crytek

My friend just brought up how can crytek create crysis if nobody i know of today can run the game on max settings and i was wondering if anybody has any idea how they could render those maps to create the game. Is it those nvidia tesla GPUs? they must have like thousands of them in some giant lab to render that -_-.

 

they let a pentium 1 render the map overnight when they went to sleep

 

Top tier laptops can now run Crysis at near max settings, and some desktop GPUs can run it max no problem. Though like the previous poster said, creating a game is not nearly as difficult as playing it real time, as you don't need 30fps to render like you do when playing.

 

What do you mean by "render maps"? Since Crysis was created in the Sandbox 2 application developed for it, it runs just the same as it would ingame. I have made my own maps on my Asus and Toshiba both, using the respective config spec (Very High and Medium), and it doesn't get bogged down.

 

Someone on this forum somewhere mentioned this "simply bad coding" which I think is a very good conclusion.

Reading that, I realized that the developers/programmers at Crytek were pushing very big calculations to the GPU, which was impossible for the GPU to render stuff realtime . So higher the settings you set, the more the calculations your GPU has to do, which in turn reduces your framerate.

Of course, there are current GPUs which can handle these demanding tasks now. But from Crytek's part, they shouldv'e coded/programmed it in a better way to use GPUs at their full pontential.

Crysis may or may not be the best looking game of 2007, but the fact remains that there are better looking games which have released after it AND still run good on the same GPUs which could not handle Crysis.

 

There are more optimised games released since 2007 of course but the sheer level of detail in Crysis makes it hard to render.

Of course now exactly 3 years after the game was released (Nov 2007) I would expect new games to look better anyway.

 

Even now Crysis will give new games a run for their money. Still haven't played a game with as much outdoor detail as it and likely won't unless PC exclusive FPS makes a comeback.

 

I agree, Crysis is still the most detailed game I've played with the sheer amount of textures and polygons.

There is no single laptop GPU that can play Crysis on Very High or Crysis Warhead on Enthusiast. Get around 15-20 FPS, it's not very playable.

Maybe dual GPU can, not sure.

 

k thanks guys i was under the impression that to render the entire map on a computer while making it, it would take way more cpu and gpu power than just running the game, if thats not true then my question is solved

 

Game companies can afford very nice computers =p

Also, crysis is still nearly impossible to play if you add the mods like real lyfsis that boost the graphics even further. They look insanely real... it's like looking at a photo.

 

Please show me one screenshot of a game that looks better than crysis on max settings + real lyfsis lol

 

Real lyfsis lol.

 

Poor coding is correct. Crysis is notorious for not scaling well to high resolutions (2560x1600) and ultra-high detail levels. You won't find any computer, desktop or laptop that runs Crysis well at those detail levels. It does not matter how much money you throw at the problem, you just cna't do it.

Even 3x nVidia GTX480's in 3-way SLI run the game at "only" 44fps at 2560x1600 and 4xAA. This is not a problem of not having enough graphics hardware. It is a problem where the game engine just does not scale at high resolutions + detail.

If you are interested in benchmarking, there are better tools out there than Crysis. If you are interested in playing Crysis, then forget trying to run at high resolutions and Ultra-high graphics settings.

 

You don't need to run Crysis or Warhead at the highest settings. The game still looks better than any other shooter and incredible at medium settings!

 

I would think it does, but when creating the game you don't need it to run real time with 30+ fps like you do when playing the game.

 

Medium settings doesn't look that great! With Crysis it either has to be on high or very high to have it look beautiful.

 

This is what 4 real GTX 480's in SLI are for.

 

Tri-crossfire 5870's and a 980x run it at 45~ fps.

 

Well I guess that is what that hardware is there for.

 

I never thought I'd hear this from a moderator.

Yeah, that's why you get NVIDIA cards instead. Crossfire scaling on the 5800 series cards sucks monkey nuts.

 

Holy cra... I just saw some pics of the real lifesis mod. Funny name, but wow @ the graphics, it does look insanely real. The human faces and stuff are pretty good but its the terrain that looks crazy real.

 

On Crysis Warhead I got 25-30 fps using FRAPS on my laptop at 1920x1080, all settings at Enthusiast, and my laptop GPU is second or third tier. A little slow, but it was still very playable IMO and it should be much better with the 5870 or the top nVidia cards. Haven't tried Crysis 1.

