Are next generation consoles not good enough for Crysis?

[ultragpu]

http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/77282
original news
http://forums.e-mpire.com/showthread.php?t=60956
some translation
"Crysis is developed only for the PC, since this would offer the best hardware achievement. "NEXT generation consoles like the Xbox 360 and the Playstation 3 do not offer sufficient achievement, which we focus for the diagram quality of the play.""
well, crysis indeed look good, but to say the nextgen consoles cant reach it is quite unbelievable to me.

 

[Titanio]

The statement could well be true taking Crysis as is on the PC, and its requirements. The minimum requirements specify 768MB of RAM, or 1GB on Vista, more than the consoles can afford. So from that perspective, it's true.

However, when you're making a console version of a game you rarely take things "as is". You modify to fit. A modified version would be possible, IMO, and ought not to be let down by the CPU or GPU which are more than capable. The question is how less RAM would impact the game, which is dependent on how tight a ship they're already running from that perspective on the PC.

 

[Npl]

In the same article its been said that they wont support PPUs as they want that you can run Crysis on "mediocre systems that studs/apprentices can afford".
So now its mediocre system > PS3,XBox360

 

[StefanS]

First of all that translation is horrible.

I'll have a go a summary:
The main part of the article focuses on how Crysis profits from DX10. Crytek is very postive about it as it makes developement easier, and offers advantage over DX9 such as improved performance for some effects and the Unified Shader Model.
Crysis physics engine is developed in-house and uses the CPU only. Concerning AGEIA the developer said: "We're not interested in expensive solutions working only on specialized hardware"

Now to the part, you're interested in (literal translation):
Crysis is developed only for the PC, because the PC offers the best performance. "Next-Generation consoles, like the X360 and the PS3 don't have sufficient performance, that we're aiming for graphics-quality wise." However, the Crysis-engine will be ported to other platforms, so other console developements (sic!) can make use of it.

 

[nAo]

There's nothing in Crysis you can't do on a next gen console at proper frame rate from what we have seen so far.
Maybe they're having some problem with memory occupation..

 

[StefanS]

The statement could well be true taking Crysis as is on the PC, and its requirements. The minimum requirements specify 768MB of RAM, or 1GB on Vista, more than the consoles can afford. So from that perspective, it's true.
.

I think he's more or less talking about the effects possible with DX10, which have to be clumsily implemented on engines used for DX9 hardware. (see my summary).

 

[nAo]

I think he's more or less talking about the effects possible with DX10, which have to be clumsily implemented on engines used for DX9 hardware. (see my summary).

Crysis runs on DX9 (and I yet have to see something in the video they released so far which requires DX10, but maybe with DX10 hw/drivers they will be able do achieve a decente frame rate)

 

[StefanS]

Crysis runs on DX9 (and I yet have to see something in the video they released so far which requires DX10, but maybe with DX10 hw/drivers they will be able do achieve a decente frame rate)

Yeah, he says that as well.

 

[Npl]

There's nothing in Crysis you can't do on a next gen console at proper frame rate from what we have seen so far.
Maybe they're having some problem with memory occupation..

Memory is the most likely limitation (I doubt APIs matter much if you`r dealing with consoles).

Hey, do you think Sony would add 256MB if you told them HS couldnt run without ?

 

[groper]

Everything we ve seen so far is DX9 .
But they are talking for the final DX10 version when they say that is not possible for NG consoles (at least not with the same feautures).
Here are some responses from the DX10 demonstration. Note that this demonstration saw what they hope to achieve with DX10 and not what it is allready achievable.

IGN

Although DX10 and Vista aren't final yet, we also saw a demonstration of what Crytek hopes to achieve with the Vista version of Crysis, and we can honestly say it's the most impressive game visually that we've ever seen. If the final code is anywhere close to the demo we saw, playing Crysis is going to be very close to playing an interactive live action movie.

GAMESPOT

as impressive as the destruction was, it looked very ordinary compared to what we got to see next: a simulation of what Crytek hopes Crysis will look like when played using DirectX 10. To try to describe just how impressive the simulation looked with mere words seems a futile gesture, but know that everything had realistic physics (this was especially noticeable in the leaves of palm trees when they were toppled), that the resulting smoke and dust particles in the air shifted with gusts of wind, and that the shafts of light coming down through the jungle canopy showed off these effects quite beautifully. It doesn't seem like much of a stretch to say that comparing the DX9 and DX10 (simulated) versions would be akin to comparing Xbox and Xbox 360 versions of the same game; the simulation really looked that good.

1UP

Obviously, the game takes advantage of DirectX 10 and looks better than almost everything we've seen in gaming.

 

[MasterDisaster]

There's nothing in Crysis you can't do on a next gen console at proper frame rate from what we have seen so far.
Maybe they're having some problem with memory occupation..

Exact, it's the same thing I believe
but there are a lot of things that can be done to overcome a similar problem, ad 512 Mb are not so little in a console

ATI believe that the visuals of crysis can be done on 360, maybe the engine is not so easy adaptable to a closed box as a console is.

