CryTek's newest, shiniest piece of tech is CryEngine 3, which will be put to use in the upcoming PS3 and Xbox 360 versions of
Crysis 2. While the first footage of the console versions looks remarkably similar to what you'd get from a PC, a closer examination reveals how top-end gaming PCs are still capable of rendering better graphics with CryEngine 2. According to tehdaza on
YouTube, "CryEngine 3 running on console hardware is about the same as CryEngine 2 running on 'medium' settings." The look of the console versions can be recreated on the PC by using low textures, high shaders and object geometry and medium on all other settings.
You can check out the video after the break. In it, you'll be able to compare the draw distance of the two engines and see the change in physics, texture work and more.
[Via
N4G]
{ Jun 16th 2009 at 5:10PM } 
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
nukee @ Jun 16th 2009 5:16PM
I can't wait to get out of college so I can finally build myself a sweet gaming rig. That is some kickass eyecandy right there.
bioadam @ Jun 16th 2009 5:37PM
It's your lucky day nukee, you can build a sweet gaming rig while you are still in college.
Dirty @ Jun 16th 2009 5:39PM
When I graduated some old man with a top hat and monocle just handed me a big bag of money. It was the best day EVER!
nukee @ Jun 16th 2009 5:39PM
Except for the issue of no discretionary funds to build said rig.
PSN: John-Paul-Jones @ Jun 16th 2009 5:58PM
HELL YEAH! Once I build a sweet rig then I'm gone from console gaming. Fuck you console debaters, 'cause time after time we all know the PC is unmatched in gaming
Longhorn of Myon [PSN: MariusElijah] @ Jun 16th 2009 6:11PM
Yes because we all know PC's get all the must have games /s
Cosmo @ Jun 16th 2009 6:33PM
Even then Longhorn, the PC gets ports of many console games and so there is the option at playing them at much higher resolutions, frame rates, mods, etc.
Frostybolts @ Jun 16th 2009 6:45PM
It isn't all it's cracked up to be, Nukee
I dropped $1300 on an amazing PC a couple months ago (that's buying the parts at discount, mind you, so it was the equivalent of a $2-3000 preassembled comp) and all I did with it was run two copies of WoW at max settings at 100 FPS each for a while, and play the Crysis demo at the maximum settings at 40ish FPS
DiGiTAL SiN254 @ Jun 16th 2009 6:58PM
@ Frosty
WoW Maxes out at 60 fps bro
(unless that has changed since Lich King)
deanb @ Jun 16th 2009 7:02PM
Nope still at 60fps, so I call lying troll. Cos otherwise a 40fps Crysis machine would be doing WoW at about 400fps. My old rig ran Crysis on medium at 30fps n Half-Life 2 at 230fps, Dunno what my current rig does, haven't benchmarked with either game for a while, n can't be arsed to download n run the Source base for your fps pleasure.
Eigga @ Jun 16th 2009 7:17PM
You realize if you turn off Virtual Sync your FPS can surpass your monitor's refresh rate?
iBootleg @ Jun 16th 2009 7:34PM
@Eigga: I think you mean 'Vertical Sync', but you're right nonetheless.
I don't really see how Frostybolts would be trolling, it's a feature
a lot of people prefer without when benchmarking, especially with
High End PC rigs.
BananaBoat @ Jun 16th 2009 8:26PM
I enable syncing if my rig is capable of staying very close to 60fps on a game. If it can't though, it's foolish to leave it on and watch your framerates dip.
I'll agree with the sentiment that the PC has been getting shafted as of late, but Crysis is still every bit the technical marvel it was when it came out a couple of years ago. Maybe it's not worth building a gaming rig for (I'm kind of having builders/buyers remorse right now, because I built a rig and then the PC gaming market kinda crashed) but it's worth upgrading an existing rig if you can swing it.
