Friday, September 19th 2008

Crysis Warhead Post-release Hardware Tests Show Neutral Improvements

Sep 19th, 2008 10:27 Discuss (53 Comments)

Crytek has worked closely with NVIDIA in the development of the Crysis franchise, and it is a known fact that the original title was optimised for GeForce hardware. The original title, however, was criticised for being too demanding with hardware requirements, which may have contributed to the luke-warm sales of the game. With Crysis Warhead however, Crytek promises to have improved the game engine to work better with today's hardware. PC Games Hardware (PCGH) put the new game to test, not with the prime objective to review it, but to review its performance with today's hardware. There are positives that can be drawn from the findings of the review. The first being, that the game performs to the potential of installed hardware, be it GeForce or Radeon. There were very minor deviations of the hardware's performances from synthetic tests that show their capabilities. For example, Radeon HD 4870 performed neck and neck with GeForce GTX 260 in the "gamer mode", with the former achieving a higher minimum frame-rate. This was also seen with the game's "enthusiast mode" albeit the GeForce chipping away with a higher average frame-rate. The trend continued with the rest of today's GPUs, which indeed is a positive sign.

With CPU, the game's performance in many ways was proportional the CPUs' performance. However, quad-core and dual-core processors nearly exchanged blows to bring out an interesting mix of scores. Core 2 Extreme QX6850 exchanged blows with Core 2 Duo E8400 that shares the same clock speed of 3.00 GHz, with QX6850 providing only a nominal improvement over the E8400. The exact opposite happened with Core 2 Quad Q6700 and Core 2 Duo E6750, with the dual-core chipping away a 1 fps lead. The CPU scores go on to show that the game is still largely comfortable with today's dual-core processors, with quad-core ones not offering any real advantage. With system memory, it was seen that in a 64-bit Windows Vista environment, having 4 GB of system memory did help step up performance, the increment wasn't all that nominal either.

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53 Comments on Crysis Warhead Post-release Hardware Tests Show Neutral Improvements

#26

EastCoasthandle

ShadowFoldI have a 4850 but I am changing my files to that stuff now.

In the FSAAProfile.txt I deleted everything and replaced it with the ATI information.

#27

ShadowFold

Yea thats what I did. Didn't do anything to performance but AA looks alot better thats for sure.

#28

EastCoasthandle

ShadowFoldYea thats what I did. Didn't do anything to performance but AA looks alot better thats for sure.

Yeah, performance for me is about 0.6 FPS but AA is working a lot better for me. Did you pick 4xMSAA and not 4x? You should have 2 of them now. Comparisons between 4x and 4xMSAA are found here

#29

WarEagleAU

Bird of Prey

Very interesting. I wonder why ATI didnt work closely with Crytek as well...

#30

ShadowFold

WarEagleAUVery interesting. I wonder why ATI didnt work closely with Crytek as well...

They didn't need to I guess. Cause I got this game running beautifully :pimp:

#31

Megasty

Well I finally got it to work right. I just had to reinstall it. I didn't have any time to do it b4 now. I must say that gamer & enthusiast runs much smoother on a single 4870 than the choppy magic that's happening on high & very high in Crysis. I just wish it didn't crash mid-way through. I already played it 3 times all the way through & it crashed atleast once all three times. But that's still better than Crysis. It crashed every other level for me until the last update.

#32

Wile E

Power User

mdm-adphI'm surprised that the X2 6000+ chip was able to maintain like 50% more stable minimum framerates that equivalent Core 2 chips, even though it's a bit slower with the max -- is it always like that?

Not really. In the original Crysis, my Intel with 2 cores disabled stomps all over my 6400+ in minimum framerate. Hell, it stomps all over the AMD in minimum in almost everything, tho I am sure there are a handful of exceptions.

#33

Kwod

Crysis with 4 gigs of ram and a 4870 1 gig=1920x1200:toast:

#34

eidairaman1

The Exiled Airman

MegastyWell I finally got it to work right. I just had to reinstall it. I didn't have any time to do it b4 now. I must say that gamer & enthusiast runs much smoother on a single 4870 than the choppy magic that's happening on high & very high in Crysis. I just wish it didn't crash mid-way through. I already played it 3 times all the way through & it crashed atleast once all three times. But that's still better than Crysis. It crashed every other level for me until the last update.

Check for any error Logs in the games directory, make copies and clear the contents of the originals meaning opening them selecting all the stuff and deleting, sometimes those logs get so huge the game doesnt know what to do with them.

