StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Minimum System Requirements:
OS--Windows XP or Windows Vista
Processor--2.8GHz or faster (XP); 3.2GHz or faster* (Vista)
Memory--1GB RAM or 1.5GB RAM (Vista)
Video Card--256MB**
Hard Drive--12GB
Sound Card DirectX 9.0c compatible

* Supported Processors: Intel Pentium 4 2.8GHz (3.2GHz for Vista) or faster, Intel Core 2GHz (2.2GHz for Vista) or faster, and other similar CPUs.

** Supported chipsets: NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT + or similar GPUs. Laptop versions of these chipsets may work but are not supported. Integrated chipsets are not supported. Updates to your video and sound card drivers may be required.

Recommended System Requirements:
OS--Windows XP / Vista
Processor--Intel Core 2 DUO @ 2.2GHz
Memory--2GB RAM
GPU--NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS/640 or similar

Cevat Yerli: The quality of Crysis running on [minimum spec hardware] does equal the shading and texture quality of games that are about three years old, but with polygonal detail that is bigger then games from that same generation. The scaling happens in various areas, such as shading-quality, texture-resolution, shadows. View distance and interactivity are close to Far Cry. Our goal was to reach a quality with the game on the various specs to compete with games that are from the last two generations until today's generation, respectively for low, medium and high [specification setups], with the very high [spec setups] hoping to define the upcoming and introduced generation with Crysis.


[snip]

We are not afraid, since we know by statistics from our partners like Nvidia and Intel and from PC manufactures the base to play our game is theoretically bigger than the consoles, plus we hope Crysis inspires people to play at very-high configurations that--like in the past with top-tier titles--usually required you to upgrade your PC.


GS: What's more important to have for Crysis: A powerful CPU or a powerful video card?

CY: Actually they should be in sync. Low CPU and high GPU makes little sense, since the game might then become CPU bound, likewise if you have a strong CPU and low GPU, your game may not render fast enough. So you should align the generations of hardware when building your PC, in general. If you have a CPU and GPU both from the last 12 months though and you want to upgrade one of the components, then it should be the GPU.



CY: Yes 64-bit in general runs better than 32-bit. In fact I would recommend gamers run 64-bit only under very-high configurations. We ship both 32-and-64-bit out of box.



GS: Finally, any last thoughts on Crysis' technology and its system requirements?

CY: My final thoughts are, I am happy that we managed to scale down Crysis, which is on average 10 times more pushy than Far Cry, down to Far Cry specs. But Crysis is a high-end game that shall define what's now and in the future. Enjoy it as such as much as you can. It's like a concept car available and affordable now. I like also this quote somebody gave: "It's like a sexy blond girl with a PhD degree," upon which I said, "But with curly hair."

the base to play our game is theoretically bigger than the consoles

Bounty wrote:

the base to play our game is theoretically bigger than the consoles

He's essentially selling a $2000 game. Makes me wonder how he justifies the "bigger base" claim.

The quality of Crysis running on [minimum spec hardware] does equal the shading and texture quality of games that are about three years old, but with polygonal detail that is bigger then games from that same generation

Psychic_Sandwich wrote:I need a new PC.

Seggybop wrote:

The quality of Crysis running on [minimum spec hardware] does equal the shading and texture quality of games that are about three years old, but with polygonal detail that is bigger then games from that same generation

is what is absurd here. Lately, system requirements have been ballooning outrageously without improvements even close to being in proportion with the cost.

Bounty wrote:

the base to play our game is theoretically bigger than the consoles

He's essentially selling a $2000 game. Makes me wonder how he justifies the "bigger base" claim.

Fingolfin_Noldor wrote: Well, companies must manufacture a need for you to buy their hardware.

What the hell?

Uraniun235 wrote:

Fingolfin_Noldor wrote: Well, companies must manufacture a need for you to buy their hardware.

Yeah, game companies totally get paid off by hardware manufacturers to artificially inflate the required specs for their games and thus shrink their market.

Fingolfin_Noldor wrote:

Uraniun235 wrote:

Fingolfin_Noldor wrote: Well, companies must manufacture a need for you to buy their hardware.

Yeah, game companies totally get paid off by hardware manufacturers to artificially inflate the required specs for their games and thus shrink their market.

I won't be surprised that is part of the reason for the Nvidia and AMD have that program to liaise with game developers.

WE WROTE a story earlier about how top Nvidia chap, Daryll Still, was leaving the green team for a quieter life. Still was responsible for the obscenely successful TWIMTBP programme in Europe.

We suggested that sums of cash regularly changed hands for TWIMTBP branding on top new titles. Here's Still's response, printed in the interests of open dialogue, transparency, good governence, world peace etc.



Thanks very much for your kind words about my resignation from NVIDIA. I have enjoyed the cut and thrust of reading the Inquirer's ironic articles over the last 5 years.

Now that I am an independent voice in the debate, I thought I would take the chance to correct a couple of misconceptions you guys have about TWIMTBP, as I know you would hate to have any inaccuracies in your articles - Hey, look, I can do irony too!

