Crysis 2 DX11: Where Tessellation Becomes Overkill

[Rob Williams]

The story of Crysis 2 is one of pain and anguish - as long as we're talking about its launch, and PC gamers. While many believed that the game should have become a true successor to the title that became its own meme ("Can it run Crysis"), what we saw instead was a game that was heavily influenced by consoles, in way of graphics and otherwise.

Read the rest of our post and then discuss it here!

 

[Doomsday]

Crytek is dead to me! RICP(Rest In Console Pieces)!!

 

[marfig]

Let's face it, the first game wasn't also met with a lot of love from gamers. It was only later, after Vista SP2 and Windows 7 that Crysis started to earn some respect from non fans.

The decision to go with DX10 (a virtually useless version that nonetheless forced users to upgrade from XP to Vista; which many didn't want to) was criticized a lot! Especially when not long after it was shown how the game could run in DX9 mode with almost no perceived visual changes.

I dunno, maybe I'm the one forgetting how it was back then. But Crysis received as much flak as it did praise as far as I recall the events. The "can it run crysis" meme was also not always used to praise the game. It was also often used in a depreciative manner to illustrate the ridicule hardware requirements a single game could impose on users for no real benefit. Other times as an illustration of overreaching game design that, when compared to other games at the time, would result in the same level of enjoyment, but twice the hardware costs to run it.

I was actually surprised to see Crysis 2 result in such a weak experience. A linear shooter on rails with not even the graphical prowess of earlier titles. But to honest -- and clearly show my bias -- Crytek isn't exactly a company I came to expect much from ever since they pulled the Crysis stunt. It's a company that only came with two titles I hold in some respect; the two Farcry. It basically died to me with Crysis.

EDIT:
BTW, I felt the DX11 gift a sort of "told you so!". I had numerous arguments with folk over this issue when Crysis 2 was launched and people started demanding DX11 support; which I felt ridiculous. Not only DX11 was very new then, but the game patch would have to actually include new higher definition textures!

You know gaming forums, right? You can imagine how I was treated by the die hard fans and gameophiles? Well then, there you have your DX11 patch folks. Sucks. Told ya so! Don't think Crytek would release a patch with a whole new game assets library.

 

[Rob Williams]

Fair points, marfig. I guess I forgot about a lot of the goings-on when Crysis was released, but thinking back, there was quite a bit of flak sent Crytek's way. I do feel the flak from this debacle is even worse though. A lot of people I knew who liked the original didn't pick up this one, once they realized it was going to be little more than a console port.

It's humorous though, because the first time I tried the game, I thought it had great graphics. Until about 15 minutes into the game when you really begin to see some of its flaws. Still, that wasn't even the big problem for me, but rather the fact that the game just felt -boring-. I was stoked when I sat down to play it, but after three hours over the course of two weeks, I just couldn't continue.

These DirectX 11 issues might make it even harder for me to load it up now. In the end it's not a major deal if the game runs well enough, but I know that while playing, I won't be able to think of anything except the fact that I likely have tessellated water under me that I can't see, haha.

 

[TheCrimsonStar]

Yeah...I never got past the first 2 1/2 hours. Got waaaaaay boring really quickly

 

[Kougar]

I just couldn't believe people at Crytek could fail to realize the water was still being tessellated even when none was visible or supposed to even be in the scene. Regardless of the possible motivations or reasons behind this might be... that it has happened reflects poorly on Crytek as it is. The original Crysis had so many optimization problems that weren't fixed until Crysis Warhead... that after reading this article I can't help but wonder what they might've missed in the first two games.

I skipped Crysis 2, but after reading y'alls comments about never finishing it, I sure am not going to pick it up now.

 

[Tharic-Nar]

After Witcher 2 came out and showed people what could be done with DX9... these measly attempts with DX11 are not exactly inspiring. Admittedly, Witcher 2 was built purely on DX9 and for consoles too, no distribution of labor problems. A game needs to be made with DX11 only to show the real benefits, but that will not happen any time soon. DX11 techniques need to mature; developers have had close to 8 years of 'tweaking' to perform on DX9, it's a well understand API. But when switching over to DX10 or DX11, there is an immediate performance hit for whatever reason, so the budget for new effects is diminished. I think it's a case of too much code recycling for development speed.

Making use of higher resolution textures with good light and bump maps will do a lot more for a game than tessellation... at this point anyway. I think we're just going to see several generations of gimmicks first before DX11 becomes a viable option, both from a developer and a GPU architecture perspective. It's all about maturity of the platform and the hardware available of the targeted demographic, neither of which are available at the moment.

 

[marfig]

After Witcher 2 came out and showed people what could be done with DX9...

Hmm... Here I disagree. Many games already demonstrated what can be done with DX9. What Witcher 2 benefited was from a godly art team. Technically however the game introduces nothing substantially new. But if you marry great art with DX9 you are bound to have a beautiful game, like so many others before it.

There's however Uber Sampling. Here I concede some. But I'm actually a critic of this technique. At least until we have mainstream cards that can make any use of it. Witcher 2 with Uber Sampling is no different than Crysis when it shipped out -- A performance hog that is in no way justifiable due to the hardware requirements it imposes in comparison to what little benefit it brings. And here, Witcher 2 gets the same amount of criticism I gave Crysis. What's worse: Uber Sampling can be easily replaced with good AA and AF for a fraction of the performance hit. I say, scratch the Uber Sampling technique entirely. We don't need that nonsense.

Also the game -- although I'm unsure if there's a correlation -- payed the price of being too heavily centered in art direction and too little in design. It has one of the worst character interfaces of a modern triple-A game I can think of. The main character animation is nothing short of horrendous. You cannot, for instance, start an action without ending the previous one and your character doesn't seem to use (or make very bad use) of angular keyframe blending. It's for all purposes linear blending only.

these measly attempts with DX11 are not exactly inspiring.

I agree fully. But personally I'm more interested at the numerous tessellation demos, than any game making use of it... for the next couple of years, I would say. Hair demos you can see on youtube, skin, cloth and similar fabrics, etc, all reveal in a more direct manner what exactly tessellation is about. I have very little doubts tessellation is the next big achievement in 3D visuals.

Like you, I don't believe that DX11 is the one bringing it in, indeed. The technology isn't even matured for an API to be realistically considered on production code, in my humble opinion. I think it's important DX11 introduced it. It formalizes the technology. But it's no wonder nothing of any relevance to gamers has been actually done with it so far.

Making use of higher resolution textures with good light and bump maps will do a lot more for a game than tessellation... at this point anyway.

Absolutely. Reminds me of Prey. A game that I remember bringing bump mapping to a level never seen before (or since, I believe). It proved -- although I think most praise goes to the Doom 3 engine -- that good lighting and bump mapping can radically alter a texture and the whole look and feel of a game without increasing poly count. There's necessarily a performance it. There's always a price. But this is the case of a technology that in fact compensates with vast visual gains.

Tessellation is such a technology too. More in fact. Just not quite ready yet. I mean, I can hardly wait for it to mature. The level of detail that can be achieved is immense. It will have a large impact also on art assets (texture for instance will have to be a lot more detailed). But boy...

I think we're just going to see several generations of gimmicks first before DX11 becomes a viable option, both from a developer and a GPU architecture perspective. It's all about maturity of the platform and the hardware available of the targeted demographic, neither of which are available at the moment.

That sums up my thoughts too.