CryENGINE 3 ready for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360

by Andrew Yoon { Mar 11th 2009 at 9:09PM }

When Crytek, developers of Crysis, said they wanted to move into console development, they weren't kidding. The team announced their brand new graphics engine today, one that works on DirectX 9/10, PS3 and Xbox 360. The engine's scalability will allow developers to work on a variety of genres, such as action games and MMOs; however, in addition to focusing on the now, Crytek is touting their new engine is the only one designed for the next generation of gaming.

Carl Jones, director of business development, refuses to be humble about this announcement. "CryENGINE 3 will set the benchmark for complete game engine solutions in performance, and services to game engine licensees and their players," he touts. "We've been preparing a long time for CryENGINE on consoles and we're confident that Crytek will again amaze developers at GDC."

The business team will be available at GDC later this month to discuss licensing details. In addition, Crytek will undoubtedly showcase the new tech during public presentations at the show. We're interested in seeing if the new CryENGINE will be able to come close to replicating Crysis' incredible visuals on today's home consoles.

Tags: cryengine, cryengine-3, crytek, gdc, gdc-2009

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)

CH3BURASHKA @ Mar 11th 2009 9:12PM

This makes me cry!...
tears of joy!

Pakisoldier23 @ Mar 11th 2009 9:30PM

HEY

XGM @ Mar 11th 2009 11:05PM

This makes my aging gaming rig cry with tears of knowing it'll get replaced soon. Also its overheating with the thought of Crysis 2.

offday @ Mar 11th 2009 11:16PM

This isn't good news. This sucks.

Another new engine that will make millions of people's PCs worthless.

Source is the best. Let's just stick with that.

Tiptup300 @ Mar 11th 2009 11:30PM

offday, that's what you get for going oem.

ImSooFlye @ Mar 11th 2009 9:15PM

hopefully ill get to see a crysis on 360 or ps3 cause im not paying all that money to see that bitch maxed out lol and yes i kno it can be ran for cheap but whats the fun in that

Huey2k2 @ Mar 11th 2009 9:18PM

You can max out Crysis on a fairly cheap computer these days, stop spouting pure BS.

Huey2k2 @ Mar 11th 2009 9:28PM

Being voted down?

Wow the anti PC fanboys are out in full force today.

Cosmo @ Mar 11th 2009 9:36PM

Crysis on a PS3/360 will probably look like medium settings on the PC version, okay, not that great. It looks great at Very High in DX10 with full motion blur as I finally got the PC hardware to run that.

MuToiD_MaN @ Mar 11th 2009 9:40PM

you kno you can use commas an periods an shiz also capping first letters of ur sentences mite fool ppl into thinkin ur smarter lol but dont downvote me k

DeadRinger @ Mar 11th 2009 10:14PM

@Huey2k2

q6600 @ 3.0GHz
9800GX2 OC
8GB 800MHz Ram
Vista 64-Bit

I get anywhere from 15-25 FPS in crysis warhead With all settings maxed out ;_;

Calvin @ Mar 11th 2009 10:15PM

as far as the game goes, it's not all what's it's cracked up to be, it's just really pretty

Doug @ Mar 11th 2009 10:19PM

MutoidMan, you watch Zero Punctuation. That guy doesn't even use commas in his speech...

Game_playa @ Mar 11th 2009 10:22PM

@Huey2k2

q6600 @ 3.6GHz
48501GB OC to 650Mhz
4GB 1066MHz Ram
Vista 32-Bit(I know, I know, But it's all I had at the time I built it and I can't upgrade w/out losing all my stuff!)

I get 20-50FPS(35 avg) @1280*1024 so yeah..

Anticrawl @ Mar 11th 2009 10:34PM

It's already been proven that Crysis runs terribly because it's poorly coded. Crysis Warhead runs great on many machines though and looks just as good. My PC runs it on Enthusiast settings (highest setting) at 30+ fps with zero hickups. I just have a 9800 GTX, a P9500, 4gb DDR3 and a 7200rpm harddrive.

