Crysis and UT3 tank

[Axulciex]

I am fed up with upgrading my PC after buying an ATI Radeon X1950 512 2 years ago for £300 and seeing them going for £90 now.

Crysis has set its standards too high, its ahead of its time and as such people need PC's that are ahead of their time to play it. From what I've seen and read, apart from the graphics its a pretty mediocre game anyhow!

I had the priviledge of going to the european launch party for UT3 and I have to say I though the game was great fun for a few hours, but I felt that it would get rather old rather quickly. I cant comment on it being the same as ut2004 as I havent played it.

Setting its standards that high was a very ambitious move, and has never been done to the same extent in gaming history. A game now exists that will take advantage of any rig no matter how powerful.
If you haven't played it revolver ocelot, then don't judge. Download the demo and play it without a pre-determined opinion from reading bad rep.

You'll be able to run crysis rather good on that 1950, tested it myself on that same card. Set everything to medium except for post processing on high and it'll run a smooth 30 fps and still look better than anything else on the market.

 

[Junaid Alam]

That's a pretty threadbare article to serve as a platform for any kind of informed analysis.

"Two PC games didn't do well, oh noes, is PC gaming dying?"

In fact, framing any discussion of PC gaming on a pretty superficial piece like this one is bound to produce a lot of unfounded assumptions and misconceptions.

There may even be a case for libel here with the utterly ludicrous claim that one "needs" to spend thousands of dollars in upgrades just to play Crysis.

UT3 hasn't sold well because everyone's playing TF2 or ET:QW. With community mod efforts it will likely pick up the pace.

Crysis didn't sell well because, while it looks decent on mid-level systems, human psychology tends to sway people toward a "grass is greener in six months when a card can run this at max settings" approach. The gameplay is quite good and the title is being bundled with a lot of the newer Nvidia video cards.

PC gaming is far from dead. It's a pretty ridiculous contention as most gamers will tell you this was the best year for gaming, PC included, in a long time.

The embarrassing flaws in Mass Effect's graphics, loading times and performance, all of which are directly tied to the limitations of the 360 console, well illustrate the point that consoles are not a panacea.

 

[Sappano]

Running crysis with my 8800gts on all high or some custom settings with 30+ fps.Crysis is my personal GOTY, because of its amazing gameplay. I really loved the large open-ended levels, and the ability to approach a situation any way I want. Crysis rewards quick thinking because even in normal you die rather quickly. It was a much needed changeup for me considering the overflow of linear shooters, and combined with the fact that COD4 didn't blow my mind like it did for other people.

As far as sales go, everyone could of guessed it wouldn't sell well in console america. Hardware upgrades to run are expensive at the moment, so its a little hard to play it. However, I believe its selling well in Europe and its number one on the sales charts in its home country.
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=30972
Its like the Witcher...sold 40k here, but it somehow managed to sell 1 million units overall. PC gaming has moved from America, and I am truly sad for that.

 

[burnin8r]

Yeah, UT3 and especially Crysis push the envelope too far when it comes to system specs...

Crysis: yes, UT3: ummm, no. the UT3 engine scales better than the Crysis engine, and runs at 60FPS on high using hardware from a year ago at most common resolutions (lets say less than 1680 x 1050). I m gonna have to go ahead and disagree with you on that one, sport.

And UT3, hell, I didn't even notice the damn thing had been released. It seemed incredibly under hyped. Relatively, I mean.

maybe you live under a rock, there was plenty of press devoted to the demo in october.

I should also add that I bought UT3 on release day and have been playing vehicle capture the flag daily in 24 - 32 player games. I see no shortage of servers nor gamers actively playing the various gameplay modes. It may not have sold in astronomical numbers but there are plenty of players supporting it.

 

[the_carrot]

The headline for this anandtech article says it all:
NVIDIA's 3-way SLI: Can we finally play Crysis? [http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3183]

Seems to me, speaking as a professional software developer and computer scientist, that Crytek needs a lesson on the Pareto principle [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optimization_%28computer_science%29].

Ok, maybe that was a bit harsh, but anyways.

(Oh, and to answer the question in that headline if you can't be bothered: No, we can't.)

I got a laugh out of the headline, it's funny, Crysis saw a 7% improvement over it's play with regular SLI, with THRI-SLI

 

[the_carrot]

That's a pretty threadbare article to serve as a platform for any kind of informed analysis.

