A very Jenga-esque Crysis physics demonstration
by Griffin McElroy 
{ Dec 16th 2007 at 2:45PM }
We wonder if there's a psychological condition associated with our fascination in watching things fall down in video games. It started out harmlessly enough, with the popularization of the Gmod (and the Rube Goldberg machines that followed), then picked up steam with the brief Oblivion dominoes trend, but a recent video showing the various things you can do with 3,000 barrels in Crysis is the pièce de résistance in this eccentric genre.
We can't stop fantasizing about what crude oil masterpieces we'd like to construct and demolish -- if only we were typing this on a sleek, gaming-centric rig, and not our trusty Performa 5200.
[Via Kotaku]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
ill trooper @ Dec 16th 2007 2:53PM
I was hoping for a 'Jumanji-esque' physics demonstration...
Lone Starr @ Dec 16th 2007 3:41PM
I'm not sure even Crysis could handle all of Robin Williams' sweat.
Jerk Face @ Dec 16th 2007 6:30PM
@Lone Starr
LOL (+)
ill trooper @ Dec 16th 2007 7:25PM
...even the most powerful videocards might chuff a little rendering all that knuckle and arm hair!
Gabriel MTL @ Dec 16th 2007 3:08PM
Ah! Performa 5200... 75 mhz of pure glory. It also had some sort of «hardware acceleration» chip, that the Marathon series used. It was the best machine for it!
DaiMac79 @ Dec 16th 2007 7:22PM
Actually, in my experience the LC 575/580 worked a little better for Marathon lan games, not because it was more powerful but because the OS it ran (usually 7.x) was not quite as RAM hungry as the Performa/LC 52xx computers 8.x systems. Also the onboard HW acceleration for both machines was functionally the same.
ogvor @ Dec 16th 2007 3:17PM
This one is pretty cool, but I think this video is better. Plus the music is synced up for cool effect, like some kind of Crates: The Music Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaHS-y_mapQ
BananaBoat @ Dec 16th 2007 3:24PM
It should be noted that these videos are nowhere close to real time, but they sure are shiny. I downloaded the demo yesterday to see if my rig could handle it, and the first thing I did was test out the "Tac Launcher", and I must say....holy crap is it realistic. Then I shot the tactical tank too close and the ensuing blast destroyed me + all of the surrounding buildings and vehicles. Even if the blast goes off wayyyyy in the distance, you still feel it. Whoever modeled it in, is a freaking genius.
Getting 20fps on high/no AA/720p. Game is a beast.
Anticrawl @ Dec 16th 2007 3:26PM
That was truely impressive. Now why doesn't the developers of the Crytech engine think of something like this to show the world how impressive their engine and game is?
Showing me videos of the main character walking through the game killing and knocking over trees doesn't do justice for how awesome the engine is and by extension the game(probably).
Maybe had I seen something like this from the mainstream press or the company I would have taken a second glance at Crysis, because the initial videos weren't interesting enough to warrent a deeper search on the game or it's engine.
B1gC72 @ Dec 16th 2007 4:42PM
yea i agree. im much more impressed with this than any other Crysis video ive seen and this isnt even official. my other reaction was just "ooo, look at the pretty graphics" but to that video it's like "damn, that is a beast of an engine they have there!".
those physics are ridiculously realistic. i think that HD graphics, great physics, and motion controls will be what this generation is remembered the most for.
Desco @ Dec 18th 2007 4:42PM
What crappy physics!!!
Not even talking about that weird tornado thing-- within the first 20 seconds, you've got 3000 barrels stacked in a 10x10 un-filled square, meaning the is 83 barrels high. And the main character can walk up to the second-from-the-bottom barrel and just easily snatch it out??? The weight of 81 barrels, even empty, would be enormous, and the downward pressure on those bottom barrels would be so great that removing one would be a very difficult task. Am I to believe a "great physics engine" doesn't implement any friction??
Even if you were able to manage to remove one cleanly without tilting the stack, the falling stack would not have that great of an effect on the other 99 stacks because of the downward pressure from the weight of the barrels and the friction between them. Seriously. Go ahead and try it. Stack film canisters or cans of Mountain dew or something in a similar fashion.
