How To Play Crysis At Max Settings + Great Fps Easily

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CKent

Diamond Member
Aug 17, 2005
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Originally posted by: duragezic
Originally posted by: CKent
I tried various config tweak "packages", eg config files with 50+ tweaks in them designed to maximize performance & graphics. I went back to my own settings of all-medium with 5 or 10 tweaks and think it looks best this way. I guess it's just like, your opinion man...
Yeah I think that's what I'll do. I spent about 2 hours last night trying configs and reading about parameters to tweak, but in the end, I think my 7800GT is just too weak in the shader area, so no matter what, it's not gonna be able to look much better than with no tweaks if I can't raise Shader Quality to Medium.

A lot of the tweaks and configs that people do, they have no clue what they really do. People where asking what this or that command does

r_usePOM=1

so he says "that command enables POM"

Oh really, wow what an expert!

There's only a few people who seem to really know what they are doing and have documented all the variables well and know how they affect things. Most just put random numbers in and make it look like crap.

Since Luxus Silentium didn't do anything for me, I'll just use my own Low and Medium settings, plus maybe 5-10 tweaks of my own that I know what they'll do. I don't think there's anyway I can use Medium Shaders unless I ran 800x600.

Agreed. About the only changes I made are the 1-2 base settings you need on high to enable sunshafts (medium's not enough, if you're curious I'll check which since I forget and reply later on), and then the sunshafts themselves. Because how friggin cool are sunshafts? :p

Edit: Oh and I -gotta- have HDR.
 

chizow

Diamond Member
Jun 26, 2001
9,537
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Originally posted by: Thor86
Originally posted by: Adius_Omega

Also if you add this in your autoexec.cfg file:
e_precache_level 1
(I think, not sure if that's the exact command, I'm on a school computer)
It precaches all the level resources to improve framerate, but at the loss of a longer load time for the levels (Well worth it)

Sweet thank you!

This one line got rid of the bad hitching in this game, and I am able to go back to using HPs Ultra High Quality config settings with 2x AA and it runs like a dream (1680x1050)! Texture quality and contrast/shadows are much better with HP config over LS config.

Glad it helped! :) Oh ya what video card solution are you running? I think I remember you were running GTX in SLI? I turned Textures back to High and it looked a ton better than the Silentium settings, but dropped FPS a bit. Reckoning was tstill playable. I'll have to check out that HP config though.

Originally posted by: CKent
Because how friggin cool are sunshafts? :p
Its lens flare! And ya they are pretty cool, even when they're totally out of place and have no business being there. :)
 

RS8

Senior member
Oct 14, 2007
202
0
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I ended up using a combination of both HP/LS and some personal modifications to get it up and running. Made the switch to running it in dx9 after I had huge dropoffs the moment I hit Relic (third chapter iirc?).
 

ja1484

Platinum Member
Dec 31, 2007
2,438
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Modified HP for me. Looks better, no real difference in performance.

If you guys want an easy performance boost with basically no visual hit, set shadows to medium. The game runs better and the shadows actually look *more* realistic by virtue of being less sharp.

I also use the sys_physics_CPU 0 tweak, as it seems to make things much smoother when, for example, a building is collapsing around me.
 

chizow

Diamond Member
Jun 26, 2001
9,537
2
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Originally posted by: ja1484
Modified HP for me. Looks better, no real difference in performance.

If you guys want an easy performance boost with basically no visual hit, set shadows to medium. The game runs better and the shadows actually look *more* realistic by virtue of being less sharp.

I also use the sys_physics_CPU 0 tweak, as it seems to make things much smoother when, for example, a building is collapsing around me.

Hmm, I set shadows to Medium right away as I've always found they result in a pretty big performance hit, especially if dynamic shadows are being used. I didn't like it at all, as they look really pixelated/low res at Medium. I'd honestly prefer non-dynamic blob or static silhouette shadows over low-res pixelated dynamic shadows.

I'll have to check out the physics tweak though, although I'm not sure how much boost I'd see on a Quad. Monitoring CPU usage I never saw all 4 cores peg or go above 60-70% total. Did you notice any penalty to effects fidelity when you turned that CPU physics option off?

Silentium's mod looks pretty good though once you turn textures back up (I left everything else the same). If I had to guess, the tweak puts textures somewhere between Low and Medium and completely disables effects (like water ripples on the flight deck in Reckoning)
 

Thor86

Diamond Member
May 3, 2001
7,886
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Originally posted by: chizow
Glad it helped! :) Oh ya what video card solution are you running? I think I remember you were running GTX in SLI? I turned Textures back to High and it looked a ton better than the Silentium settings, but dropped FPS a bit. Reckoning was tstill playable. I'll have to check out that HP config though.

No, just one 8800 Ultra at 690 GPU. :)
 

ja1484

Platinum Member
Dec 31, 2007
2,438
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Originally posted by: chizow
Hmm, I set shadows to Medium right away as I've always found they result in a pretty big performance hit, especially if dynamic shadows are being used. I didn't like it at all, as they look really pixelated/low res at Medium. I'd honestly prefer non-dynamic blob or static silhouette shadows over low-res pixelated dynamic shadows.

Go outside on a sunny day and look at tree shadows. I actually did that today walking across campus on my way home. You'd be surprised, if you took the time to look at 'em, how non-precise and uncrisp real shadows actually are. I didn't realize til I did this that medium looks more real than high.

I'll have to check out the physics tweak though, although I'm not sure how much boost I'd see on a Quad. Monitoring CPU usage I never saw all 4 cores peg or go above 60-70% total. Did you notice any penalty to effects fidelity when you turned that CPU physics option off?

From what I understand, this tweak helps dual core/single core CPUs by not requiring a frame to sync up with the physics effects. As I understand it (and I didn't look into it too deeply - I can definitely notice the improved performance) Crysis at default gives physics an independent framerate. This tweak disables that, and the CPU just renders the physics, and whatever makes it into the frames your GPU is pushing out is what you see, so it still looks normal but appears to be less laggy.

There are not any graphical penalties that I am able to discern.

Silentium's mod looks pretty good though once you turn textures back up (I left everything else the same). If I had to guess, the tweak puts textures somewhere between Low and Medium and completely disables effects (like water ripples on the flight deck in Reckoning)

Way overdone bloom in that mod - too over the top for me.