@Llost: Hm, it's of course through the magic of compression that they output more data than the disc can hold. Even lossless compression for in-game media (think videos, textures, sounds) makes a huge diff. in size.

Although I agree that PC games more often than not look to the big hammer of technology as a clutch to encourage people to buy the next iteration of their games. To be fair, most games don't push hardware limits the way Supreme Commander and Crysis does - Blizzard's reasonable-specs come to mind - but the attitude has long been "if we can't do it with the current stuff, let's wait till the next generation of hardware comes out so that we can!"

The first Crysis taught them a lesson that the ultra high-end isn't exactly a lucrative or even profitable one in PC hardware-land. They need to start working with current hardware fast, as the trends of putting ever-larger fans on GPU's with ever-increasing temperatures and ever-more-ridiculous power consumption is going to hit a roadblock, and GPU makers will have to rethink their strategy of swinging the transistor hammer time and time again.

Datheron

@Datheron:
Heh

Well even more irony is that I use a pc gaming monitor for my xbox gaming.

It just looks so much better and it feels like im PC gaming with the slight difference that a controller is more dumbed down...-_-

uh oh...i might start something here but controller "LESS THAN" mouse and keyboard imo.

Terrorsaur.

href="#c7218646">Terrorsaur.:
Oh that article doesnt state how to...

Here ya go.

[mpan3.homeip.net]

Terrorsaur.

@Darkedge:

You mean like the God rays, object motion blur and colour grading?

[www.tweakguides.com]
[www.tweakguides.com]

Funny, I just played with those activated. Must be me imagining things though.

To be correct, no, certain DX10 effects are impossible to recreate with DX9, it's just that Crysis doesn't use anything DX10 that's impossible to do on DX9. There are shader differences I'll give you that, and the motion blur can look odd on the aliens' arms when they move.

Melonfodder

@Black-Dog-Howls: Hm, perhaps even more irony.

A good 24" gaming LCD nowadays actually runs $400, plus or minus $50 depending on brand and exactly how low of a refresh ms you want.

A good DLP TV in the 50" range is now at $1200; a good plasma or LCD HDTV should run you no more than $2000, unless you take things at face value and pay money for a lot of features unnecessary for gaming or even watching regular television.

Costs are coming down for all hardware, people.

Datheron

@Darkedge:
Um no...
Do some googling.

Or Matter of fact, Ill do it for you.
[www.yougamers.com]

Since one of the rules was to cite our sources...

Theres a chuckload of pages of these on google though, if this one is not to your liking.

On other grounds...

Crysis ran like shit on my comp =*((( but it was a fun interactive powerpoint to play until my comp locked up.

Terrorsaur.

What's up with PC games nowadays? 15gb install? How'd that happen on a disc that can only hold around 9gb of data?

THis is why I don't care for PC gaming, rather than make full use of existing technology they always aim to make the games best on the most expensive tech coming out. They never maxamize resources they just try and make it use as much as possible. Seriously I always here people saying PC can have 2gb ram where consoles have around 512 but I never see it making too much more use. Only thing they managed to be conservative on was the graphics card.

Llost

I hear the Nancy Drew games are not that bad.

I can run this and the original. I just wish the PC would do something other than RTS and FPS. It has been like this for well over a decade now.

Downloadable titles are its saving grace these days. There are some excellent independent titles.

Pangolin

Blah, blah, blah.

I'll take Bioshock...at least then you get a deep game with the system specs...

Tietsu

I actually enjoyed Crysis a lot. However, I bought it for 25€ and don't plan on spending more than that on a spin-off either.

alextz

@Gneiss: Irony.

Most 50" TVs cost 2.5k to 5k.

My rig, including 23" flat panel monitor that can do 1080p(has PS3 and 360 hooked up to it via HDMI), cost me 2k in total. 1.2k for the PC and $800 for the monitor.

Black-Dog-Howls

@Mact: Same world where Crysis Warhead is out? The point is that a bunch of new or new-ish games require less juice.

Jilkon

Yay, I can play Warhead.

Now...will I?

Black-Dog-Howls

Starcraft II looks pretty, I'm assuming you mean the first game. These are pretty hefty for minimum requirements, but its no different from Crysis I suppose.

