Mar 24 2008

Nvidia graphics chips face 'Crysis'

Even the mightiest graphics boards bow to Crysis. And Nvidia's newest dual-graphics board is no exception.

First some background. Crysis is a science fiction computer game developed by Germany-based Crytek and published by Electronic Arts. "Crysis is visually stunning, packed with intelligent, thrilling gameplay, and easily one of the greatest shooters ever made," according to GameSpot (which is owned by CNET Networks). For hardware reviewers, it's the ultimate gaming test of a graphics card.

Nvidia's GeForce 9800 GX2 contains two graphics chips

Nvidia's GeForce 9800 GX2 contains two graphics chips.

(Credit: CNET)

Though so far the reviews of Nvidia's GeForce 9800 GX2 are positive ("The GeForce 9800 GX2 is an absolute powerhouse, the fastest graphics card you can buy today"--The Tech Report), it stalled when faced with the gaming equivalent of Everest's north face, running Crysis at its highest settings.

"The 9800GX2 is no magic bullet for Crysis," said Rich Brown, a senior editor at CNET Reviews, responding to questions. The GeForce 9800GX2 "was still unable to achieve 60 frames per second, which is generally considered the goal for acceptably smooth gameplay in first person shooters." he said.

CNET Asus EN9800GX2 review here.

Another review discussed similar issues when antialiasing (a technique for smoothing the jagged edges of curved objects) was turned on. "When antialiasing is activated and the card should be showing all it has to offer, its performance drops to the same level as the other cards," according to Tom's Hardware.

Optimally tweaked drivers are another hurdle in getting games to run well on the latest and greatest hardware. Particularly in the case of multi-GPU configurations using Scalable Link Interface (SLI). Nevertheless, Crysis has yet to meet its match at the highest settings using mass-market graphics cards.

Upcoming four-way configurations using SLI may be up to the challenge. We'll see.

Brooke Crothers is a former editor-at-large at CNET News.com, has been an editor for The Asian Wall Street Journal Weekly, and has been an analyst at IDC. He writes for the CNET Blog Network, and is not a current employee of CNET. Contact him at brooke_crothers@msn.com. Disclosure.
Posted in:
Tags: Nvidia, GeForce 9800 GX2, dual GPU, Crysis
 

Recent posts from Crave:

Add a Comment (Log in or register) 6 comments (Page 1 of 1)
Enough already!
by MadLyb March 26, 2008 4:13 AM PDT
When is the media going to quit treating Crysis like some holy grail test platform and instead call it for what it is, a poorly designed and executed game that is good for nothing more than single frame renders of eye candy.
Reply to this comment View all 2 replies
Wait for the G100
by Pnewman98 March 26, 2008 7:38 AM PDT
If NVidia can't get good enough drivers for SLI to work well with Crysis, then how can it be expected that they will optimize their 4-way SLI drivers enough to allow the GPU to maximize performance? Once the next core from NVidia is available, then Crysis will finally (probably) be conquered. And by the time that the 45nm GPU's come out, there will be nothing around today that can outclass these cards.
Reply to this comment View reply
by zlong March 30, 2008 12:25 PM PDT
Don't hate on Crysis. It is by far the best shooter I have ever played, better then the Halo series Call of Duty series and all others, especially when it comes to multi player. That being said I too was disappointed when I found out that I could not run the game on its top settings. However I soon found out that even the medium settings are absolutely incredible. Additionally the two released patches for the game seem to have fixed all the problems regarding smooth game play. Probably the best $50 I ever spent on a game. Just make sure you download the patches for it
Reply to this comment
Powered by Jive Software