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Author Topic: Crysis untouchable?  (Read 9512 times)
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Draco
 

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« on: 2008-01-11, 04:18 »

As time went on and I patiently waited for the juicy game, Crysis, to come out on PC, was I just as quick to get disappointed to learn, according to my brother...

"There isn't a computer on the entire market that can run Crysis at its highest settings."

The further explanation he went into explaining the number of pixels in each frame per second that run the damn game at highest settings is completely ludicrous. I mean sure its phenomenal knowing how far we have truly come regarding the digital world and the graphics we keep creating, but its irritating thinking of the thousands of dollars you'd have to spend to buy a computer that comes even CLOSE to playing this game on High settings.

I mean, what is the true point of coming out with a game of NO computer out there can even touch it? My new graphics card can only run it on medium settings and I guess I'm lucky I can even touch that.

My brother says its their way of pushing hardware to the future of graphics, but we have to buy enough upgrades as it is to keep up with just the recent stuff, but for a game like Crysis itll be quite a few YEARS before I can buy something that comes close to touching its god like settings.

I guess in my mindless babble my question of opinion for you is, why? Why create a game that NO computer can touch to its fullest? Why create a game that is so digitally designed, that no one can enjoy it except those who created it?

On a random side note, jesus bird flying christ...its been a while since I posted in here. lol
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« Reply #1 on: 2008-01-11, 14:51 »

If I buy a game and it actually plays, then i`m happy. I remember buying Doom3 and found it wouldn`t play on my graphics card, an ATI 7500 i think, so i bought an ATI 9550, not expensive, and it ran ok.
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« Reply #2 on: 2008-01-11, 14:52 »

First, let me say that I have a modestly priced PC, but can play Crysis with pretty decent graphics. Not full ofcourse nor making use of Directx 10 beautification, but it looks very good to me. So for me the counter-question arises: why do you want the highest settings available right now? It's not as if medium looks like medium quality in comparison to other games, for one thing.

Second, we all know the insane flow of the computer market and the rapid increase of processing power. That Crysis cannot be made to look its best today, for a reasonable price, is not to say that it won't within a couple of years. This way the game has, as they say, increased replay-value: next time when you feel like playing it, you might be able to do so on kick-ass hardware. I, for one, would not have minded Q3A to have some serious ultra settings that only today would be feasible to enable. It's a good way to prevent games from growing old and ugly in the eyes of the public too soon (which is not to say that they won't eventually, ofcourse).

As for "Why?", I guess "because we/they can" is still the answer of choice. ;]
An added reason may well be that the makers are aiming at high-end computer gamers. If they believe they can make enough money from those who can play the game with high quality settings now, then they can pick a route that makes a bigger impact on the gaming world in terms of advertising and name-making. Finally, going wild on quality allows designers to really make something out of a game (the wet dream of any game designer, I'm sure) -- and from what I've seen, they've done rather well on that account.
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« Reply #3 on: 2008-01-11, 15:26 »

There's a flipside to that also, and that's a game being "ahead of its time".  I've seen games bomb because they were too harsh on the computers of the day, yet ran fine on later computers and were very good games.  I've also seen games that were too graphically dull but were fun also bomb because they weren't the "latest, newest thing.

Edit, so I don't double-post:

I've been playing F.E.A.R. lately.  It's not a game I originally wanted, but it was given to me as a gift.  This is an example of a game that can play well and look fine on medium quality settings.  On the first level or two I thought I was not going to like the game very much, but as it goes on it's rather fun.  The game does not depend on high graphics quality so much.  The graphics are there to render the world and provide some effects where needed, and there's bad guys to be shot and that's mostly what you do.  I compare that to Doom 3 (from which I believe the game's engine is based).  Doom 3 needs to have as many options turned on as possible because the atmosphere is critical to the game.  If you can't run the shadows and higher shader effects and bump mapping, half the game's appeal is gone right there.  I played the Doom 3 demo on low quality on my old system, and I did not want to play it that way.  When I was able to turn everything on and play the game, sadly I must use the phrase "the way it's meant to be played", it was quite enjoyable.  Not knowing a whole lot about Crysis, I'm wondering if it really needs all the graphical features enabled, or if it can play fine without them.

