By Alec Meer on December 3rd, 2012 at 3:00 pm.
We don’t usually do system requirements posts, but when it comes to Crytek they do have a history of basically telling us all that our PCs are rubbish and outdated. Granted, while once it was the high watermark of e-willy waving, the Crysis series hasn’t of late been the technical Goliath/Mephistopheles it once was. Does that change with the upcoming Crysis 3? You know how this works.
Minimum:
• Windows Vista, Windows 7 or Windows 8
• DirectX 11 graphics card with 1Gb Video RAM
• Dual core CPU
• 2GB Memory (3GB on Vista)
• Example 1 (Nvidia/Intel):
• Nvidia GTS 450
• Intel Core2 Duo 2.4 Ghz (E6600)
• Example 2 (AMD):
• AMD Radeon HD5770
• AMD Athlon64 X2 2.7 Ghz (5200+)
Recommended:
• Windows Vista, Windows 7 or Windows 8
• DirectX 11 graphics card with 1GB Video RAM
• Quad core GPU [sic]
• 4GB Memory
• Example 1 (Nvidia/Intel):
• Nvidia GTX 560
• Intel Core i3-530
• Example 2 (AMD):
• AMD Radeon HD5870
• AMD Phenom II X2 565
“Hi-Performance”:
• Windows Vista, Windows 7 or Windows 8
• Latest DirectX 11 graphics card
• Latest quad core CPU
• 8GB Memory
• Example 1 (Nvidia/Intel):
• NVidia GTX 680
• Intel Core i7-2600k
• Example 2 (AMD):
• AMD Radeon HD7970
• AMD Bulldozer FX4150
So, how’d you like them apples? In terms of minimum performance, the need for a DirectX 11 graphics card may raise a few hackles – especially as the console versions of the game won’t be DX11 as such, so this seems a bit mean. DX11-only also means no XP support, though that’s becoming par for the course in high-end games these days.
Recommended seems pretty standard, although the mention of a “quad-core GPU” appears to be a typo of CPU – which rather conflicts with the recommendation of a dual core Core i3-530. Unless it’s counting hyperthreading as quad-core? Or is just being silly.
As for ‘hi-performance’, Jesus melonhumping Christ. A GTX 680? That’s getting on for £500 worth of graphics card. We really are back in the bad/good old days. I sure hope it manages MAXIMUM PRETTY to make this vaguely worthwhile.
Source: the Crysis 3 site. (Scroll right down and click ‘system requirements’ on the left.)
03/12/2012 at 15:04 niasyn says:
I don’t have a quad core GPU. :/
03/12/2012 at 15:40 luukdeman111 says:
Most modern video cards have between 200 and 500 cores…. So 4 cores shouldn’t be a problem
03/12/2012 at 18:55 jessicahutchins7 says:
I’m making $86 an hour working from home. I was shocked when my neighbour told me she was averaging $95 but I see how it works now. I feel so much freedom now that I’m my own boss. This is what I do.. http://www.Google.MEL7.CoM
03/12/2012 at 19:53 pilouuuu says:
Good for you. Who cares? Let’s talk about the frigging game.
SPAMFACE!!!
03/12/2012 at 20:59 Gorf says:
I’m gonna marry jessica for her monies.
03/12/2012 at 22:46 Andrew says:
She’s a work-from-home prostitute, isn’t she? I just know she is.
03/12/2012 at 23:08 Gap Gen says:
I call it a… ziggurat… regime…
03/12/2012 at 15:04 Earl-Grey says:
“Recommended: … quad core GPU”
My heart skipped several beats while my, by now, oxygen starved brain deduced that what I had witnessed must surely have been a typo.
*whispers to pc* There there, my precious, you are timeless to me.
03/12/2012 at 15:07 bitbot says:
Well damn, my 4890 is only a DX10.1 card… but I can play all other new games on high settings! ;_;
03/12/2012 at 16:26 Scissors says:
No, a 4890 cant “play all new games on high settings”. Well, maybe in 300×150.
03/12/2012 at 17:04 Clavus says:
I think that a HD4890 still holds up pretty well. Most new games should run on high, with maybe just a few bells and whistles turned down a notch.
03/12/2012 at 23:45 E_FD says:
My 4870 can still play new games at maxed settings on a 1280×1024 monitor.
04/12/2012 at 09:15 Toberoth says:
I just shuddered involuntarily.
03/12/2012 at 17:42 Yuri says:
Playing Far Cry 3 on mid-high settings @ 1920×1080 on a Radeon 5830 here.
The 5830 having generally less raw power than the 4890 too.
04/12/2012 at 15:09 Turk Anjaydee says:
The thing that confuses me is that as dx11 is a superset of dx10, the games should work with dx10 hardware. What have they done to make it incompatible?
03/12/2012 at 15:08 Crimsoneer says:
Part of me feels they must be artificially beefing these up to show off. My GTX 460 runs Far Cry 3 pretty damn comfortably on medium, at 60fps. Is Crysis 3 really likely to be THAT much more demanding? Considering it’s also a multiformat release?
