Crysis 2 + Crossfire temp heads up...

red1776

Posts: 5,124   +194
I don't know how many configurations this pertains to.
I have been playing with Crysis 2 for a couple hours now and noticed that on my CF system, It runs about 10c warmer than any other game I have. My GPU's normally will top out at 78-82c (games not Furmark or the like) after 1/2 -1 hour of Crysis 2, they are a good 10c warmer. I manually set the fans, so its not a fan profile at work here. If you are using a CF or possibly SLI setup, you may want to watch your temps. Particularly if you normally run hot anyway.

I am using Catalyst 11.4 drivers
4 x HD 5850 CFX
 
Otherwise, G, how is the game playing for you? What single cards do you think will be able to handle this game?
 
Hey J,
I don't think I will make that call yet for my customers. I am getting (so Far) right around 75 FPS average on Extreme settings @ 1920 x 1200 I think this will change with a new driver release. (I hope) other than that it has worked okay so far. I am really curious about the high temps though.
 
Surprised you got it even running considering all the stuff I've been reading today. It seems a lot of gamers can't even get Crossfire/SLI to work properly, with issues from screen flickering to unplayability of the game. But I haven't read issues of higher than normal temperatures regarding multi-gpu setup.

Hardware aside, how are you liking the game so far? From reading around the net I'm really getting mixed feelings, especially since they moved away from a lot of elements I really enjoyed.
 
Thanks for the heads up. Game unlocks on this side of the pond from 25th.
I'm using the last official non beta drivers, will take a look at the beta drivers once I can play the game. Will also monitor temps although been using manually configured fan profile to control them.

A bit off topic but I found when not having the manual profile enabled the 2nd card's fan speed doesn't seem to be matched to that of the first card. Not sure if this is deliberate as it will probably be a bit hotter, or just a failure in monitoring with the standard "auto" option in Afterburner.
 
Surprised you got it even running considering all the stuff I've been reading today. It seems a lot of gamers can't even get Crossfire/SLI to work properly, with issues from screen flickering to unplayability of the game. But I haven't read issues of higher than normal temperatures regarding multi-gpu setup.

Hey Relic,
Funny you should mention that. After I got a couple hours in. The background layer (the sky) started flickering and stayed that way. I disabled the 4th card and played tri fire. I played at extreme settings and got playable frame rates, but this game needs a patch and or driver revision.
 
Oops, sorry about the jinx :eek: . But it does appear this game needs some patching with the issues I've been reading about, hard to tell though if this is just some minor inconvenience with a vocal minority or something more serious. Either way it does seem odd at least to me that Crytek let these issues slip by.
 
Oops, sorry about the jinx :eek: . But it does appear this game needs some patching with the issues I've been reading about, hard to tell though if this is just some minor inconvenience with a vocal minority or something more serious. Either way it does seem odd at least to me that Crytek let these issues slip by.

Yes....it's your fault Relic! :p anyway, I thought the first hour was to good to be true, in their zeal to get the thing out, things like CF/SLI performance is overlooked. It does need some major patching though for CF users, and I am reading SLI as well. The frame rate for Cf is not good either, playable on extreme 35 up over 100, but you can tell during transitions, heavy fire , and event triggers that something is not working quite right, evn when I bumped it back to 3xCF and the sky stopped flashing. I am really curious about the warm GPU temps.
 
EVGA seems on the ball. SLI enhancement patch for Crysis 2/ Bulletstorm/ DAII >>here<<
If you aren't registered then do so. Well worthwhile in any case since the EVGA forums are one of the best repositories for nvidia chipset/gpu info.
Seems to work fine so far 65-80% GPU utilization across all GPU's.
 
So how is the game so far way better than what the demo has showed us? I don't have the money to get it yet but once I do i plan on buying it!!
 
I am only in a couple hours but so far I am disappointed. It is a corridor shooter...and a narrow corridor at that. It really needs DX11. As someone wrote in an early review of Larrabee, The water looks like someone had an accident with a truckload of KY. On the Radeon side...and I am reading SLI as well, It needs a patch and or drivers.
 
Yea the lack of DX11 support makes the game look even more like a console port and makes any hardware-related performance results somewhat irrelevant. It's supposed to be patched in later i guess but it was really disappointing to see DX9 only. People who bought new GPUs must be pissed lol.

