Crysis-Worth the Hardware costs?

Wavey

Evening all,

I just bought Crysis and played a level or two on my 7900gt. Not impressed.
Is it worth the 500 odd quid on graphics card(s) to play the game at high settings?
I'm finding it hard to justify that kind of money unless there is a load of games in pipeline that need that kind of graphics power.

Advice appreciated.

Wavey

AlmightyCushion

An 8800gt should run it a lot better than a 7900gt and it'll only set you back about €250.

tman

Good god no!:p
As AC said, a 8800GT would be a worthwhile purchase, but don't even think about buying it purely for a crap game like Crysis. (Trust me on this, it definitely doesn't get any better than the opening levels)

Depends on how happy you are with the performance of your gfx card with other recent games that you've played (which will all run a hell of a lot smoother than Crysis)

Praetorian

I think perhaps everyone was blown away by the graphics, myself included. It isn't as good a game as everyone said it was, myself included. Not worth spending loads of cash just for one game. 8800gt is fantastic value, came out a month after I splashed the cash on a gtx

Tusky

I have an 8800 and it doesn't even play Crysis that well. Ive been much more impressed with Call of Duty 4. Plays perfectly on the highest settings and looks amazing!

Genghiz Cohen

Don't bother with crysis, the huge graphic detail is a bad cover up of how utterly crap the game is.

Get UT3 instead, quality.

Benzino

Hmm, im going against the trend of this thread and saying that Crysis was one of the best fps I have played in a long time, with the exception of the last level.

This game imo is a must play for anyone who likes fps. I must also note that I played this game on medium/low settings so it didnt look great, but i wasnt concerned about the graphics, the gameplay had me hooked. PLAY IT, LOVE IT!!

Azza

I thought Crysis was a good enough game but not outstanding. My biggest issues where with the AI acting up. Not worth upgrading for alone. It is a very popular title to bash at the moment I believe a little unfairly. Not as bad as people on this thread are saying but not as good as the reviewers are saying.

I'll still be upgrading my PC and then run back through this when I do. But I'm not upgrading for this alone. I have a few games like The Witcher, UT3 and COH:OF that don't currently run well and there is a few games in the pipeline that I want to run well like Far Cry 2.

humanji

In fairness OP, why would you spend that kind of money on just a game?

The fact of the matter is, games are getting better and better and the hardware requirements are only going to go up, so think of the card as an investment for the games of the future.

quarryman

no game is worth 500 euro!

projectmayhem

crysis is in no way, shape or form worth the money a rig that can play it costs. the game's features (the suit, basically) are just a cover up for the utterly bland gameplay that ensues.

make sure your rig runs team fortress2, then don't buy any other game for a year.

Maximilian

I thought it was a pretty great game, spoiled by the stupid alien levels. Graphics do tend to gloss over the problems though. I wouldn't spend too much cash just to play it, if it were me.

Sephiroth_dude

do ye think a 7950 gtx would handle it?

Maximilian

Dunno really. Not with everything turned up for sure. I played it on a decent dual core PC with 4gb ram and DX10 with an ATI2900XT and I still had to turn certain features down. This is a game designed to look better and be replayed as technology improves. I think thats something that was overlooked by a lot of people who just moaned about the system requirements.

Praetorian

COD4 does not look amazing Tusky, what are ya smoking Quake 3 engine muck with ****e bitmap backgrounds! The only thing Ill give them is that they've gotten alot out of that old engine!

Tusky

Praetorian wrote: »

COD4 does not look amazing Tusky, what are ya smoking Quake 3 engine muck with ****e bitmap backgrounds! The only thing Ill give them is that they've gotten alot out of that old engine!

It looks amazing on my pc. I have it on highest resolution and everything on highest settings and it looks great. One of the best looking games Ive played after Crysis.

[DF]Lenny

Crysis is a v good fps let down by some AI issues,comparing its GFX to COD4 is like a chalk and cheese !
As too upgrading specifically for Crysis ,I have bad news for you ,i'm running a quad core with 2 x 8800gtx in SLI and still struggle for 40+ fps with everthing maxed out (havnt installed the new patch) so buy the GT card and save your cash!
Ok the multiplayer looks awesome but its as confusing as hell and needs lots of patching

The Queen

Praetorian wrote: »

COD4 does not look amazing Tusky, what are ya smoking Quake 3 engine muck with ****e bitmap backgrounds! The only thing Ill give them is that they've gotten alot out of that old engine!

Quake III engine?? I don't think so. What are YOU smoking.

Running on 3870 at 1680x1050 max. Yes....I totally see the comparison here

It's a custom engine. Maybe at best it borrows a few elements but it's not like it's running the Q3 engine.

humanji

I don't get it Queen, you just posted two screenshots of the same game

Anyone else get a little lump in their throat when looking at the two games though? Remember when Quake 3 was state of the art gaming? *sniff* Excuse me, I've got something in my eye...

Maximilian

I think he meant to say Quake 2 engine in fairness.

zAbbo

Well, you could try and compare the Quake3 mod 'True Combat' to COD4




But even then, it's clutching at straws.

