Crysis 2 Goes Direct X 11: The Ultra Upgrade, Benchmarked

[cburke82]

It's too bad Halcyon doesn't have any input on crysis 2, then again, he's using a mac. Maybe we can coax him into playing it on his grandma's pc so he can comment on this awesome game as well.

Well the $6500 Mac Pro he runs could prob run this game on med setings with that uber old AMD card lol.

 

[cburke82]

I'd certainly be interested in the rationale for not including AA results. Perhaps it's because, with AA active, none of the solutions
would give playable frame rates; but if that's true then it's another data point which would be useful to know, eg. for those with lesser
resolution displays, using AA is more important, so I'm sure some would find it useful to know if the upgrade + AA means only a mega
top-end GPU setup can cope.

With my older setup (8800GT 512MB), playing Oblivion/Stalker, I got round this issue by not using AA and running at a high res on
a high quality CRT (22" HP P1130, 2048 x 1536). Performance was much better, the visual differences were minimal due to the nature
of the games, and using a CRT meant the pixels were slightly smoothed out anyway, so it worked well.

Now I'm using a 24" 1920x1200 H-IPS display though (HP LP2475W), so AA is more of an issue.

Ian.

I think it could be that but also they still dont really use AA in Crysis 1 benches and my AMD rig can handle 4xAA just find so I dont know why they would leave it out on the older game as well...... And like you said even if the FPS are weak lets see it so I know what my card is capable of now.

 

[brotoles]

Crysis 1 and 2 use a different form of anti-aliasing, and I think it's shader based (an image post-processing filter, it detects edges and interpolate them to produce a smoother color gradient).

I guess this anti-aliasing is automatically activated on Ultra preset.

At least here in my computer, when I activate the Ultra preset, the image gets noticeably smoother, almost film-like. It's very beautiful.

A pitty that my PC can't handle it at 1080p... :-/

 

[Guest]

I'm running an old Q6600@3.6ghz with a HD6950>6970 & with July drivers I can run everything on Ultra apart from Object, Post Processing & Shadows @ 1920x1200 & still get 30-60fps, CHEERING!

 

[mapesdhs]

Now why this has to do with the 3D Glasses... When you use 3D, v-sync MUST be on to synchronize the refreshing of the screen with the shutter glasses. ...

Very true. I used to be head admin at a VR research place, in charge of a CAVE (first one in the UK). Proper syncing was essential. Here's a movie (13MB AVI) of me in the CAVE using an
engineering visualisation application called COVISE - note that we did multi-user linkups between our dept. in Salford, Manchester University, Stuttgart, and a university in Japan.

Quake2 also ran very nicely.

Ian.

 

[upgrade_1977]

I just ran the adrenaline benchmark , same settings 1920 x 1200 with hi-res textures enabled, on central park map, did one run, got 67 AVG FPS, not bad for an older system..

Thermaltake armor+ VH6000BWS Case, Corsair AX1200 PSU, i7 920 @ 3.2Ghz, Gigabyte EX58 UD3R-SLI, 8GB (2X4GB) Corsair vengeance 1600,
2 X GTX 480 in SLI (H2O), X-FI sound card, Hitatchi 1TB 7200rpm hard drive, Windows7 64bit,
Asus VG236H 23" 3D monitor

 

[mapesdhs]

(your 920 is only at 3.2? Shocking!

Is the Adrenaline benchmark available as a standalone download? Or does one need
the full game to run it?

Ian.

 

[Guest]

I have a core2duo e8300 (3ghz I think) and a 6870 1gb - good enough?

 

[upgrade_1977]

Need the full game.

 

[mapesdhs]

upgrade_1977, thanks for the info! Oh well, never mind...


oh-kaye, your E8300 will hold back what the 6870 is capable of for sure, depending on the
game, etc. Ordinarily one would say just upgrade to a quad core, but good quads for S775
are crazy expensive 2nd-hand; people are paying more for Q9* CPUs than the cost of a
_new_ 2500K (what mbd do you have btw?). For less than the cost of buying a used Q9650
you could easily build a P55 setup with an i5 750/760 (or even an 860/870 if you're lucky),
more/faster RAM, and have a much better system all round (keeping your 6870, PSU, case,
etc.) Even an oc'd 540 will run rings round the latest 2100 SB for gaming. A low cost TRUE
RevC cooler + decent fan will give a huge oc on a 750/760 (4.4GHz), perfect for gaming.
And if you're not bothered about SLI/CF support then board prices will be lower, though it's
still very easy to get a good board that does have SLI/CF for little outlay.

