Cryostasis Retail.. Abysmal performance & poor graphics

[Grooveriding]

I've had some time to play the retail of this game recently after purchasing the Russian release of the game which is already out in Europe.

Running the game on a gtx 280 with a 4.0ghz oced core2 cpu and 4gb of ram on vista. With everything maxed and physx enabled at 1920x1200 with aa enabled via in game as well as 16xaf, performance is, in a word, abysmal.

What makes it all the worse is that, the entire game is inside, in tight corridors, or small rooms, not outside in huge open areas, which would justify, maybe, such poor performance. The game's graphics, at best, are on par with Bioshock, but really look worse imo. The only impressive thing I've seen in the game is the water, which looks quite nice and the reflections are impressive.

The Physx enhancements are not much at all, it looks like jelly is stuck to the walls and wobbling rather than melting, and objects being tossed around are no different then what you'd see in HL2. Pretty dissapointing, especially the often times FPS in the 10-20 range, considering how poor the graphics are.

All that and apart from the hype of what this game would be visually being just that, hype. The game is very cool, has a great premise and is a lot of fun. But all the hype about the PhysX and graphics in this game adding to the immersion are a crock. And the performance is really poor considering the graphics look extremely dated and the game is played within small confines.

Glad to provide some screenies on request.

Cheers.



Moved to PC Gaming.

Video Mod BFG10K.

 

[Qbah]

The performance tanks on a GTX280? Ouch... Is there an ingame benchmark or something? Or perhaps you could run a short FRAPS benchmark of a standard portion (like 2 minutesm with MIN AVG and MAX). A few screenshots of the better looking parts would be nice too Thanks!

 

[Grooveriding]

I played for a few minutes and took some screenies. Haven't gotten through the whole game as of yet. Minimum FPS of 5, max of 47 and an avg of 23. When there are lighting effects or this sort of snow particle effect in the air, fps is usually sub-10. I would say this game is definitely not playable maxed out on a gtx 280 at 1920x1200.

Here are some screens

http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=35hpj0l&s=5
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=28jl9c&s=5
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=30clk3l&s=5
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=i6cci8&s=5
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=34ql0sk&s=5
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=2yzbhaa&s=5
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=2iad9hl&s=5

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: Grooveriding
I played for a few minutes and took some screenies. Haven't gotten through the whole game as of yet. Minimum FPS of 5, max of 47 and an avg of 23. When there are lighting effects or this sort of snow particle effect in the air, fps is usually sub-10. I would say this game is definitely not playable maxed out on a gtx 280 at 1920x1200.

Here are some screens

http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=35hpj0l&s=5
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=28jl9c&s=5
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=30clk3l&s=5
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=i6cci8&s=5
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=34ql0sk&s=5
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=2yzbhaa&s=5
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=2iad9hl&s=5

You joined the board to tell us PhysX sucks?

OK I guess those of us in the US will have to wait a bit to corroborate, thanks for the info.

 

[sgrinavi]

Originally posted by: nRollo

You joined the board to tell us PhysX sucks?

OK I guess those of us in the US will have to wait a bit to corroborate, thanks for the info.

Not the message I got, I can see where YOU might think that LOL... I was wondering why we got a game review in the video card section myself... Kinda strange...

 

[zebrax2]

Originally posted by: nRollo

Originally posted by: Grooveriding
I played for a few minutes and took some screenies. Haven't gotten through the whole game as of yet. Minimum FPS of 5, max of 47 and an avg of 23. When there are lighting effects or this sort of snow particle effect in the air, fps is usually sub-10. I would say this game is definitely not playable maxed out on a gtx 280 at 1920x1200.

Here are some screens

http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=35hpj0l&s=5
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=28jl9c&s=5
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=30clk3l&s=5
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=i6cci8&s=5
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=34ql0sk&s=5
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=2yzbhaa&s=5
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=2iad9hl&s=5

You joined the board to tell us PhysX sucks?

OK I guess those of us in the US will have to wait a bit to corroborate, thanks for the info.

What's with the accusation? he never said that PhysX sucks, he's just saying that the game is unplayable at 19x12 with all settings maxed using a high end card(GTX280)

....so defensive:disgust:

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: zebrax2

Originally posted by: nRollo

Originally posted by: Grooveriding
I played for a few minutes and took some screenies. Haven't gotten through the whole game as of yet. Minimum FPS of 5, max of 47 and an avg of 23. When there are lighting effects or this sort of snow particle effect in the air, fps is usually sub-10. I would say this game is definitely not playable maxed out on a gtx 280 at 1920x1200.

