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Crysis
Author: Joe MartinPublished: 16th November 2007
Return of The Graphical Analysis!
Now, we’ll take a look at some of the more important graphical settings. Not that textures and shadows aren’t important – just that the effect on the game was predictable for shadows and a bit hard to detect for textures.The settings we’ll look at now are one which have a much more dramatic and noticeable effect on the game.
By and large, we don’t suggest that you use the graphical presets and just set the game to high by the way. It’s much better to customise the settings to form a compromise between jaw-dropping awesomeness incarnate and an acceptable framerate for fragging by.
For our hardware, we found it was best to use High settings for most things. Then we turned physics quality down depending on the number of cores available in the system; quad-core can handle high or very high, while medium is better for dual-core system and single core gamers will probably be on low or out of the running altogether.
Shader Quality
Most games today make extensive use of shaders, and Crysis is no exception to this rule. Whether it be mist, reflections, refractions or lighting calculations - that's all calculated on the fly. It took us a while to find the best example of shaders at work in Crysis for this article, but in the end we settled for this charming little river.
Left to right: shader quality on Low, Medium, High and Very High settings.
Despite what you may think based on the Low quality screenshot, this is the same area. On the Low setting the reactions for light and shadow seem very dodgy, as does the movement of the water, which just has a perpetual static drift to the left. Turn the dial up a notch though and the balance is restored. The game looks a hell of a lot better. Water is more reactive and natural, the gleam of the light is more realistic and the lighting isn’t FUBAR.
On High and Very High settings things get even better. On both these settings the water looks and behaves more normally to the point of photorealism and the light gets progressively more moody and beautiful. Fog is also bought into play to make the game that much better looking. Purely because it affects so many different things, I’d have to say that shader quality is the most important setting of all in the game. Put it up as high as you can, bringing everything else down to compensate if needs be.
Post-Processing
Post-processing also effects a range of different effects and is basically any effect or filter which is applied to the game after the level has been built and rendered. It includes depth of field, but is mainly noticeable in motion blur. I apologise that the pictures below aren't identical - but it's hard to get accurate screenshots while you're throwing the mouse around like a loon...
Left to right: post-processing quality on Low, Medium, High and Very High settings.
This is another setting which, like shadows, is easy to judge. On the Low setting all post-processing seems to be disabled and the game is without any motion blur or depth of field when you sight down your gun. Medium puts some light post-processing in, while High and Very High adds yet more into the mix.
To my mind, post-processing is less a matter of graphical fidelity and more a setting of personal taste. Some people just can’t stand too much motion blur and easily get sick, such as Richard. Those people will naturally want to push this setting low, winning some extra frames per second in the process. To others such as myself, depth of field is an effect which makes sniping all the more enjoyable, so you’ll want it as high as you can without making the game jerky.
It’s up to players to decide which they value most and whether they want to forego that FPS boost in order to get the extra effects – all I can do is show you the effect itself.
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