CryEngine 2 debuts

[Varsity]

A shakey cam video of CryEngine 2, the next version of the technology behind Far Cry, has surfaced. Recorded at PDC, it is rumoured to be running under DirectX 10. CryEngine 2 works with multi-core systems, although (unless the guy in this interview quote is talking about optimisation in an unusual way) there's no mention made of whether it actually gains anything by doing so.

/GameStar/dev: Are there performance issues with the multi-threaded CryEngine 2 running on single core pc's?
Cevat Yerli: The code can run sequentially. You're losing a bit of efficiency, but what you are gaining with optimization is higher. SO the price of sustaining a loss of the frame rate when running on a single-thread pc is so small, that you can easily get it back from that. Most of the PC games are not optimized anyway, Far Cry isn't either.Source (http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=338667) (both videos are the same)
CryEngine 2 interview translation at crymod.com (http://www.crymod.com/index.php?p=showtopic&toid=3729&fid=13&area=1)

Direct download - XviD (http://s2.putfile.com/videos/26010463625.avi)
Torrent download - XviD (http://www.filerush.com/download.php?target=CryEngine2_shakey.avi)

Hard to make details out, but it looks amazing nonetheless. I dread to think what hardware they were using!

[Worldcrafter]

"What do you think?!"

Droooooool...

I can't wait to see that in high res!

[Kelegacy]

The first Crytek engine was pretty powerful itself. I was hoping more games would take advantage of it, but it was basically just limited to Far Cry. Instead, companies license the popular engines like Unreal's. It's a shame.

[Draft]

The first Crytek engine was pretty powerful itself. I was hoping more games would take advantage of it, but it was basically just limited to Far Cry. Instead, companies license the popular engines like Unreal's. It's a shame.There's more to an engine than how powerful it is. Epic offers an unprecedented level of support for Unreal- that's why it's the licensee of choice.

Engine looks great, though.

[da.Guvna]

Wow....those clouds....fantastic!

[EvilBob46]

This video rocks. I love the end of the video especially, flying over the island and everything. O, and the truck mowing down a building was also cool.

[Nath5000]

This is more than likely from the Windows Developer Keynote from last weeks PDC 05 where Microsoft spoke to developers about Windows Vista. Microsoft showed some of CryEngine2 later in the keynote, but Microsoft blocked it from their keynote broadcast and keynote download, you can hear the intro to it and watch the block screen if you like at http://www.microsoft.com/events/executives/billgates.mspxskip to 1hr 17 mins into the video.

Im glad to see that it finally made its way onto the web though!

I think the presenter from Microsoft, before presenting the video, said something about how this is an example of how PCs will always top consoles... Considering it was coming from someone at Microsoft, I'd consider that to loosely translate to something like "This is not possible on the 360."

It's kinda dissapointing to think that that comment like that could indicate that this might not be possible on an Xbox 360, but I guess its way too soon to jump to that big of a conclusion. The video is fuzzy but from what I can make out it has better quality character faces than any Unreal Engine 3's or Gears of War character has. It looks like they threw one of those really cool Fight Night next gen heads into an engine that makes Doom3 look like its a DOS based 2d game. Although if we saw this in high rez it may look less impressive...

[H.Bogard]

There are a few cryengine games coming out pretty soon

I`m dling now...this video be marked as the second EVER direct X 10 demonstration
The first being, ofcourse...the next gen microsoft flight sim (If anyone knows where to find the vid POST IT PLEASE!)

[Triprotic]

looks sweet :)

[see colon]

Instead, companies license the popular engines like Unreal's. It's a shame.
i believe cryengine was licenced by http://www.tnturtles.net/ , but looking at their website it looks like they may have jumped ship to unreal. it shouldn't be surprising, really. look at the other great engines (serious sam and amp 1/2, for example) that have been passed by. the comment about support is certainly valid, but tools are even more important IMHO. unreal, for example, has one of the easiest level editors out there.

[Draft]

i believe cryengine was licenced by http://www.tnturtles.net/ , but looking at their website it looks like they may have jumped ship to unreal. it shouldn't be surprising, really. look at the other great engines (serious sam and amp 1/2, for example) that have been passed by. the comment about support is certainly valid, but tools are even more important IMHO. unreal, for example, has one of the easiest level editors out there.Yeah, I was just lumping that under support. Unreal doesn't require a lot of learning on the developers part- they can just hop in and start creating content.

[StoneGut]

Nnce. Very very nice.
Hopefully I won't have to upgrade too much to take advantage of all that eye-candy.

[Sinistar]

Didn't EA either buy Crytek or sign them exclusively for a few titles? Anyone?