Also don't knock Nancy Drew; at the very least she kicks the crap out of the Hardy Boys.

Ladi

In before the PC hate.
"You need to spend 3k USD on a gaming rig."
"I rather play on my 50" TV, in my comfy couch"
etc etc.

Okay, now that we got that out of the way;
Crytek have optimized the code to run better on more systems.

Hopefully they made the game 'FUN' this time around too!

Gneiss

@Melonfodder: err it's isn't just some tweaking, it IS impossible to get all dx10 features running in anything but Vista. Thats an unfortunate piece of FOD.
All the tweaking does is allow higher textures to be used and not all the dx10 funkyness so actually it's doesn't give you much more than normal effects/quality on dx9

Darkedge

I deeply wonder if these minimum specs allow you to play a slideshow of Crysis Warhead, not the game.

AsianAfro77

Specs seem very accessible; these are probably the bare minimum though. I would need a new video card probably, and more ram, and clear hard drive space. Thats why we stick with consoles!

everybest

@Luke Plunkett
"If you couldn't, and still can't, we're sure you're still squeezing hours of fun out of... Starcraft II."

In what world is Starcraft II out? Cause, seriously, screw Crisis Warhead, I'm gonna go travel dimensions to get SC2.

Mact

I deeply wonder if they're going to continue the DX10 farce, locking away settings behind a barrier that's as easy as some configuration file tweaking.

Melonfodder

If you trie to run Crysis with a Radeon 9800 pro it will make your PC to explode

spaz33

Oh my goodness, I can play this!

headcrab

@Melonfodder: so what you are saying is it's not DX10 then?
I rest my case, with this additional quote from the Yougamers article: "Certainly, some effects are carried across - for example, light beams from the Sun cutting through trees, as well improvements to the water and sky. For others, it's a bit hard to tell"

Darkedge

@Terrorsaur.: Well, I was pointing out the irony in the fact that Black Dog cited outdated prices for his hardware components, for both the PC and console camps, even as he (gently) reminded someone the "true" costs of gaming for each system.

Hm, for the 360, I've actually noticed better quality w/ a VGA output than the components (I don't have one w/ an HDMI out). My 52" LCD, though, outputs the PS3's graphical showcase in HDMI superbly, and on a sheer impressiveness scale just wins - it should, costing nearly 4x as much.

Datheron

Crysis was awesome. I don't see why it gets so much hate, other than the understandable hate from those that hadn't played FarCry so didn't know Crytek's idea of "low end" is "last year's high end".

wow, had starcraft II on the brain today.

Fixed.

Luke Plunkett

@headcrab:

u can play it as a pretty slideshow, as these are the minimum specs.

maraxusofk

@Black-Dog-Howls: Several things to point out...

You can pick up a 52" plasma (720p, sometimes 1080p) for about $1500 if you know how to shop--for an LCD at 1080P, $1700 or so for a good model (for the price of course--like the 500 series from Samsung).

$800 for a 23" monitor at a supposed 1920x1200 resolution's a rip off, even with the HDMI port lol. You could have landed yourself a pretty good 32" or decent 40" at that price, and the 1080p resolution's useless at that size with the exception of screen real estate on your PC (which is fine), and most console games output at 720p.

Seriously though, even if that monitor were 2 years old or something (first adapter), it's still kinda overpriced for the size.

The specs seemed kinda tranquil. Then again, I don't think I'm gonna pick up the game lol. The bigger question to answer opposed to "whether or not game x will run on my specs" would be how would the transition be towards 64-bit systems be with a large amount of the mass market moving towards it now (5% of the systems sold at retail stores for the mass public were 64-bit systems last year--that number has changed to a near 93% this year), and how would the systems fare then? For the most part, performance plateaus off at 4GB of RAM, even with the fastest processor out there unless one runs a lot of virtual machines...

Stuff like this makes you wonder how exactly where the developers thinking people would be able to max out the original Crysis with our hardware? I would rather not point the finger towards the hardware, but more at the programming.

@Datheron: There's no roadblock anywhere in sight for GPUs or CPUs. In fact, we're very close now to a completely new generation of hardware, the largest change in graphics since 3D cards came out, that blends the GPU and CPU into one massively parallel system.