Here are some screens

http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=35hpj0l&s=5
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=28jl9c&s=5
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=30clk3l&s=5
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=i6cci8&s=5
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=34ql0sk&s=5
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=2yzbhaa&s=5
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=2iad9hl&s=5

You joined the board to tell us PhysX sucks?

OK I guess those of us in the US will have to wait a bit to corroborate, thanks for the info.

What's with the accusation? he never said that PhysX sucks, he's just saying that the game is unplayable at 19x12 with all settings maxed using a high end card(GTX280)

....so defensive:disgust:

What exactly did I accuse him of? Nothing I can see.

His first post was to tell us PhysX sucks, at least in terms of Cryostasis, and we will have to wait to corroborate. Seems straight forward enough.

 

[nismotigerwvu]

You clearly accused him of joining the board to bash PhysX and tried to start a flame war in a thread that painted a negative view of a title that had potential to showcase nVidia technology.
For the consumers sake, I hope the performance issues are cleared up with a timely patch.
Rollo, you're doing more harm than god for your cause acting so negitive/combative.

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: Grooveriding
I've had some time to play the retail of this game recently after purchasing the Russian release of the game which is already out in Europe.

Running the game on a gtx 280 with a 4.0ghz oced core2 cpu and 4gb of ram on vista. With everything maxed and physx enabled at 1920x1200 with aa enabled via in game as well as 16xaf, performance is, in a word, abysmal.

What makes it all the worse is that, the entire game is inside, in tight corridors, or small rooms, not outside in huge open areas, which would justify, maybe, such poor performance. The game's graphics, at best, are on par with Bioshock, but really look worse imo. The only impressive thing I've seen in the game is the water, which looks quite nice and the reflections are impressive.

The Physx enhancements are not much at all, it looks like jelly is stuck to the walls and wobbling rather than melting, and objects being tossed around are no different then what you'd see in HL2. Pretty dissapointing, especially the often times FPS in the 10-20 range, considering how poor the graphics are.

All that and apart from the hype of what this game would be visually being just that, hype. The game is very cool, has a great premise and is a lot of fun. But all the hype about the PhysX and graphics in this game adding to the immersion are a crock. And the performance is really poor considering the graphics look extremely dated and the game is played within small confines.

Glad to provide some screenies on request.

Cheers.

Interesting, have you checked out the Cryostasis Tech Demo download from Nvidia? I was very impressed with the graphics actually, nothing short of Crysis has better graphics from what I've seen. Is the Russian version running DX10 or look significantly different than the demo?

Also, if you're concerned about performance, you should certainly turn off AA. Again, going by the tech demo, AA isn't as needed as some other titles. The Tech Demo shows Cryostasis is not only very CPU/compute intensive for its PhysX effects, but its also extremely GPU intensive as lowering resolution increases performance drastically. I believe I was getting a steady 60+ FPS on a single GTX 280 at 1280, 38 at 1680 and 32 at 1920.

Lastly, are there options to turn off PhysX effects? I'm sure there has to be in order to allow the game to run acceptably on non-Nvidia hardware, so perhaps you can show some visual and performance comparisons between PhysX on and off as it seems you're not impressed with the PhysX features. Personally I found some of the effects to be quite excellent.

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: nismotigerwvu
You clearly accused him of joining the board to bash PhysX and tried to start a flame war in a thread that painted a negative view of a title that had potential to showcase nVidia technology.
For the consumers sake, I hope the performance issues are cleared up with a timely patch.
Rollo, you're doing more harm than god for your cause acting so negitive/combative.

You read a whole lot into my two sentences.

I'm looking forward to Cryostasis, I'll try to get an advance copy and either verify or refute this.

My guess is the drivers for the game aren't done or have a bug.

 

[thilanliyan]

I haven't seen this myself but as I said in one of the PhysX threads, you can't always judge how good a game will look by the tech demo (IIRC the same thing happened with Oblivion).

EDIT: Judging by this:
http://www.firingsquad.com/har..._performance/page4.asp
performance from the OP seems about right for 1920.

 

[Qbah]

Originally posted by: Grooveriding
I played for a few minutes and took some screenies. Haven't gotten through the whole game as of yet. Minimum FPS of 5, max of 47 and an avg of 23. When there are lighting effects or this sort of snow particle effect in the air, fps is usually sub-10. I would say this game is definitely not playable maxed out on a gtx 280 at 1920x1200.