Draco @ Jun 16th 2009 9:50PM
Vertical Sync just sets a max fps, so frames aren't lost. it can prevent tearing too. but it's not going to affect you if your pushing under 59hz/fps
Vertical Sync on my PC is usally off, but it has nothing to do with performance, I just like the ability to turn the games V-Sync off (or setting a higher fps_max) to check out my true FPS without having to change both.
Draco @ Jun 16th 2009 9:52PM
oh and I said 59hz, but if your monitor is set to handle more then raise that number to whatever your monitor is set to do. (85hz probably if not set 60)
BananaBoat @ Jun 16th 2009 10:19PM
In my experience, vsync has a small but very real performance cost. You may not see it though compared to how obvious tearing is, if your computer can stay near the refresh rate of your monitor. If you can get 100 FPS in a game for instance, there is no reason why you shouldn't be using Vsync. If you can only average 30-40 though, you wouldn't be doing yourself any favors by enabling it.
Tearing drives me nuts, so I use Vsync whenever I can.
MetalBLACKFOX @ Jun 16th 2009 11:36PM
my computer can barely watch the you tube video of crisis without crashing-so i will take the xbox version instead thank you
Blank-Mage @ Jun 17th 2009 1:37AM
Why would anyone need 100 fps? Your eyes can't even discern frames at that rate. Hell, I'm fine with 40.
knighty (GT: ZeraKnight) @ Jun 17th 2009 8:52AM
I can't believe how many people don't understand what vsync is....
Vsync forces the application to wait until a frame has finished being shown on the monitor before it starts showing the next one. If it's shown half of one frame and then starts showing the next (no vsync) you get tearing because suddenly the top half of the screen is 1 frame old, and the bottom half is current. This means that your framerate with vsync on is locked so an integer divisible amount of your monitor frequency.
ie: You can get 60fps (60 / 1), 30fps (60 / 2), 20fps (60 / 3) and so on. So if the game can churn out 50fps, it'll lock to 30 because that's the most it can display without the screen refreshing faster than new frames can be generated. So if your machine can get an FPS higher than 60 you should always have it on (unless you're one of these idiots that thinks 120 fps > 60fps. But if you're slightly below 60, having it on is going to drop your frame rate considerably and you should therefore leave it off.
andyface @ Jun 17th 2009 9:07AM
I used to be a PC gamer until the hardware required went above my budget, then I bought a console in an effort to console myself and enable me to keep playing.
Crap jokes aside, it's alot cheaper to get a console than a gaming PC and though the graphics aren't anywhere near as good, they are still pretty amazing, so I'm happy with worse graphics but more money with which to buy food etc.
On the framerate thing, i could be wrong, but it may depend on your monitors refresh rate. If it's ticking along at 60Hz you'll only see every second frame of a game running at 120FPS and as someone else mentioned our eyes can only really register about 25FPS, which is why films are run at 25FPS (or 30FPS in US), but maybe that has nothing to do with it.
NitroMikeo @ Jun 16th 2009 5:16PM
Of course its not gonna be as good, but it still looks damn nice to me.
Erik Stroud @ Jun 16th 2009 5:23PM
That for sure. But, I'm still sticking to Crysis 2 on PC. I tried Crysis with my 360 controller and it just wasn't the same for me.
PS36Wii Fanboy @ Jun 16th 2009 6:29PM
The "Cry" brand is the only brand I used to specifically play on the PC and that was for a major reason(This of course.) I mean I wanted to punch myself after buying Far Cry 2 for my 360... But it was sooo damn cheap at Circuit City.. Oh and my PC laughed then exploded when I tried to install Far Cry 2 on it lol.
No hate to consoles, I love a lot of the console games. Just... I mean you get what I am saying right?
Levi @ Jun 16th 2009 6:45PM
Far Cry 2 isn't CryTek. Not even the graphics engine. Crytek did the CryEngine, which is what Far Cry 1 was built on, and they modified it so heavily (over 90%) that they were able to license it as their own engine. It has pretty much nothing to do with Crytek. So keeping the "Cry brand" on your PC should be Far Cry 1, Crysis, Warhead, and Crysis 2. ^_^
Levi @ Jun 16th 2009 6:49PM
then Ubisoft modified the Crytek engine* that's what I meant by they. Sry.