I do understand what you're saying there though, Draco.  Back in the old days of PC gaming, your system could either run the game, or it couldn't.  If you had a 486 you could run Doom.  If you had a Sound Blaster you had sound effects.  It was pretty much an all-or-nothing deal, because hardware was limited and the programmers had to write for the hardware of the day.  You either had a 486, or a Pentium, or you did not.  Now there's a huge spectrum of hardware that games have to work on, and an ever more finicky gaming community that keeps wanting more, and more, and more.  More graphical detail, more realistic physics, more fancy effects, more story-driven content, more intelligent and realistic enemy AI, etc.  All that is fine and good, and I'm not saying developers should take an overly simplistic approach to writing games, but I do think the developers need to keep in mind that most people play "middle of the road" with hardware.  The enthusiasts who can afford octagonal SLI on a liquid nitrogen cooled Cray 2000 do not represent the vast majority of the gaming market, and I don't buy the "30 FPS is all you need, and nobody needs more than 60 FPS" argument either.  To me that's a poor excuse on the part of developers for the amount of computing power their games need.  If someone wants ro run a lower framerate and turn on more features, that's fine, but I agree entirely that someone with today's top-end system when you release the game should be able to run at a reasonably high framerate with everything turned on.  Steady 60 FPS with 4x FSAA and 16x Anisotropic, highest texture quality, etc, Steady 75-100 FPS if you  turn off the FSAA and reduce Anisotropic to 4x and turn on texture compression is where I think a game should shoot for as far as performance for high-end systems.  A "middle of the road" system or one that was high-end 2-3 years back should be able to do the same framerates on medium settings.  But... that's just my opinion.

There's an alternative to lower settings, but it's not a friendly one.  I waited a few years after Doom 3 came out so I could afford the hardware to run it with all the nice settings turned on, but that's a problem for most people.  Do you run a game with muddy-looking graphics, go bankrupt on new hardware just for a new game, or wait until the game is in the bargain bin for $10 and the "new" hardware you're looking at buying is almost obsolete?  The bargain-bin approach is what I usually do, and I do tend to benefit from games already being patched as a result, but it's kind of frustrating when something new comes out that you want to play and you just know it's going to eat your system for breakfast.
« Last Edit: 2008-01-11, 16:46 by Phoenix » Logged


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« Reply #4 on: 2008-01-11, 17:03 »

That isn't too true... My brothers PC can run crysis on High at a decent rate and with acceptable loading times.

His specs are:

Pentium D 3.20 GHz
1024 RAM
ATi Sapphire x1600

That's as far as I know.

And he'll update it again to duplicate his specs, so he could acctually run Crysis on very high with no problem.
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« Reply #5 on: 2008-01-11, 19:35 »

I'm going to have to chime in, because there wasn't a whole lot regarding WHY they went the route they did.

Part of the reason is, indeed, pushing the hardware envelope. Cryteam did this to Far Cry with much less fanfare. There was a significant portion of graphical effects that the majority of people playing Far Cry never saw because you had to manually edit the config file to render them. As such, the equivalent of an entire level of quality was missing because the consumer base would have been outraged that they can't play the game on "highest."

The level of quality sliders are largely arbitrary; They're there so that people who don't want/learn to tailor their configuration to their hardware can do so relatively easily.

It isn't meant as a slight to the individuals who don't fork out $1400 every 6 months for the bleeding edge, it's meant as a demonstration of what the hardware COULD do. I honestly give kudos to teams that do this, I LOVE games that scale with my hardware over time. Total Annihilation being one of the earliest examples that comes to mind. Games with this kind of potential lifespan become benchmarks in their own right, serving a dual purpose.

