Crysis vs Crysis Warhead vs Crysis 2 (PC)

[Gman450]

It will probably run fine on 1.2.

I believe the 1.2.1 patch mainly addressed multiplayer related stuff.

Thanks Strinjam!

 

[jessterman21]

It's funny, but one of the things that impresses me most about Crysis2 is the reflective surfaces like glass (puddles 😉 ), etc......I just stare at amazement.

I think Crysis 1 would have had a huge amount to gain from proper implementation of DX11........the game really suffers from the object LoDs snapping in and out all over the place, it's really distracting for such a beautiful game.

Oh yeah, that's one of my favorite additions on the 1.9 patch - those real-time reflections are indeed amazing (so glad they work in DX9!) And the LODs need serious work in Crysis & Warhead. There's one flowerpot by the door to the first shack you come to when the sun comes up in the first level of Crysis that trips me out so bad. Ten feet away and it snaps to a much lower quality, and I can't change the distance without disabling LODs entirely (horribly inefficient). Don't even get me started on the "magic" sticks and stones on the beach... NOTHING works on those. I wish I could find a command to delete them.

 

[wolfram23]

Well I was playing Crysis with all those mods installed.

The good? Looks fantastic.

The bad? VRAM over load! My fps avg was fine with 2xAA, but it would stutter a fair bit. Not constantly like micro stutter, but just great big stutter points as it swapped the VRAM.

I'll probably remove some of the mods and see how that goes.

 

[Stringjam]

Well I was playing Crysis with all those mods installed.

The good? Looks fantastic.

The bad? VRAM over load! My fps avg was fine with 2xAA, but it would stutter a fair bit. Not constantly like micro stutter, but just great big stutter points as it swapped the VRAM.

I'll probably remove some of the mods and see how that goes.

Turn the game-menu AA off. The custom config files that load with these mods initialize 2X Edge AA.....if you use the in-game AA, it overrides the custom config file.

EdgeAA performs much better and IMO makes the foliage look better than the in-game AA method.

EDIT: I should note......the mods (like Maximum Immersion, REALoaded, etc.....) come with a custom config file. If you're just manually loading up .pak files, such as in the list of texture packs I put up earlier), there will not be a custom config file included.

As soon as I get off of work, I'll post some links to some custom config files and explain how to use them.

 

[jessterman21]

One thing that really amazes me about CryEngine2 is the lighting. Even though it isn't as big of a deal now, you have to remember that CryEngine2 was developed in 2006. I still spend countless hours messing around in the SDK with the lighting. I'll tweak endlessly and then yell to my wife to come look at how pretty it is.....she just says "That's nice dear" or something to that effect, but I just find the whole thing pretty amazing.

Very nice lighting - what commands are you using? I'm always tweaking my system.cfg file. Also my wife says the exact same thing. :lol:

Totally agree with the EdgeAA, though I turn that off and use MLAA - smooths a few more lines out and actually stablizes my framerate (caps max at 40 - which I prefer since my avg is 35).

One last question, and I know it's a long shot - I love the DOF in RELI2, but hate the contrast - anyone know how to enable the depth of field alone?

 

[Stringjam]

Very nice lighting - what commands are you using? I'm always tweaking my system.cfg file. Also my wife says the exact same thing. :lol:

LOL....they just don't understand. 😉


I'm loading up the levels in the Sandbox2 editor and modifying the ToD settings from there.

 

[wolfram23]

Turn the game-menu AA off. The custom config files that load with these mods initialize 2X Edge AA.....if you use the in-game AA, it overrides the custom config file.

EdgeAA performs much better and IMO makes the foliage look better than the in-game AA method.

EDIT: I should note......the mods (like Maximum Immersion, REALoaded, etc.....) come with a custom config file. If you're just manually loading up .pak files, such as in the list of texture packs I put up earlier), there will not be a custom config file included.

As soon as I get off of work, I'll post some links to some custom config files and explain how to use them.

I loaded up all the pak files and the shader stuff, then installed REALoaded 😗

 

[Stringjam]

I loaded up all the pak files and the shader stuff, then installed REALoaded 😗

REALoaded comes with a custom config, so you're good.

The custom configs are typicall called "autoexec" and are located in the ....CryTek\Crysis folder. You can open up the file in notepad and you'll see the big string of console commands.