That aside though, the game isn't half bad and even with DX9 it looks decent. I've only played about 1.5hrs of the single player due to my work hours this week, but from what i have played it seems like it will be good. A friend of mine said the campaign was around 12 hours so that's okay i suppose.
 
Been reading a lot of praise from console reviewers about the linearity being an overall good thing and story driver. Which I consider disappointing considering we already have plenty of corridor style shooters. I for one really enjoyed the more open aspects of Crytek games. At least the campaign length appears more in line with expectations and can't be finished in an evenings sitting like Homefront.
 
Played through the intro/tutorial and a little bit more but had to quit to come back to work. I think if it was possible to develop epilepsy then playing Crysis2 with my 2 card crossfire machine would be at the top of the possible causes list. Sky flickering. If I turn off Vsync I actually get lines on the screen (4-5 equally spaced). Not a good start. Going to grab the 11.4 beta drivers and see if that helps at all.

1920x1200 Extreme settings. Not had fraps or anything else running to measure fps but certainly felt like it was running pretty damned well (other than the sky/brightly lit areas flickering that is).
 
They (Crytek) and Cevat Yerli have been saying "best graphics ever" and wide open environment for a year now, and its neither. flashing skies, very narrow corridor, and DX9 in 2011...really!? They really sold out PC gamers on this thing. If I didn't have customers that are building machines around this thing, I would feel like an i-d-i-o-t for pre-ordering this (as of yet) piece of ****.
@ Arris, I am using the 11.4 drivers and it doesnt help. Although I did find 11.4 drivers with a different version number dated 3-22-11 that I have installed and am going to try.
 
They (Crytek) and Cevat Yerli have been saying "best graphics ever" and wide open environment for a year now, and its neither. flashing skies, very narrow corridor, and DX9 in 2011...really!? They really sold out PC gamers on this thing. If I didn't have customers that are building machines around this thing, I would feel like an i-d-i-o-t for pre-ordering this (as of yet) piece of ****.
@ Arris, I am using the 11.4 drivers and it doesnt help. Although I did find 11.4 drivers with a different version number dated 3-22-11 that I have installed and am going to try.



i bet those people who built there machines for this game are really dissapointed!! or maybe not people have there own preference i guess.
 
i bet those people who built there machines for this game are really dissapointed!! or maybe not people have there own preference i guess.

If they are enjoying it good for them. I'm pissed (well at least as pissed as I will get over a video game). I pre-ordered this sucker based on Crysis/Warhead and and all the jaw jacking Cevat and Co did about game-play and graphics. They did not even to bother to thinly veil the PC version, which doesn't bode well for PC gaming when the "game of the decade" and Crytek/EA basically say piss off to PC'ers. I mean launch this thing to PC with what is obviously a console port and a decade old DX version?

This about sums it up:
http://www.dasreviews.com/das-latest-greatest/crytek-doomed-crysis-2s-pc-version/
 
They'd rather sell out and make more money by porting and releasing a dumbed-down PC version than keeping it exclusive. It's pretty disappointing but the game isn't bad... and I'd rather it be a good game than have DX11 support and be lousy (i.e. Metro 2033). I know that's not really the argument here but it's not like the game looks horrible in DX9.
 
They'd rather sell out and make more money by porting and releasing a dumbed-down PC version than keeping it exclusive. It's pretty disappointing but the game isn't bad... and I'd rather it be a good game than have DX11 support and be lousy (i.e. Metro 2033). I know that's not really the argument here but it's not like the game looks horrible in DX9.

Hey if your digging it great. But when Crytek says it will be DX11, The best graphics ever, wide open environments, and says they are committed to the PC gamer.....and then delivers none of those will taking pre-orders for a console port, That is just deceptive.
 
I'd agree with that, especially if you've been looking forward to running the game with a high-end PC. I do recall CryTek stating DX11 support, and there are plenty of people who are pretty annoyed with getting no answer. I just don't understand their mindset or what they thought would happen with releasing a DX9 only game in 2011... with a title that has so much to live up to in the graphics department!

I think I'm only halfway through the game and I'm starting to think the mission design is actually pretty lousy. Basically just point A to point B objectives and some enemies in between. I'm also starting to miss the thick foliage and jungle vistas of the first game.
 
