Crysis 3 on midrange system

[Hammer_Time]

I am glad to see that Crysis 3 still has "consolitis" ( the disease that every new game has, that of being ported from a console!! ), this means I do not have to upgrade my system anytime soon.

System specs:

Intel Q9400 quad @ 3.35 Ghz
Asus P5KC
4 GB ( 2 x 2 GB ) G.Skill DDR-3 1333 Mhz ( running at stock speed )
EVGA GTX 560 Ti ( 850 Mhz stock, running 880 Mhz for games, no overvolting!! )
Latest nVidia driver WHQL for Crysis 3.
Acer 24" LCD ( 1900x1200 capable )

Gameplay:

I can play Crysis 3 smoothly on Very High settings at 1900x1200 with Vsync On, excepting the following settings:

Shadows: High ( instead of "Very High" )
Shading: High

Motion Blur: Low
Lens Flares: Off

AA: FXAA

Everything else is maxxed out including textures ( very high ). If I increase the four settings listed above, the game slows down in heavy scenes sometimes, and the very odd time crashes the game. With these settings above it does not slow down and no more crashing, and still quite stunning. This means I don't have to rush to upgrade my old gaming platform just yet... it is still "strong enough" to handle the latest games

While there is nothing staggeringly new about the plot, action or gameplay, I must say that visually this game is STUNNING...the reflections, lighting, water effects, textures... just awesome... prettiest game I have played yet. FarCry 3 also plays perfect on my system at very high settings, also gorgeous...some of the water effects in FC3 seem to even outdo the water effects in Crysis 3 ( or are on par at the very least ).

http://www.gamespot.com/news/crytek-cry ... ce-6404708

I can't wait for the new consoles to come out ( Xbox Durango/720/Next and PS4/Orbis ) , imagine how great the games will look then ( after being ported to/from next-gen consoles that is )!

PC gaming is starting to pick up again in terms of visual quality ( Crysis 3, FC 3 ) and in terms of gameplay ( FC3 ) , makes me excited to see what the future holds for pc gaming...

[clone]

Tech Report did a write up saying the same thing, nothing new on traditional elements but the game is beautiful to look at.

what's most impressive is that the team apparently learned from past mistakes or DX 10 / 11 is making it that much easier to improve visual fidelity.

[Hammer_Time]

Yep, here is the linky:

http://techreport.com/blog/24434/those- ... st-arrived

Tis a visual masterpiece ( so far ) of gaming eye candy!

We have come a long way since the original Call of Duty game ( 2003 ) :



Quake Arena III / id Tech 3 engine... was cutting edge back in its day...

10 years later we have CryEngine 3 and Crysis 3 !!

[Sauron_Daz]

They are only making us buy new and faster hardware every now and then..

[Hammer_Time]

Which is lucky for those of us on a budget!

[Sauron_Daz]

Because we get to buy second hand great stuff?

[Hammer_Time]

Not only that, but those of us on a budget can still get to enjoy premium gaming without having to spend a fortune on hw... any decent midrange system can run modern games at full eye candy settings at HD res ( or nearly maxxed out, depends on actual game and your system of course ). This is about the only benefit of "consolitis", besides games being held back by old consoles, I also hate the fact they use "autosaves" and you can no longer save your game whenever you want to in a difficult level, as you were able to do in past pc games... this is no longer the case and has not been for a long time, sadly...

However, if anyone would like to donate a GeForce Titan card to me, I would not refuse shipment of course!

[TAViX]

HT, use SMAA medium (even low) instead of FXAA. Same performance as FXAA but way better quality

[Sauron_Daz]

However, if anyone would like to donate a GeForce Titan card to me, I would not refuse shipment of course!

[Hammer_Time]

HT, use SMAA medium (even low) instead of FXAA. Same performance as FXAA but way better quality

Okay, will give it a go...

Edit: Okay, using SMAA medium quality now instead of FXAA and it does look slightly better on meshes etc. No noticeable performance hit. I just chose FXAA since it has very little performance hit... if I was rocking a GTX 580 or better I would never use FXAA , but when pushing max eye candy at HD resolution sometimes I have to dial back a bit on the AA settings to keep gameplay smooth... thanks for the tip!

[TAViX]

Hehe, game is good, but for me it got a little boring later. Same ol' same ol'.
I will let you judge the ending, lol!

[Hammer_Time]

Yep, same ol same ol when it comes to the gameplay itself, but damn it sure is GORGEOUS!!

I have a feeling this might be the last game of the Crysis series ( what else can they do with it?? ) but have been wrong before...

Back to playing now...

Edit: I forgot to mention that the game crashed early on at the "Cell Tower" mission, had to install the Crysis 3 game patch v 1.1 to allow it to continue ( this happened to everyone playing the original pc version , check the forums - tons of peepz complaining about game crashing no matter what settings were in use ). Patch fixed everything, all good now... ( as soon as you fire up multiplayer when playing a legit copy then the game will automatically patch itself ).

[Sauron_Daz]

Curious how they didn't encounter that bug during testing the game..