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, ATI Radeon X1800 XT was 6.20% faster than MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, 6.79% faster than XFX GeForce 7800 GTX, 7.57% faster than nVidia GeForce 7800 GT, 9.34% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT, 11.17% faster than PowerColor Radeon X800 GT, 11.29% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 17.44% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 20.40% faster than nVidia GeForce 6800 GT and 29.01% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

ATI Radeon X1800 XT achieved a performance similar to HIS Radeon X800 GT, ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, ATI Radeon X1800 XL, ATI Radeon X1600 XT and GeCube Radeon X800 GTO (which is factory-overclocked).

At a resolution of 1280x1024 without any image quality enhancement, ATI Radeon X1800 XT was 5.58% faster than MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, 5.84% faster than XFX GeForce 7800 GTX, 6.78% faster than nVidia GeForce 7800 GT, 10.18% faster than nVidia GeForce 6800 GT, 10.23% faster than PowerColor Radeon X800 GT, 10.59% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 57.82% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT, 60.21% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600 and 92.86% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

ATI Radeon X1800 XT achieved a performance similar to ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., HIS Radeon X800 GT, GeCube Radeon X800 GTO (which is factory-overclocked), ATI Radeon X1800 XL, ATI Radeon X1600 XT and Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro.

At a resolution of 1600x1200 without any image quality enhancement, ATI Radeon X1800 XT was 6.25% faster than MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, 6.67% faster than XFX GeForce 7800 GTX, 6.85% faster than nVidia GeForce 7800 GT, 10.89% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GT, 11.49% faster than nVidia GeForce 6800 GT, 16.70% faster than PowerColor Radeon X800 GT,17.59% faster than ATI Radeon X1600 XT, 30.19% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 35.24% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 124.55% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 137.88% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT and 191.30% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

ATI Radeon X1800 XT achieved a performance similar to ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., ATI Radeon X1800 XL and GeCube Radeon X800 GTO (which is factory-overclocked).

At a resolution of 1024x768 enabling image quality enhancements, ATI Radeon X1800 XT was 9.83% faster than GeCube Radeon X800 GTO (which is factory-overclocked), 12.14% faster than nVidia GeForce 6800 GT, 36.50% faster than PowerColor Radeon X800 GT, 38.96% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GT, 59.01% faster than ATI Radeon X1600 XT, 87.08% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 99.01% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 221.84% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 273.25% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro and 306.51% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT.

ATI Radeon X1800 XT achieved a performance similar to ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., ATI Radeon X1800 XL, nVidia GeForce 7800 GT, MSI GeForce 7800 GTX and XFX GeForce 7800 GTX.

At a resolution of 1280x1024 enabling image quality enhancements, ATI Radeon X1800 XT was 3.63% faster than XFX GeForce 7800 GTX, 5.83% faster than MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, 7.54% faster than ATI Radeon X1800 XL, 10.82% faster than ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., 12.21% faster than nVidia GeForce 7800 GT, 45.08% faster than GeCube Radeon X800 GTO (which is factory-overclocked), 46.09% faster than nVidia GeForce 6800 GT, 88.72% faster than PowerColor Radeon X800 GT,95.89% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GT, 111.52% faster than ATI Radeon X1600 XT, 166.95% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 191.56% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 399.54% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 432.01% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro and 452.72% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT.

At a resolution of 1600x1200 enabling image quality enhancements, ATI Radeon X1800 XT was 18.71% faster than XFX GeForce 7800 GTX, 21.09% faster than ATI Radeon X1800 XL, 23.72% faster than MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, 32.55% faster than ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., 37.31% faster than nVidia GeForce 7800 GT, 83.37% faster than GeCube Radeon X800 GTO (which is factory-overclocked), 109.62% faster than nVidia GeForce 6800 GT, 155.71% faster than PowerColor Radeon X800 GT,159.12% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GT, 193.27% faster than ATI Radeon X1600 XT, 259.22% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 268.05% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 537.23% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 794.03% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro and 925.39% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT.