# Plays crysis without breaking a sweat **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [May 2, 2010, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plays-crysis-without-breaking-a-sweat/538044 "2010-05-02T17:18:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Unintentionally\_Blank](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/unintentionally_blank/32/5418_2.png) [@Unintentionally\_Blank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unintentionally_Blank)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2010, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plays-crysis-without-breaking-a-sweat/538044/1 "2010-05-02T17:18:43Z")
So I walked into a killer PC. I was planning on making a VM server and the budget was $1100-ish. I was looking at basing it around the new 6 core AMD proc. All was going well til I went to Microcenter and the guy mentioned he had an open box special. Alienware. He’d talk to the manager. So for the same amount of money I was going to send on a 6 core, 4 gb, 1 Tb _kit_, I got a 8 core, _9_ Gb DDR3 built system. (MSRP $1550) I realize it’s stupid, but pushing the little alien head on the front and having the CD drive cover smoothly drop out of the way, with mood lighting the CDROM just makes me giggle. So, before I relegate this thing to the basement, running pentesting and intrusion detection duties, what’s the latest cool thing I can run on this that’ll make me boggle at how far we’ve come? ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2010, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plays-crysis-without-breaking-a-sweat/538044/2 "2010-05-02T17:35:17Z")
Dwarf Fortress should scream. ---
**Author:** ![tr0psn4j](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/958977/32.png) [@tr0psn4j](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tr0psn4j)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2010, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plays-crysis-without-breaking-a-sweat/538044/3 "2010-05-02T17:36:37Z")
> [@Unintentionally\_Blank](#): > > So I walked into a killer PC. I was planning on making a VM server and the budget was $1100-ish. I was looking at basing it around the new 6 core AMD proc. All was going well til I went to Microcenter and the guy mentioned he had an open box special. Alienware. He’d talk to the manager. > > So for the same amount of money I was going to send on a 6 core, 4 gb, 1 Tb _kit_, I got a 8 core, _9_ Gb DDR3 built system. (MSRP $1550) I realize it’s stupid, but pushing the little alien head on the front and having the CD drive cover smoothly drop out of the way, with mood lighting the CDROM just makes me giggle. > > So, before I relegate this thing to the basement, running pentesting and intrusion detection duties, what’s the latest cool thing I can run on this that’ll make me boggle at how far we’ve come? Crysis is still the game to test your machine on. Battlefield: Bad Company 2 does some interesting things with the buildings getting shot at and eventually collapsing. Dirt 2 has some nice sound, dirt and water effects. And a free demo! You probably don’t want to spend the money on a few days worth of gaming though. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Unintentionally\_Blank](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/unintentionally_blank/32/5418_2.png) [@Unintentionally\_Blank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unintentionally_Blank)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2010, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plays-crysis-without-breaking-a-sweat/538044/4 "2010-05-02T17:38:59Z")
No, but I like the word Demo. 😃 I hit Nvidia’s demos and I suspect they’re moving on to bigger and better things than demos. Most of it was a)old n busted or b)Fermi/400 related, and thus more than the 260 could handle. Still, it’s pretty wild having it run the crysis demo and NOT having the fans spin up. ---
**Author:** ![Palooka](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/palooka/32/2902_2.png) [@Palooka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Palooka)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2010, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plays-crysis-without-breaking-a-sweat/538044/5 "2010-05-02T17:55:57Z")
8 cores? Also, what combination gives you 9 GB of RAM? (Oh yeah 3 x 1 + 3 x 2) ---
**Author:** ![Unintentionally\_Blank](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/unintentionally_blank/32/5418_2.png) [@Unintentionally\_Blank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unintentionally_Blank)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2010, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plays-crysis-without-breaking-a-sweat/538044/6 "2010-05-02T17:59:57Z")
i7 is four hyperthreaded cores…so it _appears_ as 8 to the OS…yeah, they’re not REAL SEPERATE CORES but still. Looks cool. ---
**Author:** ![Unintentionally\_Blank](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/unintentionally_blank/32/5418_2.png) [@Unintentionally\_Blank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unintentionally_Blank)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2010, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plays-crysis-without-breaking-a-sweat/538044/7 "2010-05-02T18:04:52Z")
> [@VinylTurnip](#): > > Dwarf Fortress should scream. Man, I’m still stuck on Peasant’s Quest… ---
**Author:** ![Palooka](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/palooka/32/2902_2.png) [@Palooka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Palooka)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2010, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plays-crysis-without-breaking-a-sweat/538044/8 "2010-05-02T18:09:13Z")
I hope you have a 5870 in there… or dual 5970s. ---
**Author:** ![Unintentionally\_Blank](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/unintentionally_blank/32/5418_2.png) [@Unintentionally\_Blank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unintentionally_Blank)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2010, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plays-crysis-without-breaking-a-sweat/538044/9 "2010-05-02T18:14:21Z")
one GTX260…like I said…it plays crisis okay. VMware/Xen won’t care if I don’t have SLI. ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2010, 11:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plays-crysis-without-breaking-a-sweat/538044/10 "2010-05-03T11:06:10Z")