Anticrawl @ Mar 11th 2009 10:37PM

And of course most PC gamers have no idea how to optimize their machine and keep services bare bone for running games nor do they understand what bottlenecks are and that their setup has several flaws in it. That and proper drivers and chipsets help (which is another common problem the typical pc gamer has).

XGM @ Mar 11th 2009 11:12PM

@ Anticrawl

Yea i love amazing people with how high I can run stuff with my old rig. Its perfectly balanced with my internet being the only bottleneck XD, other then that tho I have modded drivers and some registery tweaks. Also I have about 19 processes, with the ability to drop to 14 if i really need power and about 110MB ram used with XP now.

Lennoko @ Mar 11th 2009 11:18PM

IF your getting 25 FPS with a GX2 and Q6600, there's something wrong going on here.

Xiphias @ Mar 12th 2009 10:49AM

@ anticrawl

what res you running that at? and dx9 or 10?
And I don't know what you're talking about with running processes being bottlenecks. With Crysis it's nearly always going to be the GFX. If you have a fast dual or quad and 4gb memory it will be your graphic card that makes the framerate dip, not how optimised the rest of your pc is...

Kmobs @ Mar 12th 2009 11:40PM

I run it at 50+ FPS Completely maxed out.

Core i7 @ 4ghz.
6 gigs of DDR 3 ram
GTX 295 @ 710/1548/1215

Persian @ Mar 12th 2009 11:42PM

Forgot to add that this is at 1920x1200 in DX10 mode.

tmacairjordan87 @ Mar 11th 2009 9:15PM

Excellent. It will be interesting to see how they can compete with Killzone's graphics on the console side.

Huey2k2 @ Mar 11th 2009 9:19PM

Killzone looks fantastic don't get me wrong... but it still doesn't look as good as Crysis does completely maxxed out.

I am very very excited to see what they can do with their new engine.

tmacairjordan87 @ Mar 11th 2009 9:21PM

I was referring to consoles though

Huey2k2 @ Mar 11th 2009 9:22PM

Ah I misread it. I assume whatever they come out with on consoles will look fantastic at the very least. Crytek is very good at pushing the boundaries of visuals in video games.

Mr Khan @ Mar 11th 2009 9:34PM

Only if someone really takes the time to utilize it, of course. Middleware doesn't account for developer knowhow

sea @ Mar 11th 2009 10:43PM

You know, for all the people who are foaming at the mouth about Killzone 2's visuals... it really doesn't look that great. I mean, yes, it is nice and the animation especially is quite good, but honestly, after starting Unreal Tournament 3 up again after the Titan Pack came out last week, that game definitely looks way better - and it's from 2007. It's kind of sad to see people marveling about "amazing graphics" when the console running it can barely maintain a consistent 30 fps in the process, and it still doesn't look as good as a year-and-a-half-old PC game.

tmacairjordan87 @ Mar 11th 2009 10:49PM

Big and shiny doesn't equal better graphics. Killzone 2 is 100 million times better looking than that, but you have to actually play it to witness it. Screens/videos don't do it justice.

Baby J Penn (PSN johnnynumber5) @ Mar 11th 2009 11:04PM

Graphics are subjective to what your eye sees as being beautiful. My personal opinion is that Killzone 2 is the best looking console game to date. Now, that probably won't last past this year (if that long) because new benchmarks are always set. I'm not sure if I misunderstood but there aren't any frame rate issues in KZ 2. Strangely enough I haven't had any lag in multiplayer either. like none at all ... I would say that Killzone is #1, Gears 2 is #2 and Metal Gear Solid 4 is #3. All of those games have perfect frame rates and are stunning just to look at.

Does anyone know the name of the engine Guerilla built for Killzone 2 and if it's going to be shared internally within Sony or if it's going to be licensed out?

tmacairjordan87 @ Mar 11th 2009 11:12PM

I'm pretty sure God of War 3 is using it and I heard uncharted 2 is using it but I don't have anything to back the uncharted one up though. Might have been some other in house game.