In fact, framing any discussion of PC gaming on a pretty superficial piece like this one is bound to produce a lot of unfounded assumptions and misconceptions.

Well I'm sorry about that. But I do think given the limited information in the article people are going to speculate anyway. Why did they sell so badly? Maybe it would take a good bit more information from gamers to determine the whys, but I think there are some simple explanations that are fairly compelling. Not necessarily truthful, but perhaps likely.

I have a poor opinion of any game that doesn't cater to a fairly broad group of gamers. It was the failing point of PC gaming before (imo) and developers and hardware makers could do it again. I have to run it on medium settings, and it doesn't look that good. Not that that alone is a good reason to discard it (and I haven't, not wholly) but I do think some of the gameplay elements are at least borrowed...But I haven't finished it, and for the most part I've lost interest in playing it. Maybe I need to play an RTS or something. Or maybe it gets better, I don't know.

 

[werepossum]

Kill PC developement, with the likes of Valve, Blizzard, Relic, Maxis and other such companies around? I highly doubt. You're giving Epic and Crytek WAY too much credit. (especially Epic, talentless bastards) The fact is, there's only one thing that is trully important with any game engine. Scalability. Make an engine as advanced and decked out as you will, but neglect to have it scale down enough to run on current-gen and even slightly older machines and you've just shot yourself in the foot. This is why Source was so successful, it scaled beautifully and is still being upgraded with bells and whistles that even new engines don't have. That said, ID's new Tech5 engine is looking intriguing. Their new hyper-texture technology could prove to be revolutionary. Maybe.

Can't disagree with anything you said, but I was and am primarily concerned with new developers. Crytek sprang onto my radar screen from nothing with Far Cry, and I loved that game. Other new developers may look at those returns and decide to skip PCs or (worse) give us half-baked console ports. Although I'm hoping that as multi-core PCs proliferate and console gamers get older, console ports will get better simply because console gamers will demand better AI and PCs will be easier to port; it's got to be a huge task to take a game written for a PS3 and make it run well and look good on a single core, 7300GT PC.

I agree Crysis has a problem because of scalability. If you have a $4,000 gaming computer, Crysis is in a league by itself. If you have a $1,000 gaming computer, its still in a league by itself because of the environmental desctructibility (is that even a word?) but the Source or Doom 3 engines look better. But think of how nice Crysis will be two or even three years from now, when you can pick it up for $20 or $30 (maybe even $10?) and play it on commonly available PCs.

Bottom line, Crysis is a good but not great game that looks great on a PC you don't have. I've not seen UT3 yet, but I'm not too impressed with the other games I've seen using that engine.

 

[Axulciex]

The headline for this anandtech article says it all:
NVIDIA's 3-way SLI: Can we finally play Crysis? [http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3183]

Seems to me, speaking as a professional software developer and computer scientist, that Crytek needs a lesson on the Pareto principle [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optimization_%28computer_science%29].

Ok, maybe that was a bit harsh, but anyways.

(Oh, and to answer the question in that headline if you can't be bothered: No, we can't.)

I got a laugh out of the headline, it's funny, Crysis saw a 7% improvement over it's play with regular SLI, with THRI-SLI

what? 7%?
Its was around a 30% increase with old drivers(169.09), with 169.13 its almost 50%; goes up the higher the resolution. not optimal but not 7%

 

[the_carrot]

The headline for this anandtech article says it all:
NVIDIA's 3-way SLI: Can we finally play Crysis? [http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3183]

Seems to me, speaking as a professional software developer and computer scientist, that Crytek needs a lesson on the Pareto principle [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optimization_%28computer_science%29].

Ok, maybe that was a bit harsh, but anyways.

(Oh, and to answer the question in that headline if you can't be bothered: No, we can't.)

I got a laugh out of the headline, it's funny, Crysis saw a 7% improvement over it's play with regular SLI, with THRI-SLI

what? 7%?
Its was around a 30% increase with old drivers(169.09), with 169.13 its almost 50%; goes up the higher the resolution. not optimal but not 7%

Well according to anandtech the third video card added about 7%

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3183&p=3

 

[burnin8r]

I've not seen UT3 yet, but I'm not too impressed with the other games I've seen using that engine.