03/12/2012 at 15:11 Gnoupi says:
I doubt it, seeing as recommended specs are rather a barrier to entry, and can deter potential buyers.
They would have better advantages by making them the smallest possible.
03/12/2012 at 15:14 Guvornator says:
Having calmed down a bit (see below), they may be doing what Epic used to do – slinging on a special mode for graphics freaks and general showoffs, and bollocks to the optimisation. ON the other hand, they’re the people who made Crysis, so….
03/12/2012 at 16:06 phylum sinter says:
I think, to find that out, you might want to see how beefy your PC seems running Crysis 2 with the high-res texture/dx11 pack that came out post-release.
My perception of the game is that it was really nice to look at, but also poorly optimized. The PC version trumped the console version readily after that pack came out. Speculation will get us nowhere though at this point, and the recommended specs should be the only guidepost worth considering at the end of the day.
What would solve this problem even better than a minimum specs sheet? a Demo. Come on, Crytek – you can give us that (please?)
03/12/2012 at 16:19 Guvornator says:
I hazily recall that there was an article (I can’t find it) that said due to Crytek partnerships with nVidia, some of the maps were full of ATI hobbling graphics bobbins Oh wait, here it is http://techreport.com/review/21404/crysis-2-tessellation-too-much-of-a-good-thing
EDIT: I particularly like the invisible underground sea…
04/12/2012 at 08:39 gibb3h says:
oh good god, that concreate block, why would you do that!
03/12/2012 at 15:09 Guvornator says:
Yesterday I dumped over a grand on a lovely new Chillblast Fusion Thunderbird. “It’s got an Intel 3750k and an nVidia 670 card, it’ll handle everything in super hyper-sparkly vision for the next year at least.”
Today, the specs for Crysis 3 come out. DAMN YOU, Crytek!
03/12/2012 at 15:14 SuicideKing says:
I don’t see what you did wrong, the 3570K isn’t any lesser than the i7 2600 as far as games go, and a 670 is with 5% of the 680 most of the time.
03/12/2012 at 15:17 Guvornator says:
I know, it just dented my delicate gamer ego…(sniff)
03/12/2012 at 15:47 Bremze says:
Just to kick you while you’re down, you could’ve had built that for less than 800 and swaped the GTX670 for a non-boost 7970 for equal/slightly better performance than the GTX680.
That said, the build you have is solid and last you quite a while, especially if you overclock the CPU slightly.
03/12/2012 at 15:58 Guvornator says:
Two things – firstly, the PC was built specially for editing with Adobe Premiere, which means nVidia cards only. Second is the last time I had anything to do with the inside of a PC I put a hole through the motherboard, accidentally lost the DVD player in the case and destroyed the on off switch. And I was only trying to clean the damn thing…
03/12/2012 at 18:09 Cleave says:
Sorry, you lost the DVD drive inside the case?
04/12/2012 at 09:17 Toberoth says:
@Guvornator: HAH! What? What were you doing in there?! Were you cleaning it with a hammer?
04/12/2012 at 09:49 Guvornator says:
I’m going to to plagiarise myself from this article http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/12/12/a-life-in-pc-gaming-my-shame/#comment-page-3 . Here’s the full story of my shame. Oh, and just so we’re clear, I don’t have the excuse of suffering from Parkinson’s disease…
“Last year my HP laptop, which was the only PC I’ve ever had that just, you know, worked, was overheating something horrible. Obviously it needed cleaning. Getting it done at a local shop would have cost at least £30, and, with money being tight I thought I’d do it myself.
Only when I had taken everything out and removed an inch thick strip of compressed dust from the fan vent did I realise that I had mixed up all the screws. So I sort of estimated how long the screws needed to be an ended up putting a nasty hole on the motherboard. Trying to sort that out, I managed to drop the laptop, smashing the blu-ray drive back inside the case. Trying to sort THAT out I managed to snap the paper thin ribbon connector that connects the power button assembly to the rest of the PC. Total cost: £72 for a new top panel plus a laptop that no longer has functional speakers and can’t run on battery power…”
03/12/2012 at 15:54 Low Life says:
Heh. I also bought a new computer a couple of months back, went for 3570k and Radeon 7850 (edit: whoops, meant 7950) thinking that now I can finally max all the setting without worrying about the framerate. Everything was fine until Far Cry 3 – all settings maxed (no antialiasing) I’m dropping down to around 40 fps at worst. And with all that jungle in the game I’d love to keep antialiasing on, which makes things even worse.
Not that I’m complaining – the game looks awesome and it’s always great to see a game take advantage of the capabilities of modern PCs.
About Crysis 3, I still suspect the original Crysis all modded out will look a lot better than this.
