Crysis -- I get it now

[Red Hawk]

I finally picked up the Crysis games in the Steam sale this past week -- all of 'em: Crysis, Crysis Warhead, and Crysis 2. And...I get it. The amount of detail in them is astounding. The fine detail to the nanosuits, the swaying grass, the precise light from flashlights -- it's all remarkable.

Did anyone else have a similar reaction upon the first time playing Crysis? Was there another game where you were simply awed by the level of detail put into it?

I will note that Crysis 1 seems to run well enough on my 5770 at stock clocks maxed out in everything except MSAA (which was set to 2x), though there was a noticeable slowdown when I got near a sparking flare. Crysis 2, on the other hand, is noticeably jittery throughout even when I boosted the GPU clock to 900 MHz. I'm fairly sure that one of the culprits is excessive tessellation bogging down the 5770's limited tessellation engine.

 

[Maximilian]

Yeah the detail in crysis did wow me when i first started to play it, i soon forgot about it though and punched a turtle to death, "Maximum Strength!!"

Farcry's detail was pretty outstanding as well for 2004, looked great on my 9800 PRO at the time, all the trees and foliage, the little straw huts, the whole lagoon thing they had going on, i really liked that game a lot, monsters and all.

 

[toyota]

sorry there is NO way you run Crysis 1 maxed smoothly at 1080 on a 5770. NO chance

EDIT: decided to check it out on those settings(DX10 very high with 2x AA) with my gtx560 se and averaged 24 fps with mostly just walking around. my card would be about 25% faster than a 5770.

 

[lehtv]

It doesn't seem like he's playing at 1080p...

 

[Jetster...]

I loved Crysis 1. Best single player ever

 

[Jacky60]

When I went to Rio de Janeiro a couple of years ago and looked out from my hotel room at the jungle for the first time I genuinely thought holy F**k it looks just like Crysis!

 

[3DVagabond]

When I went to Rio de Janeiro a couple of years ago and looked out from my hotel room at the jungle for the first time I genuinely thought holy F**k it looks just like Crysis!

It's amazing what everything looks like with a little good hooch in ya.

 

[Crap Daddy]

sorry there is NO way you run Crysis 1 maxed smoothly at 1080 on a 5770. NO chance

EDIT: decided to check it out on those settings(DX10 very high with 2x AA) with my gtx560 se and averaged 24 fps with mostly just walking around. my card would be about 25% faster than a 5770.

Right. Toyota, I just picked up a GTX560 SE myself for my secondary rig. It was the best choice for mid/low level card from where I live. I laughed when I heard they will launch the SE version awhile back but it turns out to be a surprisingly good purchase.

 

[Cookie Monster]

The single player was surprisingly good!

For me, Doom3 was pretty amazing for the graphics at the time.

 

[n0x1ous]

sorry there is NO way you run Crysis 1 maxed smoothly at 1080 on a 5770. NO chance

EDIT: decided to check it out on those settings(DX10 very high with 2x AA) with my gtx560 se and averaged 24 fps with mostly just walking around. my card would be about 25% faster than a 5770.

Id have to agree here. I just loaded up original Crysis for the first time on the rig in my sig and @ 1080 very high all settings and 2x AA in game i am getting around 85 fps with dips in the 60s and 70's so no way is a 5770 getting anywhere near that even at lower resolutions I wouldnt think.

 

[Pheran]

I just bought Crysis in the Steam summer sale also. I'm having a lot of fun with it, except that I have to avoid using the binoculars because they have a bad habit of crashing my old 8800GTS 512 (holding out until August hoping to get a GTX 660). Strangely the sniper scope works fine, despite the binoculars problem.

 

[blckgrffn]

What does his FPS matter so long as it is good enough for him? Sheesh, lay off folks. I played it on a 3870 with no AA with pretty high settings and it ran awesome (for me, no idea on FPS) up until the alien float around time, after that I had to drop it down a notch and get rid of the factory OC.

AA is a killer in that game, I don't know if it is the level of detail or what. With a 3870, I was basically in no-AA land anyway at the time and didn't care.

 

[Denithor]

Well, I know what I'll be downloading tonight. Picked up Crysis for $6 just to see what all the fuss was about, looks like it'll be worth cranking through.

Is this game optimized for dual or quad core CPU? I have a dual currently (i3 550) but have a quad (i5 750) incoming from eBay ($115 shipped woot!). Would it be worth running on dual or should I wait for the quad?

 

[DrBoss]

Crysis 1 was amazing. I remember buying an 8800 Ultra back in the day to run it... which it did moderately well. It wasn't until my last build (R6950's in Crossfire) that i was able to max it out 1920x1200 and play with ultra settings... I recently purchased an MSI N670 GTX Power Edition, and have once again started playing through the original Crysis.

Image quality and detail is still Amazing. Crysis 1's graphics are far better than Crysis 2, in my opinion.

 

[The_Golden_Man]

I also bought the Crysis pack on Steam Sale.

Even in my i7 2600K@4.4GHz and 2x GTX 670 SLI rig, 1920x1200, 4xAA and everything at Very High I cannot maintain 60FPS (Vsync On) constant in Crysis 1. Sometimes FPS will plummet all the way down to the 20's. But for the most part it stays in the 40 - 60FPS.

Even at 4xAA and everything at High it will sometimes fall below 60FPS. This is a badly coded game.

So the guy saying over here he could max Crysis 1 with a 5770?! Lol! Yeah, right!

 

[DrBoss]

Well, I know what I'll be downloading tonight. Picked up Crysis for $6 just to see what all the fuss was about, looks like it'll be worth cranking through.