 

This isn't nVidia vs. ATI. Crysis doesn't scale well on any video hardware. Even 3x GTX480's in 3-way SLI get around 40-45fps on 2560x1600 on Ultra-High settings.

 

Crysis Warhead runs a bit faster than the original Crysis did, as they fixed some of the poor coding. Also, the 5830 is still quite powerful, I'd put it at the bottom of the top tier for single-GPUs, definitely not 3rd tier .

 

I don't believe you and no one should. A GTX 480M on very high settings on Crysis @ 1080p no AA gets around 16 FPS average.

At enthusiast level for Warhead, it's just as tough to run as Crysis. The guy is not telling the truth. There is no way a GTX 260M can run Warhead at 1080p @ Enthusiast at his framerate. Not even a GTX 480M can.

 

lmao, whatevs, that's what I got. it was not ideal, but still very playable at 1920x1080. haven't tried crysis 1, however, maybe that one is less optimized.

 

The exact same same review that says the 480m only gets 16FPS very high on Crysis says it gets 34FPS enthusiast on Warhead.

 

1 page back someone said 3 GTX 480s gets 44FPS, GTX 580s have a 33% performance gain over the previous generation card, yet your trying to say it's only just on par. Where did you get this FPS reading from? don't just throw out random numbers.

seems the same person is you, still show me these benchmarks where the 480 and 580 GTX are on par.

 

GTX480 / GTX580 was a typo.

You know, there are nicer ways to ask for information without being aggro.

 

sorry just sounded like an ATI fan boy, which one were you referencing? 480 or 580?

 

No it doesn't. If it does, that has to be the most worthless review ever. Maybe on SLI GTX 480M, definitely not a single card.

Even desktop HD5770 overclocked with 950 core/1400 memory will get around 25 FPS on enthusiast.

 

If you got your 16FPS quote from notebookcheck.net, then yes, it does. Not that I'd disagree that notebookcheck.net is unreliable.

 

When I started this thread, I had never used the sandbox application, because several months ago i couldn't get it to work, but now I tried launching it again and it worked! I also now totally understand what people are saying about the rendering. I also modded some stuff for fun

 

Everyone here mentioned pmaing crysis at full hd or higher resolution settings, does this mean that the game looks bad on 1680*1050 or 1400*1050 resolutions?

I got an ati hd4670 2 months ago and was thinking of getting crysis, and I don't mind playing most games at lower resolutions (even 1280*800 looks good enough, since i used to play on 800*600 with my nvidia 8600m gt).

But if the game won't look good on lower resolutions(I prefer a lower res but with higher detail settings) i'd like to know that, since I heard the game is more about eyecandy than actual shooting fun.

 

The game looks fine on lower resolutions and lower detail levels. It obviously looks BETTER at higher resolutions and higher detail levels, but that doesn't mean the game looks BAD if your system can't handle that. If you like shooters, you'd probably like Crysis.

And the reason we're talking about resolutions + detail is because this thread is about the performance of the Crytek engine, and the hardware needed to run it. The OP did not ask about how "pretty" the game is, or how fun it is, which is why this thread treats Crysis as a benchmarking tool more than a game.

 

I just hate that 1: it only has dx10, and 2: steam only has 32 bit -_-. if it had dx11 and 64 bit i could play on practically highest settings, right now part high part medium avg fps 45.

 

64 bit does speed it up a bit, but using DX11 over DX10 (or DX10 over DX9 for that matter) actually slows it down. The best way to run it, performance wise, is 64-bit DX9. I notice about a 3-4 FPS increase that way compared to 32 bit and/or DX 10 modes.

 

really? I thought directx improved performance, or is it just quality? also, in crysis wars, I was accidentally playing in 32 bit at first and when switched to 64 bit saw about 10 fps increase.

 

From what I understand, it's pretty much just quality. There may be some theoretical increase in performance, but the increase in eye candy that comes along with it more than overcomes any real performance gain.

 

DX11 allows you to put more work onto the cpu, so it should increase performance.

Anyway, don't bother playing Crrysis unless you cna play it at med-high settings. The game isn't that fun, it's just got amazing graphics.