[bone4ahead]

Didn't EA either buy Crytek or sign them exclusively for a few titles? Anyone?
That makes a lot of sense considering Ubisoft publishes all Crytek's games. :rolleyes:
/sarcasm

[Klade]

Looks pretty nifty, I agree with the above, the clouds were fantastic and the soft shadows were very nice. Only other time I've seen soft shadows in gameplay has been the Unreal 3 engine.

The whole PC always tops consoles comment probably comes from Microsofts big push to get back to PC gaming with Vista. I think they have finally come to the conclusion that PC's sell a lot of games in and of themselves and if you want to play them you need Windows. So why not use it as an excuse to try and get people to upgrade to Vista?

[RMan]

Geesh, I hate it when they say stuff like that. There’s not one technique in that video that cannot be done on the 360.

The primary reason that people would pick the Unreal engine over this one, no matter how cool this one becomes, is that there is a great deal of marketing in the Unreal engine, as well as a number of developers that can be moved from other projects and not have to ramp up to a new tool set. While the engine may be much more expensive, when your budget is 20M+ it really makes little difference that you dropped <3% of it on the engine. I just think they got to the market too late, no matter how cool their tech is I’m not sure why somebody would choose it.

[Nath5000]

Looks pretty nifty, I agree with the above, the clouds were fantastic and the soft shadows were very nice. Only other time I've seen soft shadows in gameplay has been the Unreal 3 engine.

The whole PC always tops consoles comment probably comes from Microsofts big push to get back to PC gaming with Vista. I think they have finally come to the conclusion that PC's sell a lot of games in and of themselves and if you want to play them you need Windows. So why not use it as an excuse to try and get people to upgrade to Vista?


Yeah but Im hoping that his comments werent implying that that level of quality would not be possible on the xbox360. Im hoping that the 360 can grow a little bit in game quality from what we've seen so far as launch titles. Look at a launch xbox game, they look like nothing compared to Halo 2 for example. Im just hoping that this is possible on the 360, thats all I was saying.

[bone4ahead]

Yeah but Im hoping that his comments werent implying that that level of quality would not be possible on the xbox360. Im hoping that the 360 can grow a little bit in game quality from what we've seen so far as launch titles. Look at a launch xbox game, they look like nothing compared to Halo 2 for example. Im just hoping that this is possible on the 360, thats all I was saying.

Interesting that you say Halo 2 looks better than halo... I think Halo is one of the best looking xbox games. Not to mention Dead or Alive 3 was a launch title and that still holds up really well. But I tend to agree that 2nd and 3rd generation Xbox 360 games on the whole should look a lot better because devs haven't learned how to use the 3 cores yet. Hell, compare Gears of War to Quake 4 to see the huge range of Xbox 360 graphics quality already.

[MosBen]

I take the PCs vs Consoles comment to mean that while consoles are cheap to buy, the PC platform always evolves, so that while the console games may look better than PC games when they first come out, the PC overtakes the graphics crown pretty rapidly. Now, since I think gaming on the PC is enough of a pain in the ass that I don't do it anymore, and though graphics are cool they just aren't the be all end all for me, but it's still true nonetheless. If you're willing to go through the money and time to stay current, you're going to stay on the bleeding edge of graphics if you're on the PC.

[ophiuchus]

That makes a lot of sense considering Ubisoft publishes all Crytek's games. :rolleyes:
/sarcasm

Yes EA have signed the for a game deal. Details should be out the first half next year. It has nothing to do with UBSoft or FarCry.

[bobbler]

That video is hot. This next generation is going to be quite exciting (on all fronts -- PC, PS3, Xbox360, and Rev).

[mister_slim]

Looks pretty nice. I especially like the environmental physics and animation. I don't think we'll be seeing anything like this, on console or PC, for at least a couple of years.

[see colon]

That makes a lot of sense considering Ubisoft publishes all Crytek's games. :rolleyes:
/sarcasm

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/pr?s=erts
The company (ea) has strategic partnership with Crytek GmbH.

EA and crytek have a publishing agreement. ubisoft, i think, mismanaged what they had with crytek.

[Nath5000]

I take the PCs vs Consoles comment to mean that while consoles are cheap to buy, the PC platform always evolves, so that while the console games may look better than PC games when they first come out, the PC overtakes the graphics crown pretty rapidly. Now, since I think gaming on the PC is enough of a pain in the ass that I don't do it anymore, and though graphics are cool they just aren't the be all end all for me, but it's still true nonetheless. If you're willing to go through the money and time to stay current, you're going to stay on the bleeding edge of graphics if you're on the PC.

