Far Cry is a game based on the new Shader 3.0 (DirectX 9.0c) programming model available on series 6 and 7 from nVidia and series X1000 from ATI graphics chips. We’ve updated the game to version 1.3.
 
As we’ve done on other programs, we ran this game at three resolutions, 1024x768x32, 1280x1024x32 and 1600x1200x32. This game allows several image quality levels and we’ve done our benchmarking on two levels, low and very high. To measure the performance we used the demo created by German magazine PC Games Hardware (PCGH), available at http://www.3dcenter.org/downloads/farcry-pcgh-vga.php. We run this demo four times and made an arithmetical average with the results. This average is the result presented in our graphs.

This game has a very important detail in its image quality configuration. Antialiasing, instead of being configured by numbers (1x, 2x, 4x or 6x) is configured as low, medium or high. The problem is that on nVidia chips both medium and high mean 4x, while on ATI chips medium means 2x and high means 6x, making the comparison between ATI and nVidia chips completely unfair. Because of that we configured antialising at 4x and anisotropic filtering at 8x manually at the video driver control panel.

For further details on how to measure 3D performance with Far Cry, read our tutorial on this subject.

At a resolution of 1024x768 without any image quality enhancement, PowerColor Radeon X800 GT was 5.64% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 8.30% faster than nVidia GeForce 6800 GT, and 16.04% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

PowerColor Radeon X800 GT achieved a performance similar to MSI – DOT GeForce 7800 GTX, ATI Radeon X600 XT and XFX GeForce 6600 GT.

PowerColor Radeon X800 GT was beaten by ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., which was 11.44% faster, Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, which was 11.00% faster, MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, que foi 4.68% faster, XFX GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 4.11% faster, and nVidia GeForce 7800 GT, which was 3.35% faster.

At a resolution of 1280x1024 without any image quality enhancement, PowerColor Radeon X800 GT was 43.17% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT, 45.34% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, and 74.96% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

PowerColor Radeon X800 GT achieved a performance similar to nVidia GeForce 6800 GT and XFX GeForce 6600 GT.

PowerColor Radeon X800 GT was beaten by ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., which was 12.17% faster, HIS Radeon X800 GT, which was 12.01% faster, Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, which was 8.44% faster, MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 4.40% faster, XFX GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 4.14% faster, nVidia GeForce 7800 GT, which was 3.24% faster, and MSI – DOT GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 3.21% faster.

At a resolution of 1600x1200 without any image quality enhancement, PowerColor Radeon X800 GT was 11.56% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 15.89% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 92.43% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 103.84% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT, and 149.62% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

PowerColor Radeon X800 GT was beaten by ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., which was 17.75% faster, MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 9.83% faster, MSI – DOT GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 9.79% faster, XFX GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 9.40% faster, nVidia GeForce 7800 GT, which was 9.22% faster, HIS Radeon X800 GT, which was 5.23% faster, and nVidia GeForce 6800 GT, which was 4.67% faster.

At a resolution of 1024x768 enabling image quality enhancements PowerColor Radeon X800 GT was 37.06% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 45.79% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 135.78% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 173.44% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro, and 197.81% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT.

PowerColor Radeon X800 GT achieved a performance similar to HIS Radeon X800 GT.

PowerColor Radeon X800 GT was beaten by ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., which was 37.27% faster, nVidia GeForce 7800 GT, which was 35.85% faster, MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 35.07% faster, XFX GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 35.07% faster, MSI – DOT GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 34.72% faster, and nVidia GeForce 6800 GT, which was 21.72% faster.

At a resolution of 1280x1024 enabling image quality enhancements, PowerColor Radeon X800 GT was 3.80% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GT, 41.45% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 54.49% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 164.70% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 181.91% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro, and 192.88% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT.

PowerColor Radeon X800 GT was beaten by MSI – DOT GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 82.93% faster, XFX GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 82.10% faster, MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 78.32% faster, ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., which was 70.29% faster, nVidia GeForce 7800 GT, which was 68.19% faster, and nVidia GeForce 6800 GT, which was 29.18% faster.

At a resolution of 1600x1200 enabling image quality enhancements PowerColor Radeon X800 GT was 40.48% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 43.93% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 149.20% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 249.63% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro, and 301.00% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT.

PowerColor Radeon X800 GT achieved a performance similar to HIS Radeon X800 GT.

PowerColor Radeon X800 GT was beaten by MSI – DOT GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 124.23% faster, XFX GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 115.40% faster, MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 106.69% faster, ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., which was 92.92% faster, nVidia GeForce 7800 GT, which was 86.23% faster, and nVidia GeForce 6800 GT, which was 21.99% faster.