Crysis 3 versus Crysis: Graphical Comparison

"..But can it play Crysis?" In late 2007 gamers all over the world were scrambling to upgrade and buy new systems in order to meet the lofty requirements of Crysis. At the time, the recommended specifications were a Core 2 Duo running at 2.2GHz, 2GB of RAM and most expensively of all, an Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTS 640MB graphics card. To put things in context, those specs can still play Battlefield 3, and the forth coming ARMA III today. There was no doubt that Crysis set the benchmark in graphics. Modern games are still often compared back to it today, so what better game to compare it to than the latest installment in the Crysis series, Crysis 3. We'll look at a range of factors including screenshots from throughout the games, textures when zoomed in, memory usage and the thermal load on the graphics card when at a set fan speed.

Graphics Settings

Crysis originally came with a DirectX 10 option, but was primarily designed to run in DirectX 9 as few PC systems had both the minimum requirement of Windows Vista and a DirectX 10-enabled GPU. However, with newer versions it is now supplied in only a DirectX 10 guise.We ran both Crysis and Crysis 3 at a Full HD resolution of 1920 x 1080 that is typical of most modern LCD monitors. You can see from the menus that the original Crysis contains more settings than its younger sibling, due to the inclusion of a sound quality and physics option. You can either set a general graphical specification (low, medium, high, very high) or tweak the individual settings as you want.

Screenshots -

Lets compare the graphics of both games at their highest settings. They have been JPG'd, but at a low compression ratio. The question is (without looking at the alt text), can you guess which is which?

Zoomed-in Textures

With the images zoomed in 3x and cropped to an appropriate size, we can see the difference in textures, lighting  and anti-alasing  between the two games. Crysis is beginning to show its age, as the textures of the palm leaves show, with a quite clunky rendering over distance. In contrast, Crysis 3's beams and windows look far crisper. The lighting appears far more fluid and realistic in Crysis 3 than in the original, where it is possible to see the individual beams lighting the objects beneath them. The anti-aliasing is also improved, due to the inclusion of MSAA 8X, and 16X AA in Crysis 3.  

Thermal Load & GPU Memory Usage

Does Crysis 3 actually work the card harder than its older brother does in game? Using a factory overclocked GeForce GTX 670 2GB card running at 1,045 MHz core boost clock and 6,008 MHz memory clock,with the games set to their highest settings and running at 1920 x 1080 (Full HD), a screenshot of GPU  temperature, GPU usage and frame buffer usage was taken after 15 minutes of gameplay. In order to keep the fan speeds the same throughout, the card's cooler was manually set to run at a constant 50% speed using the ASUS GPU Tweak utility. The system used included an Intel Core i7-3570k running at 4GHz, 16GB of DDR3 memory, and an ASUS Sabertooth Z77 motherboard and the aforementioned GeForce GTX 670.

From the GPU tweak screenshots above, you can see that the original Crysis stressed the GPU more consistently, with usage at an almost constant 99%, while Crysis 3 only maxed out usage at 97% with usage blipping lower. However, the frame buffer usage was 9% higher in Crysis 3 than in the originally Crysis, but again the original was more consistent in its use. On the temperature side, with the fan manually set to 50%, the original game had the card running at 83°C, which was almost exactly the same as Crysis 3 at 82°C. At these temperatures, the card performed perfectly stably  and with the GeForce GTX 670's fan at 50% it wasn't in any way intrusive or particularly loud.

Thoughts and Conclusion

Crysis has been the benchmark for graphics for the last 6 years now, it's reassuring that its third outing has definitely surpassed it in terms of visual quality, without melting modern graphics cards at its highest settings. Given that Crysis 3's GPU use is less - or at least less consistently maxed out - yet yields a better result, Crytek has put plenty of effort into optimization for our benefit! However, it's clear that each stage of  bettering graphics is getting tougher. If we were to compare Crysis to a game manufactured in the same space of time: 6 years previous to it in 2001, then we'd be comparing to the original Half-Life engine in Blue Shift or the Quake III engine in Return to Castle Wolfenstein. To these, Crysis simply appears other-worldly. Thankfully we're in 2013 and for PC gaming fans, Crysis 3 is a visually gorgeous first person shooter. Which Crysis do you prefer? Have you played through Crysis 3 yet and how does it run on your ROG rig? Let us know in the forums.