03/12/2012 at 16:08 Stochastic says:
I have the same system as you. Two things that might help: (1) try overclocking the 7850 using Catalyst control center. If you have a decent cooler you should be able to get it running at 1050 Mhz GPU/ 1450 Mhz memory. (2) Wait for the new AMD drivers as they’re supposed to improve performance in Far Cry 3. Also, if you judiciously turn down a few settings the game should look almost as good and you should get a nice framerate boost. See this guide: http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/far_cry_3_graphics_performance_review_benchmark,1.html
03/12/2012 at 15:11 Gap Gen says:
It’s sort of interesting how infrequently this kind of hardware-busting graphics requirement comes along these days, and how infrequently it matters for most of the games out there (Valve, for example, making a point of making all their games as backwards compatible as possible, and console-based games having remained unchanged graphically for ages). I’ve barely upgraded my PC in five years and yet have had no problems with any recent game, which would have been unthinkable a decade ago.
I actually like this – the tailing off of the graphics race means that games have to compete in other ways, which is usually a good thing. Plus most of my game time this year was spent playing Minecraft. Try convincing someone from 2000 that the future of games would be big ol’ cubes.
03/12/2012 at 15:37 gekitsu says:
i agree, good sir.
id even posit that we are at a point where these increments are not only becoming less frequent, but also becoming more and more academic in terms of what they offer. yet, all we get to hear on the matter is whining how consoles are “holding us back.” rubbish! what is holding the visual appeal of games back is boring design, nonexistent art direction, lack of stylization etc.
also, yay minecraft!
03/12/2012 at 15:51 MrLebanon says:
I remember my dad witnessing me playing minecraft and saying
“you spent 300 dollars on a new video card… and you’re playing THAT? You’re graphics card is crying at how little you use it”
03/12/2012 at 16:17 phylum sinter says:
That’s a pretty apt perception though on your dad’s part, isn’t it?
I’m not arguing that one should not have design, gameplay and overall “fun factor” (does anybody use that phrase anymore? no? just me? …k) over graphics or anything. Utilizing the hardware you bought seems like sound advice in any care.
And as for the games industry – YES, please make it as sweet as can be – both for the enthusiast and as low as can go. I agree that Crytek likes to slant towards the high end at the cost of the low… but i also took a peek to see how many bells i could turn off in Crysis 2, and while i don’t have more than one gaming computer, it was still designed to be able to run on a paltry 256mb of vram. That’s reasonable, no?
03/12/2012 at 16:22 Gap Gen says:
I think Minecraft *does* benefit from a graphics card, given how badly it runs on my Intel HD-powered laptop. Cubes can still kill you if you’re throwing hundreds of thousands of them at the screen at once.
03/12/2012 at 17:22 InternetBatman says:
Is graphics really what kills minecraft or is it the CPU? I figured a procedural generation game would throw a ton of crap on the cpu, and show relatively little of it.
03/12/2012 at 22:27 Snakejuice says:
For me Minecraft ran GREAT on the Intel HD 4000 on my new i5-3570k rig when I tried it before plugging in my real gpu from the old rig. That’s a desktop tho and for laptops they usually tune down the frequencies a LOT so..
Also get the optifine mod, it can more than DOUBLE your fps!
03/12/2012 at 22:58 Gap Gen says:
Yeah, it’s possibly that like you say laptops tend to be underpowered comparatively.
As for procedural generation, if you’re wandering around already generated chunks, there shouldn’t be too much of that. Minecraft is coded so stuff only runs if you’re nearby, too.
03/12/2012 at 15:52 sinister agent says:
I agree. That there are people who seem to WANT a return to the Stupid Ages makes my mind spin. Some people just want an enabler for their weird addiction, and damn everyone else.
03/12/2012 at 16:11 AndrewC says:
More RAM means larger levels, and more AIs in the level – and the lack of those things *does* effect game design, with Dishonored being a recent example. It would have been lovely if there were no loading screens, or if there were lots more people at that party level. This is how console architecture can ‘hold back’ game design.
Still, Dishnored looks great, and games like Just Cause 2 can show me entire subcontinents on my 5 year old machine. We’re doing great, graphics wise. Long live this golden age! Screw you Crysis 3 Max Settings!
03/12/2012 at 16:32 Didero says:
And yet the Hitman games had incredibly busy streets and parties, and that was years ago. Just throwing more hardware at a problem isn’t always the best solution, sometimes it requires smarter programming too.
03/12/2012 at 16:43 AndrewC says:
Smarter programming meaning cleverly hiding dumb as a rock clones. I don’t think the Dishonored devs kept populations low out of laziness.
With that said, the whole of the last gen consoles’ history proves your point. Devs were stuck with the same tech and worked wonders getting more out of it. There was some story about the original Gears of War only allowng 4 or 6 NPCs on screen at once or something?
03/12/2012 at 20:47 Marik Bentusi says:
My 9600GT and I agree wholeheartedly, good sir. Latest AAA games might not run with full fluidity, but screenshot comparisons aside I notice very little to no difference in graphical fidelity between low and high settings. Maybe I’m just too focused on the aesthetics than on the poly numbers or tex res.
