We got the official recommended specs for forthcoming DX10 shooter Crysis last week, now the Inquirer has some basic recommendations for two major forthcoming Unreal Engine 3-based games, from the graphics engine's head developer Tim Sweeney. You can always see for yourself via the downloadable Unreal Tournament beta demo that launched last week. If your rig chokes, here's a suggested upgrade path, straight from the source:
"In Unreal Tournament 3 and Gears of War for PC, there is a significant gain in having 512MB of video memory rather than 256MB. So, first and foremost, get at least a 512MB card if you can afford it. If you haven't maxed out your budget, then go for the maximum single-card performance that doesn't require extreme cooling, e.g. buy an entry-level GeForce 8800 over a GeForce 8600."
What kind of PC firepower will you need to play Unreal Tournament 3?
(Credit: CNET)Voodoo Extreme also links out from its post on this story to another recommendation from Mr. Sweeney on quad core vs. dual core CPUs for gaming:
"If you're buying a CPU primarily for gaming, the sweet spot of the market seems to be dual-core. There, you can get a higher clock rate than is available (at least economically) in quad-core. All UE3 games, for example, scale really well to two cores, and you get significantly more performance than single-core much of the time. Though UE3 and many other engines scale somewhat to four cores, the benefits aren't huge."
These suggestions more or less jibe with what we've heard about Crysis. Our only addendums are don't get swayed by those $100 or so budget graphics cards that sometimes come with 512MB of RAM crammed on. Figure to spend at least $250 or so for a 512MB card with an appropriately speedy 3D chip. And we'd also keep an open mind about quad core CPUs, as Intel and AMD both have a new round of quad core chips due out soon, and the clock speed vs. cores equation could very well change.
'Crysis' is set to launch November 16, raising the bar for PC gaming.
(Credit: Gamespot)Crytek CEO Cevat Yerli says the company's vision for Crysis has always been to create the most stunning, immersive first-person-shooter experience ever. And from our early looks at the game, it appears Crysis will be just that. However, we also assumed that to play the game in its full glory you'd need a super high-end PC. How high-end? Well, The Escapist is reporting that Crytek and Electronic Arts, the publisher of the game, have announced the minimum and recommend system requirements for the game, which hits stores November 16.
According to The Escapist, the minimum system requirements are:
- OS - Windows XP or Windows Vista
- Processor - 2.8 GHz or faster (XP) or 3.2 GHz or faster (Vista)
- Memory - 1.0 GB RAM (XP) or 1.5 GB RAM (Vista)
- Video Card -256 MB, Nvidia 6800 GT or higher, or ATI Radeon 9800 Pro (X800 Pro for Vista) or higher
- Hard Drive - 12 GB
- Sound Card - DirectX 9.0c compatible
However, the article goes on to note that "for optimum performance and visual quality, Crytek recommends an Intel Core 2 DUO @ 2.2 GHz or AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ processor, 2 gigabytes of RAM and an Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTS/640 'or similar.'"
Crytec's CEO is also quoting as saying, "We've been working hard not only to do that on the high end, but also in pushing current generation hardware so that everyone gets the maximum experience. And while these specs affect how Crysis will perform now, we have also optimized Crysis so that the game scales forward one to two years--we want to make sure that Crysis' gameplay, visuals, and performance improves as technology does."
Crysis is the successor to Far Cry and uses the new CryENGINE2, "one of the first to make us of DirectX10." Check out the screenshots.
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