Crysis is the long awaited game from Crytek and Electronic Arts. According to the developers “The CryENGINE 2 engine delivers the most realistic environments, spectacular special effects, physics game engine, lighting system, and enemy AI.” I stopped by the Crysis Cyber Party sponsored by inCrysis the other day, and the question everyone was asking was “Will Crysis run on my system?” Time to find out. Here are the specs of my computer:
- OS: Windows Vista 32
- Processor: Intel Core 2 DUO @ 2.66GHz Memory: 3.3 GB RAM
- GPU: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS/320
First thing I did was install the 169.01_forceware_winvista_32bit_english_beta driver released specially for the demo. The initial install went smoothly, except for not creating any shortcut. I found the Crysis.exe and created my own. Now the real problems started. Clicking on Crysis.exe popped up an error message saying intellaptopgaming.dll was not found. I checked the crytek directory and saw it there. I reran the setup with admin privileges and nothing. I copied the dll manually to system32 and registered it, and rebooted, still nothing. Then I found the solution, in the same bin32 directory where the crysis.exe is located, run the fxc.exe program and that fixed everything. Weird? yes. You must click fxc.exe first each time you want to run the demo.
The demo started up in windowed mode and proceeded to display all it’s intro videos. I created a profile with my name, turned on “blood”, and changed the display setting to 1680×1050. (my default monitor resolution) I then ran the system check and received a red warning box about changing to medium setting. No problem, I expected high settings at my resolution to be out of the question anyway.
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When you go to start a game, you have to choose the difficulty setting. The funny thing found here is that on delta setting “The enemies speak Korean”. On easy setting they speak English. Why English? Why not French, or some other language? Since I speak some Korean, this sounded like fun, but I’ll save that for later and go with normal mode just to review the gameplay. As with all EA titles, the videos they force you to watch at the start are unbearably long. Use this time to use the restroom and then come back. Alt+tabbing out will only pause the intro. Once the game actually started to load, it did so quickly.
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The game begins with nicely scripted video of you jumping out of a plane onto an island. First thing I did upon swimming ashore was to pick up and throw a turtle. No idea why, it just seemed appropriate.
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A nicely done feature is the tutorial. Rather than be in your face, the game simply tells you the command to access the controls you need. Once you get to the screen you can play around and see what’s there. Below is how you modify the weapons. Simple and self explanatory. Overall I liked the feel of the weapons. Not over-powerful, but still having a little kick. A feature I wish BF2 had is picking up the ammo from fallen enemies without having to switch kits. Games can be saved at anytime, as well as frequent auto-saves at each checkpoint.
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My first encounter with the enemy went well. I was able to approach him stealthily, equip my silencer, right click to zoom in, and squeeze off a few rounds. Later on another enemy spotted me, and his comrades began to creep toward my position. These were dispatched easily as well, but not without some returned fire, including covering fire from a vehicle mounted machinegun. More persistent was an enemy patrol boat. They followed me down the beach after I took a few shots at them. Hopping into a vehicle, I used the mounted gun to blow up the pesky boats.
So why an “A” rating? Graphics get an A+ even on medium settings. The game ran smoothly on my machine without any hiccups once i got past the installation woes. Gameplay was fun, if you enjoy the crawling around the jungle thing, followed by fast paced firefights when things don’t go as planned. The only thing I wasn’t too hot about was the nano suit. You can choose armor, speed, strength and stealth mode. The whole “invisibility” thing still bothers me. Luckily it is short duration and nothing to worry about, but how will it work in multiplayer?
One thing that really sets this game apart from others is the destructible terrain. Trees and bushes can get chopped down during firefights. This helps when spotting where concealed fire is coming from. Below is an enemy that kept me company for a while. Parking a vehicle down the road from a group of enemies and opening fire made things much simpler.
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Overall I enjoyed the single player demo so far and found it well worth the download. Most gamers will be able to jump right into the action if they’ve played FPS games before. The game feels a bit linear at times, but between checkpoints you have lot’s of freedom. I’d like to try a multiplayer demo before I commit to the game though. But hey, demo is free and you can see how well it plays on your hardware.
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Did the game run smoothly even at max resolution and everything maxed out?
I tried setting everything to very high and found it too sluggish to play. On high it was playable, but not great in firefights. I think right now I would set textures to high, but set water, shadows, and particles to low, and everything else to medium. Check out this article for a comparison of different graphics cards at different resolutions and settings.
http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/1211/crysis_demo_performance_analysis/index.html
ive a 8800gtx, 3.25GB of ram, core2 duo e6600 @ 3.4GHZ, asus striker extreme, 24″ monitor
game runs sluggish at 1900 X 1200 with everything maxed out. Had to turn AA down to 4x and reduce shadows and shading to medium. it then played at a decent frame rate(far from great though).
if you’ve been waiting for this this title for well years at this stage like me then it wont disappoint. i found the nano suit great fun. i recommend picking up the turtle at the start of the demo and setting your suit to strength then launch it at the first korean you see!
only negative about the demo is lack of multiplayer and audio options (was aching to hear the action in 7.1!)
I played the demo, it was alright, didnt blow me away or anything. The game is playable on medium setting at 1440X900. My specs WInxp pro,AMD 4400×2, 4gbs ddr2 800, Radeon X1950gt. The game was way too similar to far cry, it kind of felt like i was playing far cry all over again. Don’t get me wrong, it is still a great game but i just felt like it was too similar to far cry.