Im not trying to start a PC vs Console debate here. I know PCs will be more capable than the 360 if they arent already. I was simply stating that I hope that this level of quality can be achieved on the xbox360. I was in the boat of people who wanted console games to move to HD but at the same time Ive been thinking that showcased 360 games thus far (aside from gears of war) dont really look truly next gen. If what Im picturing of this crytek video, except in 720p and not a fuzzy shakycam vid is as good as I think it is, this seems to be more of a step in the direction of what next gen should really be. The faces looked like those in the Fight Night demo but with better texture effects and lighting plus fight night is in a small room with 2 characters on screen. This crytek 2.0 engine "game" will presumably have that level of character detail on those giant jungle maps with all of those effects.
I think this video is more of what I imagined next gen consoles being, before they were announced. It would be a shame if this crytek engine would have to go through the same downconversion that the current crytek engine had to go through to run on the xbox.

[F3nyx]

That was the first really impressive tech demo I've seen in a while. The way that building came apart was amazing.

[KNOTE]

Only other time I've seen soft shadows in gameplay has been the Unreal 3 engine.


F.E.A.R. has soft shadows.

[see colon]

F.E.A.R. has soft shadows.
riddick, splinter cell: chaos theory, and starship troopers did as well.

[H.Bogard]

ooo........kay.......where to start

the xbox 360 can support all of those effects....but as you can see from the video they are being used MUCH MUCH extensively on the PC , its just like having a room full of all sorts of eye candy that can be achieved on a console or a pc gpu, but as you can see from the video its a BIG FUCKING ENVIRONMNET being rendered there...2 gigs of ram for life!

Secondly you can easily compare the character`s faces to fight night nextgen, BUT ONCE AGAIN you forget the fact that fight night is just one ring at a time.........NOT A HUGEASS ISLAND.

what else............oh yeah......splinter cell chaos theory didnt support soft shadowing....they whored themselves to nvidia so they only threw in HSW, (geforce fx+ only)

before i get flamed i just want ya`ll to know i hate all platforms so screw everyone !

[sTubbs]

riddick, splinter cell: chaos theory, and starship troopers did as well.

So did the PC version of Max Payne 2 - I think that might have been the first to feature them.

[F3nyx]

blah blah blahCan we please bring back the "Troll" tag?

So did the PC version of Max Payne 2 - I think that might have been the first to feature them.Are you sure it's dynamic soft shadowing? Soft static lightmaps have been around for ages, as have soft unidirectional (stencil?) shadows. Dynamic soft shadowing is fairly new.

[Morrolan]

That is HOT. That (creepy) rack of heads was damned impressive.

[KarmaGhost]

Absolutely beautiful. Amazing.

[rubek]

oooh, that looks like fun!

I'm excited! Farcry was the one game for me in the past couple of years that surprised the hell out of me.
It seemed to come from nowhere, and provide endless hours of fun-time killing.
Even after I had completed it, doing the missions again a totally different way was just as fun, and for once there was a game that wasn't all shadows and darkness.
And the jackhammer 'felt' great
:)

[MasterKwan]

I feel that way about FC too. Better then HL2 and Doom3 for me. I could install FC today and play it though again. It's not that HL2 or Doom3 were bad. I just found creeping in the jungles and capping people with my M4/Mp5 to be very satisfying.

I wouldn't mind them fleshing out the islands with interesting places to explore and releasing a directors cut version or something. I kept wanting to explore the old japanese ruins some more.

[dr_qwandry]

Doom 3 was fun first time through

but Far Cry and HL2 I can play again and again.
Far Cry made you feel like a one man army, mostly because the games AI wasn't all rushing (other then the trigens)

it's also one of the few FPS games that i don't mind playing even though there was hardly any enemy variation.

[Borys]

Hey, I agree with Nath5000, wonders do happen. Just look at the differences between launch PS2 games and today's PS2 games - simply amazing. Now imagine the difference between launch PS3 titles (Killzone-level graphics? maybe) and 2009 PS3 titles.

It's all about the scale - next-gen consoles sure could render all the effects but not on a whole island but some small playground. Of course lowering some details will allow them to render the whole environment etc. etc. PCs will have 2-4 GB of RAM in the next years that surely helps a lot.

[retsudo]

Don't see why so many people pissed their pants about far cry. The engine was not impressive, the gameplay was terrible and the path was very linear. The engine in far cry was less impressive than the one in trespasser, they just used a lot of levels of detail. It doesn't even render enemies more than a couple of hundred metres away. Nobody (or very few) developers licenced the engine because when you look at it, all it is good for is jungley rail shooters with shit gameplay.

