Far Cry 2 PC VGA Graphics performance review

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Time to show you some performance results. We start at the top of our test resolution, 2560x1600 which is GPU limited and then move onwards up-to 1280x1024 which is more CPU limited.

Guru3D.com Far Cry 2 VGA performance review

I can see why ATI rushed out a driver, they wanted to show X2 support, which is working thank gawd. On the other side of the scope we see NVIDIA, we noticed that there is no fricking support for the 9800 GX2, which was an absolute disaster to watch, it literally was struggling even at the lowest resolutions. Multi-GPU gaming support .. we comment on it all the time.

But SLI works really fine though, check out that GTX 260 SLI ranking on top.

If you like to play the game at this uber-resolution ... you need to have either a GeForce GTX 260 or Radeon 4870 with 1024MB to start with. A key issue in this resolution is your framebuffer ( more = REALLY better) in combo with DX10 shaders, AA and textures. Anything above 512MB will deliver some extra punch. This is also the reason why the 4870 X2 kicks but with 3x more performance over the regular 4870 card.

See, the regular 4870 has 512MB memory whereas the 4870 X2 has 2x1024MB (1024MB per GPU). That surely matters in this resolution and our image quality settings alright. But the winner here really are the GTX 260 and 4870 with 1024MB that shine at its price level.

And look at that ancient GeForce 8800 GTX and Ultra go .. hahah, good times.

Guru3D.com Far Cry 2 VGA performance review

At 1920x1200 we are still at a very GPU bound resolution yet that framebuffer starts to matter a little less, yet a lot of you guys already have a 21-24" monitor supporting this resolution. Should you opt image quality settings like ours, your starting graphics card at minimum should be a GeForce 9800 GTX+ or Radeon HD 4850 which are very affordable cards nowadays. Still on top the GeForce GTX 260 SLI.

Guru3D.com Far Cry 2 VGA performance review

This is our audience most used resolution anno 2008. At 1600x1200 the GPU starts to matter a little less, and the CPU is becoming increasingly important. The upside here is that lower cost mid-range graphics cards often can handle this resolution pretty well. And that shows as at 1600x1200 an affordable Radeon HD 4850 would be sufficient as well as a GeForce 8800/9800 GT. The GTS SLI starts to get CPU limited here. I can't wait for Core i7.

Guru3D.com Far Cry 2 VGA performance review

If at this resolution your graphics card encounters issues.. just switch back to DX9 mode and lower the AA levels. But really, with a Radeon HD 4670 you'll be able to achieve okay framerates and on NVIDIA's side, a GeForce 9600 GT will do the job nicely as well. 

Final words

We feel that Far Cry 2 is a pretty kickass game. Though we haven't had the time to play it to its full extent, we loved the graphics and gameplay itself. Pretty much any 'somewhat' modern PC will allow you to play the game, even with high image quality settings enabled. Though both ATI's hotfix drivers and NVIDIA's Beta driver are early drivers to test the game with, we just have to say .. on the GeForce cards (except GX2) everything ran butter-smooth. With the ATI hotfix drivers we noticed some lag here and there. Once that issue has been fixed we wouldn't be surprized to see the ATI scores rise a little bit. But NVIDIA definitely has a better driver at this time.

Guru3D.com will add this title in its software suite for future graphics card reviews. Thanks to Ubisoft for shipping out the game to us. We'll be working more closely together with them in the future to bring you more little articles like shown today.
In conclusion, Far Cry 2 runs really well on any modern graphics card for sure. Laters you guys.

Update: we received some questions regarding asking the nature of the lag we had with the ATI drivers. The lag that I described boils down to minor video stutters during the timedemo runs. It's a fraction of a second and a lot less noticeable in the actual gameplay itself.

* Performed minor updates on 9800 GX2, added Radeon HD 4830 results, added Radeon 4870 1024MB results. The GTX 260 used in this review is a CORE 216 model. The regular versions are ~10% slower.

** At request - added SLI results for GeForce GTX 260 (Core 216 version).


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