Either way it’s really paining me to see so much bickering from the already ambivalent “PC gamer crowd” that complain about their hardware not being used to its full extent because of consoles, because the amount of time and money that gets blown on something superficial like graphics is simply mind-blowing. I can only dream what some games would be like today if we had poured the better portion of that money into something like AI or difficulty levels with actual impact on gameplay.
03/12/2012 at 21:02 sinister agent says:
I was just this evening playing Outcast, which has scores of NPCs wandering about working and carrying things and occasionally interacting. You can talk to any of them. You can ask any of them the whereabouts of another NPC, and they’ll tell you which direction they’re in, say they don’t know, or, if the other one is close by, point to them. I have never seen this in another game. It was released in 1999.
03/12/2012 at 21:08 Llewyn says:
Any mention of Outcast and its many qualities immediately fills me with warm fuzzy feelings towards the source (although I generally tend to the warm and fuzzy towards you anyway sinister) immediately followed by harrowing depression over the demise of Appeal and the loss of Outcast 2. Damn you.
04/12/2012 at 01:31 AndrewC says:
Outcast is bestest.
03/12/2012 at 15:11 Rao Dao Zao says:
Well, that’s my 4.5-year-old machine edged off the bottom. Only got at 768MB graphics card (GTX8800), which isn’t DX11 anyway I don’t think. Core2 Quad 2.4 might just cut it on the processor side, and I’ve got the 3GB of RAM…
I quite enjoyed Cryses 1 and 2 anyway, even if they both had artificial cliffhangers for endings.
03/12/2012 at 15:12 Gap Gen says:
I wish games wouldn’t do that. Beyond Good and Evil had one, and it was completely pointless. They didn’t even use the cliffhanger for Crysis 1, only really referring to it in flashback in Crysis 2. Weak.
03/12/2012 at 15:49 LionsPhil says:
My comparably old machine with same card has finally, finally found something it can’t really run above 20FPS in Planetside 2. Still, half a decade of reigning in the upgrade treadmill; the 360 generation of console hasn’t done us bad there.
On that note, the thing that made me upgrade to it was a hungry PC exclusive too: SupComm 1. So I find it hard to believe that a multiplatform Crysis is going to be a major milestone any more.
03/12/2012 at 15:12 PitfireX says:
Went to play the beta and couldn’t handle it even though I meet minimum…. ill totally be upgrading for this.
03/12/2012 at 15:12 SuicideKing says:
They’ve messed up more on the CPU. The FX 4150 isn’t anywhere near a Core i7 2600 in terms of any performance.
It even sucks more than a Core i3 3220 as far as gaming is concerned.
I’m taking the liberty to replace the FX4150 with the FX-8350.
03/12/2012 at 15:52 MrLebanon says:
id stay away from FX anything and quote something from the Thuban family of chips….
04/12/2012 at 08:25 SuicideKing says:
Not really true anymore…the FX-8350 is THE fastest chip they have for anything. True, it needs a higher clock rate to beat Thuban, but if you compare stock performance…the 8350 wins.
03/12/2012 at 15:57 Stochastic says:
Yeah, these requirements seem really silly. Also, how can they even know what the requirements will be this far ahead of release? Don’t games do the majority of their optimization work in the couple of months leading up to release? Or are they able to just go ahead and guesstimate?
03/12/2012 at 16:21 phylum sinter says:
It is definitely a moving target, but any dev studio does have a performance spec they want to work with and test on.
04/12/2012 at 08:27 SuicideKing says:
Well they do know how their engine works, when they’re testing their game they know what settings they’re using and the fps they’re getting. So i guess they can make an…informed guess, shall we say.
03/12/2012 at 15:59 00000 says:
That really depends on how the new Crysis engine handles threads. It’s true that intel CPU’s generally outperform their AMD counterparts, but when it comes to multi-threading AMD CPU’s do really well. Unfortunately most PC games still require CPU’s that can handle single-threaded code very fast, and this is where AMD falls short.
04/12/2012 at 08:36 SuicideKing says:
True, i fully agree. Btw, it’s still CryEngine 3, so i think it’ll behave similar to Crysis 2 + the High-res patch + the DX11 patch.
But see, that’ll probably let the FX 4170 beat a Core i3 2xxx/3xxx, a Core i7 is even out of the FX 8350′s league, even if you take into account heavily threaded applications. That’s pretty much the only thing i’m calling out here.
It’s like SOE saying that for PS2 you’ll need a GTX 540 or a Radeon HD 6870. I mean, the 560=6870, a 540 is inferior to both, and by a fairly large margin.
The only two recent games i can remember that had acceptable recommended reqs were BF3 and Tribes Ascend, but even they sort of screwed up by equating a 6950 to a 560.
03/12/2012 at 15:14 phelix says:
Granted, while once it was the high watermark of e-willy waving, the Crysis series hasn’t of late been the technical Goliath/Mephistopheles it once was.
Unsurprisingly, this technical stagnation has been coming on since the series’ focus become consoles.