Personally, I enjoyed Far Cry when it came out (the steam rolling out of my case notwithstanding). And came back two years later to find that once I turned all the dx9 eyecandy on, it was STILL on par with games just being released, if not better in some regards. Crysis and Supreme Commander will probably continue to be part of my gaming for some time to come because of this.

It flies in the face of the current gaming market that would LOVE to sell you the same game slightly upgraded every time you get new hardware. Software that gets BETTER over time? this is entirely counter-intuitive; But if it's done well, you'll wind up playing the game more than once. There's something to be said for that.

I for one applaud the teams who have the talent, skill, and foresight to create a quality game that stands as tall at release as it does 2 years hence.

It's a hell of a lot better than $50 leapfrog titles.
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« Reply #6 on: 2008-01-11, 22:50 »

It's a hell of a lot better than $50 leapfrog titles.

There are $50 leapfrog titles?  Slipgate - WTF
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« Reply #7 on: 2008-01-12, 00:23 »

Ah now THERE'S some worthy opinions I was looking forward to read. I'm glad I got a lot of feedback on this because it really had my curiousity to hear what you guys have to say, so thank you for the lovely input. And now for my response:

First to what Tabun had to ask: "...why do you want the highest settings available right now?" Thats definitely a legitimate question Tab. And the answer is "Because I'm just that geeky." And now to reiterate my question to a more refined response. And let me start out by saying that I'm glad to say that I'm growing up in a time where graphics are starting to truly BOOM on the market and the limits of what computers and games can do is ever maturing beautifully. When I saw some low resolution video reviews of Crysis, I was astounded on what it could do on its highest settings from what they showed in the videos. And now as to really answer your question, I want to play it on its highest settings because I want to not only enjoy and drool, but truly GRASP what game makers have come up with in today's gaming design. I want to fully enjoy its beautiful design and atmosphere and how far its come in making a nastier A.I. for enemies.

I want to see it for what it is, not for what I can only "afford" to see it as. But to go back to what others were saying, yes medium settings is usually just fine. And games such as Assassin's Creed on my FIRST and new hdtv looks beautifuly. So beautiful you can even catch the small light reflection/sparkle off of Altair's eyes when the sun hits them. They definitely went into detail on THAT game.

I guess you could say im digitally spoiled and I just prefer to see things at their fullest, waiting years later to see what comes out next.

On the game F.E.A.R that Pho was bringing up, that is quite a nice amusing game. I LOVE the series and the expansion packs are JUST as good, continuing the story and waiting for Project Origin (F.E.A.R 2) to come out. But now Pho you got me curious. I might be able to run the first F.E.A.R on its highest settings thanks to my new graphics card and motherboard....and pretty much all the other upgrades I got.

In the midst of my almost poetic ramble my next questions are this: (slightly off topic but not really)

How will Crysis run on my new e-GeForce 8800 GT graphics card supported by an nForce 68oI LT SLI? The same question for the game F.E.A.R. With the new graphics card and mother board, can F.E.A.R be run on highest settings now?
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« Reply #8 on: 2008-01-12, 05:01 »

I have the Platinum collector for F.E.A.R., so I have both expansion packs.  With F.E.A.R., I found graphics settings on Medium really didn't look that different from High, but I don't have as much system ram as is recommended.  I only have 1 GB of system RAM, and I've heard a lot of people saying that stuttering, etc, is caused from low RAM.  Well, I found the stuttering was caused by running the physics at medium to high.  If I set physics to low, I had no problem.  Why, I'm not sure... I have a dual-core Opteron 175 running at 2.6 GHz but I've read that F.E.A.R. does not properly utilize the second CPU, so it may be CPU bound by the physics.  Then again, it may be a combination of physics plus texture swapping causing the problem for me, but with low world physics and everything on medium at 1024x768 it runs smooth as silk with a 60 Hz refresh (I always use vsync, I can't stand screen tearing).  Video-wise I'm running dual GF 7600GT OC's in SLI.  Each card has 256 MB of texture memory.  They're mid-end cards but I can get a near constant 60 FPS in Doom 3 at 1280 x 1024 so long as I don't run FSAA.  It actually runs better at 1280 x 1024 no FSAA than at 1024x768 with any FSAA, so I just bumped the resolution up and really couldn't tell the difference.  There's only about 3 places in Doom 3 I took a hit in framerate - the entry point because the USS Darkstar causes a huge FPS loss, one area where there's a lot of bright lights under a staircase later in the game, and I forget where else.  So graphics-wise, I think your 8800GT is going to be more than up to the task.  It's just a question of CPU and RAM for F.E.A.R, but if your CPU is as new as your graphics card, you can probably turn everything on at 1024x768 or better and be fine.  Crysis, I don't know enough about the game to say.  I'd say scoot over to [H]ardOCP and check their performance reviews.

