Crysis 2007 demo - http://www.abload.de/img/crysis2008072900074644aoyp.jpg

Far Cry 3 2012 Dx11 Max - http://i1.minus.com/iseB4ToV4aVs.png

...yeah.

I guess we can blame console hardware, right?

It is!? *clicks links*...Maybe? Not entirely clear.

@Video_Game_King said:

It is!? *clicks links*...Maybe? Not entirely clear.

It's crazy that Crysis looked that good on 2007 level hardware. (so the 8800 series which are nearly 6 years old)

I hated the game though, haha.

Crysis was designed for PCs that didn't even exist back then. PCs that were already 4-5 years ago vastly superior to the consoles we have now. I mean i bought my current PC 2 years ago now and a core i5 with a GTX 460 smokes the consoles and still won't run Crysis at max settings with 60 FPS. It's not missing much but still not quite.

Far Cry 3 is designed for consoles.

@Pr1mus said:

Crysis was designed for PCs that didn't even exist back then.

When I played the game it looked just as good as the screenshot, but I was one of the idiots that paid through the nose for an 8800 ultra.

Probably because developers aren't interested in making games that 5% of the people that play them will be able to enjoy. I'm not saying that it's entirely excusable, but there is a reason most people stick to consoles rather than PC.

You act like that's a bad thing. Isn't it better for PC games in general that they scaled their requirements lower? Think about how many people could play Crysis then compared to how many people can play Crysis 2 now on max settings.

The stagnation of game design is more concerning than graphical fidelity improvements this generation.

@mikey87144 said:

You act like that's a bad thing. Isn't it better for PC games in general that they scaled their requirements lower? Think about how many people could play Crysis then compared to how many people can play Crysis 2 now on max settings.

Well it's good and bad for different people, we could have had something that looks like Star Wars 1313 appear a few years ago.

It is great that even laptops with freaking Intel onboard graphics can play Crysis 2 well though.

@living4theday258 said:

Crysis was made from the ground up to look good on PC's that weren't even out yet and wouldn't be for another few years. A few years in PC specs is an eternity.

That's not true though, you could max out Crysis in 2007. Not at 60 FPS I admit. (certainly not on a single card)

I just love how the game is still used as a benchmark.

Far Cry 3 is made from the ground up for consoles and then ported to PC.

Crysis was made from the ground up to look good on PC's that weren't even out yet and wouldn't be for another few years. A few years in PC specs is an eternity.

On top of that, Crysis is still linear. Yes, it's wide open and massive, but from what I understand Far Cry 3 is truly open world and just from screenshots I've seen some huge and impressive vistas, sometimes ones that look bigger than Crysis's (running on pure memory here, I haven't played the game in a while). The game still looks pretty damn good for what it is, and that it even runs on consoles and looks like that blows my mind.

(I'll get my brother to sign back in and delete that post above later).

I don't know, look at those textures on the boxes/crates and the ground in Crysis. Ugleh.

@murisan said:

I don't know, look at those textures on the boxes/crates and the ground in Crysis. Ugleh.

I raise you FACE DETAILS sir - http://i804.photobucket.com/albums/yy325/chrome235/psycho_again.jpg

Look how steely and determined he is. So marine like. (wait I'm not being serious)

@living4theday258 said:

Far Cry 3 is made from the ground up for consoles and then ported to PC.

Crysis was made from the ground up to look good on PC's that weren't even out yet and wouldn't be for another few years. A few years in PC specs is an eternity.

On top of that, Crysis is still linear. Yes, it's wide open and massive, but from what I understand Far Cry 3 is truly open world and just from screenshots I've seen some huge and impressive vistas, sometimes ones that look bigger than Crysis's (running on pure memory here, I haven't played the game in a while). The game still looks pretty damn good for what it is, and that it even runs on consoles and looks like that blows my mind.

EDIT: AW, SHIT. My brother was signed into his profile ON MY COMPUTER and I just posted as him. No wonder these goddamn links are at the bottom. This post was actually made by believer258.

