Crysis
Crysis (DirectX 10)
Without a doubt the most breath taking game I have seen yet, Crysis is from the developers of Far Cry, yet another title that was ahead of its time. This game will bring any system to its knees, but look good doing it.
Crysis Test Settings
If there is one game that SHOULD be a poster child for multi-GPU systems, you’d think that it would be Crysis. As we saw in our recent 8800 GTS 512MB review, even today’s top single cards have trouble running the game at resolutions higher than 1024×768 with AA enabled at frame rates that make the game playable. And that’s a key point here – our tests don’t use the “GPU Benchmark” flybys because that test is simply not indicative of the in-game experience. We are testing using manual run-throughs of the Harbor map – one of the most intense in the game.
NVIDIA’s 3-Way documentation says that with this configuration we can now play at Crysis at 19×12 in Very High quality mode. Um, I beg to differ. Working with Crytek I was able to get an early version of the upcoming v1.1 patch for Crysis that fixes the multi-GPU issues, at least in theory. It’s very possible that because it wasn’t a final build and because a new driver from NVIDIA might be required to fully utilize the new patch, that these numbers might increase.
The performances are very interesting in their own right. Let’s start with the 1280×1024 test that uses the “high” quality settings. The first part of the time-based graph shows some decent SLI scaling, but this part is during an interior dialogue section when the big drop comes is when the rear exit opens are you are pushed out into the exploding world of the Assault Crysis level. After that, there doesn’t appear to be a lot of differentiation between the single, dual and triple card configurations. Since the average frame rate only increase about 15% from one to two cards and stays the same for three cards, that pretty much puts 3-Way SLI in its place.
However, looking at the test where we move from “high” to “very high” quality settings, we see some changes in the outcome. For starters, the 3-Way SLI system is slower than the dual-card traditional SLI results, something we definitely didn’t expect. The 2-Way SLI results are better though, showing a nearly 40% increase in average frame rate over a single 8800 Ultra. It is also possible that with all the stuff going on in this level that it is more CPU limited that GPU limited – we’ll see in our full Digital Storm system test later in the week.
NVIDIA’s 3-Way documentation says that with this configuration we can now play at Crysis at 19×12 in Very High quality mode. Um, I beg to differ. Working with Crytek I was able to get an early version of the upcoming v1.1 patch for Crysis that fixes the multi-GPU issues, at least in theory. It’s very possible that because it wasn’t a final build and because a new driver from NVIDIA might be required to fully utilize the new patch, that these numbers might increase.
The performances are very interesting in their own right. Let’s start with the 1280×1024 test that uses the “high” quality settings. The first part of the time-based graph shows some decent SLI scaling, but this part is during an interior dialogue section when the big drop comes is when the rear exit opens are you are pushed out into the exploding world of the Assault Crysis level. After that, there doesn’t appear to be a lot of differentiation between the single, dual and triple card configurations. Since the average frame rate only increase about 15% from one to two cards and stays the same for three cards, that pretty much puts 3-Way SLI in its place.
However, looking at the test where we move from “high” to “very high” quality settings, we see some changes in the outcome. For starters, the 3-Way SLI system is slower than the dual-card traditional SLI results, something we definitely didn’t expect. The 2-Way SLI results are better though, showing a nearly 40% increase in average frame rate over a single 8800 Ultra. It is also possible that with all the stuff going on in this level that it is more CPU limited that GPU limited – we’ll see in our full Digital Storm system test later in the week.
hi i would just like to
hi i would just like to clarify that a 3-way SLI supported GPU is better that just a SLI supported GPU. Please email me the answer