Crysis Demo

[Asher]

Originally posted by FrostyBoy
If you're going to judge the game's AI based on that AI video then you're a fool, it was clearly edited.

I'm judging based on the demo. The video exacerbates problems that are clearly there.

and their engine really makes current hardware sweat - which is a good thing, because when the hardware does come, Crysis will be ready for you.

It would be good if it was doing stuff that warranted the sweating. As I said, I paid a large amount of money for a top-end gaming rig and I don't appreciate the fact that the game doesn't run properly on the highest of high end hardware out today.

It also simply doesn't look that great relative to other titles with framerates 3 or 4 times higher today. If it's doing 3 or 4 times more work per pixel, then it needs to look a lot better. It simply does not.

What they have on their hands is uninspired gameplay and a very, very inefficient graphics engine with pretty poor AI.

[Solver]

Originally posted by Asher

What is a "next-gen card"? Considering the HUGE graphical disparity between High and Medium, I think with a quad-core Core 2 @ 2.9GHz and a 8800 Ultra @ 675MHz, it'd keep above 30fps at all times. It does not.

That's right. It's quite obvious why you don't like it but it wasn't intended to run at max settings on today's cards. It's intended for next-gen cards as in as of yet unreleased - the GeForce 9 series, for example.

From what I've been reading, looks like the only way to run it maxed out on today's hardware is a SLI setup with high-end series 8 cards.

[Solver]

They may well have overdone it, though. On Medium, Crysis doesn't look particularly impressive. Similar environments in Oblivion look better. Games such as Bioshock or CoD4 look much better on Medium or Medium-High. World of Conflict's Medium graphics are also better looking.

Running Crysis on High is only possible with a series 8 card. And AA may not even be possible despite that. I've talked to a few people this week who ran Crysis on a 8600 - they say it runs on High as long as AA is off. So yeah. Even among gamers, not everyone has a series 8 card - and there are even less people with a 8800, which I understand to currently be the minimum card required to get the game running fine while looking good with AA.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Solver
That's right. It's quite obvious why you don't like it but it wasn't intended to run at max settings on today's cards. It's intended for next-gen cards as in as of yet unreleased - the GeForce 9 series, for example.

I've said this before, and I'll say it again, I don't care if they intentionally use crappy shaders and code or not.

The fact is, this game doesn't LOOK like something that is 4times more computational intensive than BioShock, yet it runs at 1/4 of the framerate. That's a problem, period.

[Solver]

Doesn't it? It has far bigger areas than Bioshock did and an environment that is far more difficult to anti-aliase. Anti-aliasing of those bushes and trees is definitely very GPU-intensive.

[Asher]

I'm not even running anti-aliasing and I'm having problems keeping a consistent framerate.

And no, it does not. The area scope doesn't matter because they use distant impostors -- or maybe they don't, which is another reason performance sucks (and this would be a design flaw).

In any case, it doesn't look like it should run like it does...peroid.

The people at Beyond3D are very unimpressed with the performance as well, in general.

[Asher]

Looking at what the folk at B3D have uncovered, it seems the polygon counts in this game are brutal. 8.9 million per frame in some places.

That's just insane. They clearly aren't using distant impostors (lower poly counts in the distance). Which kills performance, you're rendering things you can't even see with full precision...

As for SLI, it doesn't really support SLI either. A hack is coming to enable it after-the-fact. Even then, most users are reporting a 30fps avg increase to 40...

I'm starting to wonder if they care at all about performance?

[Solver]

Okay, so no impostors is one thing. Hmm, that's weird of the engine, I'm not sure how this engine works, really.

Have you tried the tweak that enabled DX10 effects in DX9 and running the game in DX9 mode? I'm curious as to how much it increases performance. Oh, and if SLI gives 40 FPS, don't see anything to complain about. 40 is smooth by any means.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Solver
Okay, so no impostors is one thing. Hmm, that's weird of the engine, I'm not sure how this engine works, really.

Have you tried the tweak that enabled DX10 effects in DX9 and running the game in DX9 mode? I'm curious as to how much it increases performance. Oh, and if SLI gives 40 FPS, don't see anything to complain about. 40 is smooth by any means.

You seem to think that 40 is the minimum? That's average. Which means half are below that, some well below...

If it was locked at even 30fps, I wouldn't complain. But it dips well below very, very often.

[Solver]

Playing with the settings some, I found the most critical one for mid-range: postprocessing quality. It has a LOT of impact. With everything on Medium, the game looks meh. With the same but postprocessing on High, it looks much better - foliage and the sky look better, among other things. Turns out that I can handle high shadows and postprocessing, particularly if I turn motion blur off - need to find the console command for that.

[Wiglaf]

Verto's point is good. It is amazing that this game is getting so much attention when it offers nothing new but graphics. And it apparently hasn't even done that right.

Why do people value pushing the hardware more than anything else? Retarded.

[ZargonX]

I'm with Asher on this one; the quality vs. performance is way out of whack. I can run the demo at the lowest settings, have it look like poop, and it still runs like poop. Conversely, at the same time, I can go load up Bioshock or HL2:E2, max out the graphics, and have it run fantastically. Is it really worth that much a hit in performance just to get grass that bends realistically?

[Verto]

Originally posted by Wiglaf
Verto's point is good. It is amazing that this game is getting so much attention when it offers nothing new but graphics. And it apparently hasn't even done that right.

Why do people value pushing the hardware more than anything else? Retarded.

I think it's important to continue pushing hardware/technology. It's just when developers expect nice graphics to sell a game, instead of focusing resources on developing 'next-gen' AI, NPCs, etc.

[Quillan]

Zargon, my answer to your question would be: no. I like graphics, don't get me wrong, but I am a far bigger fan of gameplay and performance than I am of looks. If I were not, I'd never be able to have so much fun replaying Thief, or X-Com, or System Shock 2.

I like this game so far, from what I've seen of the demo. However, aside from graphics, the only thing new it's adding is the suit. I noticed the definite degrading of looks when I reduced to medium settings over framerate issues. HL2 looks better and runs far better. I only hope the final product is a bit better optimized for performance, but I'm not holding my breath there.

[Solver]

Still looks like it'll be worth playing. It's not terribly innovative, probably, but the open-endedness is good, it's still a fairly rare trait. I like how you can play this game with different styles.

Graphically, yeah. No doubt it'll be enjoyable in its great quality later on series 9 cards. But currently, the performance is disappointing. Episode2 and Bioshock also looked better for me with highest settings, while performing just fine. Though at least now that I've increased postprocessing, Crysis no longer looks crappy.