Finally broke down and re-bought Far Cry cause I hated dealing with 5 CD's of install, but when I try to run the game, I just get a black screen. I left it on for about 10 minutes, and nothing happened. Went to task manager and I saw the splash screen was still there, and the program was not responding. I've tried changing all the video settings to the lowest possible settings, and nothing. I've also tried to set compatibility mode, and again, nothing.
Any suggestions on how to fix it? I'm pretty much stumped at this point.

I had exactly the same problem under Windows Seven Pro 64b using 260.99 GeForce drivers and twin 460GTX.

I have been able to run the game with full details, native resolution and Direct3D renderer by deactivating the anti-aliasing in game configuration.

For what it's worth, I'm not experiencing this problem, despite similar specs to the OP. Mine runs fine @1920x1200 with everything maxed out. No compatibility settings or anything, running in Direct3D9 mode.

HP laptop: Win 7 Pro 64-bit, quad core i7-820QM, 16GB, ATI FirePro M7820

Just checked, I can also run in non-native resolutions, with any (1,2,4,8) AA setting.

Odd that this seems to hit both ATI and nVidia users but not me . . . perhaps my workstation gfx card saved me?

Just a quick update - upgrading from Forceware 260.89 to 266.58 allowed me to run FarCry without having to use the OpenGL renderer.

Or just don't set Lighting Effect to Very High. Keeping it at High and the rest on Very/Ultra High, or ones personal preference, worked for me.

That solved my problem. Lighthing to High.

This worked for me! This is the REAL solution!

Here's the real fix for the problem. It makes the game friendly to 64-bit OS'es, and allows you to play with everything set to Very High/Max...

http://www.gamershell.com/news_21964.html

I've found other reason of this problem. It was all because of "Nvidia Geforce Experience" console running in the background. I've got it installed after updating drivers to my vcard. I had to block this service in management panel (ctrl+alt+del), and then run the game. This crap makes other games unplayable too, for example Postal 2. I strongly recommend to block it to play older games.

I found a different solution.

You can leave everything at very high, but Water quality must not be set to Ultra. There is a bug with the land masses not reflecting on Vista+ so set it to high and the game works fine for me.

Thanks man! That works!