You can edit these files in notepad to suit your needs. A lot of times in these mods appear too dark, but you can open up this file and lower the value of the command "r_SSAO_darkening". Lots of stuff you can do with these files.

 

[jessterman21]

Lots of stuff you can do with these files.

^ my favorite thing to do lately. Getting the limited SSAO and shadows to look realistic, and getting that Crysis 2-look with the HDR. Please post your configs - I'd like to see how mine match up and if there are any shadow/object LOD commands that will increase the distance they switch to a lower-res.

 

[wootwoot66]

I prefer the original over Warhead or Crysis 2.

I agree with HEXiT in that not everybody isn't going to like the same thing.

I like games that let me set my own pace and choose a combat style, and I think the first game gives you the most flexibility in that approach. I think the story was "good." It didn't suck me in like FEAR or Metro2033, but it was certainly more interesting to me than anything from the BF or COD camp. It was good enough to keep me glued to the computer through most of my first play-through.

Crysis 2, when judged by itself and not compared against the original, is still a great looking, fun game......but, IMO, they totally ruined the mechanics that made the first one so good. Totally dumbed it down with the gutted suit functionality and lack of movement options. It feels sloppy, laggy, and not at all like CRYSIS. The fact that they also dismissed most of the characters established in the first games really disappointed me and kind of detached me from the storyline as well.

I really wish 2 would have been more of an extension of the original, and not a complete abandonment of it. Ah well...I guess that's the direction they felt they needed to go - - I realize some people like that style of game-play more.

I feel this way about the MP side as well. Count me in as one of the guys who loved Crysis Wars. Huge maps with tons of different vehicles and weapons. It was a lot of fun while it was active, and required a lot of skill to do well in. I think it was a good mix of the fast, twitchy Counter-Strike style of gameplay with the more realistic weapon handling of a game like BF.

yeah it was pretty horrible how they abandoned the story in the first one.

 

[casualcolors]

yeah it was pretty horrible how they abandoned the story in the first one.

Looks like he meant gameplay-wise. The story pretty much falls linearly in line with the first game and warhead's story, and apparently some atrocious story-developing comics that they released in between warhead and Crysis 2 that more or less locked certain aspects of Crysis 2's story in place.

 

[Stringjam]

^ my favorite thing to do lately. Getting the limited SSAO and shadows to look realistic, and getting that Crysis 2-look with the HDR. Please post your configs - I'd like to see how mine match up and if there are any shadow/object LOD commands that will increase the distance they switch to a lower-res.

I never have settled on a particular autoexec.....and it depends on which ToD I happen to be using.

Most of the time it seems like I'm using the Helder/Pinto 1.3.1 config.....whether I'm using the Natural Mod ToD or the ReaLifesis ToD.

If you want to post some of your command settings I'd like to give them a try!

 

[jessterman21]

Most of the time it seems like I'm using the Helder/Pinto 1.3.1 config.....whether I'm using the Natural Mod ToD or the ReaLifesis ToD.

If you want to post some of your command settings I'd like to give them a try!

Mine's a lot like that one as far as the SSAO and HDR settings, but I left more things Vanilla. These are the only things I've changed:

e_view_dist_ratio_vegetation=65 (these three are Warhead settings)
e_view_dist_ratio_detail=50
r_DynTexMaxSize=135
r_UseEdgeAA=0 (I use MLAA)
r_TexturesStreaming=0 (Best command ever - I can't imagine playing without it)
r_SSAO_downscale_ztarget=0 (Minimizes the halo around weapon)
r_SSAO_radius=2.5 (These three look most natural to me)
r_SSAO_amount=0.7
r_SSAO_darkening=0.4
r_HDRLevel=0.75 (These settings may be a bit overblown, but looks more like Crysis 2)
r_HDRBrightOffset=8
r_HDRBrightThreshold=2.5 (If the bloom is too much, knock this up to 4 or 5)
r_BeamsMaxSlices=256
r_WaterUpdateFactor=0 (These three slightly increase the reality of the water)
r_WaterUpdateDistance=0
e_water_tesselation_amount=12

 

[PCgamer81]

Well I was playing Crysis with all those mods installed.

The good? Looks fantastic.

The bad? VRAM over load! My fps avg was fine with 2xAA, but it would stutter a fair bit. Not constantly like micro stutter, but just great big stutter points as it swapped the VRAM.