Here are some screens

http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=35hpj0l&s=5
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=28jl9c&s=5
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=30clk3l&s=5
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=i6cci8&s=5
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=34ql0sk&s=5
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=2yzbhaa&s=5
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=2iad9hl&s=5

Those don't look too great... The bleaked color, strange contrast, low detail, funny textures... And it definately tanks on a GTX280 Well, Crysis at least looks very good (hence the low performance is validated). I guess unless there's something really wrong with this version and it gets patched or something, one less title to promote PhysX Or perhaps not? Buy the equipment, check the game yourself and then conclude that it does indeed suck (obviously having already paid for the hardware ).

And isn't this a TWIMTBP title? How can drivers be bad on the nVidia side? OP, which drivers are you running?

EDIT: Well, he does like the game... for everything else but the technology it's using (so not for graphics or PhysX).

 

[Fox5]

Geforce PhysX really looks like it needs SLI to be playable.
Probably not from a lack of resources, but due to how the time slicing works. From benchmarks, it seems like two low-end geforce cards handle a game + physx better than a single high end card, even if that high end card is more than twice as fast.

If IGPs weren't so darn low end (what, like 1/100th the shader power of a gtx 280, if that?), I'd say that buying an nvidia mobo would be the perfect way to get physx support.

 

[Grooveriding]

To answer some questions. There is no option to enable or disable physx within the game, only through disabling it via the NV control panel of course. Yes, this is a TWIMTBP title, it has the brief logo when you load up the game. The AA option in game is merely turn AA on or off, no 2x, 4x etc. And it seems to only affect certain objects not everything. I'll try to get some screens of that later tonight.

Performance is pretty dismal imo, considering how poor the visuals of the game are. I have a spare 8800gts 512 lying around, maybe I'll try offloading the physx onto it and try some more benching. Regardless the physx effects are pretty underwhelming. But the game is a lot of fun!

 

[SunnyD]

Originally posted by: nRollo

Originally posted by: nismotigerwvu
You clearly accused him of joining the board to bash PhysX and tried to start a flame war in a thread that painted a negative view of a title that had potential to showcase nVidia technology.
For the consumers sake, I hope the performance issues are cleared up with a timely patch.
Rollo, you're doing more harm than god for your cause acting so negitive/combative.

You read a whole lot into my two sentences.

I'm looking forward to Cryostasis, I'll try to get an advance copy and either verify or refute this.

My guess is the drivers for the game aren't done or have a bug.

And THIS is my #1 problem with PC gaming. If it can't run on hardware as is and requires "driver fixes", then that's just bad marketing from the graphics manufacturer - AMD and NVIDIA both.

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: thilan29
I haven't seen this myself but as I said in one of the PhysX threads, you can't always judge how good a game will look by the tech demo (IIRC the same thing happened with Oblivion).

EDIT: Judging by this:
http://www.firingsquad.com/har..._performance/page4.asp
performance from the OP seems about right for 1920.

The tech demo is clearly running with the retail game engine though, if you hit ESC mid-demo it takes you to the menu, but the mouse is inactive and there's not enough time to check any settings.

Originally posted by: Grooveriding
To answer some questions. There is no option to enable or disable physx within the game, only through disabling it via the NV control panel of course. Yes, this is a TWIMTBP title, it has the brief logo when you load up the game. The AA option in game is merely turn AA on or off, no 2x, 4x etc. And it seems to only affect certain objects not everything. I'll try to get some screens of that later tonight.

Performance is pretty dismal imo, considering how poor the visuals of the game are. I have a spare 8800gts 512 lying around, maybe I'll try offloading the physx onto it and try some more benching. Regardless the physx effects are pretty underwhelming. But the game is a lot of fun!

Interesting, sounds like the NA delay may be due to additional PhysX or improved graphics/textures. Your SS and overall impression don't match what I've seen in the tech demo, do you mind downloading this and comparing?

Cryostasis Tech Demo

As for running a 2nd card for PhysX, this is the first title I've seen show significant gains. Looks to be about 10FPS gain at 1680/1920 with a GTX 280.

Performance Comparison at PCGH

The absense of any PhysX slider/setting and your underwhelmed opinion of the effects make me think additional effects aren't included in the Russian version, but we shall see. Good to hear the game itself is fun, if the eye-candy and effects match the tech demo that's good news. Shame you don't have an ATI card to see if there's any performance hit compared to NV hardware.