It sounds like the one Intel's working on (Larrabee) could also end the API nightmare we have today where we're essentially held hostage and forced to use either DirectX or OpenGL if we want 3D, and can't improve/fix either one. This, obviously, would be /huge/.

I have the minimum specs, and the only way Crysis runs (the demo) on my machine is at the lowest resolution and detail settings.

So, the whole fanfare about them optimizing the game to work on old machines was just as I expected, total BS.

Is it just me, or do the minimum specs for Warhead look exactly the same as for the original Crysis?

Not saying it won't run better than the first one, but it ran pretty poorly on minimum specs last time around.

Seriously who CARES about this mod. Far Cry 2 all the way

Doesn't matter. There's very little out there that 2 280's wont make mincemeat out of.

Scuba Steve

@: Because everyone was butthurt that they're old PC couldn't play the latest and greatest without looking like crap?
They heard the news off the media hype machine, downloaded the demo, ran a slideshow, concluded the game sucks and went back to xbox live.

Crysis was by no means a perfect game as all the hype surrounding it would have you believe, but merely a decent/good game that pushes the limits of hardware.

However, these minimum requirements are a joke. I don't remember the original min requirements for Crysis, but I refuse to believe that those specs can play this game with a playable framerate on even the lowest setting. Probably was just released by EA so the game might actually sell to a few uneducated consumers.

@Darkedge: "All the tweaking does is allow higher textures to be used and not all the dx10 funkyness so actually it's doesn't give you much more than normal effects/quality on dx9"

Still the change in the picture is big enough. Esecially water effects. While it doesn't give you a perfect, equal to DX10 picture, it is worth tweaking and it is obvious why they hid these settings.

Mayu-mayu

@Darkedge: "I rest my case, with this additional quote from the Yougamers article"

What? Of course it's not DX10 technically when Very High is activated under XP, but all the substantial, supposed to be exclusive effects are present. XP will never run DX10, but that's just not a big deal when it comes to Crysis since the touted exclusive effects were for a wildly major part just effects locked behind an arbitrary piece of code, easily run over by changing the configuration file.

I hold the pictures from Tweakguides.com as proof of this. Nay, as irrefutable proof, putting you in front of a fait accompli.

Court adjourned. I convict you to a forever small e-penis.
; )

The specs have gone down

Viper

@: Please note that PC LCD != TV LCD.

Fangeh

Crysis actually mainly lagged due to CPU intensive calculations rather then GPU based things at least from what i witnessed running benchmarks with it... Particles and Physics calculations get pushed off onto the CPU and this sadly is prolly one of the lesser optimized parts of the current engine (and prolly something they are fixing) GPU benchmark with Crysis with a 9800 GTX hit 30-50 FPS (this is a basic fly around with High Settings..) CPU benchmarks hit as low as 15 or so with many particles going. CPU intensive tasks at the moment with Crysis are poor period...

If this is the new system specs it's more accessible than when FEAR was initially released (not sure about after). Good thing is with my quad-core and 8800 after applying the 1.21 patch and playing it again for the first time since it came out the game performance really improved. I'm sure this expansion will help a lot more and I can't wait to check it out.

@: I think the original minimum called for the same CPU, RAM but the graphics card was a GeForce 7600 (don't remember Radeon, I think it may have been an X1600)

Absent Blue

@Gneiss: I can run crysis on my 1K rig ^_^

Plus the story for this game SUX!

Jagzi11a

Y'know, I don't really foresee a problem with this at all. 280 for the win, people.

ryoshi

@: dude those are not hefty minimum requirements. If you have a Computer from the last 2 years, then it should run it.(well with a better GPU) I guess my argument it null. . . .

Jagzi11a

i actually think i dont have the harddrive space for it. lol

I just meet those specs hmmm still I'm not going to bother playing it Crysis really failed to impress me even on my mates monster gaming rig so bugger them more Cod4 then for me :D

Centy

@: When did people start getting the idea that having MINIMUM specs will get you anything but MINIMUM settings? It's optimized fine. Crytek is one of the few game devs that posts accurate minimum specs. A 6800 will, by no surprises at all, allow you to play on the very lowest detail at a low resolution. That pretty much defines minimum.

