[Kanyamagufa]

Crytek is supposedly announcing and showing off CryENGINE 3 at GDC.

http://pc.gamespy.com/articles/961/961719p1.html

What major differences, if any, are there going to be from CryENGINE 2? As far as I can tell, it's about the targeting of consoles and MMO's. I thought they were already doing this with CryENGINE 2, though.


Anyway, I thought it was interesting. I put this in the Console forum because of the specific mentioning of PS3 and 360 as targeted platforms, but it would probably fit in PC Games too.

And I'm very curious to see their results.

[Rangers]

Sort of misleading of them to title it Cryengine "3" when since it's being aimed at the consoles it will be actually less impressive than prior iterations..

[Fran]

Originally Posted by Rangers

Sort of misleading of them to title it Cryengine "3" when since it's being aimed at the consoles it will be actually less impressive than prior iterations..

It's actually a vastly improved iteration of the engine.

[KyoDash]

I believe that CryENGINE 3 is being aimed at the next round of consoles (PS4, 7200) and future PC graphics hardware, it was stated some time ago in an interview they did with GameSpot.

I guess poor sales of the high end Crysis on PC owing to piracy, helped influence this decision. At least the PS4 etc won't have poor cut down ports, but perhaps something more on par with PC, kinda like what Id are doing with Rage.

[Neb]

Originally Posted by KyoDash

I believe that CryENGINE 3 is being aimed at the next round of consoles (PS4, 7200) and future PC graphics hardware, it was stated some time ago in an interview they did with GameSpot.

I guess poor sales of the high end Crysis on PC owing to piracy, helped influence this decision. At least the PS4 etc won't have poor cut down ports, but perhaps something more on par with PC, kinda like what Id are doing with Rage.

Actually both Crysis and Warhead has had good sales. Over a million(s) is not bad especially regarding royalty free PC games. They announced/hinted going multiplatform before even Crysis was released.

Now the interesting but confusing part is that they say PC DX9/DX10 and release date 2011/2012. Why not list DX10.1, DX11 or even DX12 if that would rear it's face by then.

[ultragpu]

Originally Posted by Fran

It's actually a vastly improved iteration of the engine.

Hm, judging from your profile I speculate you would know more about this engine then? If so can you tell us any specific changes and improvements at all?

[Fran]

Originally Posted by ultragpu

Hm, judging from your profile I speculate you would know more about this engine then? If so can you tell us any specific changes and improvements at all?

I wouldn't spoil the fun and I'd leave it to the guys doing the presentation at GDC

[FirewalkR]

Originally Posted by Fran

I wouldn't spoil the fun and I'd leave it to the guys doing the presentation at GDC

When you say vastly improved, I take it you mean in terms of performance and not necessarily in terms of new effects/techniques...? Just the fact that you guys optimized it for the parallel processing the consoles demand, especially the PS3, should improve performance quite a lot in the PC also.

From what I've seen of Crysis and Warhead running in my machine... it seems like even with CryENGINE 2, you guys could just modify the config files and have it display graphics that would tax GPUs 3 or 4 years from now.

Given this, I was a bit surprised that you actually gave it a new version number. Still, if you did it... it must mean something. Can't wait to see it running!

[ultragpu]

Originally Posted by Fran

I wouldn't spoil the fun and I'd leave it to the guys doing the presentation at GDC

Guess I'll have to wait couple of weeks then...
I'm just very curious of what level of graphics fidelity it would bring to consoles, especially PS3. Hopefully we could see live demos running on consoles next to some high end PCs just for comparison sake.

[Kanyamagufa]

It seems this version isn't as console specific as I originally assumed. Kotaku is reporting it as being just as targeted towards the PC in addition to the PS3 and 360.

Which means it's not just a "console version" of CryENGINE 2.

Maybe it's just me, but it seems awfully quick to have a brand new engine out. I'm very curious to see what makes this CryENGINE 3, and not CryENGINE 2.5.

[Scott_Arm]

Originally Posted by Kanyamagufa

Maybe it's just me, but it seems awfully quick to have a brand new engine out. I'm very curious to see what makes this CryENGINE 3, and not CryENGINE 2.5.

Support for java-enabled mobile phones. You heard it here first.

[Panajev2001a]

Originally Posted by Fran

It's actually a vastly improved iteration of the engine.

I suspected as much... Crytek not trying to spend too many resources re-purposing for current consoles an already well structured and implemented engine which targeted PC's, but choosing to direct the fruits of the R&D work they were doing on current consoles, future PC multi-core systems, etc... into a new iteration of the engine which could be targeted to PC's and consoles (covering next-next generation consoles too, for what they can predict now given the evolution of PC graphics).

I think that following the UE3-consoles-work-in-progress path might have been very hard on Crytek... what do you think?

[Richard]

Heh... please don't smother Fran.

[patsu]

I remember Fran mentioned features of some work-in-progress engines before...