Is this game optimized for dual or quad core CPU? I have a dual currently (i3 550) but have a quad (i5 750) incoming from eBay ($115 shipped woot!). Would it be worth running on dual or should I wait for the quad?

It will make use of 2 cores, Having 4 will change nothing. I'd recommend overclocking your dual core to maximize performance. Crysis 1 pushes both the GPU and the CPU.

 

[DrBoss]

I also bought the Crysis pack on Steam Sale.

Even in my i7 2600K@4.4GHz and 2x GTX 670 SLI rig, 1920x1200, 4xAA and everything at Very High I cannot maintain 60FPS (Vsync On) constant in Crysis 1. Sometimes FPS will plummet all the way down to the 20's. But for the most part it stays in the 40 - 60FPS.

Even at 4xAA and everything at High it will sometimes fall below 60FPS. This is a badly coded game.

So the guy saying over here he could max Crysis 1 with a 5770?! Lol! Yeah, right!

I'd suggest running in DX9 and using a custom Ultra Config. All DX10 gets you is motion blur effects and a huge drop in performance (all other effect can be had in DX9 if you know how to setup the config file). If you play in DX9, your FPS will increase by 20%.

DX10 coding for Crysis 1 is garbage.

I can provide my custom DX9 config if you are interested. It will give you better image quality than DX10 at extreme... you just aren't going to have object motion blur.

Below is a post i made in the MSI N670 Power Edition thread. But it shows my Crysis 1 FPS results with a single GPU.
I ran some benchmarks in Crysis 1 last night to determine how my OC's scale with regard to gaming performance.
All test were performed with my CPU at 4.4 GHz using a my custom Crysis config @ 1920x1200 with 8x AA
The FPS figures below represent the average FPS over 5 loops.

Stock: Core 1215 MHz | Memory 3005 MHz = 56.575 FPS
OC1: Core 1266 MHz | Memory 3305 MHz = 60.830 FPS
OC2: Core 1280 MHz | Memory 3500 MHz = 62.165 FPS
OC3: Core 1300 MHz | Memory 3602 MHz = 64.005 FPS
OC4: Core 1316 MHz | Memory 3703 MHz = 65.115 FPS

Your pair of 670's should push Crysis (DX9) at around 100 AVG FPS

I started the thread below over a year ago when trying to troubleshoot poor Crysis Crossfire performance... the ultimate conclusion was, DX10 isn't worth the performance hit.
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2155886&highlight=

 

[Termie]

Yeah, he's probably playing at 25fps, but that's actually ok in this game. I played through the whole game (including the awful final third of the game), on an 8800gt back in '07, and did so at around 22fps. Like others have said, you'll need to drop your settings in the final third, where the game AND the coding gets worse.

The game will not use more than two cores, and the reason it seems to run poorly on new machines is that it's majorly cpu-bottlenecked, not because it has more going on than any modern shooter.

The graphics are good, no doubt, but it wasn't all that great a game, and the character models are incredibly primitive and distracting in comparison to modern games, including Crysis 2.

 

[Gryz]

Does Crysis 1 have Ambient Occlusion ?

Can it be configured in the UI ?
In the ini files ?
Through nVidia's config panel ?
Or Nvidia Inspector ?

SSAO might be a reason to re-install Crysis 1 and replay it, now that I have a gtx680. Even though SSAO works pretty flaky in Skyrim, I love the effect. I wouldn't want to play games without SSAO anymore. Too bad so few games support it.

 

[DrBoss]

yes, Crysis supports Ambient Occlusion (SSAO)
don't know the .ini cvars off the top of my head.

 

[RussianSensation]

I finally picked up the Crysis games in the Steam sale this past week -- all of 'em: Crysis, Crysis Warhead, and Crysis 2. And...I get it. The amount of detail in them is astounding. The fine detail to the nanosuits, the swaying grass, the precise light from flashlights -- it's all remarkable.

Shoot the palm trees and see them react to bullet fire. You can take out a tree and see it fall with decent physics. The vegetation reacts as you pass it. The lens flare/sunshafts is nice, all from a 2007 game. The sandbags in Crysis 1 look better than in BF3. This video highlights some of these points. :biggrin:

There are certain cases where the textures in Crysis 1 are lacking but overall it was way ahead of anything else for its time. I think BF3's dynamic lighting, animations and destruction model is superior but considering how old Crysis 1 is, it's a very good looking game even today.

I find Crysis is one of those FPS games that feels smooth even at lower frames (35-40 fps). It's not one of those games that needs 60 fps to feel smooth.

I am hoping Crysis 3 will move the bar once more.

 

[Denithor]

I can provide my custom DX9 config if you are interested. It will give you better image quality than DX10 at extreme... you just aren't going to have object motion blur.

This would definitely be appreciated. I'll be running on a GTX 560 Ti so some muscle but nothing like you guys with dual GTX 670s...

 

[DrBoss]

This would definitely be appreciated. I'll be running on a GTX 560 Ti so some muscle but nothing like you guys with dual GTX 670s...

I've just got a single 670, and i get around 60 AVG fps w/ my config.
When i get home from work tonight i will post the config file in this thread (probably around 8pm EST)

 

[The_Golden_Man]

I've just got a single 670, and i get around 60 AVG fps w/ my config.
When i get home from work tonight i will post the config file in this thread (probably around 8pm EST)

Appreciated very much! Thanks!

 

[DrBoss]

All this Crysis talk...
The first level, Contact, when you are on the plane and Prophet is giving the team the intel, then you jump out, skydive down, hit the water... EPIC!

Best first level of an action first person shooter ever. IMO