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 is used, which means PS3.0 for GeForce 6's and PS2.b for the 5200 Ultra.
| Far Cry (FPS) | 640x480 | 800x600 | 1024x768 | 1280x1024 | 1600x1200 |
| 6200 | 71.7 | 54.5 | 39.6 | 28.5 | 19.2 |
| 6600 GT | 96.3 | 95.8 | 91.2 | 73.4 | 51.3 |
| 5200 Ultra | 26.1 | 19.9 | 14.6 | 10.6 | 7.4 |
| 6200 % Faster Than: | 640x480 | 800x600 | 1024x768 | 1280x1024 | 1600x1200 |
| 6600 GT | -25.5% | -43.1% | -56.6% | -61.2% | -62.5% |
| 5200 Ultra | 174.8% | 174.2% | 170.2% | 168.1% | 161.8% |
Looking at Far Cry's performance the 6200 has a deficit to the 6600 GT closer to its theoretical Texture / Pixel Shader differences, suggesting that the Pixel Shader performance may be one of the primary limiting factors for the 6200 here. This is appears to be reaffirmed by the performance difference between the 6200 and 5200 Ultra whereby the 6200 is rendering well in excess of twice the average frame rate due to its more effective, hence higher performance, Pixel Shader pipeline.
| Far Cry, 2x FSAA + 4x AF (FPS) | 640x480 | 800x600 | 1024x768 | 1280x1024 | 1600x1200 |
| 6200 | 52.6 | 39.1 | 27.3 | 19.1 | 13.8 |
| 6600 GT | 95.1 | 91.9 | 75.3 | 53.6 | 39.5 |
| 5200 Ultra | 21.8 | 16.6 | 12.2 | 8.4 | 6.1 |
| 6200 % Faster Than: | 640x480 | 800x600 | 1024x768 | 1280x1024 | 1600x1200 |
| 6600 GT | -44.8% | -57.5% | -63.8% | -64.4% | -65.0% |
| 5200 Ultra | 140.6% | 136.0% | 124.4% | 127.3% | 126.5% |
With 2x FSAA and 4x AF applied the relative performance differences between the 6200 and the 6600 GT aren't that different from Normal rendering. The performance difference between the 6200 and the 5200 Ultra is reduced in comparison to Normal rendering as the performance is now more reliant on texture fill-rate and bandwidth, rather than Shader performance, however the 6200 is still more than twice as fast as the 5200 Ultra in all resolutions in this test.
| 6200 (FPS) | 640x480 | 800x600 | 1024x768 | 1280x1024 | 1600x1200 |
| Normal | 71.7 | 54.5 | 39.6 | 28.5 | 19.2 |
| 4x AF | 60.2 | 45.8 | 33.1 | 23.0 | 16.5 |
| 2x FSAA | 61.4 | 46.3 | 32.8 | 22.1 | 15.7 |
| 2x FSAA + 4x AF | 52.6 | 39.1 | 27.3 | 19.1 | 13.8 |
| % Diff from Normal | 640x480 | 800x600 | 1024x768 | 1280x1024 | 1600x1200 |
| 4x AF | -16.0% | -16.0% | -16.4% | -19.2% | -14.4% |
| 2x FSAA | -14.4% | -15.1% | -17.0% | -22.4% | -18.2% |
| 2x FSAA + 4x AF | -26.7% | -28.3% | -31.0% | -32.9% | -28.1% |
With this Far Cry test we see that the 6200 is performing at over an average of 30 FPS at 1024x768 in most of the rendering scenarios used here, except when both 2x FSAA and 4x AF are enabled simultaneously, where it falls a few FPS below 30.