[Varsity]

Geesh, I hate it when they say stuff like that. There’s not one technique in that video that cannot be done on the 360.
I believe the 360 is DX9, actually.


News post updated, for anyone skipping to the last reply.

[Morrolan]

The 360 is a microsoft product. I'm fairly confident that, if they know they will be putting out another DX, they'll make it availa... OH RIGHT. They can't do that now, because of the non-standard HD. Ohhhhhh!

[bobbler]

As far as I've heard its not quite DX10 but not DX9 either -- somewhere in between (it has some things beyond DX10 spec, but other things not quite at DX10 spec). I wouldn't really be concerned with the PC equivalent spec a closed system has, it doesn't really apply there with any real meaning like it does in the PC realm.

[Varsity]

Plus it's far too late to start making DX10 harware for it, especially when the API isn't even final yet!

[steve]

Don't see why so many people pissed their pants about far cry. The engine was not impressive, the gameplay was terrible and the path was very linear. The engine in far cry was less impressive than the one in trespasser, they just used a lot of levels of detail. It doesn't even render enemies more than a couple of hundred metres away. Nobody (or very few) developers licenced the engine because when you look at it, all it is good for is jungley rail shooters with shit gameplay.

*rolleyes* did you in fact ever play it, cause actually none of your point is valid...

[Vandenh]

>They can't do that now, because of the non-standard HD. Ohhhhhh!

DX is not installed on the HD.. it is included on the game disk.

[bapenguin]

Man...clouds and smoke this generation are just amazing. Call of Duty 2 had some amazing looking smoke in the screens, and these volumetric clouds are top notch. I can remember rendering scenes with volumetric clouds in Bryce 3d, it took 6 hours on my old Pentium 200. :(

[H.Bogard]

Don't see why so many people pissed their pants about far cry. The engine was not impressive, the gameplay was terrible and the path was very linear. The engine in far cry was less impressive than the one in trespasser, they just used a lot of levels of detail. It doesn't even render enemies more than a couple of hundred metres away. Nobody (or very few) developers licenced the engine because when you look at it, all it is good for is jungley rail shooters with shit gameplay.

Sarcasm?


The message you have entered is too short. Please lengthen your message to at least 10 characters.

[MasterKwan]

What FC got right for me was the feel of the game. The weapons had the right heft and sound. The level's were designed so, you had to be careful to get through them without dying. There was often more than one way to play a level. Creeping up on enemies actually worked. Sure the plot wasn't all that but, it was at least as good as HL2 and Doom3. It actually had an ending which puts it one up on HL2.

As for Trespasser, while the game sucked, I really enjoyed exploring the island and listening to Hammond narrate the process of creating dinosaurs. I think a remade Trespasser using a modern engine (Like FC) would be interesting.

[AbeLincoln]

I really liked Farcry, but I never finished it. I don't really know why, the only thing I was really put off about in that game was the vehicle control. Going from UT2k4's vehicles, which I think are easy to handle, to the jerky Farcry ones that sent me off a cliff or into the ocean at a wrong move kind of annoyed me.

Anyway, are clouds and smoke the new water? Cause those give me the same cheap geek thrill that the old improvments in water graphics did, and I like it.

[Worldcrafter]

I loved playing Far Cry because of the subtle changes to the gameplay that kept it interesting. You start out hunting humans who are pretty much equal to you, and that slowly shifts to harder enemies. And then you are fighting trigents, who can take your armor away in one hit, so you have to shift tactics, and be more wary. Plus, the game suddenly got scary when exploring the dark woods, or labs, and a trigent jumps out at you. Later still, you alternated between battling commando enemies, and trigents which required some added dexterity, and awareness. I also really liked being able to look down the sights and get more accurate at any time. Doing that when using the M4 in the single shot mode was always satisfying.

If Crytek can pull off that same feeling with the new engine, then they already have my money.

[The Iron Weasel]

Unreleated to the tech demo, FAR CRY 2, common fuck EA fuck them right in the ear, make a sequel, you know its not over.

[Nath5000]

Unreleated to the tech demo, FAR CRY 2, common fuck EA fuck them right in the ear, make a sequel, you know its not over.

How do you know its EA? the first game was UBI... wasnt it? Just because crytek made a deal with EA, that might just mean lisencing their new engine.
Anyways for any of you that didnt watch the keynote i posted, the guy at microsoft said that this game would ship the same day as windows vista. Will it be windows vista only? I have no idea, thats just what the guy at Microsoft said. my guess is all the talk of multicore and multithreading has to do with the fact that PCs are going into that realm very quickly. Again my console hopes are diminishing. My last hope is that the xbox360's 80gb harddrive will have 4gigs of memory in it and boost the graphics of games that could use it like this one undoubtedly can. Also didnt someone at microsoft say that xbox360 has a hidden feature in it that wont be used until maybe a year after the console is released? Maybe those dev kits that got cracked open were missing that feature, and maybe that feature is on-board flash memory drive for OS upgrades such as DX10.... oh well I can only hope.

