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, HIS Radeon X1600 Pro Turbo (which is factory-overclocked) was 3.21% faster than MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, 4.54% faster than nVidia GeForce 7800 GT, 4.55% faster than nVidia GeForce 6800 GS, 6.26% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT, 7.21% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 256 MB (which is factory-overclocked), 8.16% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 14.13% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 17.01% faster than nVidia GeForce 6800 GT and 25.37% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

HIS Radeon X1600 Pro Turbo (which is factory-overclocked) achieved a performance similar to ATI Radeon X1800 XT, Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, ATI Radeon X1800 XL, ATI Radeon X1600 XT and ATI Radeon X1900 XTX.

HIS Radeon X1600 Pro Turbo (which is factory-overclocked) was beaten by HIS Radeon X800 GT, which was 3.18% faster, ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., which was 3.15% faster and HIS Radeon X800 GTO, which was 3.08% faster.

At a resolution of 1280x1024 without any image quality enhancement, HIS Radeon X1600 Pro Turbo (which is factory-overclocked) was 4.03% faster than MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, 4.62% faster than nVidia GeForce 6800 GS, 5.21% faster than nVidia GeForce 7800 GT, 5.81% faster than ATI Radeon X1900 XTX, 8.56% faster than nVidia GeForce 6800 GT, 8.96% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 17.68% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 256 MB (which is factory-overclocked), 55.50% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT, 57.85% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600 and 90.02% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

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

HIS Radeon X1600 Pro Turbo (which is factory-overclocked) was beaten by ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., which was 3.28% faster and HIS Radeon X800 GT, which was 3.13% faster.

At a resolution of 1600x1200 without any image quality enhancement, HIS Radeon X1600 Pro Turbo (which is factory-overclocked) was 8.44% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 12.65% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 33.16% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 256 MB (which is factory-overclocked), 87.04% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 98.14% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT and 142.64% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

HIS Radeon X1600 Pro Turbo (which is factory-overclocked) achieved a performance similar to ATI Radeon X1600 XT.

HIS Radeon X1600 Pro Turbo (which is factory-overclocked) was beaten by ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., which was 21.14% faster, ATI Radeon X1800 XT, which was 20.05% faster, ATI Radeon X1800 XL, which was 19.65% faster, HIS Radeon X800 GTO, which was 17.51% faster, MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 12.99% faster, nVidia GeForce 7800 GT, which was 12.36% faster, nVidia GeForce 6800 GS, which was 11.62% faster, ATI Radeon X1900 XTX, which was 10.39% faster, HIS Radeon X800 GT, which was 8.26% faster and nVidia GeForce 6800 GT, which was 7.69% faster.

At a resolution of 1024x768 enabling image quality enhancements, HIS Radeon X1600 Pro Turbo (which is factory-overclocked) was 7.61% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 14.47% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 17.89% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 256 MB (which is factory-overclocked), 85.13% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 114.70% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro and 133.83% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT.

HIS Radeon X1600 Pro Turbo (which is factory-overclocked) was beaten by ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., which was 74.83% faster, ATI Radeon X1800 XL, which was 74.69% faster, ATI Radeon X1800 XT, which was 73.85% faster, nVidia GeForce 7800 GT, which was 73.03% faster, MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 72.02% faster, nVidia GeForce 6800 GS, which was 61.39% faster, ATI Radeon X1900 XTX, which was 58.38% faster, nVidia GeForce 6800 GT, which was 55.02% faster, HIS Radeon X800 GTO, which was 43.88% faster, HIS Radeon X800 GT, which was 25.10% faster and ATI Radeon X1600 XT, which was 9.33% faster.

At a resolution of 1280x1024 enabling image quality enhancements, HIS Radeon X1600 Pro Turbo (which is factory-overclocked) was 8.30% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 18.28% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 23.54% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 256 MB (which is factory-overclocked), 102.65% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 115.83% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro and 124.23% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT.

HIS Radeon X1600 Pro Turbo (which is factory-overclocked) was beaten by ATI Radeon X1800 XT, which was 146.50% faster, MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 132.91% faster, ATI Radeon X1800 XL, which was 129.21% faster, ATI Radeon X1900 XTX, which was 124.59% faster, ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., which was 122.43% faster, nVidia GeForce 7800 GT, which was 119.68% faster, nVidia GeForce 6800 GS, which was 76.20% faster, nVidia GeForce 6800 GT, which was 68.73% faster, HIS Radeon X800 GTO, which was 49.97% faster, HIS Radeon X800 GT, which was 25.83% faster and ATI Radeon X1600 XT, which was 16.54% faster.

At a resolution of 1600x1200 enabling image quality enhancements, HIS Radeon X1600 Pro Turbo (which is factory-overclocked) was 4.75% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 7.32% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 21.58% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 256 MB (which is factory-overclocked), 85.82% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 160.70% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro and 199.00% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT.

HIS Radeon X1600 Pro Turbo (which is factory-overclocked) was beaten by ATI Radeon X1800 XT, which was 242.94% faster, ATI Radeon X1900 XTX, which was 227.39% faster, ATI Radeon X1800 XL, which was 183.21% faster, MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 177.19% faster, ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., which was 158.73% faster, nVidia GeForce 7800 GT, which was 149.76% faster, nVidia GeForce 6800 GS, which was 90.51% faster, nVidia GeForce 6800 GT, which was 63.60% faster, HIS Radeon X800 GTO, which was 62.50% faster, HIS Radeon X800 GT, which was 32.35% faster and ATI Radeon X1600 XT, which was 16.94% faster.