L31mr0d

Nothing at the moment can play Crysis at max settings. My sig rig can play it with everything set to very high, 4xAA @ 1280x1024. At this i'm getting a solid 22fps on average (this is with the new 1.1 patch) I've got a second 8800GTX in another PC that I could put into my main one for SLI but Crysis has fairly weak SLI support so there's no point.

To the OP, my 8800GTX has been the best PC purchase i've made in a long time. I built my sig rig on a budget, lurking around a lot of US enthusiast forums picking up used hardware on the cheap at the $ value. Usually you have to upgrade your graphics card at least every 6 months to play the latest games at max settings but the 8800GTX has managed to last well over a year and still play games now at max settings. If you can get your hands on an 8800GTX for around €200, then go for it. A lot of US forums are trying to shed them to buy up the 8800GT's atm.

The benefit of buying a graphics card to play Crysis, will mean that you can be almost guaranteed that any other game released in the next few months you will also be able to play with the graphics maxed. But if you are only going to be playing Crysis, then don't bother, it isn't worth money as the graphics is there, but the gameplay isn't. For single player and multiplayer buy CoD4 and get a cheap 8800GT to play it, as its a far superior game.

Crysis, unlike flash in the pan games, is a slow burner, it will have consistant sales for the next year or more as when people get machines good enough to play it, they will buy it and try it out. Also there are 2 more sequels planned which will build on the storyline (its better to think of Crysis as "Crysis: Episode 1" so the ending won't dissapoint you) and you can be guaranteed that as they release these sequels they will bundle the first Crysis in with it.

I don't think we can really judge Crysis as a whole until all 3 parts have been released. Unlike other games (which have a new engine for each release), Crysis has been split into 3 parts, but all 3 of these will link up and are based on the same engine.

So if you can wait, I would. Crysis doesn't really excel in gameplay or storyline, but where it does is in atmosphere and immersion. This time 6 months from now Crysis should be sufficiently patched and the hardware should of reduced that you will be able to play in on very high settings on a budget.

Den_M

I don't think even the guys working at NASA can run Crysis maxed out at the moment...

Maximilian

Den_M wrote: »

I don't think even the guys working at NASA can run Crysis maxed out at the moment...

That's just because everything NASA runs tends to crash.

po0k

Why does everyone try to run it 'maxed out' and then bitch and whine when they get crap FPS?

I'm running through it on an X1900XTX 512meg, forget what settings, middle-ish.
Looks fine. For all the silicon that's been thrown at games these days, they still look like paper-craft animation because even at 1920x1200, you've got a large screen, but your eyes can still see the pixels.
AA just adds lag to each frame.

What we need is ray-tracing and higher-order surfaces and bits and bobs.
Less brute force, more brains being applied to how to achieve the end-image.

Voxels ftw.

Morlar

L31mr0d wrote: »

Nothing at the moment can play Crysis at max settings.

I would have to double check the exact settings but mine is dual 768mb 8800gtx's running at all settings maxed out (admittedly its at 1280x1024 for the time being - when I get a hd tv it'll be 1920 etc).

The only slowdown I noticed so far was in the snow level when I had to change anti-aliasing from 16x down to 4x as it began to stuggle (I didnt bother down-ing it in increments just went straight to 4x).

This is pre the latest patch. The question is - is the game worth a new rig - no its not. But if you do get a new rig there are other games too that all add up to making it worth it imo. ie thrown in COD4, airborne etc all on maxed settings and your laughing.

I definitely agree with the slow burning aspect - theres a lot of depth to this game - a LOT of re-playability in my opinion. Here is a good comparison between cod4 (which is also top notch) and crysis which covers re-playability - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyQTCeobZlg

kaimera

its running fine for me @ 800x600 with a few high end effects on a 8600GT in a laptop.

L31mr0d

Morlar wrote: »

I would have to double check the exact settings but mine is dual 768mb 8800gtx's running at all settings maxed out (admittedly its at 1280x1024 for the time being - when I get a hd tv it'll be 1920 etc).

sorry yeah i should of been more specific. Most people with SLI aren't running a 19" monitor. It's usually 24" or 30". So 1080p should be a minimum res a high end system should be able to play a game at.

I'm sure the game can be played maxed out full AA at 800x600 all the way through.

i_am_dogboy

SyxPak wrote: »

What we need is ray-tracing and higher-order surfaces and bits and bobs.
Less brute force, more brains being applied to how to achieve the end-image.

Voxels ftw.

Amen to that.

L31mr0d

SyxPak wrote: »

What we need is ray-tracing and higher-order surfaces and bits and bobs.
Less brute force, more brains being applied to how to achieve the end-image.

Voxels ftw.

off you go so let us know when you've finished developing it so we can get in on the beta

Wavey

Thanks for all the replies lads.

I've decided to go for 1 8800gt for about €250 as this hopefully will allow me to play COD4 maxed out and also greatly improve my Crysis fps albeit not on max settings.

TBH I really only ever play 1 or 2 levels of a FPS before moving onto the multi player.

Actually can anybody reccomend a good site to buy from. Apart from komplett,overclockers,dabs or elara?

Cheers

Wavey.