[The Iron Weasel]

Nah man, i believe they have a publishing deal with EA, and are working on a new Original IP at the moment, so Far Cry 2 is a long way off i think, at least it is if CryTek is making it, who know ubisoft montreal could be handleing it, but i think its been stated that their next project will not be far cry 2, although they are making a far cry expantion.

[Frogleg Special]

Anyways for any of you that didnt watch the keynote i posted, the guy at microsoft said that this game would ship the same day as windows vista. Will it be windows vista only? I have no idea, thats just what the guy at Microsoft said. my guess is all the talk of multicore and multithreading has to do with the fact that PCs are going into that realm very quickly. Again my console hopes are diminishing. My last hope is that the xbox360's 80gb harddrive will have 4gigs of memory in it and boost the graphics of games that could use it like this one undoubtedly can. Also didnt someone at microsoft say that xbox360 has a hidden feature in it that wont be used until maybe a year after the console is released? Maybe those dev kits that got cracked open were missing that feature, and maybe that feature is on-board flash memory drive for OS upgrades such as DX10.... oh well I can only hope.

Wow, since the beginning of this thread you write like the sky is going to fall just because X360 is not a DX10 machine. Chill dude.

Microsoft is going to push both Vista and X360 as gaming platforms (I'm looking forward for a Vista "Halo"/Killer app). Taking a cue from Dungeon Siege 2 which is XP only, expect most post-2006 PC games would be made exclusively for Vista since Vista looks to be less backward compatible than previous microsoft OS. X360 is not going be obsolete either. It can emulate DX10 graphics through software manip. even though it doesn't have the hardware. So it's less optimal but doable.

In MS view, X360 should be staying with or ahead of PS3 technology. But will it surpass PC Vista generation? No. Xbox 3 will.

[Nath5000]

Wow, since the beginning of this thread you write like the sky is going to fall just because X360 is not a DX10 machine. Chill dude.

Microsoft is going to push both Vista and X360 as gaming platforms (I'm looking forward for a Vista "Halo"/Killer app). Taking a cue from Dungeon Siege 2 which is XP only, expect most post-2006 PC games would be made exclusively for Vista since Vista looks to be less backward compatible than previous microsoft OS. X360 is not going be obsolete either. It can emulate DX10 graphics through software manip. even though it doesn't have the hardware. So it's less optimal but doable.

In MS view, X360 should be staying with or ahead of PS3 technology. But will it surpass PC Vista generation? No. Xbox 3 will.

I guess im just overly pessimisitc. By the way it sounds in that interview, it sounds like consoles will work just fine. The ps3 seems to be the real uncertain platform, where they dont know if they can make a seperate version of the engine that will fully utilize the cell.

[Frogleg Special]

I guess im just overly pessimisitc. By the way it sounds in that interview, it sounds like consoles will work just fine. The ps3 seems to be the real uncertain platform, where they dont know if they can make a seperate version of the engine that will fully utilize the cell.

Next generation I'll pick X360 for sure (to supplement Vista gaming). This generation I learned that I can't never love Japanese RPGs and other quirky games. Even if PS3 is more advanced than X360, at least X360 games are going to be more palatable.

So visceral X360 and cerebral Vista gaming next.

[goc_sin]

Microsoft is going to push both Vista and X360 as gaming platforms (I'm looking forward for a Vista "Halo"/Killer app). Taking a cue from Dungeon Siege 2 which is XP only, expect most post-2006 PC games would be made exclusively for Vista since Vista looks to be less backward compatible than previous microsoft OS. X360 is not going be obsolete either. It can emulate DX10 graphics through software manip. even though it doesn't have the hardware. So it's less optimal but doable.

Dungeon Siege 2 says XP as the requirements, but it runs fine on Win 2000 no problem. I'm not sure about 98 though. MS just likes to make it sound like it won't run on anything else, so you'll upgrade.

[earthworm48]

With regards to Vista, will it run all the old Win 95 games still? And things like DOSBOX wouldn't have any trouble with it would they?

[dr_wily]

i liked the leaves myself..

[Shifteh]

unreal, for example, has one of the easiest level editors out there.

And how. Even non-level designers often find basic building in UnrealEd extremely easy. The support, while good, is nothing next to the tools, as you said.