Hate to tell you, but being more than three years old, the 6800gt is officially old. Crytek wasn't lying when they said Warhead would be optimized for older computers, even if they requirements didn't change. What did change what the the 6800gt got a year older; so they just worded it oddly, as Yerli constantly does.

@Mact:

Well maybe if you quoted what he actually said instead of a fake paraphrase you wouldn't have the same comment >_>

HudoKudo

@HudoKudo:

Apparently you aren't aware that the Kotaku news posters have a magic ability to change what they said.

It's an unfortunate wonder of the online media...

I mean, if something is printed, it's printed. If it's posted online, you get to say "I didn't say that!".

Mact

@Llost:

RAM doesn't get much more use? Are you forgetting that the PC is running a full-fledged operating system behind that game?

I mean, okay, they could use PC hardware and make a bare-bones OS if you want the box to just do games, and then it'd need less RAM. Of course, you would lose most functionality, but hey, you could play games on it.

They could even put it in a gigantic black case!

I figure it would look something like this:

[media.teamxbox.com]

Koztah

Lies.

I'm sick of these fake-requirements which are all half as high as the actual minimum. I bet an 8800GT can handle it. In Windows XP.

Anything below will either be slideshow or will look worse than FarCry.

@everybest: That's why YOU stick with consoles.

Here's a bit of a tip, the Radeon 9800 is, like, a 5 year old card, you can get something far better than it for cheap.

Overall, these requirements are actually laughable if you have any computer that uses parts from the last 2 years. And anybody can build a computer with those parts for less than $600 these days...

@Luke Plunkett: I'm still squeezing hours out of StarCraft!

If anyone still plays, im aka SomeKindaZombie on the US East server. Add me to your friends list if you like. I've played the game a lot over the years but have sort of n00bified in the last little bit. So don't expect a kekeke rush or anything.

Crawl to China

I'm assuming these are the minimum requirements, because these are not bad at all. They're actually pretty low. A Pentium 4? My Grandma's computer has that. A 6800 GT? How much are those now? $5? That's if you can even find them. Most Dells come with more than 1gb of RAM. Is it just me, or are these really low specs?

GiantEnemyCrab

@lumpi: I ran crysis just fine on a Vista machine with an 8600 GT OC, got around 30 fps on medium settings.

baxterpunch

@: I interpret these developments completely differently - we're forced to completely revamp the architecture of the standard CPU + GPU + RAM because we're simply running things too hot, too fast. The same thing happened when we got stuck in P4 3.x land for a while; eventually the P-M chips took over, but for a long time all manufacturers did was add more transistors, up the L2 cache, up the clock speed, and hope that the thing doesn't melt your case.

Don't you find it a bit ridiculous that a SLI'ed rig can draw 700W's of peak power, and that it's designed to run at temperatures that'd turn water into vapor?

Current developments are running into a wall; there's only so much you can do with current cards, even with their single-slot-as-fan solutions, paired up for alternate frame renderin'. I'd be very happy if Larrabee is able to turn the current trend upside down and give us a smart architecture instead of one relying on more power.

Datheron

So much hate here.
But Crytek and Crysis
are both awesome.
I will buy this day one.
This developer deserves it.

Sullyville

Can anyone confirm that these are the recommended system specs? Or the minimum.....If this is the recommended I'll be very happy that my laptop can run it on recommended

Noob requirements.

I mean, where is the part where they make me buy a new computer again?

Shocky-

@: You're kidding youself if you think there's a chance that these are recommended ;-)

Not bad for minimum. However, like others have said, you'll get minimum quality graphics etc. But that's been true for PC games for how long? Why are people suddenly so upset now?

Oh yeah, because it's Crysis.

dnzperson

I played the demo of the first one on low setting. Anything higher and I'd get shadows and /or my PC crashed. Very high settings wasn't even an option.

The game looked like Half Life 2 style graphics on my X800. Or close to Doom graphics but flatter.

These have to be mininmum specs, unless they changed how they do textures so any old card can handle it.

Netnavi