What can we say about this game that hasn’t been said already? Crysis was probably the most anticipated game on the PC last year and was released on November 16th 2007.
Crysis is seen by many as the poster boy for DirectX 10 and it will make your system cry, quite literally – it’s a monster! It doesn’t come as much of a surprise then, that the graphics are something special – they’re above and beyond anything we’ve ever seen in a PC game.
We tested the game using the 64-bit executable under both DirectX 9.0 and DirectX 10 with the 1.21 patch applied. We used a custom timedemo recorded from the Laws of Nature level which is more representative of gameplay than the built-in benchmark that renders things much faster than you're going to experience in game. We found that around 30-33 fps in our custom timedemo was sufficient enough to obtain a playable frame rate through the game. It's a little different to other games in that the low frame rates still appear to be quite smooth.
For our testing, we set all quality details to High and forced 8x Anisotropic Filtering in the driver menu as there is currently no support for it in game. We tested at 1280x1024, using 0x, 2x and 4x Anti Aliasing, 1680x1050 using 0x and 4x Anti Aliasing and 1920x1200 using 0x and 2xAA. By extensively testing using Anti Aliasing in very high resolutions, we'll be pushing even the bleeding edge hardware on test to the limit.
Crysis
1280x1024, 0xAA, 8xAF, DX10, High Detail
Nvidia Geforce 9800 GX2
Asus GeForce GTX 280 TOP
BFG GeForce GTX 280 OCX
EVGA GTX 280 Superclocked
Nvidia GeForce GTX 280
ATI Radeon HD 4870
Nvidia GeForce GTX 260
Nvidia GeForce 9800 GTX+
ATI Radeon HD 4850
ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2
54.8
35.0
53.3
35.0
53.0
34.0
49.0
32.0
48.0
31.0
39.5
21.0
39.4
25.0
35.1
20.0
32.1
20.0
29.9
17.0
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
Frames Per Second
Average
Minimum
Crysis
1280x1024, 2xAA, 8xAF, DX10, High Detail
Asus GeForce GTX 280 TOP
BFG GeForce GTX 280 OCX
ATI Radeon HD 4870
EVGA GTX 280 Superclocked
Nvidia GeForce GTX 280
ATI Radeon HD 4850
Nvidia GeForce GTX 260
ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2
Nvidia GeForce 9800 GTX+
Nvidia Geforce 9800 GX2
38.7
27.0
38.3
27.0
36.7
20.0
35.9
25.0
34.8
24.0
28.6
17.0
28.4
19.0
26.5
14.0
21.3
12.0
20.8
10.0
0
10
20
30
40
Frames Per Second
Average
Minimum
Crysis
1280x1024, 4xAA, 8xAF, DX10, High Detail
Asus GeForce GTX 280 TOP
BFG GeForce GTX 280 OCX
ATI Radeon HD 4870
EVGA GTX 280 Superclocked
Nvidia GeForce GTX 280
Nvidia GeForce GTX 260
ATI Radeon HD 4850
ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2
Nvidia GeForce 9800 GTX+
Nvidia Geforce 9800 GX2
38.8
26.0
34.5
24.0
32.8
17.0
32.5
22.0
31.5
22.0
25.6
17.0
25.3
14.0
20.7
11.0
18.6
10.0
17.8
10.0
0
10
20
30
40
Frames Per Second
Average
Minimum
Crysis
1680x1050, 0xAA, 8xAF, DX10, High Detail
Asus GeForce GTX 280 TOP
BFG GeForce GTX 280 OCX
EVGA GTX 280 Superclocked
Nvidia GeForce GTX 280
ATI Radeon HD 4870
Nvidia GeForce GTX 260
Nvidia Geforce 9800 GX2
Nvidia GeForce 9800 GTX+
ATI Radeon HD 4850
ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2
42.7
29.0
42.5
29.0
39.7
27.0
38.5
26.0
31.6
19.0
31.3
21.0
28.8
19.0
26.9
16.0
25.5
16.0
20.6
12.0
0
10
20
30
40
Frames Per Second
Average
Minimum
Crysis
1680x1050, 4xAA, 8xAF, DX10, High Detail
Asus GeForce GTX 280 TOP
BFG GeForce GTX 280 OCX
EVGA GTX 280 Superclocked
Nvidia GeForce GTX 280
Nvidia GeForce GTX 260
ATI Radeon HD 4870
ATI Radeon HD 4850
Nvidia GeForce 9800 GTX+
Nvidia Geforce 9800 GX2
ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2
34.9
24.0
34.6
24.0
32.4
23.0
31.5
22.0
25.5
17.0
25.1
14.0
19.8
11.0
17.9
9.0
17.4
10.0
15.6
4.0
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
Frames Per Second
Average
Minimum
Crysis
1920x1200, 0xAA, 8xAF, DX10, High Detail
Asus GeForce GTX 280 TOP
BFG GeForce GTX 280 OCX
EVGA GTX 280 Superclocked
Nvidia GeForce GTX 280
ATI Radeon HD 4870
Nvidia GeForce GTX 260
ATI Radeon HD 4850
Nvidia GeForce 9800 GTX+
ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2
Nvidia Geforce 9800 GX2
35.0
24.0
34.6
23.0
32.4
22.0
31.5
21.0
27.7
17.0
25.5
16.0
22.1
14.0
21.9
13.0
15.6
7.0
12.7
12.0
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
Frames Per Second
Average
Minimum
Crysis
1920x1200, 2xAA, 8xAF, DX10, High Detail
Asus GeForce GTX 280 TOP
BFG GeForce GTX 280 OCX
EVGA GTX 280 Superclocked
Nvidia GeForce GTX 280
Nvidia GeForce GTX 260
Nvidia Geforce 9800 GX2
ATI Radeon HD 4870
Nvidia GeForce 9800 GTX+
ATI Radeon HD 4850
ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2
38.4
27.0
38.4
27.0
35.4
24.0
34.7
24.0
28.4
19.0
26.3
15.0
25.2
11.0
20.8
12.0
19.6
10.0
13.7
5.0
0
10
20
30
40
Frames Per Second
Average
Minimum
In Crysis The EVGA GTX 280 Superclocked places exactly where it should, just ahead of the stock GTX 280 and a little behind the heavier overclocked BFG OC and ASUS TOP GTX 280's. However, it's important to keep perspective, and the GTX 280 architecture is still phenomenally powerful, although at lower resolutions the Radeon HD 4870 is able to just pip the EVGA card.