03/12/2012 at 15:15 DickSocrates says:
Thankfully it’s only a Crisis game so I don’t have to waste any brain time wondering if I should consider upgrading. Seriously, who do they think they are? How many people care enough about Crisis to upgrade just to play it, when the minimum requirement is an artificial barrier?
They can eff right off.
03/12/2012 at 15:29 Guvornator says:
Agreed! you’re better off playing some Hostile Waters instead… http://www.gog.com/gamecard/hostile_waters_antaeus_rising .
03/12/2012 at 15:53 sinister agent says:
Oooh, it’s back up! I bought this a few years ago and it’s excellent, but it was later withdrawn from their catalogue (though people who’d already bought it could still download it). Good to know it’s back on there.
03/12/2012 at 16:03 Guvornator says:
I had the original boxed version way back when. A great game, although for some reason I never finished it. Of course, this was also the start of Kieron’s relationship with bearded pervert Warren Ellis…
03/12/2012 at 19:04 skorpeyon says:
Holy crap thank you very much for the link! I actually downloaded this somewhere a few months ago because I couldn’t find it for purchase anywhere. The download didn’t work all that well and I’d prefer to actually pay for it, so I’ll have to purchase that very soon. Not to mention the large amount of support the GOG community gives to games.
03/12/2012 at 15:19 mehteh says:
The game looks impressive, but just like Crysis 2 its gameplay is just as unimpressive and boring as any other console focus shooter. yawn
03/12/2012 at 16:22 phylum sinter says:
So you played the final of Crysis 3 already then?
03/12/2012 at 15:24 Spoon Of Doom says:
>>”[...]DirectX 11 graphics card[...]”
Aaaaaaaaaand I’m out. My machine is not even three years old now and can still run most games pretty well on high settings (dropping down a notch or two in extreme cases), but it unfortunately can’t do DirectX 11. I’m not sure if I want to upgrade any time soon, because aside from Crysis 3 there aren’t too many games which would require it, and to be honest, I never saw too much difference in all those “super awesome” comparison screenshots of DX10 vs DX11.
03/12/2012 at 16:26 phylum sinter says:
Are you saying you’re dropping out of new games altogether then?
That’s a bummer, but do what you gotta do i guess.
4 years ago i would have said that buying a dx11 card would be a hasty choice. Today though, any new card you’d get has DX11 support. My 5850 has DX11 support and came out in September 2009.
03/12/2012 at 16:39 Spoon Of Doom says:
I’m saying that for now I’m dropping out of games that one can’t play without a DirectX 11 card. I see very few games (if any?), even new ones, with DX11 in their minimum requirements, so I’m not upgrading before that becomes more common place.
03/12/2012 at 15:30 mr.black says:
Aaand I’m officially, thoroughly and utterly out of bounds for this one..
It’ll be missed.
A bit..
03/12/2012 at 15:38 kwyjibo says:
How is a DX11 card minimum when the game runs on a fucking 360?
03/12/2012 at 16:02 Screamer says:
I’m sure somewhere someone not really technical thought that was the minimum….surely. A 360 can’t even do 10, more like 9.1 XD
03/12/2012 at 17:05 Wedge says:
This isn’t exactly new, there’s been a number of console games that are DX 10 minimum on PC. I think that has more to do with phasing out Win XP than anything else though. Having DX 11 instead of a 10 minimum is pretty odd, as there is clearly no reason for it.
04/12/2012 at 08:39 SuicideKing says:
Yeah, like BF3. Needed DX10 at least.
03/12/2012 at 18:31 subedii says:
Sort of.
From what I understand, the 360 is largely a DX9 box, however there are some shader elements that it can make use of from DX10. Or some other elements, I don’t know the specifics.
In theory you could just about stretch to the idea that a 360 release game would require DX10 features (and realistically? I’d say it’s not quite true and that you could probably do facsimiles of those effects via DX9).
But DX11? No, no way, I’m pretty much calling tripe that they’ve made that the minimum system requirement. At the minimum system, I can’t see DX11 doing much for the game anyway, and a quick glance at the most recent Steam Hardware indicates they’d be cutting themselves off from 50% of their potential market right from the start.
If they go with this, they’re going to sell a lot worse than they could have. And then complain loudly about piracy preventing them from selling 5 million units PC-side again.
03/12/2012 at 15:40 Herkimer says:
I feel like AAA devs can’t win for trying these days. If they keep their system reqs low, PC gamers bitch at them for catering to the console release and not trying to innovate technically, and if they try to innovate technically, PC gamers bitch at them for high sys reqs.
I’m not terribly interested in Crysis, but I’m glad the devs are trying to push the envelope of what’s technically possible to do with a commercial release.
03/12/2012 at 16:00 Stochastic says:
I’d be nice if PC games took advantage of modern hardware at maximum setting but were able to scale down sufficiently such that a 3-4 year-old-machine can run the game well. Fortunately, many games do this, but if these system requirements are correct then it seems like Crysis 3 won’t scale all that well at the low end.