@believer258 said:

Far Cry 3 is made from the ground up for consoles and then ported to PC.

Crysis was made from the ground up to look good on PC's that weren't even out yet and wouldn't be for another few years. A few years in PC specs is an eternity.

On top of that, Crysis is still linear. Yes, it's wide open and massive, but from what I understand Far Cry 3 is truly open world and just from screenshots I've seen some huge and impressive vistas, sometimes ones that look bigger than Crysis's (running on pure memory here, I haven't played the game in a while). The game still looks pretty damn good for what it is, and that it even runs on consoles and looks like that blows my mind.

(I'll get my brother to sign back in and delete that post above later).

It's your alt account, you can admit it

Crysis looked good, but it was insanely boring. Warhead was a little bit better, but the whole premise of the franchise just bores me to tears.

@Jrinswand said:

Crysis looked good, but it was insanely boring. Warhead was a little bit better, but the whole premise of the franchise just bores me to tears.

I quite liked 2 because those scripted earthquake things were pretty sweet. Really hated the first as soon as the aliens showed up, kinda the same deal with the first Far Cry game with the mutants.

@Jrinswand: The premise is bad? Or merely the execution?

The premise, beyond "Oh NO! ALIENS!" is basically "you're the predator, but you're not all-powerful. Stealth and power your way through open-ended encounters using your choice of disposal methods"

it's just that Crysis wasn't quite as well executed in terms of gameplay as it was in terms of graphics.

@clstirens said:

it's just that Crysis wasn't quite as well executed in terms of gameplay as it was in terms of graphics.

Shooting felt so flat too.

@clstirens said:

@Jrinswand: The premise is bad? Or merely the execution?

The premise, beyond "Oh NO! ALIENS!" is basically "you're the predator, but you're not all-powerful. Stealth and power your way through open-ended encounters using your choice of disposal methods"

it's just that Crysis wasn't quite as well executed in terms of gameplay as it was in terms of graphics.

Is "all of the above" an option? I choose that one.

@Jrinswand: Yeah, although saying premise would basically be that.

I just figured I'd ask since some games have the best premise, and then make the whole experience suck.

@Sooty said:

@Video_Game_King said:

It is!? *clicks links*...Maybe? Not entirely clear.

It's crazy that Crysis looked that good on 2007 level hardware. (so the 8800 series which are nearly 6 years old)

I hated the game though, haha.

Yeah Crysis looked pretty but ran like garbage and their really wasn't much to it. They learned there mistakes in making a system hog and made games that people can actually play, I can see this game getting modded pretty hard out. Also I don't think the photos used are that great one shows A pretty explosion in a boxed off area the other shows him looking over the landscape which looks fucking sweet aswel.

@benspyda said:

The stagnation of game design is more concerning than graphical fidelity improvements this generation.

This right here.

I also just want to point out that the screenshot of far cry doesn't really capture How impressive tht game can look

@Pr1mus said:

Crysis was designed for PCs that didn't even exist back then.

Wrong.

And to answer the OP seriously, it's because PC's haven't been pushed harder than Crysis by the console market. You have a few developers that make PC games exclusively that have pushed the current boundaries. However, on the larger market of gamers everyone seems to be ok with the way CoD look. Not that they have a choice. AC3 and FC3 really show how behind consoles are in terms of power. But that's nothing new, and has been the case for a while. Since 2007, even. Once consoles catch up, games will start to be made with higher graphic fidelity and larger scale. See Planetside 2 and the Total War Shogun 2/Rome 2 series for examples.

Developers could makes games that look far better than crysis, but that's almost always a bad business decision. It just happened to work out pretty well for crysis (which I thought was a cool game regardless of graphics)

@Jace said:

@Pr1mus said:

Crysis was designed for PCs that didn't even exist back then.

Wrong.