Oh, and about F.E.A.R... I haven't finished the first game yet.  I thought at first the SloMo was going to be gimicky, which it is a little bit of a Matrix ripoff, but combining it with the melee attacks is very rewarding.  Finally a game that realizes hey, you actually can club someone with your rifle.  The soldier dialogue is hillarious too.  I sniped one guy and I heard his buddy say "Ohhhhh F@#K!!"  They do swear like sailors but it's stupidly funny how they chat when taking fire.
  Slipgate - Wink
« Last Edit: 2008-01-12, 05:05 by Phoenix » Logged


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« Reply #9 on: 2008-01-12, 09:54 »

And... it looks like I was wrong about F.E.A.R. being based on Doom 3.  It's based on an engine called Lithtech.  Prey is the Doom 3-based game.
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« Reply #10 on: 2008-01-12, 16:09 »

 Slipgate - Off Topic Prey's great, I think Valve owe 2K a pint on that score.

As for Crysis, my mate has it and loaned it to me for a few days. We both have similar cards, mine's an 8800GT, his is an 8800GTS, but I'm on a 3.4Ghz P4 and he's on a Athlon 64 dual-core jobbie. It runs fine on both setups, yet we both had that same issue. Apparently there is a config hack you can do to fool the game into enabling the highest setting possible, but my understanding was that the highest setting was meant for DX10 only. Obviously I was wrong.

When I'm trying out a new game for the first time I do like to max out all the settings and then work my way down. That way I can see what the game is supposed to look like, before seeing how little detail I can remove. I tend not to bother with FSAA at all. I agree about D3, though. Screen resolution aside, if you can't run D3 with all the goodies then don't bother. Try enabling your player's own shadow for a bit more atmosphere.

As for your last question, Draco, I have FEAR and on my standalone 8800GT it runs at full tilt with no effort, so it should run fine on yours.
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« Reply #11 on: 2008-01-12, 21:45 »

I think the "highest setting" is available (either hackable or by default) for both Dx9 / 10 cards, but: some effects on that setting only work on Dx10 cards.
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« Reply #12 on: 2008-01-13, 18:21 »

 I bought and beat Crysis as a Christmas present for myself. My system is pretty good, but its not other worldly. Core 2 duo, 2 gigs of ram and a Geforce 8600 GTS. I run Crysis at medium but i scaled up a few settings like texture quality and water and it runs good. Yes its true Crysis does have kind of steep system requirements but so did Quake 3 when it came out. Nobody could run Quake 3 at max settings when the game came out, at least not with any kind of decent performance.  My system runs about 1300 bucks its not a 3500 dollar alienware box with 4 video cards or any of those other crack piping, ego feeding, bullshit systems.

