The phrase 'But can it play Crysis' needs updatng.

[ph0b0s123]

That phrase is a bit out of date as most PC's can now play Crysis fully. People were expecting the phrase to be replaced with 'but can it play Crysis 2', but that was not to be (until a patch arrives).

So the question is what should replace crysis in the phrase 'But can it play....'. What PC game out there is the benchmark you have to make sure any new build can play? And games with only DX 9 which overload systems due to being badly ported from consoles or badly optimised do not count. I'm looking at you GTA IV, etc.

From my experience I would say Metro 2033, as it was the most strenuous game I have used recently. I hear Dragon Age 2 is a bit of a beast a well.

What do you lot think?

Edit: And for those who not aware of this phrase.

It usually turns up in conversation as follows....

'I just built this new rig, it's super fast with this and that component'

'Ah, but can it run Crysis?'

An affirmative gets you some kudos, a negative gets you some ribbing about you system building boasting.

 

[Alfador_VII]

Actually the old Crysis was so poorly optimised that it STILL needs a mid to high-range PC to run it properly on high settings.

But yes, we now finally need a higher benchmark. DA2's not it, I've heard Metro 2033 is tough, but there must be something more taxing.

 

[Wierdguy]

Playing DragonAge2 on full settings without any problems on a "Could-be-newer" computer

 

[Skizle]

Honestly the most stressful game that I can put on my computer is Civ 5 with everything turned up and on the largest map. towards the end of the game I have to save at least every 5-10 turns or esle it will crash unexpectedly. Metro 2033 wasnt bad on mine, but I built my PC around a year ago and I had it so that it could run Dragon Age on the highest settings with no problem.

 

[Irridium]

We already lost the Duke Nukem jokes, now you want to take away the ones Crysis as well?

Come on man!

And I still think Crysis is a good indicator. Yeah lots of PC's can play it, but not a lot of people have the PC's that can play it fully.

 

[Roxor]

Why does it have to be a game?

Why not ask how fast it can render the POVRay benchmark scene? A 2.3GHz Athlon 64 can do it single-threaded in about 45 minutes.

 

[devotedsniper]

I got it "but it can play Final Fantasy XIV" that thing requires massive amounts of horsepower to play well, my pc plays everything on maximum (AA varies) but XIV...it struggles to play well on medium/standard and on the benchmark it barely passes, it barely passed with my old 260 and it still barely passes on the 460, good enough replacement phrase? xD

 

[ph0b0s123]

Why does it have to be a game?

Why not ask how fast it can render the POVRay benchmark scene? A 2.3GHz Athlon 64 can do it single-threaded in about 45 minutes.

Does that type of rendering have any type of GPU involvement ( most don't), or is purely about your CPU speed / cores. Games normally get used for this as they load a lot of different components to destruction rather that the few rendering does....

I got it "but it can play Final Fantasy XIV" that thing requires massive amounts of horsepower to play well, my pc plays everything on maximum (AA varies) but XIV...it struggles to play well on medium/standard below on the benchmark it barely passes, it barely passed with my old 260 and it still barely passes on the 460, good enough replacement phrase? xD

Smells like a non optimised console port to me, since it only supports DX 9 and still needs all that power. That is unless the PC version offers more graphical features than the standard more resolution than on the console version....

 

[devotedsniper]

It's pc only, it's an mmo meaning lots and lots of high res characters running all over the place lol.

 

[DTWolfwood]

kinda of unfortunate that there aren't any noticeable game out that can fully push the GPUs.

Personally i'd go with Shogun 2: Total War.

My computer ran Metro2033 on max settings and 1920x1200 with no problems or framerate drop. but Shogun2 with Ultra unit size and in battles of 6000 units on screen or more, the game slows to a crawl when the battle starts.

Then again having lots of units on screen animated is more a CPU stress test than a GPU one right?

 

[The Lugz]

if you want a good benchmark, go download age of Conan and stick all the details to utter max and stand in any highly dense forest, then look at a distant mountain, voila you have crippled even a decent gaming pc.
one of my friends did that and was shocked to find he only got 33 fps with his 480 sli / i7 rig all pimped out

it is a pretty game, but it has crysis issues with dense flora and long view distances killing the performance

i doubt it's the most intensive game around by far though

if you really want a test the future-mark dx11 sub scene is maddening too.

 

[Roxor]

Why does it have to be a game?

Why not ask how fast it can render the POVRay benchmark scene? A 2.3GHz Athlon 64 can do it single-threaded in about 45 minutes.

Does that type of rendering have any type of GPU involvement ( most don't), or is purely about your CPU speed / cores. Games normally get used for this as they load a lot of different components to destruction rather that the few rendering does....

POVRay v3.7 beta RC3 supports multi-threaded rendering, but I strongly suspect we'll have to wait for v4.0 for OpenCL support.

 

[devotedsniper]

Depends on the game for something like shogun (thats an RTS i believe?) it would be more CPU, but for XIV it would be more GPU since every player has there own customized look and different armor. The only game i've come across lately which stresses my computer other than XIV is APB Reloaded which is basically the same as XIV lots of unique characters and cars everywhere, explosions and such but even then the only thing which affects me on that is the out of memory issue which plagued it back in the original before it got shut down. so my votes still XIV or maybe metro 2033 (if i remember right that ran on medium on my 260, i should try it on my 460)

 

[Sensenmann]

Actually the old Crysis was so poorly optimised that it STILL needs a mid to high-range PC to run it properly on high settings.

This. DX9 has been in such long use now, it shouldn't be "My pc can run X", it should be "Our engine can support X"

 

[Zantos]

When they can run astrophysical simulations, that's how we make or break the PCs at uni.

 

[ph0b0s123]

My computer ran Metro2033 on max settings and 1920x1200 with no problems or framerate drop. but Shogun2 with Ultra unit size and in battles of 6000 units on screen or more, the game slows to a crawl when the battle starts.

You were running the game in DX 11 mode without turning anything down (AA at 4xMMSA, tesselation on, Adv DOF on and very high quality setting) and had a frame rate always over 35 FPS? What kind of system do you have?

 

[DTWolfwood]

My computer ran Metro2033 on max settings and 1920x1200 with no problems or framerate drop. but Shogun2 with Ultra unit size and in battles of 6000 units on screen or more, the game slows to a crawl when the battle starts.

You were running the game in DX 11 mode without turning anything down and had a frame rate always over 35 FPS?

hmm i might have been running it on Dx9c come to think of it

 

[GrizzlerBorno]

-snip-I hear Dragon Age 2 is a bit of a beast a well.

You've heard wrong my friend.....well, okay I guess it uses DX11. However(!).... still looks like shit, it does.

OT: Shattered Horizon. It was a game made by a company whose only other products are....wait for it....benchmarking software. The game was essentially that as well. I don't know for sure whether it still holds up, but I wouldn't bet against it.