And to answer the OP seriously, it's because PC's haven't been pushed harder than Crysis by the console market. You have a few developers that make PC games exclusively that have pushed the current boundaries. However, on the larger market of gamers everyone seems to be ok with the way CoD look. Not that they have a choice. AC3 and FC3 really show how behind consoles are in terms of power. But that's nothing new, and has been the case for a while. Since 2007, even. Once consoles catch up, games will start to be made with higher graphic fidelity and larger scale. See Planetside 2 and the Total War Shogun 2/Rome 2 series for examples.

So how was what i said wrong exactly?

As somebody who can (and does) run crysis on max settings, Crysis doesn't look as good as most people think it does. The engine had some serious AA problems, textures/models in the distance were pretty bad (tree's, etc), the art direction was awfully boring, and my jaw only ever really dropped during the snowy levels where the post processing got really intense. It's not an ugly game by any means, but i feel like people give the game way more credit than it deserves.

That aside, Crysis was built as a PC game, for PC's. Far Cry 3 is built for PC's and 7 year old hardware. You can't push the same amount of polygons and shaders on a console as you can on PC. It's not viable to build something that can't be run on the two top selling platforms with minimum optimization.

I remember being blown away when I first played it (last year) - I remember thinking that the game felt like it was from the future.

Far Cry 3 looks fucking rad. Crysis is alright, I guess.

Probably because it's a terrible business decision to make games that people can't play at that level without a super computer or waiting 4 years.

@Sooty said:

@murisan said:

I don't know, look at those textures on the boxes/crates and the ground in Crysis. Ugleh.

I raise you FACE DETAILS sir - http://i804.photobucket.com/albums/yy325/chrome235/psycho_again.jpg

Look how steely and determined he is. So marine like. (wait I'm not being serious)

Neither of those shots look to be max settings, I play the original regularly and the textures look different than what is shown there (other than being higher resolution).

Hi, I worked on FarCry3 as the Weapons artist. 
Since we get these Crysis/Farcry comparisons a lot, I thought I would chime in. Typically as developers we are not supposed to but anyway. 
English is not my first language so excuse the bad explanation: 
 
Crysis is map based. No matter how big the maps are or how big you think it "looks", it's still sectioned just as much as Bioshock, Medal of Honor or Call of Duty or <insert other FPS>. This means that the backdrops in Crysis 1 are very low poly but very beautiful fake backdrops, fake hills, and sometimes, matte paintings. The distant areas that the player cannot reach also do not have any additional gameplay centric assets or setups, such as navmesh for AI and so on, meaning there's drastically less that needs to be loaded in memory, meaning they can spend way more of their memory on beautifications.
 
Far Cry is an open world game with 14km draw distance; the difference in memory requirements and budget compared to a typical FPS is enormous. It's not even in the same ballpark.
FC3 is a Multiplatform, open world, first person game. That is literally the worst combination game development wise, it's hell really, and why you don't see that many of that type of game. (Fallout3, skyrim).
We also do not have the luxury of linear path with scripted events; not to the extent of a call of duty or MOH anyway. Everything in our game besides some story mission stuff is systematic, requiring a lot of things to be loaded in memory at all times. 
Everything that happens around you needs to be loaded in memory of course, but also things that happen in other sectors or parts of the massive map that the player is not necessarily in. 

Speaking of memory; on the PS3 for vram anyway, we need to fit everything from NPCs, Hero characters, Weapons, weapon attachments, vehicles, animals, exotic/cinematic, , FX, Menus (Flash), environments, and all textures (all visuals) into 128MB of memory. The rest is for the engine and the buffers, totalling ~250MB of memory.  128MB of memory is... not a lot. Not a lot for a first person open world game anyway.
 
Comparing my budget specifically: I won't go into too much detail: Plenty of FPS games dedicate ~20MB+ for weapons alone. I can only afford 6MB. The same goes for all other fields. Since more things have to be loaded in memory, everybody from Animations to Sound to graphics, has to deal with less. Way less. 
 
And we are just scratching the surface, just talking about memory requirements. There is also draw calls, overdraw for particles, rendering times, disk drives and texture lookup and streaming on consoles, etc.  
 