I'll probably remove some of the mods and see how that goes.

Actually, your system is excellent. I find it hard to believe you can't max Crysis even with all the mods...

Edit: I guess you only have 1GB of VRAM. About the best thing I could recommend would be to totally disable AA. I wouldn't touch the Anisotropic filtering, however. Modern games look like ass without AF. Especially the further you can see.

I wouldn't think you would need AA for 1080p, anyway.

 

[Stringjam]

Mine's a lot like that one as far as the SSAO and HDR settings, but I left more things Vanilla. These are the only things I've changed:

e_view_dist_ratio_vegetation=65 (these three are Warhead settings)
e_view_dist_ratio_detail=50
r_DynTexMaxSize=135
r_UseEdgeAA=0 (I use MLAA)
r_TexturesStreaming=0 (Best command ever - I can't imagine playing without it)
r_SSAO_downscale_ztarget=0 (Minimizes the halo around weapon)
r_SSAO_radius=2.5 (These three look most natural to me)
r_SSAO_amount=0.7
r_SSAO_darkening=0.4
r_HDRLevel=0.75 (These settings may be a bit overblown, but looks more like Crysis 2)
r_HDRBrightOffset=8
r_HDRBrightThreshold=2.5
r_BeamsMaxSlices=256
r_WaterUpdateFactor=0 (These three slightly increase the reality of the water)
r_WaterUpdateDistance=0
e_water_tesselation_amount=12

I'm going to give some of these values a try....though I personally like EdgeAA in this game. 😉


I've been working on my own ToD for awhile, as well as messing with a few other things in the levels.

I hate the way they did the grass, so I changed a lot of the grass attributes (including allowing the grass to cast shadows)...which I think makes it stick out less and look a bit more natural. I'm also including DarkShadow's headbob flowgraph, which I really dig.

Here's a screen using my in-progress ToD for the first stage:

Here's what I was talking about with the grass:

This pic is with CryTek's settings.......I hate it:

This screen is using my grass settings (+ my ToD)....much more natural, IMO:

 

[jessterman21]

I'm going to give some of these values a try....though I personally like EdgeAA in this game. 😉


I've been working on my own ToD for awhile, as well as messing with a few other things in the levels.

I hate the way they did the grass, so I changed a lot of the grass attributes (including allowing the grass to cast shadows)...which I think makes it stick out less and look a bit more natural. I'm also including DarkShadow's headbob flowgraph, which I really dig.

Here's a screen using my in-progress ToD for the first stage:

http://earthmachine.home.mchsi.com/mytod.jpg




Here's what I was talking about with the grass:

This pic is with CryTek's settings.......I hate it:

http://earthmachine.home.mchsi.com/mygrass2.jpg



This screen is using my grass settings (+ my ToD)....much more natural, IMO:

http://earthmachine.home.mchsi.com/mygrass1.jpg

That looks so great - what'd you do to tweak the grass? I'm using HD foliage too. That last pic looks very photo-real (minus the tree-trunks and boulders 😛 ).

 

[Stringjam]

That looks so great - what'd you do to tweak the grass? I'm using HD foliage too. That last pic looks very photo-real (minus the tree-trunks and boulders 😛 ).

Here's the highlighted settings.....add shadows, use alpha-blend, align to terrain (sometimes this doesn't work so well, you have to check over your level afterwards), uncheck the "use terrain color" box, and adjust brightness to preference. Most of the grass used in the game is that bigpatch_medium model. As you can see, there are almost 5000 instances of it in the Contact stage.

 

[jessterman21]

Very cool - can that be used in-game? Also, not sure I like the water shaders - looks too oily.

Anyone have a Crysis cvar/command to increase the lod/draw distance for objects like barrels, crates, and flowerpots? The pop-in is killing me. Also one for the shadows? Those aren't nearly as bad, but I still see a line about 15m away increasing the shadow resolution as I walk closer.

One final "this is awesome" moment from Crysis 2: After defeating the AT-ST walker inside the train station - watching the missiles fly over, lighting up the inside of the building - I must have stood there for 3 full minutes watching the amazing lighting effects. I'll link a video in a bit, so all can enjoy.

 

[casualcolors]

Very cool - can that be used in-game? Also, not sure I like the water shaders - looks too oily.

