We were not able to get the Intel 865G to run with the graphics-hungry DirectX 9 title Far Cry. Its 3D technology is way outdated for this modern game. We tested it at medium quality settings (no flashlight), since none of the tested hardware is capable of running the game at the very high quality setting used for our normal tests. The 915G did fine in most cases, but there were still some rendering errors:
Water is not rendered correctly in the Cooler levelr.
The i915G is on par with the 64 bit FX 5200 at medium graphics settings. Not bad for an integrated graphics solution.
Benchmark charts can be misleading, depending on the detail settings used. So we decided to show the performance 915G with very high quality setting used in our standard tests (we used them for our previous X800 and GF 6800 reviews). We compared it with the PCI Express cards X600XT and X800 XT (not PE! The PCIe X800 XT is runs at 500/500).
This is real life, or what gamers understand as gaming experience. At very high graphics settings with flashlight in Far Cry, the i915G is light years away from the performance of current 3D gaming cards.
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Patrick Schmid was the editor-in-chief for Tom's Hardware from 2005 to 2006. He wrote numerous articles on a wide range of hardware topics, including storage, CPUs, and system builds.
