Bottom line: In a new interview, Ubisoft revealed that the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X versions of Far Cry 6 will not feature ray tracing, it will only be on PC. Ubisoft has also covered other details about the differences between the versions of the game.
Wccftech interviewed Ubisoft’s 3D team lead programmer about the technology that comes to different versions of Far Cry 6 after the developer revealed the features of the PC version earlier this month. When asked about ray tracing on new consoles, the programmer said that Ubisoft’s goal for consoles is to achieve high resolution and frame rates.
“Ray tracing is a PC-only feature,” said Stephanie Brenham. “On the console, our goal has been to take advantage of new hardware capabilities, optimize performance by targeting 4K and achieve 60 FPS. He also said that AMD’s FidelityFX Super Resolution scaling feature is for PC only. Ubisoft does not use AMD’s FidelityFX noise eliminator for Far Cry 6 ray tracing, but rather their own custom solution.
According to Brenham, PC and new consoles will have a better level of detail, draw distances, ocean simulation, and textures than PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. When it comes to new consoles, Brenham said that SSDs will provide the most noticeable difference in the gaming experience on older consoles.
“Loading in moments instead of minutes is obviously fantastic, and it also gives us a different paradigm compared to hard drives on older consoles,” he said.
Brenham also recognized the impact DirectStorage could have on open world games like Far Cry for PC.
“DirectStorage dramatically improves data load times,” he said. “We anticipate that it can make significant improvements to open world games, which must upload and download large amounts of data to support the unpredictable movements of a player in a game world.”
When Ubisoft revealed the PC features for Far Cry 6, it said that ray tracing included ray traced shadows and reflections. Since then, Ubisoft has confirmed that reflections are a hybrid of ray tracing and screen space methods. Brenham confirmed to Wccftech that this is to ensure that even mid-range PCs can use ray tracing with good performance.
Far Cry 6 will be released on PC (via Ubisoft Store and Epic Games Store), PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S | X and Google Stadia on October 7.
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