03/12/2012 at 16:32 SuperNashwanPower says:
This. I disagree with the ‘it’s already good enough’ approach to graphics. Having a range means older machines aren’t left out, but that’s no reason to cease progress. Today’s expensive top end is always tomorrow’s cheap mid range. If you want state of the art and are willing to pay for it, you get the experience you want AND help drive the process where others can have better machines for less, albeit a year or so later.
03/12/2012 at 16:51 Guvornator says:
“If you want state of the art and are willing to pay for it, you get the experience you want AND help drive the process where others can have better machines for less, albeit a year or so later.”
I can’t help thinking that same process also renders their already bought computers obsolete, thus causing them to spend more. If you want the best, go to it, but I don’t think you can really sell it as a philanthropic act…
03/12/2012 at 17:08 InternetBatman says:
And you help drive people to consoles, with their longer upgrade cycles and lower initial price. It’s a bit of an overstatement to assume that the high end drives technology upgrades. They can help encourage adoption (particularly of formats), help encourage brand the adoption of brand new technologies, and play a disproportionate role in shaping public opinion, but I doubt the real profits are focused in one small group.
The high end could be just alleviating the cost of R&D that would happen anyways to bring a new product to the middle of the market, force people to upgrade, or just compete with a rival. Look at how the high-end (for it’s time) PS3 was used to bludgeon Blu-ray into the market, only to have the cheaper (and arguably better) streaming technology that targeted the middle take it over.
03/12/2012 at 18:26 SuperNashwanPower says:
Hi Bats
Thats why I am talking about the ‘range’ approach. If you continue to make games that can be supported on a wide range of machines, then you don’t drive people to consoles because there is no need. “Low” setting on any PC game is going to be pretty close to console performance, and if you know your old machine will run a new release just fine, you’re not going to nip out to Argos for a PS3. But I see no reason not to keep pushing what “High” looks like.
An example of technology driving the later mid range is HDTV. At first only the wealthiest or keenest of buyers would go for one, then after a while you saw loads of CRT’s sitting by the bins in every neighbourhood. The early adopters pick it up, they show their mates, it goes viral. I know for a fact that back in the 80′s we bought a VHS and a C64 because my Dad’s mate had just got one. So no, its not a philanthropic act, but it is true that tech comes in expensive as fewer people are adopting it, then drops in price as more pick it up. It may not be true of all technologies but it is a common pattern.
Personally I love high fidelity graphics and have always dreamed of true photorealistic experiences on a computer ever since I was little. At times when games approach it, its always breathtaking to me. Thats why I feel very strongly about it :)
03/12/2012 at 15:44 Patches the Hyena says:
What in the world, my laptop has more chops than the ‘Recommended’ specs. Although I expect those are for moderate resolutions at 30 FPS without AA and other fancy features.
03/12/2012 at 15:52 Wubbles says:
I swear to god, PC gaming is the most Bourgeois hobby any person could have.
03/12/2012 at 15:57 Wubbles says:
Well, I guess there’s yachting and golf but, still, it’s up there.
03/12/2012 at 15:59 Bremze says:
Skiing/snowboarding. My wallet weeps.
03/12/2012 at 16:03 Stochastic says:
For every technical showcase like Crysis 3 there are many, many other PC games that will run just fine on more plebeian machines.
03/12/2012 at 16:03 Screamer says:
Stock car racing!
03/12/2012 at 16:28 phylum sinter says:
What about Fabergé eggs?
03/12/2012 at 17:08 StuffedCabbage says:
Anyone for wine tasting?
03/12/2012 at 18:31 SuperNashwanPower says:
How about hunting plebs with shotguns from the driving seat of a stock car racer, then making faberge eggs out the collected ‘hides’? Then celebrating with wine?
03/12/2012 at 18:33 subedii says:
Is anyone bringing the Foie gras, or shall I?
03/12/2012 at 18:36 SuperNashwanPower says:
I like nothing better than a goose that has been mechanically force fed and then had its stomach excised. I love a bit of torture with my food.
03/12/2012 at 23:00 Snakejuice says:
What‽ Really‽ I can’t really think of that many hobbies that are cheaper than pc gaming. I’ve dabbled in some RC flight, that’s certainly not more cheap, in fact I can’t really afford it. Most sports are also more expensive.
I need a computer anyway, spending money on it regularly to keep it fast, stable and smooth will improve my quality of life regardless if I use it for gaming or not.
03/12/2012 at 23:03 Butcher Pete says:
I know a guy who collects musical instruments. I’d estimate he spends about $5,000+ a year on his hobby.
03/12/2012 at 16:13 omicron1 says:
Serendipitous! I just upgraded to, literally, the exact specs of the hi-performance system: 8gb memory, i7-2600k, and a Radeon 7970.
I do, however, have just a 1920×1080 monitory, so part of this will likely go to waste. Still, it’ll serve.