In short, our game's technical specs somewhat match those of Fallout3, Skyrim, Dead Island or other similar truly open world FPS games. If you want to compare FC3's visual fidelity to anything, it would be to those types of games. 
Comparing FC3's console graphics to Crysis is like comparing Skyrim's/Fallout to Halo4. 

@Pr1mus said:

@Jace said:

@Pr1mus said:

Crysis was designed for PCs that didn't even exist back then.

Wrong.

And to answer the OP seriously, it's because PC's haven't been pushed harder than Crysis by the console market. You have a few developers that make PC games exclusively that have pushed the current boundaries. However, on the larger market of gamers everyone seems to be ok with the way CoD look. Not that they have a choice. AC3 and FC3 really show how behind consoles are in terms of power. But that's nothing new, and has been the case for a while. Since 2007, even. Once consoles catch up, games will start to be made with higher graphic fidelity and larger scale. See Planetside 2 and the Total War Shogun 2/Rome 2 series for examples.

So how was what i said wrong exactly?

Enough people in the thread have pointed that out already, but I can too if you really need it repeated.

They have a different art style and honestly they both look good. One should be more worried about gameplay as opposed to graphics.

@warxsnake: Well said, thank you for chiming in. As a software engineer I sympathize with the people who built the engine for your game, what a nightmare it must be to try to squeeze such a good looking and complex game into an amount of memory that most smart phones have.

As an aside, I really like it when people who worked on a game engage directly with the fans instead of going through a community manager or the press, because sometimes they don't do a very good job of communicating things to us. A lot of times we end up with garbled half-truths.

Also, to those shitting on Crysis' gameplay, here's the obligatory link to NsN

@Jace said:

@Pr1mus said:

@Jace said:

@Pr1mus said:

Crysis was designed for PCs that didn't even exist back then.

Wrong.

And to answer the OP seriously, it's because PC's haven't been pushed harder than Crysis by the console market. You have a few developers that make PC games exclusively that have pushed the current boundaries. However, on the larger market of gamers everyone seems to be ok with the way CoD look. Not that they have a choice. AC3 and FC3 really show how behind consoles are in terms of power. But that's nothing new, and has been the case for a while. Since 2007, even. Once consoles catch up, games will start to be made with higher graphic fidelity and larger scale. See Planetside 2 and the Total War Shogun 2/Rome 2 series for examples.

So how was what i said wrong exactly?

Enough people in the thread have pointed that out already, but I can too if you really need it repeated.

What's your problem. I said the game was designed for PCs that were already more powerful than the consoles at the time of the game's release and that were yet not powerful enough to run it at max settings. If that's not an answer to the OP's question as to why does Crysis still looks better than a primarily for console developed game than i don't know what is.

You can take your condescension elsewhere.

the most gorgeous game I've ever played for twenty minutes and never wanted to play again

After playing an hour of Far Cry 3 I'd say that game looks better. I haven't played Crysis since Warhead in 2008 though.

@Pr1mus said:

@Jace said:

@Pr1mus said:

@Jace said:

@Pr1mus said:

Crysis was designed for PCs that didn't even exist back then.

Wrong.

And to answer the OP seriously, it's because PC's haven't been pushed harder than Crysis by the console market. You have a few developers that make PC games exclusively that have pushed the current boundaries. However, on the larger market of gamers everyone seems to be ok with the way CoD look. Not that they have a choice. AC3 and FC3 really show how behind consoles are in terms of power. But that's nothing new, and has been the case for a while. Since 2007, even. Once consoles catch up, games will start to be made with higher graphic fidelity and larger scale. See Planetside 2 and the Total War Shogun 2/Rome 2 series for examples.

So how was what i said wrong exactly?

Enough people in the thread have pointed that out already, but I can too if you really need it repeated.

What's your problem. I said the game was designed for PCs that were already more powerful than the consoles at the time of the game's release and that were yet not powerful enough to run it at max settings. If that's not an answer to the OP's question as to why does Crysis still looks better than a primarily for console developed game than i don't know what is.

You can take your condescension elsewhere.