Ghen @ Jun 17th 2009 9:46AM
Decent enough at 1080i but nowhere near a computer's resolution. Draw distance is a killer though. I love setting that as high as possible (or hacking an ini to make it even further) on PC games.
PS36Wii Fanboy @ Jun 19th 2009 2:28AM
Augh I committed a fail there. Either way, My PC did laugh and explode when I tried to run it lol. God damn forest fire simulator.
Adam @ Jun 16th 2009 5:17PM
Why is there a difference in the colors used between the PS3 and Xbox 360?
LaughingTarget @ Jun 16th 2009 5:42PM
That's the differences in how Nvidia (PS3) and ATI (360) render graphics. There has been a noticable color difference between the two companies since the single-card 2d/3d replaced the 3d add on solution by 3dfx.
Tired of your BS @ Jun 16th 2009 6:41PM
There is barely any difference watch the vid again.when it switches between 360 and PS3 at 0:14 you can see almost the only thing that changes is the foliage at the bottom of the screen.
Levi @ Jun 16th 2009 6:51PM
yeah. There were color differences within the same company's chips. I remember being stoked when 3dfx came out with the voodoo banshee, thinking, sweet, I can get a sweet card for $130 (and it was a sweet card), but the graphics were definitely less colorful than the voodoo 2.
Longhorn of Myon [PSN: MariusElijah] @ Jun 16th 2009 5:18PM
I cant see the difference unless pointed out except for the water
Tyler @ Jun 16th 2009 5:30PM
I love videogame water and that looked great!
Alphathon @ Jun 16th 2009 9:30PM
You can't really judge based on a youtube video. Draw distance is obvious, but texture detail far less so, and everything else even less than that. To make a true comparison you'd have to see the same scene running in both engines at the same res. (and not compressed by youtube or whatever). Heck, I could tell the difference in some of the scenes and I'm f***ing wasted atm. If you can see there's more detail from a basic youtube vid, then there is a definite difference.
The Baron @ Jun 16th 2009 5:18PM
Optimisation for lower-end hardware was always Crytek's weakness. Hopefully CryEngine 3 will solve that!
Although ironically Crysis will run on PC's that the awful ports of Assassin's Creed and GTA4 won't.
jackal @ Jun 16th 2009 9:03PM
the dark wayne,
If it's a small consolation, DX11 can actually run on DX10 and DX10.1 compatible hardware (as it's actually a more evolved, incredibly strict superset of the existing APIs) albeit with some restrictions. If a developer decides to use compute shaders to do specific things but finds they can't on existing hardware at all or at a reasonable level of performance (the unified shaders found in all DX10/DX10.1 performance hardware, to my understanding, can be used as compute shaders), they'll simply restrict it only to DX11 hardware. Similarly, if a developer wants to use hardware tessellation, you won't be able to use that feature at all. No current NVIDIA videocard actually has a hardware tessellator and, while all performance ATI videocards (HD 2900, HD 3800, and HD 4800 series) do have tessellators, they aren't compatible with the specification that actually made its way into DX11.
Arkanaloth @ Jun 16th 2009 5:19PM
the simple fact remains that consoles have effectively "caught up" to the graphical fidelity of PC's. Most people are not videophile enough to care about such subtle differences.
Jrinswand @ Jun 16th 2009 5:23PM
I call BS. Try playing Left4Dead on the PC and then playing it on the Xbox 360. The graphical difference is pretty outstanding. It definitely doesn't take a videophile to see the difference.
phinnvr6 @ Jun 16th 2009 5:25PM
Yea that is complete BS, PS3/360 are both maxing out now (some game makers still claim they will get more out PS3 still fine), but neither of them can touch a high end gaming PC in terms of graphics. Then the next console gen will come out in a few years and the cycle will reset all over again.