Firstly, you cleverly crossed out cash - I assume a joke about the size of my cheque book. In my five years at NV I was responsible for bringing 120+ titles into the TWIMTBP fold. Do you know how many of those actually received a payment of any kind? The answer is ONE. And that was a special case where we ran a promotion aimed at a mass market family title to try and encourage low end consumers to shun integrated graphics in favour of GPU's. We paid a contribution towards the time involved in making nice shader things happen.

Sure, we ran advertising for a dozen titles in the first 2 quarters of the campaign, as we aligned it to a campaign at retail to teach consumers to recognise what GPU, aswell as what CPU, they had, so they could then be surer of compatibility issues. But those ads were short lived and low cost.

So not if TWIMTBP did not have cash as a cornerstone then what was it?

How about the $M's the company spent building a completely state of the art test lab in Eastern Europe. So that developers and publishers can get their titles tested on around 500 different PC configurations (GPU, CPU, OS, Motherboard, API etc etc). Yes, compatibility. It was not about benchmarking or running faster that ATi. It was about making sure the consumer could buy the game and run it without crashes. Every time a gamer takes a PC version of a game back to the store and says "It doesn't work, give me the console one" NVIDIA potentially loses a customer.

Once that was established, the great team of engineers NVIDIA has in Europe would work frame by frame with the developer to analyse glitches, slowdown and bugs and help fix them (at the developer and and in NV's drivers). That alone was usually enough to lift the framerate above the other lot. Just good, solid due care and attention.

The Tomb Raider issue you mention was the exception that absolutely proved the rule. The issue you reported lasted for one day, before NVIDIA brought out a driver that fixed it. Of course we were not good enough to fix it in a day, we had been fixing it for weeks. We were just a day late this time, so it was noticed. That type of issue happened many times. Tomb Raider was the only time that the game shipped ahead of the driver fix that meant nobody noticed the problem had been there at all. That's how good we were!

So, once a game clears the lab and gets the green light, it then gets the NVIDIA messaging that its a title we recommend our consumers to consider buying.

The two biggest ways this messaging is carried is:

a) The Nzone website. 11 million hits per month across 7 natural language sites. Push the buttton marked "Test my system" and we fully compare our test results against the users PC to see if the game will run at minspec, recommended and optimum. We tell them exactly what hardware they need to run it best (not just GPU, but memory, all sorts) and then we link them to local etailers where they can get a special deal on the game or a game hardware mix.

b) and this is where I guess my biggest legacy lays within NVIDIA. "The Way" magazine, which I created as a 40,000 print run, 8 page supplement in Edge magazine and ran within Europe for the first 10 issues, building to a 32 page, 7 language magazine with just short of 1 million units printed. The Way was always written by independent journalists, so whilst never critical of partner titles (they wouldn't get in if they did not deserve to), it never became a corporate brochure, but always remained an interesting read. It was nominated for a number of awards, publishers are very keen for their titles to be featured and I was recently told by an MD of a major distributor than he used The Way magazine as his guide to what titles he should focus on in his consumer offerings. I will be very proud when my new companies offerings are considered technically excellent enough to be featured in the future issues.

So there you have it. TWIMTBP in a nutshell. If you can understand and trust what I say here (and I have no reason to lie to you), you will see that the dirt thrown at it by a thoroughly defeated ATi over the years were so far off the mark they were laughable.

In fact I would go as far to say that one of the main reasons TWIMTBP was so damn damaging to them was that they simply never understood it. What is stood for, what it intended to do, they simply saw it as a threat that had to be dismissed. They grabbed the first (incorrect) facts that came to hand and simply threw them time and time again, however often they proved incorrect and however badly they were getting hurt. MO< So my parting message to the Inquirer is, for goodness sake, do not repeat their mistakes. Don't keep spouting the same old "It's only cash, NVIDIA bought developers, and shock horror, Game x ran 2FPS faster on ATi (just before it blue screened) so could not be TWIMTBP anyway" rubbish.

The inaccuracies did for ATi, and when repeated on these pages, do you guys no credit either.

Good luck. I hope we come across each other in future.

Darryl Still

ray245 wrote:Well...if that can stop the console fans from saying console graphics is the best, I'm happy. Especially if their console cannot support a high graphics game.

Stark wrote: Ace, is Crysis DX10 only? I've noticed in WiC that turning DX10 on loses you about 10-15fps, and I can't see any difference (aside from a few graphics options like cloud shadows etc).

NRS Guardian wrote:

Stark wrote: Ace, is Crysis DX10 only? I've noticed in WiC that turning DX10 on loses you about 10-15fps, and I can't see any difference (aside from a few graphics options like cloud shadows etc).

I know you were asking Ace, but to answer the question no Crysis is not DX10 only. Crytek has been explicit that one does not need to have Vista or a DX10 card to run the game, just that certain graphical features will be available if you have DX10. Hence why in the system requirements it has both Vista and XP entries.