GPU Shoot-Out – Part II – Setting New Benches
Crysis
Now we move on to Crysis. It is the most demanding game released to date for any PC. Crysis is a sci-fi first person shooter by Crytek and published by Electronic Arts, November, 2007 worldwide and is the first game of a planned trilogy. Crysis is based in a fictional near-future where an ancient alien spacecraft is discovered buried on an island near the coast of Korea. The single-player campaign has you assume the role of USA Delta Force, Jake Dunn – referred to as ‘Nomad’ in the game. He is armed with various futuristic weapons and equipment, including a “Nano Suit” which enables the player to perform extraordinary feats, battling both extra-terrestrial and North Korean enemies, in four different locations. Crysis uses DirectX10 for graphics rendering, and includes the same editor that was used by Crytek to create it.
A standalone but related game, Crysis Warhead was released in September, 2008. It is notable for providing a similar graphical experience to Crysis, but with less graphical demands on the PC. We will eventually add it to our benchmarking. CryEngine2 is the game engine used to power Crysis and Warhead. It is an extended version of the CryEngine that powers FarCry. That same original CryEngine also became the basis for the Dunia Engine that powers Ubisoft’s FarCry2, a less demanding game engine.
As well as supporting Shader Model 2.0, 3.0, and DirectX10’s 4.0, CryEngine2 is multi-threaded to take advantage of SMP aware systems. Crysis also comes in 32-bit and 64-bit versions and Crytek has developed their own proprietary physics system, called CryPhysics. There are three built-in demos that are very reliable in comparing video card performance. However, it is noted that actually playing the game is a bit slower than the demo implies.
GPU Demo, Island
Here is Crysis’ Island Demo benchmarks, at 19×12 resolution, then 16×10:
From our uneven comparison to our last article’s Catalyst 8.8/GeForce 177.41 and e8600 at stock speeds, we can still see that your Crysis’ experience will benefit from a faster CPU – no matter what you have – and that crossfireX-3 still suffers from immature drivers.