Oh, a lower cost upgrade I suppose would be a Q6600 G0; it overclocks to a decent
degree, but you need a good mbd, cooler & RAM to do this properly (at stock speed,
I think your E8300 will be faster for tasks that don't use more than 2 cores).


Here's a simple example of something I've just built for a friend, all sourced from eBay
except for the cooler & fan which I bought new (all these example prices include the
shipping costs I paid):

Asrock H55M-GE: 27 UKP (for myself I struck lucky recently: Asrock P55 Deluxe for only 29!!)
Corsair 4GB DDR3/1600 (2x2GB) CL9: 19 UKP
i3 540: 58 UKP (an i5 750/760 would be +20 to +40 more)
Thermaltake Toughpower 700W Modular: 51 UKP
TRUE + Gelid Wing Blue 12 UV: 38 UKP
Antec 300 case: 34 UKP

Total: 227 UKP

Now compare that to recent typical Q9* auctions here:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=330582207989
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=140573244912

So, you could upgrade with a Q6600 G0, but really a better platform is preferable IMO.
If buying new, SB 2500K would be my choice. For used, ya can't beat P55 imo.

NB: My friend doesn't really need 3D, but atm it's fitted with a 9800GT 1GB which cost 40.

Ian.

 

[upgrade_1977]

Oops, sorry i was real busy today, my bad. Ill try to be more helpful in the future.

 

[sudeshc]

good read

 

[hameem 1]

the only card that can handle crysis 2 ultra settings with dx11 at 1080p is the GTX 590

 

[cburke82]

the only card that can handle crysis 2 ultra settings with dx11 at 1080p is the GTX 590

Well then Im sure the 6990 could also handel it as that card scores higher in a lot of tests

 

[izayaorihara]

I get about 35-55 fps on this game maxed at 1680x1050 with the hi-res texture pack on DX9 with 8GB of DDR3, a GTX 560 2GB Superclocked (The game uses about 1.4-1.5GB of VRAM all the time), and an FX-6200 @ stock speeds.

Downloading the DX11 patch to see what I get now...

 

[izayaorihara]

Ok, adding on to my last comment, I got the DX 11 and High Res Texture pack, and my 8GB of ram, my GTX 560 2GB Superclock, and my FX-6200 with Ultra settings and AA at 1680x1050, I average about 38-40 fps, and It doesn't seem to dip below 33.6...

 

[izayaorihara]

One more addition to my last comment...

I have a stock speed FX-6200, and under DX 11, my 2GB GTX 560 averages 1.8 GB of VRAM usage.

 

[cleeve]

[citation][nom]izayaorihara[/nom]Ok, adding on to my last comment, I got the DX 11 and High Res Texture pack, and my 8GB of ram, my GTX 560 2GB Superclock, and my FX-6200 with Ultra settings and AA at 1680x1050, I average about 38-40 fps, and It doesn't seem to dip below 33.6...[/citation]

You're probably not using the same stress test we are, then.

 

[izayaorihara]

I'm actually playing the game to test it :\

I played through the whole thing yesterday, the lowest fps I got was about 29 towards the end of the game when you're shooting things in on top of the APC, and the city is literally falling apart around you.

 

[cleeve]

[citation][nom]izayaorihara[/nom]I'm actually playing the game to test it :\I played through the whole thing yesterday, the lowest fps I got was about 29 towards the end of the game when you're shooting things in on top of the APC, and the city is literally falling apart around you.[/citation]

That doesn't matter. You'd need to test it exactly the same way we do if you want to compare results.

Otherwise, all you're proving is that the parts you're testing are easier than the parts we test.