And so the world went in Crysis

Category: Technology
Written by: Imad Qamar (on January 07, 2008 - 11:33 PM)

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And the gaming world did indeed went in crisis. Crysis, one of the most anticipated and the only technologically unmatched game, hit the store shelves last November 2007, with PC game-enthusiasts going crazy just to get their hands on one of the copies.

Now there are a couple of reasons why the world in crisis after the release of Crysis:

1. It was one of the most talked about games of 2007, so every gamer wanted his/her hands on this one.
2. It was PC exclusive, so it definitely became a glory for the PC community.
3. Its graphic technology, which everyone was dying to witness.
4. It made even the best computer systems beg for mercy!

While there's not much to discuss regarding the first two points, the last two are the main reasons why I'm posting this topic.

The year is 2012. In Crysis, you play as an agent code-named "Nomad", who is a part of a Spec-Ops Unit sent on a rescue mission to a fictional tropical island, which is currently under control of the North Korean Military. Sounds quite normal han? Well not quite. Once you step foot on the island, strange things start happening. From the discovery of a secret military research facility, to the encounter of even stranger anomalies; ship-wreckage in the middle of the forest, patches of snowy plains on different parts of the island, etc. And as your team mates start disappearing under super-natural circumstances, it is then that you realize that something "else" is at work here, and not just the Korean Military. Something definitely not from this world.

Developed by CRYTEK (renowned from their hit game Farcry), with the extensive support of engineers from NVIDIA, Intel, and Microsoft, Crysis is everything you can expect from a blockbuster Hollywood movie. Remember "Independence Day", the one starring Will Smith? Add some next gen special effects, Koreans (lol), a tropical island, and extreme level of action and interactivity, and you have Crysis!

From the technological stand-point, Crysis is unmatched. A tropical world which almost seems life-like, and characters which actually feel like as if they're "breathing"! (pictured above) Its like everything is "alive" in the world and as you will play through the game, you will notice many minute details which you usually experience in real life; leaves moving with the flow of wind, dynamic shadows of every entity present on the island, real-time volumetric clouds, destructable environment (for example, in the case of trees, any part of any branch will break from the point where you will shoot!), and a new level of post-processing effects (per-pixel motion blurring (pictured below), HDR rendering, etc). In short, the developers did not limit themselves, and went for the extreme.

But ofcourse, unless you have the proper 'hardware', you won't get all the eye candy! And that's where my 4th point comes in. Crysis looks at its best when its played on next gen systems. By 'next gen', I mean a system with a Geforce 8800 Series Graphic Card, an Intel Core 2 Duo/Quad Processor, atleast 2048 MB of memory and Windows Vista. As I mentioned before, Crysis has been optimized for systems integrated with technology from NVIDIA (Geforce 8 Series GPU optimization), Intel (Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Quad Processor optimization) and Microsoft (Windows Vista Optimization and DirectX 10 Support). So if own those, then you're in for a treat!

But that's not all. People at CRYTEK claim that their game is capable of running on even 3 year old systems. I partially agree to that. First of all, 3 years is a bit of an exageration honestly. I would've agree to them if they would've said "2"! and secondly, to make it actually run on an old system, you have to sacrifice alot (and I mean ALOT) of eye candy. Below is a comparison of screenshots; first one is with settings set to "low", and the second with settings set to "Very High", with the game running on my system at 1440x900 resolution:

I personally tested the game on two systems; mine (Geforce 8800 GTS / 640MB) and a friend's (Geforce 7900 GTX / 512 MB). On my friend's system, I had to lower down the settings to "MEDIUM" and resolution to 800x600 to get a smooth framerate. While on mine, I was able to get an applausable framerate at 1280x768, with settings set to "HIGH". On "VERY HIGH" settings, the game was giving a framerate of 18-20 fps on the Geforce 8800 GTS system. Yes, my system was actually struggling at that point!

"Something just came out of nowhere .."

".. and snatched my friend away!"

To cut a long story short, Crysis is a hardware-hog, and it looks best at the "VERY HIGH" setting, which is NOT available in Windows XP because (according to Microsoft and CRYTEK) "The highest graphics setting in the game utilizes DirectX 10 which is only available under Windows Vista..".

While all the other optimizations (NVIDIA and Intel) are genuine, the DirectX 10 optimization is nothing but "marketing". Under Windows XP, if you make some tweaks in the configuration files of Crysis, you can enable almost ALL the "VERY HIGH" settings (which were supposedly DirectX 10 exclusive) in a DirectX 9 environment. And you know what, it even performs "better" under Windows XP! But that's not all. With the first Service Pack (SP1) for Windows Vista around the corner, Microsoft will be introducing DirectX 10.1 and, according to CRYTEK's CEO Cevat Yerli, CRYTEK will release an official patch for Crysis which will enable its "hidden" DirectX 10.1 features. And then ofcourse, you'll need a GPU which actually "supports" DirectX 10.1 to experience that. What is all this? Its a way of selling as much copies of Windows Vista as possible, because right now many users are hesitating for that upgrade from XP.

Coming back to topic, and to conclude it as well, Crysis is an amazing game and something PC owners should be proud of, because it had both outstanding gameplay, as well as outstanding graphics, which even the current generation of consoles (XBOX 360 and Playstation 3) can't even dream of having it on their system. That's for sure! Unless the developers tweak down the "eye candy" a bit to make a port, there's no way this baby is coming to the consoles. If you have got the hardware, go for it! And if you think your system is not up to the mark, I say you still go for it and give it a try, because many "sub-settings" are tweakable to an extent when you can finally make the game very much playable on your low-spec system!

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