 By the way Draco if your still using that system i built you i wouldnt advise trying to run Crysis, But thats not to say a reasonably priced system cant.
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« Reply #13 on: 2008-01-13, 20:37 »

Nobody could run Quake 3 at max settings when the game came out, at least not with any kind of decent performance

[sarcasm]Well all the "pros" turn all the settings down anyway, r_picmip 5, etc, and we KNOW they're the "authorities" on gaming since they get their names printed on circuit boards, right?[/sarcasm]

I do see your point there.  Q3 was a beast toward my K6-2 system.  Now I can run it with 16x FSAA and 8x Anisotropic filtering, etc.
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« Reply #14 on: 2008-01-17, 04:37 »

I bought and beat Crysis as a Christmas present for myself. My system is pretty good, but its not other worldly. Core 2 duo, 2 gigs of ram and a Geforce 8600 GTS. I run Crysis at medium but i scaled up a few settings like texture quality and water and it runs good. Yes its true Crysis does have kind of steep system requirements but so did Quake 3 when it came out. Nobody could run Quake 3 at max settings when the game came out, at least not with any kind of decent performance.  My system runs about 1300 bucks its not a 3500 dollar alienware box with 4 video cards or any of those other crack piping, ego feeding, bullshit systems.

 By the way Draco if your still using that system i built you i wouldnt advise trying to run Crysis, But thats not to say a reasonably priced system cant.

lol that system is long gone. the computer is pretty much rebuilt with new motherboard graphics card and everything
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« Reply #15 on: 2008-01-17, 04:59 »

I've been playing F.E.A.R. lately.  It's not a game I originally wanted, but it was given to me as a gift.  This is an example of a game that can play well and look fine on medium quality settings.  On the first level or two I thought I was not going to like the game very much, but as it goes on it's rather fun.  The game does not depend on high graphics quality so much.  The graphics are there to render the world and provide some effects where needed, and there's bad guys to be shot and that's mostly what you do.  I compare that to Doom 3 (from which I believe the game's engine is based).  Doom 3 needs to have as many options turned on as possible because the atmosphere is critical to the game.  If you can't run the shadows and higher shader effects and bump mapping, half the game's appeal is gone right there.  I played the Doom 3 demo on low quality on my old system, and I did not want to play it that way.  When I was able to turn everything on and play the game, sadly I must use the phrase "the way it's meant to be played", it was quite enjoyable.  Not knowing a whole lot about Crysis, I'm wondering if it really needs all the graphical features enabled, or if it can play fine without them.


I would disagree with that to some extent. I think that F.E.A.R. looses much of its appeal without having the graphics up at a pretty decent notch. Without the debris flying everywhere, the entire experience (that is to say, small firefight after small firefight) is lost. Sure, the enemies still have good AI, but it's no where near as fun. The game is fairly hefty as well, to the point where it won't run within that sweatspot unless your hardware was purchased within the last two or three years. I keep wanting to try it out on the LAN, but we only have the one computer capable of running it well enough to make it fun. The lack of said debris could even provide you with an advantage in multiplayer!
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« Reply #16 on: 2008-01-17, 15:58 »

On medium settings, I saw plenty of debris flying around, and a lot of smoke and dust that obscured visibility at times.  For example, in the subway area in Extraction Point, shooting the pillars resulted in large chunks of them flying off, exposing the supporting steelwork, etc.  There were plenty of special effects to keep the eye candy part of me happy.  What I noticed was that medium quality textures and minimum physics calculation didn't really differ too badly from high quality as far as visual acceptability, but there was a marked performance gain for me.  Doom 3 at lower settings looks like utter crap and has a "what's the point?" feel to it when compared to a nice smooth action at a steady 60FPS with all the goodies turned on.

As for hardware, F.E.A.R. was a lot tougher on my hardware on higher settings, but that may be due to my RAM being limited to 1 GB, so a lot of the stuttering on higher settings was probably due to disk access and swap file usage.  I've read in many places that F.E.A.R. doesn't really like less than 1.5 GB, but I'm not in the market for extra RAM right now so I can't really test that assertion.


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« Reply #17 on: 2008-01-17, 18:14 »

Quote
I keep wanting to try it out on the LAN, but we only have the one computer capable of running it well enough to make it fun. The lack of said debris could even provide you with an advantage in multiplayer!
F.E.A.R. multiplayer is plagued by 1-2 shot melee kills.

Game stops being fun when every spawn is a bicycle-kick to the face waiting to happen.

Also, the penetrator is the best stolen gun ever. go go ragdoll pincushion!
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