And that second one? He threw a rock at it? (I assume it wasn't a grenade or other explosive because of the lack of explosion) It hit one of the middle drums in one of the middle stacks. Assuming an above-average human could actually throw a very large rock that far, it hit within the bottom few rows, it would probably only create a nice GONNNG sound. I guess it could, though not likely, sway a little, knock into a neighboring stack, causing that one to do the same in a chain reaction domino effect. But this video shows an immediate disruption of the entire bottom layer, and of course the cascading layers down from above. The force required to create this kind of disruption would require quite a big boulder to overcome the friction caused by the 80+ drums above.
Yes, it's cool, it's impressive, and the inertia and collision physics are very well done. But how a game that is supposed to be so advanced and so accurately modeled allows such an impossible action to start this is beyond me.
Abscissa @ Dec 16th 2007 3:29PM
Considering that it requires a practical supercomputer to run, I'm not particularly impressed. Let me know when someone does that on a *normal* computer.
lexx0 @ Dec 16th 2007 4:45PM
too bad crysis only requires a 500$ computer to run decently, and for a $1000, which isn't that bad for a decent pc anymore, you can run crysis on nearly full settings. Not really a supercomputer, bucko.
B1gC72 @ Dec 16th 2007 4:46PM
well itll be the normal computer 2 years from now. but yea right now, you have to sell yours house to afford a PC to play this beast.
Jeff @ Dec 16th 2007 5:04PM
Seriously. I hate when people act like advancements in technology matter. Frigging idiots. Technology only matters if mommy's computer can run it! When are people gonna learn!
jsn @ Dec 16th 2007 5:34PM
just built a rig for my buddy that runs this game like butter. Q6600, 8800gt, 2gb ddr2, everything else, $1100.
Zeus the God @ Dec 16th 2007 6:35PM
Just rebuilt my computer for 1000 bucks (thats the computer, not the monitor, which is a 22" 1680x1050 widescreen) for 1000 bucks and I can run the Crysis demo on all high settings at 1680x1050 and 4x AA and still get 30-40 FPS. Maybe even very high if I had Vista.
Slaziman (B-B-BRUSHED WITH FAAAAME) @ Dec 16th 2007 7:11PM
Haha, no, Vista runs your FPS into the ground.
Google around, you can get Very High settings in XP via some glitch
dustandechoes91 @ Dec 16th 2007 3:29PM
the crates video is much better.
Kyattsuai @ Dec 16th 2007 3:35PM
This looks like the trailer for Donkey Kong Galaxy.
tmacairjordan87 @ Dec 16th 2007 6:36PM
yeah maybe in 100 years when nintendo finally catches up to those graphics
rv @ Dec 16th 2007 7:48PM
What would that need? 100 gamecubes duct taped together?
LordMinogue @ Dec 16th 2007 3:37PM
About 4 years ago I saw collision detection software demonstrated with a 1/4 mile tall stack of falling deck chairs (1 million chairs, I think).
That video had been crunched by a rendering farm. Now a high end desktop can run a similar demonstration in real time!
BananaBoat @ Dec 16th 2007 5:08PM
It's not real time. It's shot with fraps at about 1 fps, and then sped up to 30 after the fact. I was fooled too at first, (well, not fooled, the guy that did it clearly explains how he did it, and that it's not real time). It's still an amazing example of what the engine can do, even if it can only do it at 1 fps.
Ghen @ Dec 16th 2007 8:04PM
I'd like to see if a phys-x card would make any difference here. step on it AGEIA!
Lucky @ Dec 16th 2007 3:44PM
3000 barrles? That must be one BEAST of a rig.
NitroFrost @ Dec 16th 2007 3:49PM
That awesome looks amazing to bad I don't have the money for a comp that can run that
Joshua @ Dec 16th 2007 3:51PM
I haven't been following Crysis closely. I had no IDEA the engine was capable of graphics and physics that realistic, on just a desktop (I know it must be an insanely high-end one, but still).
I am very impressed.