Off topic: I think there’s a fair chance a next-gen release a few months late is in the offing. ‘Twould explain their sudden obsession with higher-def effects Pre-launch (as opposed to Crysis 2′s post-release Pretties Pack).
03/12/2012 at 16:23 Cognitect says:
I’m a bit surprised to see so many people complaining about the minimum requirements, considering a used 5770 is worth less than a retail copy of the game itself.
03/12/2012 at 17:15 InternetBatman says:
Many of us have been limping along with an old rig for years and aren’t exactly excited to see the start of a new round of upgrades for marginal gains. Crysis 3′s specs are probably overblown, but it’s the start of a tedious two or three years when new consoles come out so you’ll have to upgrade, but you don’t know what technology will stick as good enough (like the ubiquitous 8800), so you could be wasting money. In the end the choice will be wasting money on an upgrade that won’t live out the generation, or missing quite a few AAA games for the next 2-3 years.
For me at least, graphics upgrades aren’t fun. They’re a tax that I have to pay to continue to play.
03/12/2012 at 16:31 Hardmood says:
basically that game is..ähm about shooting stuff and creatures of all sort. with one word: shoot.
thats all, rest is highend gfx.
feel no need to upgrade hardware for hundreds of dollars or else or buy something for 60buck, just for “SHOOT”.
as long as theres games with more gameplay like terraria or any others, or sales or humblebundles, where i can get “SHOOT” or even decent to top gameplay for less than 10bucks.
03/12/2012 at 16:37 JoeyJungle says:
My vid card has only 512MB RAM :(
I guess I’ll have to chisel a new one out of dinosaur bones to update this stone-age PC.
03/12/2012 at 17:17 Samonite says:
Luckily my gtx580 has 512 cores..
That is 508 more cores than what is recommended and I won’t even be able to run it on hi?
03/12/2012 at 17:32 InternetBatman says:
Eh, it seems pretty enough. Oddly enough, I’m more excited for the graphics of Project Eternity.
03/12/2012 at 18:19 Carra says:
It’s nice to see that the game will make any PC run its cycles. Everyone can set it to maximum prettiness for their PC.
03/12/2012 at 18:43 Tom Walker says:
Hmmm, so I have plenty of RAM, a CPU within the ‘recommended’ range and VRAM for miles.
But! My graphics chipset, while DX11, is a little below the ‘minimum’ NVidia one stated.
Anyone know whether my surplus performance in other areas will compensate for that?
03/12/2012 at 18:50 subedii says:
Never easy to say, these things vary from game to game.
I suspect you should be OK, having extra on the RAM and CPU power would certainly help, but the only way to be sure would be to try it (or presumably a demo).
03/12/2012 at 18:56 Tom Walker says:
Ah yes, demos! I remember those. Good idea.
Thanks.
03/12/2012 at 19:17 Jrinswand says:
I’ve got a DX11 card (a 7850) but I run all of my games in DX9 whenever possible. I’ll take a higher framerate over purty graphics any day of the week.
03/12/2012 at 19:34 aepervius says:
I can understand a DX10 requirement, but unless they are making a new engine from the ground up and way better quality than what is on the 360, that makes no sense whatsoever to require DX11. In fact even if they were going for a new engine with shinies, bell, and whistle, that still make no sense as they would right off the bat cut off a good part of the PC market out.
03/12/2012 at 20:48 Arglebargle says:
Perhaps their low end setup is predicated on some sort of compatibility with the Nextbox. New range of consoler madness is a’coming up. Conforming to the old standard might not make sense (especially if some under the table influence is kicking in).
04/12/2012 at 00:28 BlackAlpha says:
Well, there’s a whole bunch of reasons why I’m not going to buy this:
- Like others said, DX11 equals no buy. I’m not going to upgrade my video card just for Crysis when I can run other games just fine on high graphic settings. The developers should put a tad more effort into their game and support DX10.
- The 55 euro price tag is ridiculous to begin with.
- Looking back at Crysis 2, there’s a possibility that Crysis 3 will be yet another average FPS game.
04/12/2012 at 03:30 JohnnyMaverik says:
Those minimum requirements for a multi-platform game are a joke, specifically the GPU requirements. Having a PC version that is DX11 only while the console versions are happily chugging along with DX9… just lazy.
I very much hope they can do a better job of optimisation than that, i don’t expect to be able to max out all multi-platform releases I play but until the next gen rolls around but I expect to be able to play them, even if it is on minimum.
04/12/2012 at 05:52 ohexplode says:
Ram – G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 16GB (4 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1866
CPU – AMD FX-8120 Zambezi 3.1GHz Socket AM3+ 125W Eight-Core Desktop Processor
GPU – HIS Radeon HD 6750 1GB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card with Eyefinity
Mtherbrd – ASUS M5A97 AM3+ AMD 970 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard with UEFI BIOS
04/12/2012 at 07:53 MeestaNob says:
I have no issue with a high-tech game (finally) coming out. I do have an issue with Origin though.