Vidikron @ Jun 16th 2009 5:26PM
L4D is a bad example. It's just a shitty port of an old engine. It looks dated even on PCs.
joeybeast @ Jun 16th 2009 5:28PM
The other day I played slit screen, good times, good times.
Jrinswand @ Jun 16th 2009 5:30PM
@Vidikron
I was mainly just talking about think like AA and AF. AA is really what makes all the difference to me. Plus, the shadows and colors are much more vibrant on the PC.
The Baron @ Jun 16th 2009 5:33PM
Simple fact?
If the statement is so simply true, care to explain it? Console games, while very well optimised these days, are running on 3-4 year old hardware. They have only 'caught up' to the graphical fidelity of what a modern gaming PC is capable of in that most PC titles these days are lazy ports of console games.
Plus, I'm fairly sure a youtube video is not the ideal medium for trying to tell the difference. If you blow that up to 1920x1200 with anti-aliasing, and compare it to 1280x720 with none, you'll notice more differences than the resolution.
Not to knock consoles, I love my PS3 and the 360 is a very capable machine and great value. But you can't just go around pretending that there is no difference in graphics between consoles and PC's, and call it a 'simple fact'.
davebo @ Jun 16th 2009 5:35PM
I'm agreeing with Jrinswand. Anyone with a 1080p tv can tell you they wish one quarter of console games ran at 1080p. Killzone 2 looks nice and has great graphical effects in it, but I sure wish I had it on my pc with a real mouse running at 1920x1200.
Fun DMC @ Jun 16th 2009 5:37PM
"PS3/360 are both maxing out now"
Based on what?
Alistair Azimuth PSN: johnnynumber5 @ Jun 16th 2009 5:37PM
Yeah I don't think consoles have caught up to the fidelity of a high end gaming rig either. But, it is kind of amazing to think what these developers are pumping out on limited hardware. It just goes to show that at the end of the day a complimentary art style and smooth frame rate can make all the difference in the world. I still think Uncharted & Killzone 2 can bump with most PC games even on high end but they are optimized for a specific piece of hardware which computer games are not.
L4D does look shitty and dated on the PC and it looks atrocious on the 360. It was a really bad example. But, go look at something like Fallout 3 and the difference is apparent.
bioadam @ Jun 16th 2009 5:39PM
Maybe the Xbox 360 and PS3 were PCs' equals in 2006, but this is 2009 and you can play Crysis on a $500 PC.
The Baron @ Jun 16th 2009 5:45PM
I definitely agree there. The average console game looks fantastic in relation to the technical specs of the hardware it's running on. I find it a shame that not many PC developers go to the same lengths of ultra-optimisation (Criterion and Valve are excellent exceptions), but given the massive range of CPUs, RAM and graphics cards they have to accommodate, it's hardly suprising.
Cammy @ Jun 16th 2009 5:46PM
It's just that PC graphics hardware development has slowed, PC games almost never get content developed exclusively for them anymore (no upgraded graphics for the PC version).
Games are developed with consoles in mind first these days. You create assets that will work on a 360 or PS3, not on a high end PC.
A high end PC can run ported console games at a higher resolution or more AA, but for the first time they're aren't on fundamentally different levels.
It's not that consoles are above PC tech, but it's that making higher end graphics is business suicide for how much time and money it takes. You'd have to have PC games selling MORE than console games to allow for this, not 20 times less!
Spartacus @ Jun 16th 2009 5:59PM
I used to be a PC gamer snob. That was back when I played on a 19" flat CRT and thought life couldn't get any better.
Now I game on consoles (360/PS3, but the 360 gets much more use) on a 106" 1080p screen. To the guy who said he wished 1/4 of games were in 1080p, I say it makes little difference due to the fact that both the 360 and PS3 have good scaler chips/software. Heck, even on a 106" screen there isn't a night and day difference between upscaled DVD's and Blu-ray to my eyes and this is coming from a guy who can't look at a PC monitor at less than WUXGA (1920x1200) resolution.
I'm a bit of a graphics whore, but even I think that we're kind of getting to the point of diminishing returns.