Anyone have a Crysis cvar/command to increase the lod/draw distance for objects like barrels, crates, and flowerpots? The pop-in is killing me. Also one for the shadows? Those aren't nearly as bad, but I still see a line about 15m away increasing the shadow resolution as I walk closer.

One final "this is awesome" moment from Crysis 2: After defeating the AT-ST walker inside the train station - watching the missiles fly over, lighting up the inside of the building - I must have stood there for 3 full minutes watching the amazing lighting effects. I'll link a video in a bit, so all can enjoy.

The battle against that walker is so great. Of all the times you run into them, that battle really felt the most powerful to me. By that time you're accustomed enough to the suit that you're ready to just jump down to ground level and duke it out with the thing, but at the same time you know that you'll get pummeled if you try it.

Really enjoyed that sequence, and I thought it was a great way to make the user feel weak despite many consecutive hours of destroying everything with the nanosuit, while still feeling like they've made a huge progression as far as their competence since the walker isn't nearly as intimidating at that point as it was during the first encounter with it.

 

[Stringjam]

Very cool - can that be used in-game? Also, not sure I like the water shaders - looks too oily.

Anyone have a Crysis cvar/command to increase the lod/draw distance for objects like barrels, crates, and flowerpots? The pop-in is killing me. Also one for the shadows? Those aren't nearly as bad, but I still see a line about 15m away increasing the shadow resolution as I walk closer.

The Sandbox2 editor isn't used in-game, but it works real-time, so you can change settings or parameters and it happens right there in front of you.....you can also jump in at any point (any where) and play through whatever you're doing with the character (as if you actually were in-game).

It really is a pretty incredible tool (the same one CryTek used to build the game in the first place). It's very intuitive and for the most part, easy to navigate and understand. If you're into messing around with parameters it's like opening Pandora's Box.

You can do anything you want.....increase enemy awareness, accuracy, weapon loadout. You can replace or add NPC's, objects, vehicles...anything you want.


I'm not aware of any CVARS that can increase the draw distance on objects (maybe there is? ). You can very easily use the editor to do it though.....you merely select the object and increase the view ratio (you can also decrease the LoD amount to increase the distance that higher quality LoD's are used on the object).

Warning though....you start increasing all these settings on a bunch of different objects and you're going to watch the FPS drop as you do it.....vegetation settings are one of the biggest things here.

An example of the menu for increasing draw distance and LoD detail.....I've highlighted the relevant settings:

 

[Stringjam]

The battle against that walker is so great. Of all the times you run into them, that battle really felt the most powerful to me. By that time you're accustomed enough to the suit that you're ready to just jump down to ground level and duke it out with the thing, but at the same time you know that you'll get pummeled if you try it.

Really enjoyed that sequence, and I thought it was a great way to make the user feel weak despite many consecutive hours of destroying everything with the nanosuit, while still feeling like they've made a huge progression as far as their competence since the walker isn't nearly as intimidating at that point as it was during the first encounter with it.

One of the best parts of the game.....I love me battles with big machines!

 

[jessterman21]

Here's the part I was talking about: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhU0tNnIuBw

EDIT: Well that was fun/overwhelming. Just played with the sandbox for the first time...

 

[casualcolors]

Amazon just started their Spring Sale and have digital download Crysis 2 for $7.49. If there was anyone scanning this thread and on the fence about trying Crysis 2, I think everyone can unanimously agree that less than 8 bucks for Crysis 2 is a stupid good deal.

 

[PCgamer81]

Amazon just started their Spring Sale and have digital download Crysis 2 for $7.49. If there was anyone scanning this thread and on the fence about trying Crysis 2, I think everyone can unanimously agree that less than 8 bucks for Crysis 2 is a stupid good deal.

Are you kidding?

For less than $8.00 it would be the unpardonable gaming sin to pass it up.

Hell, the single player game alone is worth a purchase, and the multiplayer is worth two purchases.

 

[casualcolors]

Are you kidding?

For less than $8.00 it would be the unpardonable gaming sin to pass it up.

Hell, the single player game alone is worth a purchase, and the multiplayer is worth two purchases.

I don't even check console deals usually, but KOF XIII is on sale for 20 bucks off list price as well, which is ridiculous. It's the best fighting game out for consoles atm imho. Amazon sales challenging Steam every time they get the chance.