But can it run Crysis?

[cen1]

Saw this showcased in my faculty. Apparently this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hercules_Graphics_Card
It easily measures ~40cm in length, it is gigantic! :biggrin:

 

[alcoholbob]

I don't think any supercomputer in the world could run the original Crysis until maybe the early 2000s. It took a 561mm2 $1000 GTX Titan before we had 1080p maxed out at 60fps, 6 years after release.

And by "maxed" I don't mean maxxing out AA on the graphical options. Even a Titan X/980Ti can't do that at 1080p today with the original Crysis.

 

[know of fence]

I don't think any supercomputer in the world could run the original Crysis until maybe the early 2000s. It took a 561mm2 $1000 GTX Titan before we had 1080p maxed out at 60fps, 6 years after release.

And by "maxed" I don't mean maxxing out AA on the graphical options. Even a Titan X/980Ti can't do that at 1080p today with the original Crysis.

Running Crysis, a Herculean Task.

 

[RussianSensation]

It took a 561mm2 $1000 GTX Titan before we had 1080p maxed out at 60fps, 6 years after release.

Technically, HD7970Ghz accomplished that feat nearly 1 year before the Titan came out, and with a mild overclock HD7970/GTX680 all could do it a full year before the Titan

And by "maxed" I don't mean maxxing out AA on the graphical options. Even a Titan X/980Ti can't do that at 1080p today with the original Crysis.

Of course they can, without any effort.

With a 980Ti/Titan X, the original Crysis 1 can be maxed out at 1440P/1600P even given that 980 gets 52 fps.

It easily measures ~40cm in length, it is gigantic! :biggrin:

Thooooooose were the days. All dat PCB space to spread out the heat spots Today, the marketing machine is placing a price premium going down to 15cm (*cough* Nano *cough*). What's incredible is that today a $600 Samsung S6/iPhone 6S probably has a GPU 200X faster, if not more (I wouldn't be surprised if it's 500-1000X faster).

Pretty incredible just how far we've come and the next leap with HBM2 and so on will ensure GPUs are even more compact in 2016 and beyond!

 

[Shivansps]

voodoo 5 6000 was bigger i think.

 

[MajinCry]

 

[alcoholbob]

Technically, HD7970Ghz accomplished that feat nearly 1 year before the Titan came out, and with a mild overclock HD7970/GTX680 all could do it a full year before the Titan

Of course they can, without any effort.

With a 980Ti/Titan X, the original Crysis 1 can be maxed out at 1440P/1600P even given that 980 gets 52 fps.

Thooooooose were the days. All dat PCB space to spread out the heat spots Today, the marketing machine is placing a price premium going down to 15cm (*cough* Nano *cough*). What's incredible is that today a $600 Samsung S6/iPhone 6S probably has a GPU 200X faster, if not more (I wouldn't be surprised if it's 500-1000X faster).

Pretty incredible just how far we've come and the next leap with HBM2 and so on will ensure GPUs are even more compact in 2016 and beyond!

The in-game settings go up to 16Q AA. I'm pretty sure a Titan X can't hit 60fps at 1080p with those settings, lmao, considering according to your own listed benchmarks a 980 only does 52fps at 2560/4x AA.

Besides Anandtech's own benchmark shows below 40fps at 4X SSAA with a 7970, which is somewhere between 8x MSAA and 16x MSAA in difficulty, *far* easier to run than 16Q MSAA. If you literally maxed every setting in the original Crysis game menu on a Titan X at 1080p you wouldn't sniff 60 fps.

 

[Deders]

I was playing Crysis at 60fps on my 670, either 4x or 8x AA. No need to max it any more.

 

[BFG10K]

I run Crysis at 1080p and 4xTrSS on my original Titan. It generally stays above 60FPS but you have to dial back some menu settings (not just AA).

A 980Ti is about 50% faster, so this is probably the first GPU than "can truly run Crysis". That's eight years after launch.

As an aside, who wants engines that take 8 years before they run well? I personally don't. I'd rather have a game that runs well the first time I play it while still looking pretty good.

Good examples are Tomb Raider 2013, Thief 4, Battlefield 3, newer Call of Duty games, and newer UT3 engine games which hold up impressively well. I can either do 4K or 2xSSAA in those games.

In particular, Thief 4 is a new release title with graphics that look absolutely gorgeous, yet it runs really well at 1080p with 2xSSAA on my two year old GPU. Why on Earth would anyone want to wait until until 2023 to get a good experience?