#35

twicksisted

for some reason i only get 1920X1080.... also I dont get the 4X MSAA option... hmmm

#36

Hayder_Master

mdm-adphHell, even if it just runs almost as good on ATI's cards, that would be a vast improvement from the heavy bias present in regular Crysis.

I'm surprised that the X2 6000+ chip was able to maintain like 50% more stable minimum framerates that equivalent Core 2 chips, even though it's a bit slower with the max -- is it always like that?

me too dude , try also with amd dual core optimizer program , yeh our 6000 amd's seems better in crysis

twicksistedits all down to the clock speed... if you overclock that quad AMD youll get more out of it... ;)
These tests were done at stock speeds on these chips

for high resolution and AA you see quad go up and far away from dual , and for example if you see some test with 2500x1600 you see phenom better than all intel quad(not extreme sure) cuz phenom is real quad

chronOnce I got crysis wars running, I found the performance to only be slightly better than the original crysis. I hope to find some custom configs for an 8800gt though.

agree dude , i think we need some overclock

jbunch07why no 4870 X2 on the chart?

4870x2 =1.7x4870 and count
oh i understand it must be off the chart! haha jk.

EastCoasthandleAgain, test show that the 4800 series are a strong performer when AA is used.

sure dude high gpu win more open space in game and more boots need high gpu and sure 4800 only win with high gpu and 800 stream

ShadowFoldThe games runs the same with no aa and 4x on enthusiast DX10. I really love having a HD 4800 card :D

crysis kill card's with high AA

#37

Mussels

Freshwater Moderator

i finished warhead yesterday, and in DX9 mode on my main system i never dropped below 60FPS unless it was loading or saving. the game ran like butter on 'high' (gamer) with no problems.

#38

oli_ramsay

I've been playing with my 4870 OC'ed to 860/1100 in "enthusiast" mode in DX9 and get a very nice smooth framerate ~30. I must confess that I think the textures in some areas and draw distance is inferior to that of the original Crysis. Still a beautiful game though (graphically).

#39

Mussels

Freshwater Moderator

yeah the draw distance is lower and popups happen more often but the FPS is a lot higher for it.

#40

erocker

EastCoasthandleIn the FSAAProfile.txt I deleted everything and replaced it with the ATI information.

But what did you replace it with? What information?

#41

ShadowFold

erockerBut what did you replace it with? What information?

forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=69845

#42

Hayder_Master

Musselsi finished warhead yesterday, and in DX9 mode on my main system i never dropped below 60FPS unless it was loading or saving. the game ran like butter on 'high' (gamer) with no problems.

what setting you chose , and did you try with AA

#43

Mussels

Freshwater Moderator

i ran it on 'gamer' (high) with 2xaa, in DX9

#44

Hayder_Master

Musselsi ran it on 'gamer' (high) with 2xaa, in DX9

rally , seems i must got a little bit performance , thanx

#45

twicksisted

Musselsi ran it on 'gamer' (high) with 2xaa, in DX9

what res was that?
Im getting 30fps+- without AA in 1920X1200 on gamer

#46

Mussels

Freshwater Moderator

twicksistedwhat res was that?
Im getting 30fps+- without AA in 1920X1200 on gamer

1360x768, my TV res.

#47

twicksisted

Mussels1360x768, my TV res.

aaah ok... lucky bugger hehe.... 40" size... small resolution so you get good fps :)
Perfect!

#48

Mussels

Freshwater Moderator

twicksistedaaah ok... lucky bugger hehe.... 40" size... small resolution so you get good fps :)
Perfect!

i've been trying to tell people that since i got it, that lower res is in fact going to be an epic win for gaming.

warhead was short on easy, i think i'll go play it again on a harder difficulty... it certainly was a lot more fun than the original.

#49

Hayder_Master

now i run it with 1280x1024 on full setting , i get 20-25 fbs seems run good , but im leave it now for my next upgreade cuz i like game run with AA

#50

twicksisted

Musselsi've been trying to tell people that since i got it, that lower res is in fact going to be an epic win for gaming.

warhead was short on easy, i think i'll go play it again on a harder difficulty... it certainly was a lot more fun than the original.

For sure ;)
Also for people wanting 24" monitors, if you get a 22" then its practically the same size but you can get away with a midrange gfx card and a lot cheaper build essentially

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Crysis Warhead Post-release Hardware Tests Show Neutral Improvements

53 Comments on Crysis Warhead Post-release Hardware Tests Show Neutral Improvements

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