I don't have a problem. However, your statement is objectively, factually false. Not only could one 8800GTX run Crysis at max settings with a reasonable resolution (No higher than 1920x1280.) but other solutions existed as well. These solutions include but are not limited to:

Two 8800GT's in SLi, two 8800GTX's in SLi, 1 8800GTX Ultra. This with around 6GB of RAM and a decent CPU (preferably Intel) would handle Crysis just fine.

Aside from all that though, your comment breaks entirely in face of the fact that Crysis Warhead ran better on lesser hardware and looked better. Why is this relevant? Because it shows the fault wasn't in overestimating the power of a computer but in optimization of the particular build that is the original Crysis.

The engine Crysis runs on has been optimized to run at max setting with the 8 series card and look even better than Crysis. I've done my part now, and if it's ay o kay with you I'd rather stop this silly discussion now.

@Nightriff said:

@living4theday258 said:

Far Cry 3 is made from the ground up for consoles and then ported to PC.

Crysis was made from the ground up to look good on PC's that weren't even out yet and wouldn't be for another few years. A few years in PC specs is an eternity.

On top of that, Crysis is still linear. Yes, it's wide open and massive, but from what I understand Far Cry 3 is truly open world and just from screenshots I've seen some huge and impressive vistas, sometimes ones that look bigger than Crysis's (running on pure memory here, I haven't played the game in a while). The game still looks pretty damn good for what it is, and that it even runs on consoles and looks like that blows my mind.

EDIT: AW, SHIT. My brother was signed into his profile ON MY COMPUTER and I just posted as him. No wonder these goddamn links are at the bottom. This post was actually made by believer258.

@believer258 said:

Far Cry 3 is made from the ground up for consoles and then ported to PC.

Crysis was made from the ground up to look good on PC's that weren't even out yet and wouldn't be for another few years. A few years in PC specs is an eternity.

On top of that, Crysis is still linear. Yes, it's wide open and massive, but from what I understand Far Cry 3 is truly open world and just from screenshots I've seen some huge and impressive vistas, sometimes ones that look bigger than Crysis's (running on pure memory here, I haven't played the game in a while). The game still looks pretty damn good for what it is, and that it even runs on consoles and looks like that blows my mind.

(I'll get my brother to sign back in and delete that post above later).

It's your alt account, you can admit it

Haha he must log in to it to agree with posts he made, No Far Cry 3 isn't a simple console port, it is a DX11 graphics master piece from what I have played so far.

Hi, I worked on FarCry3 as the Weapons artist.

@Jace said:

@Pr1mus said:

@Jace said:

@Pr1mus said:

@Jace said:

@Pr1mus said:

Crysis was designed for PCs that didn't even exist back then.

Wrong.

And to answer the OP seriously, it's because PC's haven't been pushed harder than Crysis by the console market. You have a few developers that make PC games exclusively that have pushed the current boundaries. However, on the larger market of gamers everyone seems to be ok with the way CoD look. Not that they have a choice. AC3 and FC3 really show how behind consoles are in terms of power. But that's nothing new, and has been the case for a while. Since 2007, even. Once consoles catch up, games will start to be made with higher graphic fidelity and larger scale. See Planetside 2 and the Total War Shogun 2/Rome 2 series for examples.

So how was what i said wrong exactly?

Enough people in the thread have pointed that out already, but I can too if you really need it repeated.

What's your problem. I said the game was designed for PCs that were already more powerful than the consoles at the time of the game's release and that were yet not powerful enough to run it at max settings. If that's not an answer to the OP's question as to why does Crysis still looks better than a primarily for console developed game than i don't know what is.

You can take your condescension elsewhere.

I don't have a problem. However, your statement is objectively, factually false. Not only could one 8800GTX run Crysis at max settings with a reasonable resolution (No higher than 1920x1280.) but other solutions existed as well. These solutions include but are not limited to:

Two 8800GT's in SLi, two 8800GTX's in SLi, 1 8800GTX Ultra. This with around 6GB of RAM and a decent CPU (preferably Intel) would handle Crysis just fine.