The scenery and especially the jungle look pretty amazing, it runs smoothly on my 8600 GTS. The weaponary is not much in the demo, but frag grenades are great. The cloaking and other nano suit upgrades makes the game insanely easy though if you are patient, even on delta mode you will never die, at least against the regular soldiers, who knows what else is out there
wow,,, the game is mind _ blowing with the enemy AI,,, u cant doge those bullies,, but ,, its reall similar to far cry,,, bet the full version would game some change i guess,,,, all though a bit ,,, even with the textur increased the game paly is smooth on me pc,, but the rating for the texture would be 6/10…
to mr. Li
if it felt too much like farcry its because it is farcry. EA bought the rights to the farcry franchise after the first game so crytech couldn’t use jack carver or use the origional name but the game is meant to be farcry’s spiritual successor.
I just downloaded the demo and this game would be more fun if it wasn’t so sluggish. I spent $2800 a new rig a year ago today and can’t believe I have to settle for the lower settings. Even the videos were somewhat sluggish and I’ve seen better quality videos in other games that ran smoothly on my rig. I think they programmed this game to demand three times more hardware resources than it actually needs just to make people go out and spend $1,000′s more just to run a frickin video game.
the latest Medal of Honor game runs 110% smooth on my rig and other than so many trees in crysis I see no better difference in grpahics quality, but I sure see a big difference in sluggishness. It’s disappointing. Am I supposed to spend $3,000 every year if I want to play new games that come out a year later? ridiculous.
I gotta core 2 duo e6700, 2GB of Corsair 800mhz memory and a single 7950gx2 that I paid $500 for just 1 year ago. Last year I thought I would be good for at least a couple years but I barely made it one year.
Ive just downloaded it and im very pissed off i spent well over £1000 11 years ago on a intel 486 dx 4 100 with 16 meg super vesa gfx and 64 meg ram so to run this and this game runs like sh~t whats going on!!!!!!!!!!
I agree the game plays similar to Far Cry, but for me (and likely many others given the success of that game) that is only a good thing. The second big impression the demo gave me is that some of the changes they’ve made since Far Cry make the game more immersive and realistic. When you zoom in with a weapon, there is a depth-of-field effect that is very cool. Unlike many FPS games, you don’t just walk over a weapon or ammo and it is automatically picked up. In Crysis you have to pick something up manually, which adds some realism. Having played Bioshock, the Unreal 3 demo, HL2 Episode 2, and Quake Wars, I’ll say Crysis is definitely the most graphically advanced game. The word that came to my mind was “photo-realism” because it is not a cartoonish shooter, it is very realistic. And the level of detail, with little animals walking around, flies buzzing around your head, destructible terrain, the gorgeous water, plants that actually behave somewhat normally when you walk into them, etc. – I think Crysis will be a very worthy successor to Far Cry, and Crytek is establishing themselves as the premier FPS developers. John Carmack and Gabe Newell, time to step it up.
I didn’t expect much from a older machine, with ATI/AMD inside (instead of the Intel Core Duo/ Nvidia ) but the game played just beautifully at 1280×1024 with medium graphics. I have an AMD 4200+ with ATI X1900XTX (now only about £100). You don’t have to spend big bucks to play this game.
Runs “ok” on q6600/8800gtx/1280×1024 /w all options very high and 16xAAq (25-30 fps estimate). Fps drops during battle, gonna try with less AA.
What about this being the far cry successor? I’m being told far cry 2 will be out next year?
Obviously few of you have read up on this game and far cry.
- EA bought the rights to the crytek engine.
- Ubisoft still own the rights to Far Cry.
Far Cry 2 is currently in production and should be out summer next year (and is currently looking absolutely amazing)
Crysis is NOT the follow up to far cry, they are in no way related (except for the whole paradise island part)
And DAMNIT I CANT WAIT FOR MY NEW PC TO ARRIVE
EA didn’t buy anything from Crytek. All they do is help to distribute and advertise the game.
This ran just fine on this setup.
Abit Kn8 SLI
Athlon 64 4000+ Socket 939
Corsair XMS PC3200-C2 DDR 2 GB RAM
BFG geForce 7900GS OC 256MB PCIe videocard
Soundblaster Audigy 4 soundcard
I was able to use the maximum allowable DX9 setting on my 19″ LCD which maxes at 1280×1024. Other than some audio/video skew during the intro and outro cutscenes the realtime gameplay was stutter-less. Those Socket 939 CPUs still have power.
Suffice to say, I did a LOT of swimming in Crysis, along with boat stealing. I even got blasted by the battleships out on the ocean perimeter. That was unexpected. Throwing chickens at maximum strength into North Korean patrols is fun too. Especially their reaction.
I only play games on the highest difficulty nowadays. It seems to be the only true way to play them, COD 4 Demo, Jericho Demo, Painkiller Overdose Demo, Hellgate London Demo, FEAR- Perseus Mandate Demo, Timeshift Demo.
It looks like they have created a superb game engine. Too bad no… mortal can play it! I think crytec went to far and should take in consideration the vast majority of users by optimizing the graphics engine as much as possible. Bloody great graphics for a bloody minority of gamers makes the end result a bloody shame.
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Hi there,
I have the full version of Crysis Warhead but when I try and start it up (having installed correctly) I get the message saying intellaptopgaming.dll was not found.
When I look for fxc.exe in the bin32 file it’s not there.
Any ideas as I have looked everywhere and it just won’t run.
Cheers
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