Found it...
http://forum.beyond3d.com/showpost.p...&postcount=128

[PhilB]

Originally Posted by FirewalkR

When you say vastly improved, I take it you mean in terms of performance and not necessarily in terms of new effects/techniques...?

Even if they don't add any new features that make their games look better, I'd still take the extra performance any day! Though knowing this is Crytek, I'd be willing to bet that they're going to be pushing the envelope for sure.

Originally Posted by Fran

I wouldn't spoil the fun and I'd leave it to the guys doing the presentation at GDC

I can't wait!

[homerdog]

Considering what CE2 is capable of I can only imagine what CE3 will bring.

And yes Neb I shamelessly link to your post since you have the best non-bullshot screens I could find.

[TimothyFarrar]

Originally Posted by patsu

I remember Fran mentioned features of some work-in-progress engines before...

Found it...
http://forum.beyond3d.com/showpost.p...&postcount=128

It will definitely be interesting to see what they have in store on the consoles, especially how they deal with dynamic range and framebuffer bit width in moving from PC where one can get away with a FP16 framebuffer, to console where that option seems prohibitally expensive in many cases. Assuming they stay with forward rendering, will they take similar compromises such as KZ2 and toss out proper linear lighting for an 8bit framebuffer? Or perhaps stay linear and use 10bit on 360, and eat the full FP16 cost on PS3 for multipass forward lighting? Or perhaps will they have something different like separate transparent compositing and forward lighting with all lights on one pass so they don't have to use framebuffer blending (and can keep output in RGBA8)...

[Fran]

Originally Posted by TimothyFarrar

It will definitely be interesting to see what they have in store on the consoles, especially how they deal with dynamic range and framebuffer bit width in moving from PC where one can get away with a FP16 framebuffer, to console where that option seems prohibitally expensive in many cases. Assuming they stay with forward rendering, will they take similar compromises such as KZ2 and toss out proper linear lighting for an 8bit framebuffer? Or perhaps stay linear and use 10bit on 360, and eat the full FP16 cost on PS3 for multipass forward lighting? Or perhaps will they have something different like separate transparent compositing and forward lighting with all lights on one pass so they don't have to use framebuffer blending (and can keep output in RGBA8)...

In Fable 2 we stayed linear with fp10 on 360, but adjusted the output range dynamically to make full use of the 10bits depending on a quick histogram analysis of the scene. It basically avoided banding in any situation, but still using an HDR format.

[pjbliverpool]

I'm interested to see hot the engine is going to be suitable for current gen consoles/support DX9, and yet still be good enough to impress on next gen consoles/DX11 PC's.

Then again, CE2 is probably more than capable of outputting graphics worthy of next gen consoles so a little streamlining and a few extra features to accomodate new technoclogies may be all that they need.

[FirewalkR]

Originally Posted by PhilB

Even if they don't add any new features that make their games look better, I'd still take the extra performance any day! Though knowing this is Crytek, I'd be willing to bet that they're going to be pushing the envelope for sure.

Oh and I completely agree.
Version 2 already looks better than anything else (subjective I know but in this case... well...), so if it's just performance, it's ok by me.

[Nano]

Originally Posted by Nebula

Now the interesting but confusing part is that they say PC DX9/DX10 and release date 2011/2012. Why not list DX10.1, DX11 or even DX12 if that would rear it's face by then.

Well sounds to me like its an engine for the here and now. But with the capability to scale forward and target future platforms. Considering they've made the move to bring a CE3 so early, I wouldn't be surprised if the engine being licensed in 2012 will be CE4 with again a new architecture and support for a change in technological goals/philosophies.

[kyetech]

Originally Posted by Nano

Well sounds to me like its an engine for the here and now. But with the capability to scale forward and target future platforms. Considering they've made the move to bring a CE3 so early, I wouldn't be surprised if the engine being licensed in 2012 will be CE4 with again a new architecture and support for a change in technological goals/philosophies.

Infact the main reason they have brought out cry3 now is so that cry4, wont be numerically challenged against unreal4

xbox 360 anyone?

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Sorry Fran, only kidding.

[Acert93]

Originally Posted by Fran

It's actually a vastly improved iteration of the engine.

He's alive! Well, until we burry you under a mountain of questons

[L. Scofield]

Originally Posted by Kanyamagufa

It seems this version isn't as console specific as I originally assumed. Kotaku is reporting it as being just as targeted towards the PC in addition to the PS3 and 360.

Which means it's not just a "console version" of CryENGINE 2.

Maybe it's just me, but it seems awfully quick to have a brand new engine out. I'm very curious to see what makes this CryENGINE 3, and not CryENGINE 2.5.

Well, the original Far Cry was released in 2004 and in 2005 we already had a tech demonstration video of Cryengine 2, so it's not without precedent.

[Rangers]

Originally Posted by kyetech

Infact the main reason they have brought out cry3 now is so that cry4, wont be numerically challenged against unreal4

xbox 360 anyone?

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Sorry Fran, only kidding.

except id tech 5 lurks