 

[fralexandr]

looks more like this
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Monochrome_Display_Adapter

 

[DrDoug]

looks more like this
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Monochrome_Display_Adapter

Yup. I used to have an IBM like that with a 20 MB Seagate ST-225(?) back in the 80's. I remember having to use debug to program the WD ISA hdd controllers. Some of the cards back then were freaking huge, especially the memory expansion cards. I had a Dell 286 that was absolutely massive and it came with huge full height Micropolis 80 MB hdd.

Boy have the times ever changed... now get off of my lawn you punks! :biggrin:

 

[Insomniator]

I run Crysis at 1080p and 4xTrSS on my original Titan. It generally stays above 60FPS but you have to dial back some menu settings (not just AA).

A 980Ti is about 50% faster, so this is probably the first GPU than "can truly run Crysis". That's eight years after launch.

As an aside, who wants engines that take 8 years before they run well? I personally don't. I'd rather have a game that runs well the first time I play it while still looking pretty good.

Good examples are Tomb Raider 2013, Thief 4, Battlefield 3, newer Call of Duty games, and newer UT3 engine games which hold up impressively well. I can either do 4K or 2xSSAA in those games.

In particular, Thief 4 is a new release title with graphics that look absolutely gorgeous, yet it runs really well at 1080p with 2xSSAA on my two year old GPU. Why on Earth would anyone want to wait until until 2023 to get a good experience?

It didn't take 8 years for Crysis to run well, it took 8 years to run it maxed. Even on medium though it looked better than any game out there by a far margin. Wish another Crysis like engine would come out.

 

[Deders]

I enjoyed playing it at an average of 30 fps on 2x 9800GTX+'s , and then with a minimum of 40fps with 560TI. Doesn't have to be constant 60fps for everyone.

 

[Sabrewings]

I think I originally played Crysis on a single 8800GT (most likely 1280x1024). I ran through it most recently with in game quality settings to max and 4x DSR on 1080p (no AA settings as it wasn't necessary) and it was buttery smooth. GPU utilization wasn't even 100% (adaptive vsync) according to PrecisionX.

 

[Deders]

It was playable on a 6600GT, at medium settings.

 

[IllogicalGlory]

I played it with a DDR2 8600m GT. It was playable at low settings 1024x768.

 

[dogen1]

(4X SSAA) is somewhere between 8x MSAA and 16x MSAA in difficulty, *far* easier to run than 16Q MSAA.

Not even close... 4x supersampling is a lot more demanding than even 16Q MSAA(which is really 8xMSAA with more coverage samples).

 

[Majcric]

I run Crysis at 1080p and 4xTrSS on my original Titan. It generally stays above 60FPS but you have to dial back some menu settings (not just AA).

A 980Ti is about 50% faster, so this is probably the first GPU than "can truly run Crysis". That's eight years after launch.

As an aside, who wants engines that take 8 years before they run well? I personally don't. I'd rather have a game that runs well the first time I play it while still looking pretty good.

Good examples are Tomb Raider 2013, Thief 4, Battlefield 3, newer Call of Duty games, and newer UT3 engine games which hold up impressively well. I can either do 4K or 2xSSAA in those games.

In particular, Thief 4 is a new release title with graphics that look absolutely gorgeous, yet it runs really well at 1080p with 2xSSAA on my two year old GPU. Why on Earth would anyone want to wait until until 2023 to get a good experience?

I agree with most of what you're saying here. When I first played through Crysis I was running a 9800GTX+. And the game while looking good didn't blow my mind. I think a lot of this was because I didn't have enough GPU/CPU grunt to push the game the way it needed to be played. By the time, I acquired a system more than capable to handle Crysis it had became dated.

 

[RussianSensation]

The in-game settings go up to 16Q AA.
....
Besides Anandtech's own benchmark shows below 40fps at 4X SSAA with a 7970, which is somewhere between 8x MSAA and 16x MSAA in difficulty, *far* easier to run than 16Q MSAA. If you literally maxed every setting in the original Crysis game menu on a Titan X at 1080p you wouldn't sniff 60 fps.

My bad, you are totally right. Thanks for correcting me and providing that chart/link. :thumbsup:

If taking the definition of 'maxed out' in literal terms as you have outlined, you are right on. I appreciated that Crysis 1 did run smoothly even at less than optimal 60 fps and the game also looked great for its time even at 1280x1024. It was really so far ahead of its time graphically, albeit its multi-core CPU scaling is rather poor.

As an aside, who wants engines that take 8 years before they run well? I personally don't. I'd rather have a game that runs well the first time I play it while still looking pretty good.