I agree with what others have said. It's hardly jaw dropping graphics, the "wide open environments" are a couple of streets you can take about 10 steps down then have to double back at a dead end. Also has another wow factor feature from games of the past. Can turn computer monitors on and off, and use phones etc. Really not very impressed. Seems very little point to picking up objects but this is still in the game, maybe it will be useful later.
I don't mind the lower res textures used for some areas where is would be a waste to use higher res ones, but when they are pretty much everywhere you can't help but conclude this is a console port. Even the game on the veteran setting lets me run circles round bigger enemies and melee them down, which makes me think its difficulty is even geared for console.

As to the flickering problem I'm getting 35-40 fps with crossfire disabled so that's how I'm playing through it.

Even the short single player of campaign of Medal Of Honor (another disappointing release) was better than this.
Have they just released a mediocre game and instead focused on producing an engine that other game developers can employ to produce console/PC shooters with ease? If so I can't wait to sample the plethora of DX9 ports that will result from that. *sigh*

PS: Also hate the way muzzle flash takes up most of the screen. Makes it almost impossible to track your target. I don't think they can claim it's like that for "realism" reasons when you consider the games premise.

PPS: Not noticing as much muzzle flash, might have just been something down to the crossfire issue rather than the game itself.
 
Well according to Crytek it was developed for the PC first and not the other way around. Which from everything I've seen and experienced I just don't believe. It seems more like they decided to sacrifice a lot of what made Crysis in order to make it more console friendly for the big bucks. And at least early sale figures from the UK are supporting their decision with close to 60% of Crysis 2 retail going to the 360. I don't think it will be hard for them to break the 3 million mark that Crysis set with this multiplatform game considering Medal of Honor sold over 5 million copies. I just don't get why instead of delaying and fixing the PC issues, they decided to go ahead and release it knowing that their fanbase would be disappointed.

Ironically, now we have DICE who is focusing with the PC in mind first over consoles and even one of there developers was taking some jabs at them this weekend tweeting, "5 – 6 year old hardware “can’t handle” 64 players in Battlefield 3.".


Even the short single player of campaign of Medal Of Honor (another disappointing release) was better than this.

Really? I figured Crysis 2 story would at least be good with all the hype from Richard Morgan. While I got the point of what Medal of Honor was trying to convey, I feel they should have structured it differently and definitely taken longer to tell the story :) .
 
Really? I figured Crysis 2 story would at least be good with all the hype from Richard Morgan. While I got the point of what Medal of Honor was trying to convey, I feel they should have structured it differently and definitely taken longer to tell the story :) .

I guess the Crysis story is more novel than that of MoH, I did find the mini game type levels more fun in MoH, sniping, stealth missions, quad bikes, apache gunner etc. and when holding a position on a mountain side waiting for reinforcement or a chopper lift out of there to come not knowing if it would or not, made me feel a lot more in jeopardy than any situation in Crysis 2. I guess the suit can make you feel pretty invulnerable.
The loading screens were basically a map and a metal gear solid comms chat/vid delivering the instructions "get from A to B, and hurry" which don't make for really exciting mission objectives. Even the bigger enemies I've encountered (ED209's big brother or perhaps long lost cousin, not sure which. Haven't stopped firing rockets and grenades at him/her long enough to ask) further into the game have a "big boss guy" weak spot in their rear, which makes killing them sometimes tricky but it's the equivalent of "Don't stand in the fire" in MMORPG terms of challenge design ingenuity. Stealth round and get a shot at their rear, rinse and repeat. Still I may be proclaiming how bad it is but still found myself playing it at 2:30am this morning :D

Possible I'm overly harsh with my criticism, it's not quite as awful as I make it sound. Just that the gap between Crysis and Crysis 2 in terms of game open environment, graphical boundary pushing and story telling.... hell, pretty much in every department is huge(would struggle to make the leap between the two even with a nanosuit). They've simplified the powers system too, now you just choose between camo or armor. Normal sprinting uses suit power now since you don't have the speed setting for the suit but doesn't suck the juice from your suits battery quite the same, but you won't be setting any world records either as it's a bit less of a motion blurred vehicle like speed than it was in the first game. I guess it's a better system as you don't have to turn on the strength power to jump up every single just out of reach ledge, although you still can't help feeling like you've encountered Syler and had some of your abilities cut out of your head, which is strange since only the menu options and their toggle-ability have really been lost.
 
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