Last time I checked, most people were pretty impressed with BioShock, everyone except you I suppose. I should also add that the complaints regarding Gears of War on the PC seem to be focused on the muted color scheme which is a function of the development team trying to evoke a cold, futuristic environment rather than the limitations of the game engine itself. So I have to ask: is your opinion of UE3 based on anything achored in reality or do you just close your eyes and type the first random thought that comes to mind ?

 

[mGoLos]

Sir,

I take issue with your claim and believe you are a knob ...

No, just kidding, I watched some more of yahtzee just now and that guy sticks in my head for some reason. First of all, try not to compare half-life to anything because it doesn't. There is no serious competetor for the title of greatest game ever. Secondly, world of warcraft doesn't compare to games because it's not a game, it's work, basically one big grind aimed at a very specific type of person, i.e an obsessive nerd and/or anyone with an addictive personality who'd like to try, i.e me but luckily I hated it.

Crysis sold badly because people pirated it or lacked the hardware to play it. The same goes for the new UT. The simplest possible explanation is usually the correct one and I think this may be the case here.

I wonder what Jericho sold, lol.

 

[p1ne]

And UT3, hell, I didn't even notice the damn thing had been released. It seemed incredibly under hyped. Relatively, I mean.

maybe you live under a rock, there was plenty of press devoted to the demo in october.

I should also add that I bought UT3 on release day and have been playing vehicle capture the flag daily in 24 - 32 player games. I see no shortage of servers nor gamers actively playing the various gameplay modes. It may not have sold in astronomical numbers but there are plenty of players supporting it.

Actually I agree with teh_pwning_dude here, though I resent him for making me type his name. UT3 didn't really advertise at all, especially compared to the other FPS titles it was up against this season. Nobody heard/knew about it and consequently it was the last game on most peoples' FPS to-buy list.

Your second point is kind of true; you can usually find a game, but if you look at gamespy stats UT3 is doing pretty poorly. It oscillates between about 200 and 1000 players daily, depending on the time of day (it's highest when the euros are playing... they've always liked UT more than us North Americans). As an online game it should survive because of how dedicated the base community is. Still, I don't expect it to grow much because realistically sales are never going to pick up. The only chance we have is if Epic adds/changes/fixes a bunch of stuff and re-releases it next year like they did with UT2004.

PS, everyone buy UT3 if you like fast-paced online shooters. It's fun and our community needs more players.


For a really complete and well-balanced review of the game, which doesn't address why it sold poorly but you can pretty much extrapolate from the base facts, try reading this:

http://www.beyondunreal.com/content/articles/220_1.php

I know it's an Unreal fansite, but they actually review it a little LOWER than some others have and the reviewers in general have a much more complete understanding of the game. Be warned, it's long.

ps - can you tell I'm a fan of the series (just at little bit)?

 

[the_carrot]

I play it, though only sometimes. TF2 has sucked me in a good bit. I want to play ctf lighthouse and ctf tornado though, but they take forever to download, and I don't seem to be saving the files, every time I go back they download the same files to my comp, it's a pain.

 

[Vigormortis]

You're giving Epic and Crytek WAY too much credit. (especially Epic, talentless bastards)

Hey now, you're being a bit unfair.
Jazz Jackrabbit was one of the most awesome games ever created for the PC.

LOL. touche, good sir.

 

[Axulciex]

Am I the only person in the free world who ran Crysis on Very High with 8x QAA at 1600x1200 flawlessly?

Those people saying they can't max it on their uber machines - what is wrong with your system? I'm currently running a GeForce 8800GTX, AMD X2 6000+ with 2Gb of RAM. I've been hearing storeis of people with better processors and 2 of my graphics card having trouble with it on High. These people have some serious issues with their system setups or have no idea that there is no perceptable difference between 16x antialiasing and 8x antialiasing apart from the 20fps framerate drop.

I thought Crysis brought a few fun gameplay elements to the table and had as much depth as one can expect from an FPS (HL2 being the exception to that). Seems the people bitching about the game as a whole are just butthurt that they can't run it on very high. Give it a go on medium, you might like it.

Sorry, your lying... or your standards are extremely low.
There is currently no system on the planet that can run Crysis flawlessly on all settings very high, and thats official as well. Video cards just aren't advanced enough to cope with the load dx10 puts on them, Dx10 is designed to take load off the cpu because of upcoming gpu tech. You can tweak the dx9 version to display almost all of the dx10 effects/detail, and it will still run a little choppy on the beefiest systems.