 

[Grooveriding]

Originally posted by: chizow

Originally posted by: thilan29
I haven't seen this myself but as I said in one of the PhysX threads, you can't always judge how good a game will look by the tech demo (IIRC the same thing happened with Oblivion).

EDIT: Judging by this:
http://www.firingsquad.com/har..._performance/page4.asp
performance from the OP seems about right for 1920.

The tech demo is clearly running with the retail game engine though, if you hit ESC mid-demo it takes you to the menu, but the mouse is inactive and there's not enough time to check any settings.

Originally posted by: Grooveriding
To answer some questions. There is no option to enable or disable physx within the game, only through disabling it via the NV control panel of course. Yes, this is a TWIMTBP title, it has the brief logo when you load up the game. The AA option in game is merely turn AA on or off, no 2x, 4x etc. And it seems to only affect certain objects not everything. I'll try to get some screens of that later tonight.

Performance is pretty dismal imo, considering how poor the visuals of the game are. I have a spare 8800gts 512 lying around, maybe I'll try offloading the physx onto it and try some more benching. Regardless the physx effects are pretty underwhelming. But the game is a lot of fun!

Interesting, sounds like the NA delay may be due to additional PhysX or improved graphics/textures. Your SS and overall impression don't match what I've seen in the tech demo, do you mind downloading this and comparing?

Cryostasis Tech Demo

As for running a 2nd card for PhysX, this is the first title I've seen show significant gains. Looks to be about 10FPS gain at 1680/1920 with a GTX 280.

Performance Comparison at PCGH

The absense of any PhysX slider/setting and your underwhelmed opinion of the effects make me think additional effects aren't included in the Russian version, but we shall see. Good to hear the game itself is fun, if the eye-candy and effects match the tech demo that's good news. Shame you don't have an ATI card to see if there's any performance hit compared to NV hardware.

I've downloaded and run the tech demo before, don't remember exactly what I got but I believe it was in the 40s for FPS at the end with everything turned up. That's why I'm surprised at the poor performance of the actual retail game.

The techdemo doesn't seem to contain any of the lighting features or the snow hanging in the air PhysX effect that the actual game does though. And those are the two that seem to tank performance the most.

 

[EvilComputer92]

Originally posted by: nRollo

Originally posted by: nismotigerwvu
You clearly accused him of joining the board to bash PhysX and tried to start a flame war in a thread that painted a negative view of a title that had potential to showcase nVidia technology.
For the consumers sake, I hope the performance issues are cleared up with a timely patch.
Rollo, you're doing more harm than god for your cause acting so negitive/combative.

You read a whole lot into my two sentences.

I'm looking forward to Cryostasis, I'll try to get an advance copy and either verify or refute this.

My guess is the drivers for the game aren't done or have a bug.

It's obvious already that you will refute it. Your espousing of all things PhysX is simply comical.

PhysX has been a joke in nearly every game it has been used in.

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: Grooveriding
I've downloaded and run the tech demo before, don't remember exactly what I got but I believe it was in the 40s for FPS at the end with everything turned up. That's why I'm surprised at the poor performance of the actual retail game.

The techdemo doesn't seem to contain any of the lighting features or the snow hanging in the air PhysX effect that the actual game does though. And those are the two that seem to tank performance the most.

Odd, are you running DX9 or DX10? Just seems like there's a significant difference in IQ in your SS compared to the Tech Demo. Also, the TD does have the snow/air particles and dynamic lightning, which are certainly very cool features. Personally I think the surface ice/water effects are the most taxing features.

Here's some SS I took from the TD, DX10 mode, High (max) presets:
Air particles and crystalized frozen objects
Cloth + ice transparency effects. The ice actually melts off in sheets as the heat melts it.
Water being blown by a turbine and dynamically shifting around interactable objects.
Lighting, water pooling
Water splashing, particle effects
Water ripples.
Dynamic water reflections on the ceiling.

Again, looks great imo, only thing that really comes close with regards to shading, physics and lighting is Crysis.

 

[TidusZ]

I'm just gonna say as a neutral observer, that first off, the game looks somewhat unimpressive graphically. Secondly, I found rollo's comment really out of nowhere and unwarrented. You would have been better off apologizing and recognizing your obvious mistake than denying what everyone can read and see. I'm not even gonna charge anyone 2 cents.

 

[schneiderguy]

Originally posted by: nRollo

You joined the board to tell us PhysX sucks?

troll.