Aside from all that though, your comment breaks entirely in face of the fact that Crysis Warhead ran better on lesser hardware and looked better. Why is this relevant? Because it shows the fault wasn't in overestimating the power of a computer but in optimization of the particular build that is the original Crysis.

The engine Crysis runs on has been optimized to run at max setting with the 8 series card and look even better than Crysis. I've done my part now, and if it's ay o kay with you I'd rather stop this silly discussion now.

A 8800GTX can not run Crysis at max settings, without getting more that 5fps.

@living4theday258: oh you 258 brothers are so silly

I remember buying a $2000 Asus laptop like 4 years ago to play Crysis. Couldn't run it until I made it look like call of duty 1.

@Bourbon_Warrior said:

@Jace said:

@Pr1mus said:

@Jace said:

@Pr1mus said:

@Jace said:

@Pr1mus said:

Crysis was designed for PCs that didn't even exist back then.

Wrong.

And to answer the OP seriously, it's because PC's haven't been pushed harder than Crysis by the console market. You have a few developers that make PC games exclusively that have pushed the current boundaries. However, on the larger market of gamers everyone seems to be ok with the way CoD look. Not that they have a choice. AC3 and FC3 really show how behind consoles are in terms of power. But that's nothing new, and has been the case for a while. Since 2007, even. Once consoles catch up, games will start to be made with higher graphic fidelity and larger scale. See Planetside 2 and the Total War Shogun 2/Rome 2 series for examples.

So how was what i said wrong exactly?

Enough people in the thread have pointed that out already, but I can too if you really need it repeated.

What's your problem. I said the game was designed for PCs that were already more powerful than the consoles at the time of the game's release and that were yet not powerful enough to run it at max settings. If that's not an answer to the OP's question as to why does Crysis still looks better than a primarily for console developed game than i don't know what is.

You can take your condescension elsewhere.

I don't have a problem. However, your statement is objectively, factually false. Not only could one 8800GTX run Crysis at max settings with a reasonable resolution (No higher than 1920x1280.) but other solutions existed as well. These solutions include but are not limited to:

Two 8800GT's in SLi, two 8800GTX's in SLi, 1 8800GTX Ultra. This with around 6GB of RAM and a decent CPU (preferably Intel) would handle Crysis just fine.

Aside from all that though, your comment breaks entirely in face of the fact that Crysis Warhead ran better on lesser hardware and looked better. Why is this relevant? Because it shows the fault wasn't in overestimating the power of a computer but in optimization of the particular build that is the original Crysis.

The engine Crysis runs on has been optimized to run at max setting with the 8 series card and look even better than Crysis. I've done my part now, and if it's ay o kay with you I'd rather stop this silly discussion now.

A 8800GTX can not run Crysis at max settings, without getting more that 5fps.

Leave it man. I replied to him in PM. Best to leave it at that and not argue needlessly.

Because they run on different engines and one of them was optimised for pc's while the other for consoles.

@Mr_Skeleton said:

Because they run on different engines and one of them was optimised for pc's while the other for consoles.

Far Cry 3 looks amazing on PC, DX11 features, the best grass I have seen in a game, it is truly an amazing game from what I have played.

@ck1nd said:

Probably because developers aren't interested in making games that 5% of the people that play them will be able to enjoy. I'm not saying that it's entirely excusable, but there is a reason most people stick to consoles rather than PC.

We're talking about Crytek. That they did something as advanced as Crysis was actually pretty cool in my opinion, and your complaint isn't even valid because the game looked great for its time even if you couldn't max out the settings. It still looks better than almost any other game out there, except for maybe Crysis 2 I guess?

I just like these occasional games that kind of double as eccentric tech demos for those who can afford it. Even if most people can't, it's just cool to think "man, one day the graphical standard can be this awesome" as you look through YouTube videos of people playing through Crytek's latest extravagance on Highest settings.

Aside from the Witcher 2 graphics haven't advanced at all since Crysis and there's not really that much evidence that they're going to advance much further in the near future; even the next consoles might not have Crysis equivalents at launch.