Crysis Benchmark Results

Crysis uses a new graphics engine: the CryENGINE2, which is the successor to Far Cry's CryENGINE. CryENGINE2 is among the first engines to use the Direct3D 10 (DirectX 10) framework, but can also run using DirectX 9, on Vista, Windows XP and the new Windows 7. As we'll see, there are significant frame rate reductions when running Crysis in DX10. It's not an operating system issue, DX9 works fine in WIN7, but DX10 knocks the frame rates in half.

Roy Taylor, Vice President of Content Relations at NVIDIA, has spoken on the subject of the engine's complexity, stating that Crysis has over a million lines of code, 1GB of texture data, and 85,000 shaders. To get the most out of modern multicore processor architectures, CPU intensive subsystems of CryENGINE 2 such as physics, networking and sound, have been re-written to support multi-threading.

Crysis offers an in-game benchmark tool, which is similar to World in Conflict. This short test does place some high amounts of stress on a graphics card, since there are so many landscape features rendered. For benchmarking purposes, Crysis can mean trouble as it places a high demand on both GPU and CPU resources. Benchmark Reviews uses the Crysis Benchmark Tool by Mad Boris to test frame rates in batches, which allows the results of many tests to be averaged.

Low-resolution testing allows the graphics processor to plateau its maximum output performance, and shifts demand onto the other system components. At the lower resolutions Crysis will reflect the GPU's top-end speed in the composite score, indicating full-throttle performance with little load. This makes for a less GPU-dependant test environment, but it is sometimes helpful in creating a baseline for measuring maximum output performance. At the 1280x1024 resolution used by 17" and 19" monitors, the CPU and memory have too much influence on the results to be used in a video card test. At the widescreen resolutions of 1680x1050 and 1900x1200, the performance differences between video cards under test are mostly down to the cards.

Quite frankly, I was shocked by these numbers. Running XP-based systems and DirectX 9, the latest generation of video cards were starting to get a handle on Crysis. Certainly, in this test, with no anti-aliasing dialed in, any of the tested cards running in DX9 provided a usable solution. Now only the highest performing boards get close to an average frame rate of 30FPS. It seems like we've gone back in time, back to when only two or three video cards could run Crysis with all the eye candy turned on. Now, we'll have to wait until CryEngine3 comes out, and is optimized for the current generation of graphics APIs.

The results here are similar to the GT2 scene in 3DMark Vantage, in that the HD5770 pulls slightly ahead of the GTX260-216. Of course we can make the situation go back and forth a bit by fiddling with clock rates, but the fact is, they are roughly equal at stock settings. Compared to older cards, such as the HD4850 and HD4830, there's not a big enough jump to justify upgrading if you want to run this game in DirectX 10. Keep in mind; this is not a universal problem, as we'll see later.

Once a decent amount of anti-aliasing is factored in, the HD5770 pulls a little further ahead of the GTX260-216. All those little improvements ATI made to the rendering processor pay off here. Frame rates are still well below acceptable until you get to the high end cards. If you want to play this game in DX10, you are going to have to pay.

In our next section, Benchmark Reviews tests with Devil May Cry 4 Benchmark. Read on to see how a blended high-demand GPU test with low video frame buffer demand will impact our test products.

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