The Official Graphics Card and PC gaming Thread

As far as I know, Crysis: Warhead was done directly in-house by Crytek. It's supposed to run parallel to the events of the first game. They're making some engine fixes and improving the graphics. It's out now. I will have it today.

EDIT: I have it. Look for a mini review in the next few days.

 

Sounds good - so it's a whole new game?? Or the sequel??

 

neither really, it's parallel to the story of the other game.

 

Okay, first impressions.

First off, the haze that covered up some of the pretty textures is gone. Everything looks sharper and more defined. Shadows have been fixed, IMO and look very nice on the default high setting. Very high settings are available in Dx9 now. So it's everything except the few Dx10 only features. I think we still may need a custom config for it though. All of the actual very high settings kill my framerate.

The performance is slightly improved. But nothing like I hoped for. I'm getting +2-3FPS on average on high settings. There are fewer noticeable framerate drops though and 30FPS feels even smoother now. I had no problem playing at even 17FPS. The game does feel much better optimized. They also made the foliage much thicker and added way more of it. The game looks better than Crysis for sure. There is some noticeable pop-in on smaller objects though. Apparently one of their optimizations.

EDIT:

They also tweaked the power of weapons and the AI as to balance out the game. The SCAR is much more powerful now but the KPA troops are faster, move around more, and take cover better. Also, the SCAR has been re-textured and has a cool new digital camo pattern on it. The FY71 has been retextured as well with an olive drab. Both retextures are a marked improvement.

The HDR is noticeably redone a bit to slightly over expose which helps a lot to hide foliage fade-in. Plus they fixed some of the physics bugs I saw in the first game. Warhead is noticeably more stable physics wise.

Furthermore, vehicles handle much better an can make sharper turns. There is a new armored(bullet proof) APC with a mounted mini gun too

Other stuff abound. A few new weapons, like a mounted anti armor gun and the like. When you get in a vehicle it automatically gives you the 3rd person view so you don't have to hit F1.

The game is a bit more linear than Crysis. It noticeably pushes you toward an objective, but you still have the freedom to tackle it any way you want. Much of the world remains open and full of things to explore.

Give it a look all. Buy it now. Not a huge increase in performance, but a marked overall improvement over Crysis.

 

Expecting much more of a performance increase than that wasn't really going to happen, DX10 features run at half the frame rate of the DX9 High ones, so 17 is pretty reasonable for an HD4870 at 1920x1200.

 

I'm aware of that. The high default settings look decent for now. And my framerate is hovering around 34-35 in most situations.

Read the edit on my last post. I've added more just now.

 

do shaders still look utter crap on low and very dark?

 

Lol why would you use Low? Even on an HD3870 I could run the original more demanding crysis at 2560x1600 on low shaders, even during the latter sections...

 

just saying

shaders at vhigh look fan bloody tastic, and this is from crappy youtube videos, i cant wait to play it in real life.

i dont play games unless i can max em out (cod4 i could max out at 1280 when i had that monitor, and its so addictive online (over 800 hours played) that its an exeption).

btw with my customer build i used an 9800GT and i got vegas 2 with it i love free gifts

 

I don't even use low but I bet it still looks crap.

There are dual SMGs too DD And the armored APC is amphibious I think... it certainly looks the part.

Don't get me wrong folks. This is stock CryEngine through and through. It hasn't been improved by leaps and bounds. But they've added loads of subtle little changes that I think improve on the original.

EDIT: Lighting, though a bit overexposed, is noticeably improved. The color is warmer and the tree canopy shadows are better. Also, silenced weapons are useful now and it doesn't require a head shot every time. The dual SMGs have a high rate of fire and are surprisingly powerful when silenced.

Warhead also takes more RAM. I'm seeing 1.1GB as we speak vs maybe 850MB for the original.

The AI is very good now. They scatter and run into the woods when you attack their bases. And they actually seem to know how to hide in the bushes.

And there's noticeably more wildlife everywhere. I even spotted a few deer. It makes the whole game feel more natural.

As a whole, Warhead "feels" much better and much more natural than Crysis.

 

kill the deer for food

we shoudl call this the official graphics card and PC gaming thread.

 

Maybe we should. You can't talk about one and not talk about the other.


The performance increase is noticeable. I have better highs, but a similar average. I topped out at 40 running through the jungle. They use HDR and bloom to kind of hide the outside when you go into a dark stand of trees or when you first walk into an open field. So everything is much smoother now with only a slight decrease in overal visual detail. But this is made up for easily by all the other improvements. This is how Crysis should have been to begin with.


Th verdict so far is...

Crysis

Gameplay: 9/10
Graphics: 8/10
Performance: 4.5/10

Overall: 8/10

Crysis: Warhead

Gameplay: 9/10
Graphics: 10/10(IMO)
Performance: 5/10

Overall: 9/10

Warhead isn't much different. But there are enough graphical improvements, performance boosts, and bug fixes to call it a decent overall improvement. I'll at least go so far to say, if you Can handle Crysis decently, Warhead can be expected to run at the same settings with a slight FPS boost. Any improvements at all were welcome.

 

Wow,

That's quite a thorough review for a relatively short amount of play time.

So what does the game cost? How are they marketing it? You said parallel, but I still don't quite get it. Will people who haven't played crysis (like me) get this one instead and not the original??

 

It's a different game than the original. Warhead tells the story from one of your squadmate's point of view. Get both as they're both worth it. I'd recommend you get the first one before Warhead. You will understand the story WAY better and you will get the full effect of all the improvements made in Warhead..

Warhead is supposed to be a bit shorter so it's only $30. I got mine for 29.95 +tax at Gamestop.

These are all improvements that jumped out at me right away because they fixed all the issues that bothered me before. I've had maybe an hour of play time in the last several hours. Enough to get a good impression at least.

 

so was this on DX10 enthusiast at 1920 with a stock 4870 and a 3.4 Q6600?

 

Nope I'm using Windows XP Dx9 with all high(gamer). But very high settings can now be selected in Dx9. I won't bother. It's still something I'll need crossfire for to even test it out decently.

Crysis was originally developed as a Dx9 native game. The Dx10 features are a few extra shaders in Very High that really don't add much. In the original Crysis, Very high can still be hacked so you get only the visual improvements. With this "cheap" very high, you get the light beams, parallax mapping, color grading and everything.

I don't think it's that much different to hack the "cheap" very high settings in Warhead. But the in-game very high settings kill my framerate. I'll try it tomorrow and report in

Overall though, the game is "prettier". Sam WILL notice the improvements instantly like I did.

 

As long as I don't enable AA performance is admirable on all high, but the 40% drop caused by enabling the very high hack (and 60% drop by doing it properly) will be a bit too much to make 2560 playable, and AA is out of the question.

 

lol 40%? The cheap very high hack gives maybe a 15-20% drop in performance. You might get say 25FPS instead of 30.

One thing that killed the realism for me: you automatically pick up ammo now. I thought scavenging the ammo from the ground and picking it up yourself was a cool feature

 

Well .... Nice! So now crysis is two games in one - more bang for the buck when the new build comes along. When did Shaff say the 7870 was coming? Oh, first the 5870, I forgot. Boozer says wait on the new build until Nehelem - will that be quad core?

 

ok guys educate me some here.. now remember i dont have the top end GPU you all have. and i have only been playing COD4 for a month or so now.

wlak me through these settings you all keep talking about..

AA??
HIGH default settings?? where do you make these changes at?

is this part of OCing the GPU or in the game?