 

It's more fun than MW2 or Blops.

 

in your opinion.

 

In your very very unpopular opinion lol and I don't even like either of those games...

 

Do you like mw1? Since thats the only cod game which I still play, didn't buy the sequals because mw2 had no dedicated servers and blops is from another company, and the trailer looked boring.
If you don't even like mw1 then I guess I should try crysis afterall since we clearly have other preferences in that case.

 

On the contrary, IMHO, crysis is the most fun shooter i've played, mostly because of strength mode killing people with chickens, but the graphics to me seem not very interesting until high quality or ultra, as stated above.

 

IMO, Crysis multiplayer was crap, put 5 mins into it and never touched again, the single player was great but but after I completed the game, I never touched the disks again they still gather dust somewhere in my room, same goes for warhead. MW2 was a great game even without dedicated servers multiplayer wise, black ops I will give my own review in 3 weeks

 

Actually, DX10 was also supposed to do a lot of amazing things with efficiency, such as a boost for games like Lost Planet. However, in general, especially with Crysis, it didn't help without powerful hardware. I don't know how offloading anything to the CPU could help with this game. Best performance for Crysis: DX9. Visuals at Real Life-Sys levels can be unlocked in DX9 with ease.

I think there was an interview with the CryTech head-honcho, and he was asked about the demanding nature of Crysis. I vaguely recall that he said something about how he wanted the game's visuals to last a good few years and that perhaps it would've been a better idea to lock the game at medium settings until stronger hardware became the mainstream standard. That is to say that it should've been played at low-to-medium settings with the general 2007 hardware, and then moved up to high and very high as the newer tech came along.

Personal opinions aside. Crysis is still by far the pinacle of visuals when taking into account the detail, textures, lighting, and sheer scale of the game. It was the developer's intention to create a game with multi-generation visuals that could be enjoyed by newcommers at a later stage with stronger hardware. Unfortunately, all of us tried to 'max it out' on day one with our older hardware and in doing so, gave birth to the 'it is poorly coded' misconception. With its use of post-processing effects, especially DX10 full-object motion blur, Crysis looks and runs smooth even at a steady 25-30 FPS with the motion blur, so long as the rate doesn't fluctuate too drastically. So if current high end multi-GPUs are managing to run it at 45 FPS average with everything maxed-out and AA, then that is quite a good rate.

 

Few opinions, does anyone think they could go into the source code and make a mod to make the gamer run more smoothly while achieving the exact same thing?

Could MLAA make lower resolutions on high setting look just as good as high res with high settings?

And the off-loading of data to the CPU helps incredibly, by allowing wasted cpu potential to sit idol, you put it to good use, I keep AI on in my CCC settings to do this, other wise my quad I7 would be sitting more then 50% idle.

Another thing is I think we finally got then next step with graphics with hardware tesilation in dx11, allowing for more complex geometry in water, models and environements. This is a definite nice leap in graphics if emplimented well, only problem is its GPU intensive, think bump mapping, but actually good .

 

I agree on the other points. However. . .

Off-loading data to CPU helps incredibly? I can make plenty of arbitrary suggestions as well, but at the end of it, I will have to specify what could be off-loaded to the CPU to provide these 'incredible gains'. Given that we're dealing with Crysis, exactly what will you off load to the CPU? It's a general purpose CPU -- certainly good for somethings but how do you know that Crysis isn't already putting those things to use? Need we get into the fact that its physics engine relies on the CPU. Even AI and game stability or smoothness can be helped with a fast CPU output, which implies that again, the game's already offloading plenty of what can be off-loaded to a CPU. The rest is just the GPU stuff that off-loading will only result in wasted time, effort, and increased degree of inefficieny.

For all good reason, the only thing that can be squeezed out of this engine is better scaling on our GPU hardware for the higher detail, as repeatedly stated in previous pages.

 

I can see it from your point of view aswell, I over stated the fact perhaps , and I think AI is subjective to the game if I recall. Like you stated it can slow down from the transfer of the data, but certain things I could see getting gains from letting the CPU do it, Im sure the i7 would be up to it.

I think though that sloppy code is to blame, and skimming some fat would make the biggest impact on FPS. I agree with other forum members when they say other games already look better and can run alot smoother on current cards.