Longhorn4Life (PSN MariusElijah) @ Mar 11th 2009 11:21PM

well Uncharted 2 already competes with KZ2 and so does GOW3 so im pretty sure this new engine wont compete with Sony's AAA titles only make the 360's games better looking but not enjoyable

Optimaximal @ Mar 12th 2009 7:36AM

"Crytek is very good at pushing the boundaries of visuals in video games."

Shame they haven't mastered the whole 'pushing the boundary of gameplay'.

Fucking hell, if Crytek put even more aliens in their next I.P. then they're definitely idiots!

Dragod @ Mar 11th 2009 9:23PM

Halo 4... Crysis graphics... Please...?

StLouisRibs7734 @ Mar 11th 2009 9:28PM

-1

Foetoid @ Mar 11th 2009 10:06PM

-1

xFenixKnightx @ Mar 11th 2009 10:08PM

The grafx whore in me sais YES, THANK YOU CRYTEK!!! :)

Like Dragod said, Halo 4 with Crysis grafx please!

Foetoid @ Mar 11th 2009 10:09PM

-1 for Fenix too plzkthxbai

Osman @ Mar 11th 2009 10:12PM

-2?

xFenixKnightx @ Mar 11th 2009 10:18PM

You do realize that not all of us give a shit about these liitle hearts, right? I'm here to talk games, not worry about being cool and getting hearts.

Osman @ Mar 11th 2009 10:23PM

lol wow, i do great math right there

Game_playa @ Mar 11th 2009 10:24PM

LOL you fail OSMAN, thats the first time in my life I read -2!

the Sawyer family @ Mar 11th 2009 10:39PM

@ F K , you heartless bastard.

Cosmo @ Mar 11th 2009 9:34PM

I'm guessing Crysis 2 will be a multiplatform title then. Or maybe Timesplitters 4 will use this engine.

No offense to console owners, I hope that Crysis 2 won't be dumbed down on the PC due to it being out for consoles, just like FEAR 2 vs FEAR 1. I think there's a rumor that CryEngine 3 will be a slight incremental change unlike 1 to 2.

Zacqary Adam Green @ Mar 11th 2009 9:49PM

Was FEAR 2 really "dumbed down," or was it just so badly designed that it wasn't particularly fun on any platform? The impression I got was just boredom and annoyance, not like I was playing a console game.

MuToiD_MaN @ Mar 11th 2009 9:51PM

Well, considering how many advancements had been made in shading, lighting, and texture detail capability from the time of the original Crytek engine to CryEngine 2, there's no way we could expect the same leap between v2 and v3, I'd think. CryEngine 2 is state-of-the-art still and unless I'm mistaken there haven't been many notable changes to "the art" since its release.

Ihavepants @ Mar 12th 2009 4:02AM

Crysis plays quite well with a 360 controller, I don't know why it hasn't been ported over sooner(as in near the launch of the original Crysis), it would be an awesome console game.

I guess they didn't like money.

jackal @ Mar 12th 2009 2:14PM

ihavepants,

It wasn't ported because the Xbox 360 doesn't have the shader power necessary to run the game near High image quality level; the game doesn't look all that great for its hardware demands below High shaders and texture quality (where you get HDR lighting and full res textures). It wasn't until the current crop of cards that one could play it at all High settings around 1920x1080/1920x1200, and if a Geforce 8800 GTX couldn't handle the game at 1280x1024 with all High settings, what possible hope does Xenos have of doing the same thing?

The other settings (except for particles and volumetric quality) are fairly open to debate. For example, Crysis's use of shadows can be pretty resource intensive, but they basically boil down to preference; some people like the sharply defined shadows of Medium (though they're jagged as hell even with AA coming from a character model), others like the slightly lighter yet blurred shadows of High, and others still prefer the realistic shadows of Very High. Some people like pumping up terrain LOD to the absolute max while disabling texture streaming to improve the image quality of mountains, others don't. Some people like using FFT when it comes to the ocean, others prefer the calmer look of it without. Some people like colorgrading and yet others prefer the overall look without it.