VGA performance: Far Cry 2 (DX10) | BIA:HH DX9

Far Cry 2

Throw your memory back to the year 2004 and the release of the innovative Far Cry on PC. Developer Crytek managed to fashion one of the most convincing and striking locales in all of gaming, and satisfied gamers with the freedom to pass through the landscape and tackle enemies in almost any way they saw fit. You surely remember Jack Carver and that things were about to get seriously messed up for you? Well, tough luck. You are no longer at that deserted tropical island but hop into a jeep and arrive at the sandy savannah surroundings of Africa. And that's a change... as much as you'll no longer run into any mutants, aliens, or any superpowers or psychic powers. Also - you are no longer Jack Carver, you assume the role of one of nine different mercenaries who are embedded in the midst of a brutal civil war which rages in an imaginary African nation.
Everything that goes down is involved in a dirty little bush war in central Africa and you'll have to use a rusty AK-47 and whatever bits of scavenged land mine you can duct-tape together. Two factions struggle for supremacy: the United Front for Liberation and Labor and the Alliance for Popular Resistance, and both are known for blood and control.

Far Cry 2 is a title I like very much, not so much for the gameplay, but the rendered environment and how the game can react to it. We have selected high-quality DX10 mode with no less than 8x AA (anti-aliasing) and 16x AF (anisotropic filtering) as we want to make things really difficult to test.

Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway

Hell's Highway, another WWII shooter some might say. But in reality the setting of war is really just a vehicle for Gearbox to tell the storyline of a Band of Brothers led by you, Sergeant Matt Baker, as they deal with the madness and consequences of war. The game tells the story of Operation Market Garden in the country where yours truly lives, in the Netherlands (aka Holland). It's about the besieged journey from Eindhoven to Arnhem where tremendous battles were fought.

Exactly that road, Highway 69; the road from Eindhoven to Arnhem was later nicknamed: Hell's Highway.

One of the most impressive details is that the area of Operation Market Garden was completely reconstructed using historical documents and images. It's uncanny to see and experience the design of 1944 Holland. Even now in 2008 you can still see striking similarities from our country. Street signs, building structures, clothing and even the clinker bricks on the roads dispense a true authentic mood. This reviewer is Dutch, so what level would be more appropriate than one of the starting levels, in a field in the Netherlands, moving towards a large windmill ahead of us. Lots of geometry is to be found here, and in fact one of the more complex scenes to render for the GPU. Yes, welcome to Holland.

• Texture Quality HIGH
• Shadow Texture Quality HIGH
• Shadow Detail HIGH
• Vsync OFF