PC Game News

Crysis, the poster child for modern PC gaming and DirectX 10, will arrive shortly. Crytek has tortured us for years with screenshots and short hands-on experiences showing off the game’s wide-open world, with picturesque tropical battlegrounds, perfect for sipping Mai Tais or peppering random bad guys with automatic rifle fire. Crytek released the single-player demo late last week, and we set up a few test systems to see just how the game looks under Windows Vista compared to Windows XP. We also took some in-game benchmarks to see how the frame rates compare in DirectX 9 and DirectX 10.

Read More & View the Comparison by Sarju Shah @ Gamespot RIGHT HERE.

The Crysis demo has proven to be a huge taskmaster on even the highest end PC hardware but this post on the fan site Crysis Online has a tip that will make Windows XP users of the Crytek first person shooter happy:

If you tweak the configuration files in \CVarGroups\ by copying and pasting the “very high” settings (1st paragraph) IN PLACE of the “high” settings (last paragraph) the game will load the highest possible settings even though the drop-down menus display “high.”

The difference between “high” settings and the tweaked settings is immense: shadows are deeper, more realistic; the leaves have better reflective properties, better textures; the colours are better; and the level of detail is simply stunning.

With these settings I’m running the game between 15-25 FPS at 1440×900 and (wait for it) 8x AA, and it looks PERFECT. Best of all, this is in XP

{Thanks! BluesNews!}

Let the speculation come to an end! EA and Crytek are announcing today the minimum and recommended system specifications for the highly anticipated first person shooter Crysis.

Featuring some of the most jaw dropping visuals in a game on any platform, Crysis will not only be pushing the boundaries of all of the latest technologies like DX10, Nvidia’s GeForce 8800 series GPUs and Intel’s Core 2 CPUs, but will also be playable on gaming rigs up to 2-3 years old from the game’s November 16, 2007 ship date.

“Our vision for Crysis has always been to create the most stunning, immersive FPS experience ever, and we’ve been working hard not only to do that on the high end, but also in pushing current generation hardware so that everyone gets the maximum experience,” said Cevat Yerli, CEO of Crytek. “And while these specs affect how Crysis will perform now, we have also optimized Crysis so that the game scales forward 1-2 years –we want to make sure that Crysis’ gameplay, visuals and performance improves as technology does.”

Here are the minimum and recommended system requirements from Crytek and EA:

Minimum System Requirements

OS – Windows XP or Windows Vista
Processor – 2.8 GHz or faster (XP) or 3.2 GHz or faster* (Vista)
Memory – 1.0 GB RAM (XP) or 1.5 GB RAM (Vista)
Video Card – 256 MB**
Hard Drive – 12GB
Sound Card – DirectX 9.0c compatible

* Supported Processors: Intel Pentium 4 2.8 GHz (3.2 GHz for Vista) or faster, Intel Core 2.0 GHz (2.2 GHz for Vista) or faster, AMD Athlon 2800+ (3200+ for Vista) or faster.

** Supported chipsets: NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT or greater; ATI Radeon 9800 Pro (Radeon X800 Pro for Vista) or greater. Laptop versions of these chipsets may work but are not supported. Integrated chipsets are not supported. Updates to your video and sound card drivers may be required.

Recommended System Requirements

OS – Windows XP / Vista
Processor – Intel Core 2 DUO @ 2.2GHz or AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+
Memory – 2.0 GB RAM
GPU – NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS/640 or similar

We step onto the USS Hornet for more face time with the biggest PC game of the rest of the year. Eight new HD gameplay videos and new screens included!

We’ve been waiting for the longest time to get more good hands on time with Crysis and as it approaches release, we’re finally getting the time we’ve been hoping for. Yeah, it was in an unusual place aboard the U.S.S. Hornet retired aircraft carrier, but it turned out to be fitting when the second multiplayer map, one of the intant action maps called Armada, was set on an aircraft carrier itself. We also got to check out a new Power Struggle multiplayer map called Refinery and get more hands on time with a single player mission taking on the North Koreans. Now we’re just ready for the game to be done so that we can get our hands on the final. Crysis, at the very least, is playing like a wildcat at this point. Whether it ends up being the best shooter of the year, well, we’ll have to see.

Read the Entire Preview By Dan Adams @ IGN, RIGHT HERE.

Gaming Heaven’s Crysis Q&A offers a conversation with Cevat Yeril, discussing the upcoming shooter with the Crytek CEO. The interview discusses the difference between the DX9 and DX10 editions of the game, destructable environments, system specs, why they are sticking with the PC platform, the game’s new weapons system, and more.