No thanks.
04/12/2012 at 12:04 LoCaDhowIseeit says:
This is certainly a Step in the right direction. back in the good old days (old man Speech incoming) I used to upgrade every 4 Years stat but I haven’t bothered keeping that up due to the Stagnation in Graphical advancements, other than the forced ones like DX upgrades, rather I am going with the notion that PC Gaming is not actually expensive if you know what you are looking for. A simple Rule i have, if I can’t play something maxed out I upgrade and I barely need to do that every 6-7 Years now.
I am not hunting the latest and greatest Hardware my current Setup looks like this about 1.5k € back in the day now probably quite affordable and its gonna last me probably another 4-5 Years
E7-2600K @ 3.8GHz
ASUS-P8Z68-V
16 GB G.Skill GSL RAM (oh Tastosis)
Single Geforce GTX 580 3 GB Version used to be 500€ now probaly quite cheap and sry AMD but you lost the War long ago I am not trusting you ever again
I rather have one powerful Graphics-card as long as possible rather than SLI nonsense, other than the Company’s want us to believe, Microstutter- lag is very real. You don’t even get double or quad the Performance but only a small Percentage, its a Cashgrab like Win8 nonsense and we should know it better.
So I like the look on these Hi-Performance Requirements. I have to wait how the optimization turns out but Games that actually force the Hardware we pay good Money for to be used is a welcoming change of pace.
04/12/2012 at 12:11 StingingVelvet says:
I’m firmly in the “modern graphics are good enough” category. I don’t see enough difference to justify upgrading past the Crysis 1 level of graphical fidelity, I think that is plenty “good enough.”
So… wanting to upgrade more… blah.
04/12/2012 at 14:50 dangel says:
Sorry to say that I too, like you, believed all that about SLI – and whilst it has it’s downsides (heat, expense and the occasional lack of a profile) thesedays it scales really well. I went with two 670s (EVGA FTW editions with 680 pcbs) because the leap from 580 to 680 wasn’t enough – i’ve not regretted it (well, once the wife calmed down when she saw the credit card) once. I’ve also not seen micro stutter having dreaded being marred by it constantly. In reference to this topic i’ve been able to go back and play Crysis 2 modded up with the moLdoHD texture pack with everything maxed out at a solid 60fps (vsync limited) and enjoyed it so much more as a result because it a: looks blinking luverly and b: it’s butter smooth.
Then again AC3 is only 40-60fps (but then there’s several rumours as to this being cpu limited by bad thread management and goes for single cards too) and FC3′s SLI profile was broken on release (but this has been fixed and the workaround was to force it with nvidia inspector). But, in general these are exceptions to the rule (in my experience) and most of what i’ve played has been OK or just the usual PC glitches. Borderlands 2 works fantastically (phsyx and all) which i’ve played far too much of.
Personally I think nvidia have really nailed it with the 6×0 series and the scaling can be near 100%. For me it only has to reach 60fps constant though (and i can’t stand tearing so i’m limiting it anyway).
04/12/2012 at 12:10 StingingVelvet says:
Only wacky thing there is the DX11 requirement but I would guess that is to save dev time more than because of tech demand, given the low requirements around it (dual core CPU for christ’s sake).
I am assuming that, like Crysis 2, the mega ultra setting will be pointless and invisible to the average person as well. I played that game on “high” at 60fps.
04/12/2012 at 14:39 dangel says:
Go here: http://maldotex.blogspot.co.uk/
(i’m not trying to sell you breast enlargement)
Scroll down a bit, look at the requirements – this mod + crysis2 + everything maxed out looks really really nice on my rig (670 SLI) and I don’t think a single card (i.e. single gpu) could.
I’m very happy to see crytek willing to push the envelope again – just try not to bash the shit out of them because they are willing to do so. It distresses me no end to how PC owners whine about wanting uber spec game engines and then ball their eyes out when they can max everything out when they get what they want.
04/12/2012 at 16:53 x3m157 says:
YES!! I made it!! Amazed that a build I picked up for $250 meets these requirements!
Athlon II x4 640
Radeon HD6570 1GB
8GB DDR3
10/12/2012 at 07:08 kyubix2 says:
sorry buddy but your card isn’t near a minimum spec one. 5770 or gts 450 is needed and 6770 is that , maybe 6750, not a 6570…. sorry, but you are a bit lower than minimum specc, maybe you can run it anyway.
10/12/2012 at 07:06 kyubix2 says:
Crysis 3 runing in “ultra” settings with gtx680 and 2600k , better it looks like xbox720 games or something near that…. Crysis 1 still look better than anything including C2 with mods and only takes a GTX570 to take it to the max with 60+fps
04/01/2013 at 15:04 zat0ichi says:
Dammit.
My trusty Q6000 only scores 4000 (with overclock) on that Pass mark site.
the i7 2600 scores more like 8000.
hope the gtx660 (non ti) picks up some of the slack.
what do CPUs do in games anyway?
Physics, AI and????