Crysis

[Ch330pz]

If you haven't already, it would be useful to read this Extreme Tech article about DX10 dev and DX10 games.

The Crysis screenshots in the article look as though they are at the original resolution. In those they look more like you would expect a computer game to look. I think all those screenshots just like the one in the ExtremeTech article are DX9 but look that way because as Koroush says, they're scaled down but because of the quality of the textures and shader effects they look like renders.

The Extremetech article basically says that the main benefit of DX10 to games like Crysis is that softshadows and shader effects will work more efficiently and thus the performance of the game will be higher with those effects in use. Plus you've got "instancing" that makes there be more "stuff" on screen.

[sproaty]

Originally Posted by Koroush Ghazi

I get the feeling that with motion blur, HDR and a range of other tricks the game will be very realistic to play, and this in itself will be a new experience. You don't necessarily need radically new or exotic gameplay; sometimes something as simple as sneaking through a highly believeable forest or facing realistic-looking enemies can really get the adrenalin going.

And yes, going by Far Cry, I think Crytek will deliver at least a moderately fun storyline even without the eye candy.

Definitley - the good thing about all this kind of eye candy is the level immersion gamers get. For example, recent games like Oblivion and Call of Duty gave me huge immersive feelings due to the way the graphics are used to portray scenes of despair (like in CoD2) and epic, lush forests (Oblivion).

Crysis definitley will build upon Far Cry's immersion and also its gameplay, since there seem to be many gameplay changes that seem interesting (i.e the add-ons for weapons and your suit). The level of detail will only add to the immersion which itself will be an integral part of the game - actually feeling like you're there.

[Zyxthior]

Looks like the Crysis-Online was forced to pull down their screenies as well.

[Thudds]

Originally Posted by sproaty

Definitley - the good thing about all this kind of eye candy is the level immersion gamers get....... The level of detail will only add to the immersion which itself will be an integral part of the game - actually feeling like you're there.

I fully agree too, though there needs to be a revolution in game design to complement this in someway.

Damn those new screenshots look awesome! AND I ought to be able to play it with my current system

[Spriggan_X]

Wow the 5th shot just looks beautiful, looks like a CG-movie. I cant wait til this game comes out.

[aggies11]

Yep, better/more realistic graphics is a "one time" only benefit. Oblivion was immersive. In 2yrs from now, when we are used to a higher level of graphics, going back to Oblivion it probably won't have the same effect.

Infact, I'd say that graphics have an interesting challenge, much like the whole "Uncanny valley" for Robots/CGI Humans.

Anyone else feel that they don't actually want photo-realism (100%) graphics in games? Do you want it to look like you are playing a home video? I mean, we already have a "game" thats 100% photorealistic, and it's called "real-life", heh. And it's not actually that popular I don't want games to look like my backyard, because my backyard looks boring, I see that all day, every day. I want games to still look different than real life.

So I think games will continue getting more immersive as the graphics improve, but we may actually hit a point where they become less so, because they look too real. When the lines between reality and games blurr, we may start to feel that they are less fun/exciting.

Luckily we are a ways off, and I don't think Crysis will have that problem. So it's gonna feel like you are in a jungle. If they can get the gameplay to work with that sense of immersion, then it should be a great experience.

Aggies

[Volacide]

Very sweet read on Crysis...

Crysis - Tech & The Hardware You Need To Run It

For those of you that don't want to read the wohle thing I've trimmed out the most important parts...

Yerli explained the full range of visual tools that Crytek is working with. Crysis' camera technology will make extensive use of motion blur, so if you spin around quickly to face an enemy, the images onscreen will blur. The lighting system makes use of depth of field so that if you focus on an object nearby, objects in the distance will blur. The game uses a new indirect lighting system that tries to model the way light and color react in the real world. Lights will "bounce" off of colors and interact to create more lifelike lighting conditions. And, of course, Crysis will take advantage of high dynamic range lighting to create more realistic light, in general.

Finally! Not the 1 light source bullshit we see in most games. Indirect lighting makes such a huge difference when it comes to realism.

"Crysis will feature out-of-the-box 32-bit, 64-bit, DirectX 9, DirectX 10, and multithreading support," he said. That's a lot of technical jargon, so we'll go over each point one by one. The important thing to keep in mind is that you won't have to worry about configuring all of these settings when you install the game, as Crysis will automatically configure itself based on what kind of hardware you have.

and finally...

Since DirectX 10 cards didn't exist in May, the Crysis demo at the Electronic Entertainment Expo was actually running on DirectX 9 video cards, which is a good indication of what sorts of visuals you'll get with current hardware. "The E3 demo was all about DX 9 shader model 2.0--there was no more technology than this," Yerli said. He also addressed some of the controversy around the E3 demo. While visually amazing, the frame rate struggled quite a bit throughout the demo. However, he noted that Crysis was running on dual graphics-processor-unit systems, while most other PC games at the show were running on quad GPU systems. Still, we can expect performance on DirectX 9 cards to be smoother once the game is finished and optimized.

The game will run fine on current, single-core CPUs, but it will take advantage of the latest multicore CPUs, as well. Yes, that means Crysis is multithreaded, which means that it can make maximum use out of dual-core systems.

Crysis will also take advantage of 64-bit CPUs. It appears that it will provide better performance in Crysis. According to Yerli, the 64-bit version "will bring a performance difference of up to 10 to 15 percent on each thread" compared to the 32-bit version.

What a relief! I don't think I'll be upgrading to DX10 until the second batch of DX10 cards comes out, I think my X1800XT will do me just fine for a good bit more time. I mean I'm okay with running it at a low resolution as long as I've got all the pretty features, jagginess doesn't bother me at all when i'm immersed in a game like this. Like back when I played Far Cry on my 9800SE without AA at 1024, it was jaggy sure but I didn't care I still enjoyed the hell out of it with all the great **** turned on.

and interesting...

What's interesting is that Yerli told us that if you have Windows Vista and an older DirectX 9 card, you should still see better performance with Windows Vista than Windows XP, even if the hardware remains unchanged. "DirectX 9 on Vista will run faster throughout due to the better device driver model...which is a great thing because just upgrading the operating system on the same rig, you get a better gaming experience," he said.

Well there you have it.

[Danny]

Vista suddenly got more intressting to me

Nice to see 64bit, and dualcores making a diffrence. Im not worried about the graphics at all now, especially as they said the videos they showed were only with SM2.0 enabled (with SM3.0 and SM4.0 available at launch - or so i understood).

But really, all this talk about vista kind of made me think "i should just upgrade right away" because a 10-15% boost in performance for Crysis by just going to a 64-bit OS is well worth it IMO.

[Volacide]

Well aside from a few minor problems with Vista that basically just involve some games not running so well, but that's probably just a driver issue and will be resolved some what quickly, or some games not running at all (Chaos Theory) I see no reason why you wouldn't want to just jump right into Vista.

[Danny]

Price my friend, price. You know, if i want to buy another copy of Windows XP Pro it will cost me MORE than adding a X1800CF card into my system. I can only imagine what Windows Vista will cost me.

I dont know about you, but id rather ad another X1800CF card than upgrading to Vista unless it shows performance improments (wich it seems it will after all).