> [@Unintentionally\_Blank](#): > > So, before I relegate this thing to the basement, running pentesting and intrusion detection duties, what’s the latest cool thing I can run on this that’ll make me boggle at how far we’ve come? Unfortunately Crysis is still the gold standard and likely will be for years to come. Crysis 2 is due out soon but it’s a multiplatform game so we may see the first time where the sequel to a technically ambitious game is actually technically inferior to the original. They claim they’re spending a lot of dev time on the PC version and that it won’t be a compromised experience and yada yada but I’ve heard that before. I guess if anyone can pull it off, it’s Crytek. Dirt 2 is pretty good if you like racing games. and BFBC2 is pretty good graphically (not crysis level, but way better than its contemporary competitor MW2). Stalker: Call of Pripyat has some fairly advanced technology. Otherwise, due to developing for the lowest common denominator, and having people stuck with the same console system for 10 years (and being happy about it), the technical advancement of games has pretty much ground to a halt. Games are barely more technically advanced now than they were in 2005, even though the hardware has gotten several times faster - which ends up meaning that you can play technically stagnant games at really high resolutions with really good post processing effects at high frame rates, but there won’t be anything that wows you. ---
**Author:** ![Unintentionally\_Blank](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/unintentionally_blank/32/5418_2.png) [@Unintentionally\_Blank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unintentionally_Blank)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2010, 11:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plays-crysis-without-breaking-a-sweat/538044/11 "2010-05-03T11:13:22Z")
Doom 3 is pretty damn funny. 🙂 And by funny, I mean: EVERYTHING turned up, and all cores idle. it timedemo’d at _274_ fps. I remember turning nearly everything off and getting 20 fps on the computer two-generations ago. And you’re right, DiRT2 is pretty phenominal! ---
**Author:** ![AndrewL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@AndrewL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AndrewL)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2010, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plays-crysis-without-breaking-a-sweat/538044/12 "2010-05-03T15:15:42Z")
> [@VinylTurnip](#): > > Dwarf Fortress should scream. Not so much, actually. Dwarf Fortress is single-threaded and can only use one core at a time. An 8-core system is wasted on it. ---
**Author:** ![Unintentionally\_Blank](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/unintentionally_blank/32/5418_2.png) [@Unintentionally\_Blank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unintentionally_Blank)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2010, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plays-crysis-without-breaking-a-sweat/538044/13 "2010-05-03T15:27:50Z")
> [@AndrewL](#): > > Not so much, actually. Dwarf Fortress is single-threaded and can only use one core at a time. An 8-core system is wasted on it. Well if you’re going to get _pedantic_ about it, it also uses ANSI graphics, so 1.399 Billion of the 1.4 Billion transistors on the GPU are idle, too. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![FoieGrasIsEvil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foiegrasisevil/32/16638_2.png) [@FoieGrasIsEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FoieGrasIsEvil)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2010, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plays-crysis-without-breaking-a-sweat/538044/14 "2010-05-03T18:14:04Z")
Did you turn everything on Crysis up to 11? ---
**Author:** ![Unintentionally\_Blank](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/unintentionally_blank/32/5418_2.png) [@Unintentionally\_Blank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unintentionally_Blank)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2010, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plays-crysis-without-breaking-a-sweat/538044/15 "2010-05-03T18:42:33Z")
Everything but 4x AA. I found the scripts to run the benchmark, I’ll do that when I get home. And Crysis only uses half the cores. ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2010, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plays-crysis-without-breaking-a-sweat/538044/16 "2010-05-03T21:41:21Z")
With Crysis it can actually be better to leave the AA off. When MSAA is set at 0/off, they do their own custom AA which is more aware of the foliage and looks better in some way, and the performance is better. It doesn’t quite do the full job of MSAA, so you might want to compare, but try it out. ---
**Author:** ![Unintentionally\_Blank](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/unintentionally_blank/32/5418_2.png) [@Unintentionally\_Blank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unintentionally_Blank)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2010, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plays-crysis-without-breaking-a-sweat/538044/17 "2010-05-03T23:42:43Z")
Okay. Not amazing, but not half bad either… Crysis GPU test: 1024x768, all settings high, no AA: 34 fps 1680x1050 (native LCD resolution), All settings maxed, no AA: 14 fps 1280x1024, all settings high, no AA: 28 fps All this with no real drama…the old box (CoreDuo + 9800 GTX+) would have had the GPU fan blazing…no clue what the results would be, but it was pretty playable, IIRC ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2010, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plays-crysis-without-breaking-a-sweat/538044/18 "2010-05-03T23:46:51Z")
That sounds lower than what you should be getting, but I’m making some assumptions (you didn’t really list specific specs). In any case you’d be better off running at medium at a higher rate. You can also force DX9 for better performance. ---
**Author:** ![FoieGrasIsEvil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foiegrasisevil/32/16638_2.png) [@FoieGrasIsEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FoieGrasIsEvil)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2010, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plays-crysis-without-breaking-a-sweat/538044/19 "2010-05-04T00:20:25Z")
Yeah, for the amount of unused cores (and RAM??) you’re claiming while it runs, I thought you’d still be pushing 60 fps with that rig. 14 is pretty choppy. Perhaps I lack understanding about how your resolution is affecting performance. ---
**Author:** ![Unintentionally\_Blank](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/unintentionally_blank/32/5418_2.png) [@Unintentionally\_Blank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unintentionally_Blank)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2010, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plays-crysis-without-breaking-a-sweat/538044/20 "2010-05-04T00:40:08Z")
keep in mind, that was with everything turned up, at the highest resolution the screen could run. I’m pretty sure it’s GPU bound at this point, which makes some sence…otherwise, why would folks bother with Crossfire/SLI? I’m sure there are ways to tune it for better results. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plays-crysis-without-breaking-a-sweat/538044.md?page=2)