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10 Modern, Mainstream GPUs And Ryzen: Can They Play Crysis?

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CPU, RAM, And GDDR5 Utilization

CPU Utilization

So, it looks like Crysis may be CPU-bound at 1080p, as well as at 1440p without anti-aliasing. Let's take a more detailed look what is going on:

Our utilization numbers never rise above 20%, and most of the time they're under 15%. It looks like we'll have to backtrack a bit on our hypothesis: this isn't just a CPU bottleneck. What if it's simply the fault of Crytek's CryEngine 2, or more specifically its inability to make efficient use of our Ryzen processor's available cores? After all, this is a 2007-era game that came out right after the first quad-core CPUs were made available.

Only two of the CPU cores are used by Crysis. You could even call that one-and-a-half cores, since there's a single core regularly spiking above 80% utilization.

CryEngine 2 is not well-threaded, which explains why our Ryzen chip and its 12 logical cores tend to bottleneck performance, despite a 3.7 GHz clock rate.

System Memory Usage

There is not much to say about system memory usage, particularly since Crysis isn't all that RAM-hungry by today's standards. But keep in mind that Crytek recommended 2GB back in 2007, and that was quite a bit!

Video Memory Usage

The same applies to graphics memory. Crysis doesn't need much on-board memory when the highest-end cards in 2007 had 1GB maximum.

It's also worth noting that jumping from 1080p to 1440p with 8xAA requires twice as much graphics memory.

MORE: Best Graphics Cards

MORE: Desktop GPU Performance Hierarchy Table

MORE: All Graphics Content

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22 Comments Comment from the forums
  • redgarl 15 November 2017 14:36
    It proves that Ryzen is not a concern unless using an High End GPU at 1080p... and who in his right mind would do that especially when taking the cost factor.
    Reply
  • vinay2070 15 November 2017 15:12
    Wish you included an 8600K@5GHz or an 8700K@5GHz for comparison. Ryzen is not a CPU to be used when games cannot thread well. Especially old games.
    Reply
  • Brian_R170 15 November 2017 15:27
    Looking at the article from 2 days ago "But Can It Run Crysis? 10 Years Later" there is one graphics card that is the same (RX 580) between the test setups. The frame rates are 10-45% higher with the 7700K vs. the 1600X. Are the settings the same?
    Reply
  • Brian_R170 15 November 2017 15:45
    20381452 said:
    Looking at the article from 2 days ago "But Can It Run Crysis? 10 Years Later" there is one graphics card that is the same (RX 580) between the test setups. The frame rates are 10-45% higher with the 7700K vs. the 1600X. Are the settings the same?

    I actually did the math and it's 10-42% higher average frame rates and 35-56% higher minimum frame rates. Is this only due to the higher clock speed and IPC of the 7700K?
    Reply
  • killerchickens 15 November 2017 16:07
    20381318 said:
    It proves that Ryzen is not a concern unless using an High End GPU at 1080p... and who in his right mind would do that especially when taking the cost factor.
    Resolution is not every thing don't forget about refresh rate, not every one is happy with 60hz some one might want up to a 240hz 1080p monitor.
    Reply
  • csm101 15 November 2017 16:27
    really dont understand why crysis is still getting benchmarked. let me state what i have stated in the previous article. this is a game with un-optimized code everywhere. so the result was that it requires lot of h/w power to play the game smoothly. hence this is a game that should not be considered for benchmark. instead take Crysis 3 and we all know that Cryengine 3 is way more better and smoother than previous engines. so stop giving credit to a game that is running on stupid code.
    Reply
  • pegasusted2504 15 November 2017 16:27
    I always used to get decent framerates when I played Crysis AFTER I bought a 9800GX2 and then had to upgrade from and AMD cpu due to under-utilisation of the card so got a QX9650.... Great performance :)
    Reply
  • jessterman21 15 November 2017 16:32
    Just a correction: Crysis was one of the first games WITH Ambient Occlusion. There isn't an option to enable or disable it in the settings, but it is there on High and Very High. You can tweak its darkness and radius with cvars.
    Reply
  • ammaross 15 November 2017 16:47
    20381509 said:
    20381452 said:
    Looking at the article from 2 days ago "But Can It Run Crysis? 10 Years Later" there is one graphics card that is the same (RX 580) between the test setups. The frame rates are 10-45% higher with the 7700K vs. the 1600X. Are the settings the same?

    I actually did the math and it's 10-42% higher average frame rates and 35-56% higher minimum frame rates. Is this only due to the higher clock speed and IPC of the 7700K?

    "RX 580" does not necessarily mean stock. One could be a stock-settings card and the other could be an MSI Gaming X+ version. That alone could shift the FPS significantly.

    Reply
  • 10tacle 15 November 2017 19:50
    20381644 said:
    really dont understand why crysis is still getting benchmarked. let me state what i have stated in the previous article. this is a game with un-optimized code everywhere. so the result was that it requires lot of h/w power to play the game smoothly. hence this is a game that should not be considered for benchmark. instead take Crysis 3 and we all know that Cryengine 3 is way more better and smoother than previous engines. so stop giving credit to a game that is running on stupid code.

    Because the original Cryengine delved into completely new territory with light ray tracing and water and foliage texturing. On top of that, it was an open world shooter, not a sandbox player like previous AAA shooters that took place in corridors, metro cities, etc. Crysis 2 was not nearly as challenging on hardware as it was a closed city world where there wasn't much distance draw and just had simple building and street textures. On top of that it was dumbed down for consoles. Cryengine 3 was dumbed down for consoles as well.

    In any event, after two articles on this, I'm going to have to break out my original Crysis 1 DVD and install it and play it again on my 1440p rig and check out some graphics mods. Anyone remember when you could actually buy a physical copy of a PC game in a box in a store? I hadn't played it since 2010 or so.

    The main takeaway I got from this is how well the 8GB R9 390 scaled with an increase in AA use and higher resolution over Nvidia counterparts or even the 8GB RX 580. Case in point: at no AA at 2560x1440, the R9 390 and RX 580 are only apart by 1FPS average, yet with 8xFSAA dialed in, the R9 390 leaves the RX 580 behind by 7FPS. Very impressive and I have to only assume that is attributed to the 390's 512-bit memory bus to the 256 bit for the 580.

    You don't see this separation in an R9 390 review from two years ago regarding Crysis 3 when jumping up in resolution and AA like here (https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Sapphire/R9_390_Nitro/11.html). That's all you need to know about why the original Crytek 1 engine is still useful and why later versions of Crysis or other game engines dumbed down for consoles just aren't in the same resource demanding universe.
    Reply