I've spent much time benchmarking crysis on a variety of systems, including one almost identical to yours. It runs awesome in a hybrid of custom settings, with EdgeAA not FSAA which is much better looking and faster too. The VH settings run barley playable, but far from flawless. Custom tweaked settings offer an almost identical visual quality at more than double the fps.

 

[stevesan]

(Completely uninformed opinion. Feel free to ignore)

Crysis represents everything I loathe with the gaming industry. As you said carrot, it's a techdemo. Speaking as a gamer who doesn't consider himself hardcore (is less than an hour of GH3 and GunpeyDS a day Hardcore?), I can't see the appeal.

We had terms for these things back in the nineties. Doom Clones.

Crysis is a Doom Clone. Oh sure it's a Doom Clone where I can run through a forest and see which way I came, but in all honesty does that actually come up as a game mechanic? Maybe if I wasn't playing a cyborg who can soak up bullets like a sponge does water, or if I was a guerilla veteran ala-Rambo style sneaking up on people trying to avoid stepping on dry twigs...

Actually that'd be a good use of Valve and Crytek's engines. Imagine a game where you have to survive by jungle fighting your way into an enemy base, digging pit traps and laying snares (using physics engines for a think other than see-saw puzzles), scrounging up ammunition, covering your tracks. Where you're vastly outnumbered and a single shot against you has a good chance of ending your guerilla existance.

I'd pay for a computer upgrade to get that. Someone! Make FarCry 2 like that and I swear I'd buy it!

that sounds like a cool game. the closest i know of to what you describe is MGS3: Snake Eater. that game really made me feel like i was just crawling around the jungle trying to survive against all odds. one of my fav games of all time (altho, you need to play it European Extreme mode - which is hard..but if you don't play it on that mode, the game's not that fun).

 

[stevesan]

Am I the only person in the free world who ran Crysis on Very High with 8x QAA at 1600x1200 flawlessly?

Those people saying they can't max it on their uber machines - what is wrong with your system? I'm currently running a GeForce 8800GTX, AMD X2 6000+ with 2Gb of RAM. I've been hearing storeis of people with better processors and 2 of my graphics card having trouble with it on High. These people have some serious issues with their system setups or have no idea that there is no perceptable difference between 16x antialiasing and 8x antialiasing apart from the 20fps framerate drop.

I thought Crysis brought a few fun gameplay elements to the table and had as much depth as one can expect from an FPS (HL2 being the exception to that). Seems the people bitching about the game as a whole are just butthurt that they can't run it on very high. Give it a go on medium, you might like it.

you may be right, but it's irrelevant to sales. the general perception (which is all that matters) is that Crysis has very high system requirements. and the marketing for the game hasn't done much to change that.

maybe you should join Crytek's marketing department and start a "actually, it runs pretty good on a reasonable machine!" ad campaign or something.

 

[stevesan]

as for UT3, it sounds like the demo was unimpressive and the game didn't get much advertising anyway. like, there was no press release about any new features UT3 would bring to the table. even the annual Madden release has a host of new features that they advertise a lot..

 

[stevesan]

I agree with Axulciex, everyone is being too harsh on Crysis. Calling it a mere 'tech demo' is entirely untrue. You can get a PC for around £600 these days which will be able to play Crysis with a good FPS. And the level design, cutscenes, and even the story - some of the detail of it - is some of the best I've ever seen in a game. After all, what FPS has a storyline that doesn't involve shooting aliens/monsters/people?
There is a simple reason for console games outselling PC games; marketing. Consoles are mass-market; they are cheap and simple to use. Games cost a lot more on consoles, however, than they do on PC - the major console games often cost about £50 while PC games cost around £25, half of that. But look at Halo 3 - Microsoft poured thousands upon thousands into marketing what is essentially an average game, but it still becomes one of the best selling games of all time. I'll wager with anyone that if COD4 was a PC-only game, it wouldn't be half as well-known as it currently is.

well, people being too harsh on Crysis is a sign that Crytek/EA failed in their marketing. it's a damn shame, cuz it looks like Crysis has some creative gameplay.

and you say you can buy a $600 machine today to play it... ok, that's certainly better than a $5000 alienware machine. but, jesus christ man, that's still $600! fuck that.