Many gamers were of the view that Crysis 1 was the graphical benchmark at launch and continued to be so for years to come. In some areas such as light shafts, physics/environmental interaction, it superseded Crysis 2 and gives games like ARK Survival or Far Cry 3/4's vegetation a run for the $. Also, Crysis 1 made building a PC and upgrading exciting for many gamers. I think it's far more preferable to have a game that scales with increased GPU hardware over time than a game that is demanding because it's poorly optimized/coded such as AC Unity or Watch Dogs.

I'd much rather have a new PC game that has graphics 3-4 years more advanced than anything on the market today, even if it can't be maxed out on 4xTitan Xs today. Besides the psychological barrier of knowing you can't max the game out, such a game on Medium would still look better than any other game. However, I realize this approach diminishes the game's ability to appeal to a wider mass market. Then again, look at ARK Survival, a game that looks average and runs very poorly at the same time, yet people are buying it for the gameplay.

I think if some developer could successfully combine very advanced graphics + great GPU scaling + great gameplay, that would be very welcome. Most games today are mostly console ports with better textures, crisper shadows and AA settings. Crysis 1 was head and shoulders better looking than any game on the PC or consoles. Crysis 3 also had amazing graphics for its time.

Why on Earth would anyone want to wait until until 2023 to get a good experience?

I am not sure I understand your thinking here. None of the games you listed looks anywhere as good as Crysis 3 or Rise Son of Rome. Let's imagine if all of the games you listed had advanced graphics that made them look as good as games that would come out in 3-4 years from now. Why wouldn't we want that? I care far more about graphics than SSAA/TrSS filters anyway so I for sure would want a game like Rise of the Tomb Raider to run at 60 fps at 1080P on Titan X SLI maxed out in the graphics settings, assuming it's the best looking game in the world by a country mile.

I agree with your viewpoint for multiplayer games that aim to attain as much appeal as possible such as LoL, WOW, SC2, DOTA 2. However, look at Skyrim modded or GTA IV modded or Doom 3 modded. There is clearly a demand for advanced graphics for many SP games that people enjoy.

Also, I am not sure some of the examples you listed are a good examples of well optimized games vs. their graphics. Metro LL and Ryse SOR scale well on faster GPUs and look phenomenal:

So it's possible to create a very good looking game that's well optimized and scales well.

 

[dogen1]

Honestly, Crysis was pretty poorly optimized, or at least not as well optimized as it could have been. At least one of the devs said as much. I think crysis 2 and 3 are good proof of it.

 

[Denithor]

Poorly optimized? Are you kidding? Crysis was written and released directly on PC, not ported from the consoles. That's why it was so advanced, if it had been native to consoles it would have been far less graphically intense (far, far less hardware to utilize).

Crysis 2 and 3 were console titles, ported to PC.

Proof indeed.

 

[Deders]

It would have run a lot better if it had better multithreaded support. Parallax Mapping also had a huge hit on GPU's at the time.

 

[Spjut]

To Crytek's defense, few games, if any, back in 2007 benefited from quad core CPUs. But all those claims about the game being made for future hardware in mind rhymed poorly when it didn't benefit from having quad core CPUs.

With Crysis being so demanding, the CPU front's slow progress in single threaded performance did hurt the game's performance more than for other games.

On the GPU front, Crysis was also harshly criticized for its DX10 performance. It failed to meet the hype about DX10 being the best thing to happen for PC gaming.


For all their flaws, the 360/PS3 version of Crysis 1 (running on Cryengine 3) are actually very impressive.

 

[poofyhairguy]

What is crazy to me to think about is how Crysis 1 was released a few months after the first iPhone. The game that would show us all how awesome the PC platform (which had a booming decade before that) could be comes out a few months after the device that would eventually undo the economies of scale for the entire PC industry. We have seen so much stagnation in this market since then that not all "gaming" PCs today can run Crysis maxed out, and no games except Star Vapor even attempt to push PC gaming past the high water mark for the consoles. Crysis is one of those ahead of its time games in the industry, like Atari's I Robot was in 1984.

I will say it was a point of pride for me when my rig could finally run the game maxed out, but it sad there is nothing else like it. Ryse (which isn't as bad of a game as everyone says) gave me hope that console ports can outdo the consoles without just piling Gameworks effects on top, but the trends aren't going in that direction.

 

[dogen1]

Poorly optimized? Are you kidding? Crysis was written and released directly on PC, not ported from the consoles. That's why it was so advanced, if it had been native to consoles it would have been far less graphically intense (far, far less hardware to utilize).

Crysis 2 and 3 were console titles, ported to PC.

Proof indeed.

Yes, according to the developers themselves.