NitroFrost @ Dec 16th 2007 3:52PM
I just finished the vid but what the hell he never shot them.
Sean @ Dec 16th 2007 4:04PM
It's not realtime though. The video is sped up afterwards.
Ian @ Dec 16th 2007 4:18PM
That's a really cool video. I remember watching the barrel half life 2 tech demo vid. shame this vid has possibly the worst music I have ever heard.
ThePunisher @ Dec 16th 2007 5:29PM
Its not run in real time.
There is a command that saves each rendered frame at a set rate of how ever many frames per second, saves each frame as a .jpg, which can then be compiled into these ultra shiny videos :)
Ranus Studios @ Dec 16th 2007 4:26PM
I am jealous of that man's computer.
I am not jealous, however, of his taste in music.
Evan @ Dec 16th 2007 4:36PM
I hope they port this to console because I cannot afford a computer that could run Crysis. The game looks sweet.
jp @ Dec 16th 2007 6:26PM
i dont see how they could afford not to port it. the game hasnt been selling well considering you need an awesome computer to run it.
if they do port it, it will be a first day buy for me.
Mushroom @ Dec 16th 2007 4:47PM
Reminded me of Killer 7's blood explosions.
Manax @ Dec 16th 2007 4:54PM
Man thats intense, always with the metal....
James @ Dec 16th 2007 5:02PM
It's a thing for Youtube people to use heavy metal?
eldee @ Dec 16th 2007 5:05PM
just because they're not realtime on your system doesn't mean they're not realtime on somebody else's system.
getting a little tired of everybody projecting their 'crysis experience' as the best performance you could hope to expect. nine times out of ten the person complaining is trying to run it at max resolution on windows vista with a GF6800.. so yeah.
eldee @ Dec 16th 2007 5:05PM
that was in reply to BananaBoat.. joystiq's reply system is awesome!
BananaBoat @ Dec 16th 2007 5:10PM
Noone is applying their experience to this video. The creator clearly states that it isn't real time, and general logic would tell you that no computer short of a farm could run this at anything close to real time.
I agree though, alot of people do bitch about the game running slow, when they are trying to run it with 4x AA on High/ 1080p. No wonder their experience is crap since their expectations are far too high.
Slaziman (B-B-BRUSHED WITH FAAAAME) @ Dec 16th 2007 7:20PM
I settled for 1024x768 and 2xAA, and it looks beautiful.
ThornedVenom @ Dec 16th 2007 5:10PM
Holy fuck..... videogame technology now officially creeps me out.
It's at moments like these when you actually start wondering if it's really possible to push the graphics department even further.
Just_a_guy @ Dec 16th 2007 6:18PM
how would this work on a medium spec mac pro with bootcamp?
Just_a_guy @ Dec 16th 2007 6:18PM
errrr,make that a macboook pro.....
Shagittarius @ Dec 16th 2007 6:26PM
Macs suck.
Just_a_guy @ Dec 16th 2007 6:48PM
the point I was trying to make was this: was there ANY laptop out there which could run Crysis smoothly (as the macbook pro got #1 vista laptop from pcworld...)
ThornedVenom @ Dec 16th 2007 7:00PM
Promoting Mac AND Vista on a gaming blog?
DOUBLE FAIL.
Jeff @ Dec 16th 2007 7:14PM
There was actually another Laptop that had been released prior to that statement, but not yet reviewed. They amended that statement afterwards.
And best for Vista, and best for gaming are too separate things. In fact, since Vista is basically AIDS to gaming...
But yeah, there are laptops with SLI 8-series graphics cards. And since the screens are generally small, and thus low-res, they don't have to have as much power to run it.
DaiMac79 @ Dec 16th 2007 7:37PM
Ignore Shag, he's a troll-bred moron.
The real question is which video does your MBP have, but is should be ok either way if you have the 8600M. Here is a thread that lists some actual performance numbers and such: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=139270&page=6
But yeah, Vista or XP the MBP is one of the best gaming laptops out there at the moment, and performance testing backs that up. I'm sure there are multiple-vid systems out there that outclass that, but for pound for pound its a nice machine.