Far Cry
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 is used, which means PS2.0 for the GammaChrome S18 and Radeon X600 PRO, whilst PS3.0 for the GeForce's can be used.
| Far Cry (FPS) | 640x480 | 800x600 | 1024x768 | 1280x1024 | 1600x1200 |
| S18 Nitro | 53.0 | 47.4 | 36.4 | 24.1 | 17.3 |
| X600 PRO | 82.9 | 62.7 | 44.1 | 29.4 | 20.4 |
| 6600 | 84.8 | 70.6 | 53.1 | 38.9 | 26.8 |
| 6200 | 73.8 | 55.9 | 40.5 | 29.0 | 20.1 |
| S18 % Faster Than: | 640x480 | 800x600 | 1024x768 | 1280x1024 | 1600x1200 |
| X600 PRO | -36.1% | -24.4% | -17.5% | -18.1% | -15.1% |
| 6600 | -37.5% | -32.9% | -31.5% | -38.1% | -35.5% |
| 6200 | -28.2% | -15.2% | -10.1% | -17.2% | -13.8% |
Far Cry is another title that has a reasonable degree of shader utilisation and again the S18 is the not able to match the performance of the other boards here.
| Far Cry, 2x FSAA & 4x AF (FPS) | 640x480 | 800x600 | 1024x768 | 1280x1024 | 1600x1200 |
| S18 Nitro | 42.1 | 31.1 | 21.3 | 13.6 | 9.7 |
| X600 PRO | 69.1 | 50.6 | 35.7 | 25.3 | 17.5 |
| 6600 | 69.6 | 54.0 | 39.5 | 27.2 | 18.9 |
| 6200 | 54.1 | 40.2 | 28.6 | 19.5 | 13.7 |
| S18 % Faster Than: | 640x480 | 800x600 | 1024x768 | 1280x1024 | 1600x1200 |
| X600 PRO | -39.1% | -38.5% | -40.4% | -46.3% | -44.7% |
| 6600 | -39.6% | -42.4% | -46.0% | -50.1% | -48.9% |
| 6200 | -22.2% | -22.7% | -25.5% | -30.2% | -29.5% |
Again the penalty of SuperSampling means that the S18's performance in this case with both 2x FSAA and 4x AF enabled is nearly half that of the X600 PRO or 6600.
| S18 Nitro (FPS) | 640x480 | 800x600 | 1024x768 | 1280x1024 | 1600x1200 |
| Normal | 53.0 | 47.4 | 36.4 | 24.1 | 17.3 |
| 4x AF | 52.6 | 46.9 | 35.8 | 23.6 | 17.0 |
| 2x FSAA | 43.4 | 32.4 | 22.1 | 14.1 | 10.0 |
| 2x FSAA & 4x AF | 42.1 | 31.1 | 21.3 | 13.6 | 9.7 |
| % Diff from Normal | 640x480 | 800x600 | 1024x768 | 1280x1024 | 1600x1200 |
| 4x AF | -0.8% | -1.1% | -1.6% | -1.9% | -2.0% |
| 2x FSAA | -18.1% | -31.6% | -39.2% | -41.5% | -42.3% |
| 2x FSAA & 4x AF | -20.6% | -34.4% | -41.5% | -43.6% | -44.2% |
As we saw with Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, there is only a very slim performance impact for enabling 4x AF, however a much greater one with 2x FSAA - over a 40% deficit to normal rendering at high resolution. With FSAA the S18 is rendering above an average performance of 30 FPS at 1024x768.