ATI: "Crysis will support DX9 with some sort of use for DX10 features. It's likely that those DX10 visuals can be replicated on the Xbox360"
http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3153097

maybe they have not the time to port the game to next gen console with a serious optimization for the fixed hardware, and I can understand this, why optimize in order to use 512 MB of memory when pc have today a minimum of 1 GB to 2, 4 GB + 256/512 MB of video ram ?
(how much of this 1-2 GB ram will be allocated by Vista and services when a 3d videogame is running? some suggest half the whole memory..)

 

[zed]

i suppose its now official dx10 is now the new buzzword, rest in peace the previous holders AA/AF/HDR
ala game title X is crap since theres no AF, look at the textures ( and me on the sidelines the lack of AF is the least of the problems, its like talking about the cord that holds the fluffy dice attached to the rear view mirror + should we change it for something more fluffy, whilst at the same time ignoring the fact said car has no wheels or engine )

 

[inefficient]

i suppose its now official dx10 is now the new buzzword, rest in peace the previous holders AA/AF/HDR

I think this was the doing of the gaming press. Gaming news and magazine editors who either don't understand or no longer want to be concered about individual technology features have sort of just jumped on the the DX10 bandwagon. It's a nice little buzz word that encapsulates "all the stuff we will see in next gen PC games" (Windows games really)


Also I've said it before with DX9, but its a pretty major coup MS pulled off in getting people to associate graphics technology level with THEIR propietary api.


It annoys me a little bit that they were able to get away with it. But I guess being the overwhelming leader in the OS business gives them that commanding ability. And we just have to accept it for now.


I guess the future of OpenGL is somewhat bleak at this stage. But at least it still has a future left in it in the form of Mac games and the PS3.

 

[NRP]

How long before console fanbois start calling Crytek "irrelevant" (a la John Carmack)?

On a serious note, if EA buys Crytek, I guarantee they'll change their tune.

 

[Rodéric]

i suppose its now official dx10 is now the new buzzword, rest in peace the previous holders AA/AF/HDR

The real deal is the new driver model WDDM, and it will only be available with Vista, and only DirectX will benefit from it (since it solves a big DX design mistake), which latest version will also only be available on Vista; so all in all it's easier to say DX10, although I've also seen D3D10...

(AFAIK DX9 benefits from the new Vista driver model as well, but DX9 is not exclusive to Vista...)

 

[poopypoo]

The idea behind making this statement seems highly likely to be marketing-inspired. Crysis is a big next-gen PC title, and will be used to sell a lot of graphics cards and even a new OS (not necessary to run but an improvement, presumably). However, you can't really challenge him on it because it's always true -- ain't a damn game created that doesn't run better on a PC. Question is what were they aiming for? Textures well into the 512 MB of memory, Screen res of more than 4 megapixels? XD some insane water shaders? all with a buttery-smooth 60 fps? Well, of course I'm talking out my ass here, but if he wants to make that (potentially irrelevant, but rather defensible) claim, woe be to the console lover who doubts it's possible. XD

 

[see colon]

(how much of this 1-2 GB ram will be allocated by Vista and services when a 3d videogame is running? some suggest half the whole memory..)

it's really impossible to compare memory sizes from a (mostly) unified memory system like XB360 and a segmented memory system like PC. but, something many people overlook is that the same PC with 1-2GB of system memory will probably have between 256MB-512MB (or more!) just on the video card (or array of cards). while it's true that much of that memory will be filled with data that's duplicated in system memory, you still have a sizable amount of memory for framebuffer and off screen buffers that's important. especialy when you start running in high resolutions with FSAA, where you have the space to do that easiliy on the PC because your framebuffer isn't eating away at the rest of the memory you need for game code ect.

 

[icecold1983]

imo even tho pcs have more brute processing power, i think the fact that theres so much overhead, and the lowest common denominator approach that devs have to take when designing games will prevent pcs games from looking as good as the best console games for a year or 2 more. crysis looks as good as the top console games but it seems to run at about 15 fps too, and they are probly using sli or quad sli rigs to demonstrate it.

 

[Rangers]

It does not surprise me. Top PC cards already surpass the consoles by quite a bit in raw power. That is before the next gen G80 etc, due soon.

We may not have a direct corolary to the "Xenos", but the RSX is simply a 7900 GTx clocked at 550, and not only that but hampered by a 128 bit bus. I'd say that config is sqaurely a mid-high PC card. By the time Crisis comes out..it will be less. We are reaching where the RSX type configs from Nvidia (7900 GS, 7950 GT) are in the 199-299 range which makes them "mainstream".

A few console games remind me of Crisis though. The new Turok screenshots.
________
Bliss

 

[pjbliverpool]

imo even tho pcs have more brute processing power, i think the fact that theres so much overhead, and the lowest common denominator approach that devs have to take when designing games will prevent pcs games from looking as good as the best console games for a year or 2 more. crysis looks as good as the top console games but it seems to run at about 15 fps too, and they are probly using sli or quad sli rigs to demonstrate it.

The overhead isn't really that great. It doesn't even effect the GPU and its biggest victim - system memory is already the area that PC's far excell in. From what I understand CPU overhead is failry high in DX9 but I guess that comes down to how much general purpose CPU power you have to waste on that kind of overhead. Hopefully DX10 will change things there.

Im curious about your statements regarding Crysis's framerate though, it seems fine to me but assuming I missed something, are you saying you expect it to run at 15fps on top end PC's at the time of launch?

Has any PC game ever run so badly?