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PC | Action | Crysis

Boxart for Crysis
Crysis 59 screen shots
  • GRAPHICS: 5.00
  • SOUND: 4.50
  • CONTROL: 4.50
  • FUN FACTOR 4.75
  • AVG USER SCORE 4.3
  • AVG CRITIC SCORE 4.6
Winner of the GamePro Editor's Choice Award

Review: Crysis: A Great Step Forward For PC Gaming (Page 6 of 6)

Review by Chris Morell | 11/13/2007 | 15:00:13 PM PST

Performance

If you've got the rig, Crysis is the graphical experience to die for. But technology aside, the zero-gravity and frozen environments are impressive works of art--some of the downright coolest game areas ever devised. Likewise, the physics engine allows for incredible object interaction, making explosions shine.

Of course, recommended system specs for Crysis are incredibly daunting. I played the game on three different PCs: a high-end, a mid-range and a lower-end. Here's how each performed:

High-end

The first system was a Core 2 quad at 2.93 GHz with a GeForce 8000 Ultra, a very high-end machine. It automatically set effects to "very high," and after attempting to run the game, there were some hiccups. Granted, my 2GB of RAM is a little slim, but should be enough to keep everything steady. That wasn't always the case, so I turned down post-processing and a couple other effects to get things running a bit smoother. I also had to crank down the resolution below 1680x1050 to 1440x900 and turned off anti-aliasing. Again, there were a few slowdowns here and there, but overall, things ran nicely with these settings.

Mid-range

Things were a bit different on the medium-level machine that had a Core 2 processor, a GeForce 8000 GTS and 2GB of RAM. Overall, it achieved decent performance. Crysis auto spec'd the machine at "medium" settings, and I left everything there. I turned the resolution down to 1280x720. Pretty much smooth sailing, though again, there were hitches along the way. Plus, with medium settings, you miss out on some of the more impressive feats of the graphics engine, which is a kind of a shame.

Low-end

On the third system--another Core 2 (2.4GHz) with 2GB of RAM--we have a substantial drop in video card, with a GeForce 7900 GTX. Being the sole Windows XP machine of the trio, this was the only system that ran the DX9 version of the game. The difference in performance here is pretty drastic. I ran the game in 1280x1024 (for some reason my system didn't offer a native widescreen resolution), though I could have easily dropped it down a peg to 1024x768 for better performance. Settings were auto set to "medium," though there was noticeable slowdown at times when multiple enemies were onscreen or big explosions would take place. I took things down to "low," but it wasn't worth it and I quickly went back, as "low" turns off the active foliage and other environmental effects--pretty much all the stuff that makes the game engine so cool.

So there you have it--three machines of three different levels. If you have high expectations, you'll need a high-end machine. The amazing gameplay of Crysis comes through even on the lower DX9 system, but don't expect perfect performance. It's definitely playable, though, and still insanely fun, to boot. But there's no denying that this game is a serious hog...not surprising for the first true next-gen PC game.


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