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 X1600 XT was 5.68% faster than MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, 6.26% faster than XFX GeForce 7800 GTX, 7.04% faster than nVidia GeForce 7800 GT, 8.80% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT, 10.62% faster than PowerColor Radeon X800 GT, 10.74% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 16.86% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 19.81% faster than nVidia GeForce 6800 GT and 28.37% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

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

At a resolution of 1280x1024 without any image quality enhancement, ATI Radeon X1600 XT was 5.42% faster than MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, 5.68% faster than XFX GeForce 7800 GTX, 6.61% faster than nVidia GeForce 7800 GT, 10.01% faster than nVidia GeForce 6800 GT, 10.06% faster than PowerColor Radeon X800 GT, 10.41% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 57.57% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT, 59.96% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600 and 92.56% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

ATI Radeon X1600 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 X1800 XT and Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro.

At a resolution of 1600x1200 without any image quality enhancement, ATI Radeon X1600 XT was 10.71% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 15.01% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 90.96% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 102.29% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT and 147.72% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

ATI Radeon X1600 XT achieved a performance similar to PowerColor Radeon X800 GT.

ATI Radeon X1600 XT was beaten by ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., which was 18.66% faster, ATI Radeon X1800 XT, which was 17.59% faster, ATI Radeon X1800 XL, which was 17.20% faster, GeCube Radeon X800 GTO (which is factory-overclocked), which was 17.17% faster, MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 10.68% faster, XFX GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 10.24% faster, nVidia GeForce 7800 GT, which was 10.06% faster, HIS Radeon X800 GT, which was 6.04% faster and nVidia GeForce 6800 GT, which was 5.48% faster.

At a resolution of 1024x768 enabling image quality enhancements, ATI Radeon X1600 XT was 17.66% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 25.16% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 102.41% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 134.74% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro and 155.66% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT.

ATI Radeon X1600 XT was beaten by ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., which was 59.90% faster, ATI Radeon X1800 XL, which was 59.78% faster, ATI Radeon X1800 XT, which was 59.01% faster, nVidia GeForce 7800 GT, which was 58.26% faster, MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 57.34% faster, XFX GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 57.34% faster, GeCube Radeon X800 GTO (which is factory-overclocked), which was 44.77% faster, nVidia GeForce 6800 GT, which was 41.79% faster, PowerColor Radeon X800 GT, which was 16.49% faster and HIS Radeon X800 GT, which was 14.42% faster.

At a resolution of 1280x1024 enabling image quality enhancements, ATI Radeon X1600 XT was 26.21% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 37.84% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 136.16% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 151.52% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro and 161.31% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT.

ATI Radeon X1600 XT was beaten by ATI Radeon X1800 XT, which was 111.52% faster, XFX GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 104.10% faster, MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 99.86% faster, ATI Radeon X1800 XL, which was 96.68% faster, ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., which was 90.87% faster, nVidia GeForce 7800 GT, which was 88.51% faster, GeCube Radeon X800 GTO (which is factory-overclocked), which was 45.80% faster, nVidia GeForce 6800 GT, which was 44.79% faster, PowerColor Radeon X800 GT, which was 12.08% faster and HIS Radeon X800 GT, which was 7.98% faster.

At a resolution of 1600x1200 enabling image quality enhancements, ATI Radeon X1600 XT was 22.49% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 25.50% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 117.29% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 204.85% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro and 249.64% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT.

ATI Radeon X1600 XT was beaten by ATI Radeon X1800 XT, which was 193.27% faster, XFX GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 147.04% faster, ATI Radeon X1800 XL, which was 142.19% faster, MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 137.05% faster, ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., which was 121.26% faster, nVidia GeForce 7800 GT, which was 113.59% faster, GeCube Radeon X800 GTO (which is factory-overclocked), which was 59.93% faster, nVidia GeForce 6800 GT, which was 39.90% faster, PowerColor Radeon X800 GT, which was 14.69% faster and HIS Radeon X800 GT, which was 13.18% faster.