OP: Do you have the newest drivers installed?

This guy says the game was playable at 1920*1200 with his gtx 280 once he updated his drivers.

 

[Grooveriding]

Originally posted by: schneiderguy

Originally posted by: nRollo

You joined the board to tell us PhysX sucks?

troll.

OP: Do you have the newest drivers installed?

This guy says the game was playable at 1920*1200 with his gtx 280 once he updated his drivers.

I have the latest WHQL from NV for vista 64 181.25 or something, I believe. I couldn't be bothered to do any benches after work last night. I'll try to do some more tonight. I doubt drivers will make this game playable though with everything enabled. It's a very poor experience currently.

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: Grooveriding

Originally posted by: schneiderguy

Originally posted by: nRollo

You joined the board to tell us PhysX sucks?

troll.

OP: Do you have the newest drivers installed?

This guy says the game was playable at 1920*1200 with his gtx 280 once he updated his drivers.

I have the latest WHQL from NV for vista 64 181.25 or something, I believe. I couldn't be bothered to do any benches after work last night. I'll try to do some more tonight. I doubt drivers will make this game playable though with everything enabled. It's a very poor experience currently.

Reading through that thread its pretty obvious your game version isn't properly updated or configured. Sounds like you're running DX9 and SM3.0, I'm guessing you're running XP. Apparently DX10/SM4.0 needs to be enabled and makes a huge difference in IQ. Also once patched there's comments about a PhysX effect toggle with screenshots that show significant IQ difference.

 

[Grooveriding]

Originally posted by: chizow

Originally posted by: Grooveriding

Originally posted by: schneiderguy

Originally posted by: nRollo

You joined the board to tell us PhysX sucks?

troll.

OP: Do you have the newest drivers installed?

This guy says the game was playable at 1920*1200 with his gtx 280 once he updated his drivers.

I have the latest WHQL from NV for vista 64 181.25 or something, I believe. I couldn't be bothered to do any benches after work last night. I'll try to do some more tonight. I doubt drivers will make this game playable though with everything enabled. It's a very poor experience currently.

Reading through that thread its pretty obvious your game version isn't properly updated or configured. Sounds like you're running DX9 and SM3.0, I'm guessing you're running XP. Apparently DX10/SM4.0 needs to be enabled and makes a huge difference in IQ. Also once patched there's comments about a PhysX effect toggle with screenshots that show significant IQ difference.

Like I said in the post you quoted, I'm using vista 64. DX10 is enabled, I have it set to SM 4.0, again like I said, I have all options completely maxed in those screenshots and benches. I'm also running the latest patch 1.1

I'm sure you are going to hear the same when the retail comes out in NA. The games is definitely not all it's cracked up to be visually, but is a fun game nonetheless.

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: Grooveriding
Like I said in the post you quoted, I'm using vista 64. DX10 is enabled, I have it set to SM 4.0, again like I said, I have all options completely maxed in those screenshots and benches. I'm also running the latest patch 1.1

I'm sure you are going to hear the same when the retail comes out in NA. The games is definitely not all it's cracked up to be visually, but is a fun game nonetheless.

Ah ya, I do see you listed Vista 64. Still, your SS don't look anywhere as good as mine from the TD. The folks in the linked Rage3D thread also comment on significant differences between SM3.0 and 4.0 and all seem to be impressed with the graphics and effects under SM 4.0. One guy also posted some of the config file settings that might impact your IQ:

//=================== physics settings ===================
@p.hardware = 1
@p.fluids = 1
@p.cloth = 1

//=================== video settings =====================
@v.gamma = 32
@v.sx = 1920
@v.sy = 1200
@r.sky = 1
@r.realshadows = 1
@r.softshadows = 1
@r.projectives = 1
@r.motionblur = 1
@r.cameramotionblur = 1
@r.diffusemap = 0
@r.normalmap = 0
@r.specularmap = 0
@r.waterreflection = 1
@r.waterenvreflection = 1
@r.view = 40
@render_vfx = 0
@r.viewkoef = 1.000000
@hitfx_lifetime = 18
@r.shadermodel = 4
@r.anisotropic = 12
@r.antialiasing = 0
@r.vsync = 0
@r.fur = 1
@r.postglow = 1
@r.caustic = 1
@r.aspectratio = 1.600000

Guess we'll have to wait for NA retail and see, but from what I've seen the graphics and PhysX effects are very impressive.