Crysis Demo (reposted)

[Lenny]

I know the feeling. Just general computery stuff started as a hobby a few years ago, and has since turned into a complete obsession. Not that I'm complaining, mind. Though I do need to branch out a bit. So far, it's only been RAM and graphics cards that I've really done anything with.

Problem is, more and more games coming out for the PC will require Vista, and DX10 to play them. Still, hopefully the dev's will optimise things for Vista.

 

[Happy Joe]

Yes, I will be forced into vista sometime in the next year. I'm not certain which will come first; a new vid card or vista. I would like to wait untill Micro$$$ releases the first vista service pack. I would also like DX-10 but so far only extreme details are different between it and DX-9c.
Enjoy!

 

[Commonmind]

I've been running Vista Ultimate since launch and have had no major hiccups. Some of the other features the OS offers more than makes up for the slight hits to performance some have seen; though that's pretty subjective, as I'm sure many of them couldn't care less about some of those features and are more interested in using Vista as a gaming platform.

The way I see it the hardware market is currently a very volatile environment. New technologies are literally flying off the benches of R&D teams on a global scale, and it's only getting worse. We're quite literally living in a world without hardware standards, and that's starting to have a large impact on the general consumer, where before it has been an issue only enthusiasts have had to deal with. Given another year or two, after all the hardware manufacturers have settled in with their new technologies and I'm sure you'll be seeing more consistent performance out of DX10, and in turn next-gen games.

 

[Green]

And now look - we've got people with cards that are less than a year old, struggling to play a game that recommends said card for best results! Amazing!

I think this is what irks me - I have (almost) got the recommended specs, but I can't play the game to the standard I've been "promised" in the promotional vids.

Graphics aren't everything, of course. Look at HL2 - that game looked great when it came out, but nowadays the engine is looking a bit past it. But it suits the game brilliantly. I just finished playing through HL2 all the way up to Episode 2, and it's an almost perfectly crafted game, and it didn't matter that it was starting to look a few years old.

Actually, one of the best features of that game is the sound.

 

[Happy Joe]

I was just surfing and found that there is a file mod to get DX10 results in crysis from high end graphics cards (like the 8800GTS) when running DX9 in XP;

DX 10 Features in Windows XP - MUST SEE

Enjoy!

 

[Green]

Very good. Not worth resinstalling XP for, but a good find for XP users

 

[Happy Joe]

I agree; not worth a reinstall.
By following the instructions then juggling the game control panel parameters, I was able to significantly improve the fine detail (foam on waves etc.) and still get playable frame rates (with everything on high it was not playable) (7800 GT and amd/x2 6000 @ 3Ghz, 2 gig of ddr3). I ended up by keeping some of the effects on high and others (shadows, sound) on medium or low. It is not a world shaking difference but it is an improvement and better than I thought this system could do.
Enjoy!

 

[Green]

I am going to have a play with some of the settings over the next few days, see if there's some I can drop down to low in sacrifice to some of those that would look nice at high, or with some AA going on.

Any recommendations?

 

[Happy Joe]

I' going to try to optimise today also.
The first ones that I dropped were shadows and sound.
Once I get a good compromise I'll post back.
After getting a semi optimized with the buttons I will see what I can do to improve things by shifting variables within the config files themselves.
Enjoy!

 

[Happy Joe]

OK, here is what I came up with as my best compromise between detail, frame rate and playability (AMD x2 6000 @ 3Ghz, 2 gig memory, 7800GT;

Texture - custom (very high)
objects - high (grayed out)
Shadows - Medium
Physics - Medium
Shaders - Medium
Volume effects - Low
Game effects - Medium
Post processing - high (very high)
Particles - High (very high)
Water quality - High (very high)
Sound - Low

Of course these settings are totally subjective and everyone's results can be expected to vary. (High (very high) and custom (very high) refer to settings that have been moved beyond the standard DX-9 allowed settings by tweaking the config files.

Enjoy!

 

[Green]

In case anyone's interested, this week's episode of PC Gamer Podcast talks about Crysis, and its mixed reception (not just the graphics/performance, but also the gameplay).

 

[Green]

Another bit of info for Crysis players...

Apparently (and I've not yet tried this yet myself), if you're running from within Vista, you can turn on Windows XP Compatibility mode while you play the game, and it will give you a pretty hefty frame rate boost.

I guess this might turn off the DX10 stuff or something similar, but if you're only able to play on medium/high anyway, maybe you wouldn't notice.

 

[Commonmind]

Running in compatibility mode does indeed disable some of the DX10 features and you'll see the same benefit by simply lowering settings from very high to high in the game. I think this came from the PC Gamer podcast, but I'm not sure the person who made the comment actually understood it was forcing the game to run in DX9 mode.

Tweakguides has its Crysis Tweak Guide posted if you want to do some performance optimizations and I highly recommend it. After putting together the new PC I wanted to take the older P4D based machine I had and try and get as much out of it as I could. With an 8800 GT (with an antiquated processor and 2gb of DDR2 533) I was able to get a steady 25 FPS (playable) with everything set on very high. Using some of the console commands you can really streamline the experience while retaining almost all of the subtle details.

 

[Green]

Yeah, this was from the PCGPC.

"Same benefit by simply lowering settings from very high to high"... was the guy not talking about a general boost in performance, not just from the top-end to the almost-top-end? I couldn't run in high, anyway, but was hopeful it would enable me to add some of those settings in there.

Meh, if people want to get an extra couple of bhp out of their Ferrari, then they've lost touch with the comman man