NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GTX GPU Review

Far Cry v1.3

Far Cry (Direct X)

The new Far Cry 1.3 patch finally brings the features that the 1.2 patch was supposed to give us.  This includes support for SM3.0 for the NVIDIA 6800 and 6600 line of cards as well as the SM2.0b that ATI has enabled in their latest drivers.  The result is increased performance across both lines of graphics cards.  Also included in this patch is support for HDR lighting (High Dynamic Range), though it wasn’t enabled by default, so our tests don’t include it yet. 

On Far Cry 1.3 we are using manual run throughs of Far Cry as well on the Regulator level using God Mode enabled with the DEVMODE cheat to get repeatable results.   

We set the in game quality settings as high as they would go, as you can see in the shot below. 

Our single card test configurations again show the 7800 GTX to be the most powerful GPU available.  Even at 4x/8x quality settings, it keeps the minimum frame rate at 36 FPS, higher than both the 6800 Ultra and the X850 XT PE.  The average comes out to 51.4 FPS though, only a hand full faster than the ATI card.  Looking at the time-based graphs on our test runs, you’ll notice that the 7800 GTX has a strong lead over the last 20 seconds of the run through or so, where we are going through heavy foliage.  Since foliage is so abundant in the game, you should definitely keep that in mind. 

SLI on the 7800 GTX continues to impress here in our Far Cry benchmark.  With all the details turned on with 4xAA and 8xAF we are seeing an average frame rate of 78.6 with two 7800 GTX cards.  A look at the line graph above and you’ll be able to tell this isn’t a misconception and the framerate does indeed stay much higher throughout the majority of our test.