Far Cry 6 PC Performance Review and Optimisation Guide

Is Ray Tracing Worth it? 

While Far Cry 6’s implementation of Ray Tracing is fairly performance-friendly, it does have a significant impact on framerates, especially at 4K. We would even go as far as saying that Far Cry 6’s integrated benchmark overstates the game’s ray tracing performance. 

The below benchmarks were recorded using an AMD RX 6800 at 4K using Far Cry 6’s built-in benchmarking tool. In-game, lower percentile framerates will be closer to 40 than 49, but the benchmark is still fairly accurate when it comes to performance scaling. 

Ray Tracing impact will change on a scene-by-scene basis, depending on how many surfaces are offering RT reflections. and how many shadows are cast.  

Ray Traced Reflections have a larger overall visual impact than RT shadows, so if you only have the GPU power for one, enable RT reflections.  
 

  
Image Quality Comparisons

Below are several image quality comparisons that showcase Ray Traced Reflections and Shadows when they are enabled VS when they are disabled. 

This first example showcases how RT shadows can reflect objects that are not within screenspace, giving Far Cry 6’s RT reflections clear benefits over the game’s standard Screen Space Reflections (SSR). 

(RT On VS RT Off)
  

Another cool example of Ray traced reflection in Far Cry 6 is the player reflection that can be seen below. 
 

(RT On VS RT Off)
  
  

When RT shadows are enabled, shaded areas are darker than when RT shadows are disabled. Otherwise, RT shadows have a minimal impact in most situations. While RT shadows are more accurate, this setting doesn’t have enough visual impact to be worth this setting’s framerate hit. 

(RT On VS RT Off)
  
  

Below we can once again see how RT Reflections Impact Far Cry 6’s visuals. With RT Reflections, much more of the forest is reflected on the surface of puddles and other reflective objects. This is RT reflections at its best in Far Cry 6. 

(RT On VS RT Off)
    

Here we have another example of RT reflections on Far Cry 6’s puddles. 

(RT On VS RT Off)