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Crysis
Author: Joe MartinPublished: 16th November 2007
Graphical Analysis
Now, let’s get down to the specifics. We’ve analysed the graphical presets for all the plebs who can’t tell the difference between a game with 8x Anti-aliasing and one which uses Multiple Render Targets, but now we’re going to break it down, bit-tech style.Feel it, dawg.
There are a whole load of different graphical settings to fiddle with in Crysis – not the pages and pages of different settings which you might expect, but a good number nonetheless.
We’re not going to look at each and every setting here because not all of them have differences which are clearly identifiable or which can be communicated in screenshots or replicated exactly. Physics is a great example of this – I could take a screenshot or video of an explosion, but it won’t be the same every time and it’s hard to notice a difference between Medium and Very High physics anyway.
That said, there are only three settings we aren’t looking at here – including physics. There’s a lot to do then, so we’d better get started.
Shadow Quality
Shadows are an important part of games nowadays and form both an important part of the graphical fidelity and the gameplay. Check out the images below to see how the different settings measure up.
Left to right: shadow quality on Low, Medium, High and Very High settings.
So, this is fairly simple. With the Low setting shadows are completely disabled for the most part and there’s no shadow cast either by the player, vehicles or trees. You might not notice it at first, but once it’s pointed out to you then it’ll stick in your head.
On Medium quality simple tree and environmental shadows are added back into the game, which goes a long way to increasing immersion and making the game feel more real. I’d say this is the minimum you should aim for on this setting, though the higher settings make it even better by adding dynamic and soft shadows cast by every object in the game, including the player.
Texture Quality
Texture quality is one of the most important settings in a game, but it has some puzzling results in Crysis. Some of these we’ve already touched on in the page about graphical presets, but let's take a closer look.
Left to right: texture quality on Low, Medium, High and Very High settings.
The puzzling thing here is that there doesn’t appear to be a difference. Bear in mind that in every screenshot though it’s only texture quality which has been altered and every other setting has been left on Very High.
Now, there doesn’t appear to be any difference in texture detail here, but there are other areas where texture detail can make a much bigger difference. With an earlier set of drivers we found that the lower texture settings left the game looking flat and bland and, while it’s clear that the higher settings add bump mapping and the like into the game, the basic texture image looks impressively detailed on all settings here. The only thing I can suggest is that you fiddle with this setting yourself and make your own mind up.
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