... you might want to try this, I don't know if it'll work or not (since I'm not playing FC3 on a Kepler card at the moment):

Switch back to DX11 in-game.
Exit game.
Open up the GamerProfile.xml and change the D3D11MultithreadedRendering="0" to 1.
Save and set the GamerProfile.xml to Read-Only.

You may or may not get a performance hit (it seems, it varies from users to user), but it's better than black screen crashing.

Also, don't play with PostFX at anything higher than medium. It's pointless, because high or very high pretty much gives you motion blur only at VERY HIGH performance cost. Even if you are on a GTX680 and getting solid 60fps, there's no point in taxing your GPU for no reason.

Oh and for those that wants to forego any sort of AA, just downsample the game from 1440p to 1080p.
It's eye-gasm, so good it actually is better than Crysis 1 with mods.

You do need a very powerful card to so though, so only 680/7970 ghz or 690/7990 users should apply.

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Added on December 2, 2012, 8:49 pmTry it, let me know.
I'm on a 590 with 306.97 driver, I don't get crashes other than weird fps drops at areas which makes no sense... for example, looking out into the open sea I get lower fps than when there is a troop of enemies at an outpost.

Also reviewed the game on a 7950 with catalyst 12.11, no issues there.

This post has been edited by SSJBen: Dec 2 2012, 09:08 PM

If you set it to 0, make sure your MaxGPU Buffer Frame is 3. This can be set in-game.

For those who doesn't want the HUD - http://forums.steamgames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3023873

DO NOT play MP with this mod on, the server will detect it as a cheat. Perma ban when caught.

This post has been edited by SSJBen: Dec 6 2012, 05:30 AM