OK,I bought Far Cry when it first came out.I enjoyed playing it.
My system was a Intel D875pbz
P4 2.8
Plextor 708A
ATI Radeon™ 9800 PRO 128 MB
1 GB DDR SDRAM DIMM

The default setting was low when I installed the game.
Well at the time I thought my machine was fast. So why low setting?
O well, high tech game. New engine . So I played game and enjoyed it.
Well 3 years later and I'am almost ready to build a new machine.
But before I do that I buy Radeon X850 pro. 256 MB
Reinstall Game because I reformatted computer it last year.
So same machine just new video card. I figure lets see what will
this game look like with all the settings on very high. Well Dog gone
all setting default to low.. So is my system still slow for this game.
If I bought the X1950 would that help or is my computer just to slowww.
Yes I know I can manually set the game to high,but my question is
what system did most of you have so the game would default to very high.

just go to Alienware.com and customize a computer for 11.000 dolla

just kidding

i got an Ati radeon x1300XT and can do the settings on high

I have P4 3.2GHz
2Mb RAM
ATI X1950Pro AGP

The game detects Machine Specs as "Very High"
In the Advanced Video Options most settings are "High" There are no "Very High", which doesn't matter as the difference between High and Very High is negligible for textures and particle count. I don't think setting AA high has any effect. AF filtering affects distance resolution, but the performance hit is not worth it.
I think the default "autodetect" settings are pretty unreliable though, you have to tweak them yourself to get the best result.
That's just my experience, others might think defferently...

Moving thread to tech help.

Make sure you have patched the game to 1.33 for single player, 1.4 for multi and as ValsET says, ignore the autodetect and tweak yourself.

The bigest difference you could gain from a newer card is while the X850 is DX9c, I dont believe it supports SM3.0.

If you are looking for an upgrade, I wouldnt look that low in the range, as it will struggle with new titles like Crysis.
If your card is AGP, that of course limits your scope...

V_E_T is right. The auto-detect system in Far Cry has never been very good and it completely broke after the 1.3 patch. I would just put the settings to all high and check by using the console (~\r_displayinfo 1) If you drop into the teens, then lower the resolution or some of the graphics quality sliders.
With an x850 pro you should be able to play at high to very high at 1024x768

My older comp was 3200+ A64-X800XL and it played FC in high at 1152x864 so your should be close to that or at least high 1024*768. I first finished the game on a 9700 pro though on medium settings, and high on a few settings no AA-AF obviously.

I'm jonsin' to replay the game though on my new system and 22" widescreen.