Games Benchmarks - Far Cry (DirectX)
Far Cry is a DirectX9 title that uses a number of DirectX9 and DirectX8 Shaders. The 1.3 patch also utilises PS2.x and PS3.0 shader paths, making use of their longer instruction length capabilities to collapse some rendering passes. The test we are using is a custom Firingsquad demo and the highest shader profile available to a board is used.
| Far Cry (FPS) | 640x480 | 800x600 | 1024x768 | 1280x1024 | 1600x1200 |
| 6600 GT AGP | 93.1 | 93.0 | 85.4 | 62.9 | 46.3 |
| 6600 GT PCIe | 81.1 | 81.1 | 79.3 | 66.5 | 48.7 |
| 5700 Ultra | 50.9 | 38.3 | 27.9 | 19.4 | 14.0 |
| 5800 Ultra | 67.3 | 51.8 | 38.0 | 26.5 | 19.1 |
| 6600 GT AGP % Faster Than: | 640x480 | 800x600 | 1024x768 | 1280x1024 | 1600x1200 |
| 6600 GT PCIe | 14.8% | 14.7% | 7.7% | -5.5% | -4.9% |
| 5700 Ultra | 82.8% | 142.7% | 205.9% | 224.7% | 231.3% |
| 5800 Ultra | 38.2% | 79.7% | 124.6% | 136.9% | 142.6% |
Again the performance differences between the 6600 GT's are fairly slim, in the order of about 6% at worst. However, we can see massive performance differences between the newer generation boards in relation to the older FX boards, as this title uses plenty of DirectX9 shaders.
| Far Cry, 4x FSAA + 8x AF (FPS) | 640x480 | 800x600 | 1024x768 | 1280x1024 | 1600x1200 |
| 6600 GT AGP | 86.5 | 69.2 | 49.3 | 32.7 | 19.2 |
| 6600 GT PCIe | 79.8 | 71.6 | 52.4 | 35.1 | 22.5 |
| 5700 Ultra | 36.8 | 27.1 | 19.9 | 13.8 | 9.0 |
| 5800 Ultra | 48.3 | 36.3 | 26.5 | 18.2 | 11.0 |
| 6600 GT AGP % Faster Than: | 640x480 | 800x600 | 1024x768 | 1280x1024 | 1600x1200 |
| 6600 GT PCIe | 8.4% | -3.3% | -5.9% | -6.9% | -14.6% |
| 5700 Ultra | 135.3% | 155.4% | 148.3% | 137.4% | 112.4% |
| 5800 Ultra | 79.1% | 90.7% | 86.2% | 79.4% | 75.3% |
Prior to 1600x1200 the performance deficit the AGP 6600 GT has to the PCI version is only about 7%, however this is increased at 1600x1200 as the size of the frame buffer space required for a 4x FSAA at 1600x1200 resolution pushes some textures across to the system RAM on these 128MB boards; as the PCI Express interface has higher bandwidth than the AGP interface, it suffers less from addressing the textures from the system RAM than the AGP board does.
| 6600 GT AGP(FPS) | 640x480 | 800x600 | 1024x768 | 1280x1024 | 1600x1200 |
| Normal | 93.1 | 93.0 | 85.4 | 62.9 | 46.3 |
| 8x AF | 92.6 | 90.4 | 76.7 | 55.0 | 40.3 |
| 4x FSAA | 90.1 | 75.9 | 53.5 | 35.6 | 23.6 |
| 4x FSAA + 8x AF | 86.5 | 69.2 | 49.3 | 32.7 | 19.2 |
| % Diff from Normal | 640x480 | 800x600 | 1024x768 | 1280x1024 | 1600x1200 |
| 8x AF | -0.5% | -2.8% | -10.2% | -12.5% | -12.8% |
| 4x FSAA | -3.1% | -18.4% | -37.4% | -43.4% | -49.0% |
| 4x FSAA + 8x AF | -7.0% | -25.6% | -42.3% | -48.0% | -58.5% |
In this test the AGP 6600 GT has a peak performance deficit of 13% for enabling 8x AF, 49% for 4x FSAA and 59% for both simultaneously.
