Greetings to all, and a word of gratitude for starting this thread. Ive never posted anything on (any)forums before so this is my first, and i must say that I AGREE, Crysis is over hyped. Namely for what it was reputed to be (advertisement) crysis was supposed to be the next generation in (gfx) gaming, but what it really turned out to be is the same old seen so far, just SO MUCH MORE of it! Graphics look phenomenal but they're not revolutionary. Shader effects, there really aren't a lot if any DX10 effects in it, the terrain shader may look a bit more precise under DX10 but from what i can see no a lot of gain from DX9.0c. Another advantage that was speculated for DX10 advantages was better performance (those with DX10 platforms will get much better performance that previous versions of DX), once again we see it is not the case.
Pretty graphics??? Did any one ever try HL2 with a Cinematic Mod, with textures 2Kx2K, and it looks wonderfull and eats performance (though not as much as crysis) and lacks additional shaders and maps on the faces. Crysis uses (from what i know) 4Kx4K and all types of shader of effects and different maps on virtually all vegetation and models. The only new shader im curious about is the skin melanin shader of faces, if it really is a new shader code and not just transparency or translucency related effect. Millions of polygons and tons of objects in a scene, on a HIGHER than before resolution, and you have Crysis. It does look phenomenal but it is not revolutionary. Geometry shaders !? I went with a new rig when i bought it and got Vista Ultimate for geometry shaders, i had pixel and vertex with my 7800GT.
Destructible environment. Well it so turned out that the fully destructible environment isn't very destructible, and even most of the already destructible objects are pre-scripted to behave the way the do when struck or shot at, and don't really destroy based on realtime GPU or SPU calculations like DX10 physics were supposed to do. Destructable palm trees, they only brake at certain places, and if you try to slice the palm trunk you'll notice that it only cuts if shot at certain parts, at a certain distance from each part, and not everywhere you shoot it. Smaller vegetation that moves upon collision is other than mobile on touch INDESTRUCTABLE . Thicker trees, they don't even move, other than their canopies which sway in the wind, you can't do anything to them, i tried shooting a small branch of the tree with a mounted machine gun and it doesn't even scratch it much less brake it. So not a very "realistic" destructible environment, looks to me Crytek made a lot of objects pre destructable and it works well, and looks amazing i must admit but still it is not a revolution in physics. Even the buildings, those you can brake are actually small shacks with metal of wood blocks stacked against each other. I haven't seen a brick wall go down on my demo on Physics set on very high (or everything else on very high), no matter what i throw at it.
Dying enemies. I hope it's just the demo, but once you shoot the enemy dead, it sort of becomes part of the environment texture with no volume of material properties at all. I blew up a jeep, and after it burned to crisp and kept bouncing up and down for a while for no apparent reason, the body of the Korean on the mounted gun was still there untouched and rich with colors, plus when i shoot dead enemies on the ground i hear and see the same effect i get when shooting directly in the dirt. So that is negative when paired with everything else in crysis.
So to not prolong this much further, i probably overdid the post already but it's my first and wanted to share my thoughts with the rest of you. Im not to be miss understood I AM A CRYSIS FAN waiting eagerly for the title to come out. I hand it to crytek for making an extraordinary title with visuals not yet achieved. But it is not a revolution, and not a next generation in gaming. The difference that FarCry, Doom3 and HL2 made in gaming when they came out bringing SM 2.0 in their fullest, compared do DX 8.1 before them was much greater that what crysis brings to SM 4.0 if it has any of it at all that is, compared to what can already be done with SM 3.0 is negligent to say the most.
My rig>
Athlon X2 4200+, 2GB DDR2 667, Asus 8800GTS 640, Audigy2, MSI K9Platinum nF 570 ultra. Vista Ultimate.