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sigh... crysis...

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  • Peris
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    Peris polycounter lvl 17
    The realtime ambient occlusion is incredible in this game. Turn it off and the graphics all of a sudden turn into shit smile.gif. Making it work as a screenspace crease detection post processing thing is one of the most clever things i've seen in graphics. I also love how all of their refraction effects offset the colors aswel, making stuff like water reflections look soo much more realistic. Really innovative stuff we'll probably be seeing all the time now in future games!
  • eld
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    eld polycounter lvl 18
    The most brutal features seems to be in the shader quality settings, it seems to do something with every surface, and make the jungle colors look incredible.

    and then there's the water settings, splitting up the lights in different colours!

    and the characters simply look amazing, the cutscenes where there's characters on the scene look nearly like prerendered quality.

    I could go on forever.
  • dejawolf
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    dejawolf polycounter lvl 18
    runs like dogjizz on my 7900 as well with everything at low... and i can run F.E.A.R just fine on high, along with medieval2: total war.
  • kolbyjukes
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    kolbyjukes polycounter lvl 18
    Runs like butter on very high settings (using the cvars hack) on my 8800GTX, only thing that really seems to cause a hit in fps is the motion blur (which is a little much anyway).
  • kendo
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    kendo polycounter lvl 18
    just got through finishing the single player a few days ago i have to say i was thoroughly impressed all round. I liked the open ended approach taken in the single player and can see many of the techniques used being seen more frequently in future. I also liked the fact that although the main character had little to say he wasnt entirely a silent protagonist like gordan freeman, oh and also being able to see your legs was something i dont think i have seen since goldeneye and it makes perfect sense to be able to in first person.

    for anyone wondering there is a larger indoor section at the end of the game and it looks just as phenomenal as the outdoor area's.
  • Motz
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    Motz polycounter lvl 12
    [ QUOTE ]
    [ QUOTE ]
    Ged, People can play this on dx9 with decent speed on 7900's and up.

    [/ QUOTE ]

    Personally I think that statement is a load of old bollocks.

    I highly doubt many people are getting good performance out of a 7900, and if you are its a fluke. PC's are finicky machines.

    All Ged is really saying here is as far as I can tell, is that Crytek and EA made a little too big a leap in terms of the hardware demand on the consumer for an experience with acceptable performance, and I'm definitely inclined to agree. Far Cry looked amazing in its day, BUT also was a highly optimized engine that most people could run just fine. That simply is not the case this time around, and any suggestion that it is is just fucking nonsense.

    [/ QUOTE ]

    Daz every post you make in response to me is filled with cussing. I'm a systems engineer, I know PC's better than you'll ever wish to. The art director was quoted: "A single 7800GTX will run the game quite well on fairly high settings according to Crysis Art Director, Michael Khaimzon"

    My workmate is running medium settings on a 7600 just fine, on a single core machine. 18 fps is 6fps lower than NTSC film. I would say that 24 is normal, 18 is acceptable to put up with minor issues. As an artist you have a visual bias about running the game to your liking. I already agree slightly that its targeted for higher end machines now, but not phenominally high end machines. A dual core machine with a single 8800gts, to play on cvar hack very high settings, is'nt really super high end. That was my point, people are over reacting about 6800's and the likes. You dont need to get fired up about it.

    They deserve respect for moving forward, and that means hardware upgrade 85% of the time. Doom 3 had the same hubub surrounding the release, people had ot turn off lighting or normals and it looked like piss. Same story here. You can run it, just not to your visual likes. I was'nt picking a fight, it's a board where people share opinions, and the majority on other forums tend to agree with me. Considering how much more is going on in Crysis than UT3, and the performance level is par for me i'm impressed.

    PC gaming is a forward moving upgrade centered hobby, buy a console if you feel like complaining that your 2gen old, 2-3 year old card wont run a current gen game.

    And on a side note if anyone cares, there is a tweak guide out for it on tweakguides.com, maybe you can squeeze out more frames. I cleaned up resident processes and pulled about 7-12 more fps on average. There is a general system guide you should take a look at.
  • Daz
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    Daz polycounter lvl 18


    [/ QUOTE ]

    Daz every post you make in response to me is filled with cussing. I'm a systems engineer, I know PC's better than you'll ever wish to.

    [/ QUOTE ]

    I wouldn't take it too personally, I actually don't remember replying to you before, but having a quick look at your 'show all users posts' button shows that you're fairly obnoxious with how you interact with people for the most part (how you reacted to Ged being a good example), so perhaps there's just something about you that rubs me the wrong way? Either that or I'm just prone to cussing?

    I'm making observations on performance based on what I've seen with my own eyes, so I don't care what the AD says. You think he'd admit performance issues? All I'm saying is that it's an incredible stretch to label Crysis as a phenomenally performing engine. You can argue that and throw your personal credentials out there 'til you're blue in the face, but I still think you're wrong smile.gif
  • rawkstar
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    rawkstar polycounter lvl 18
    runs just fine on both my home and work machines... which i must admit are both pretty beefy. what i'm mostly impressed with though is not the game itself and how well or how poorly it runs on a variety machines, i honestly couldn't care less about any of that. I'm mostly impressed with their tech, the editor looks amazing, and they have alot of completely amazing stuff going on... like ... that procedural snow effect? omg so cool, real time AO, the froth around an object if you place it in water... and its all happening real time right in the editor with acceptable framerate. and its also interesting the way they created alot of their models. thats mostly what i'm all excited about. I haven't really played around with it too much, but its pretty mind blowing at first glance.
  • MoP
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    MoP polycounter lvl 18
    [ QUOTE ]
    its also interesting the way they created alot of their models.

    [/ QUOTE ]

    what, throw polys at it and hope it goes away? laugh.gif

    the editor is bloody cool though. loads of stuff i want to steal and get our programmers to put into our engine smile.gif
  • Keg
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    Keg polycounter lvl 18
    [ QUOTE ]
    the editor is bloody cool though. loads of stuff i want to steal and get our programmers to put into our engine smile.gif

    [/ QUOTE ]

    MoP: if things go well I might just be helping out with that. At least on the tools side of things.
  • rawkstar
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    rawkstar polycounter lvl 18
    lol... well i wouldn't say its good or bad, it certainly works well for them. but it just goes to show that there are many different ways of doing things and its not all about normal maps.
  • wizo
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    wizo polycounter lvl 17
    [ QUOTE ]
    lol... well i wouldn't say its good or bad, it certainly works well for them. but it just goes to show that there are many different ways of doing things and its not all about normal maps.

    [/ QUOTE ]

    To elaborate on what you said, I ve seen a convention on next gen shader techniques (Farcry 2)and there are two major advantages using this technology

    1- less memory usage
    2- crisper textures upclose.


    The main line of thinking is that you can break 'reality' into global, macro and micro details.



    Diffuse maps is responsible for global detail: e.g Help differentiate skin from shirt,and some color variation like dirt

    Normals are responsible for Macro details: e.g, Form definition, muscles, veins, folds, pockets, zippers...etc.

    Spec is used for micro details: Fabric details (leather patern), skin patern (similar to leather), micro bumps on some types of concret etc...the kind of detail you see when you are very close to an object.



    The problems with big maps is that you would make a 2048 to catch the small detail ( skin leather pattern, metal scratches etc.. ) when that smaller detail could be put into an additionnal smaller tiled 256 or 128 spec texture. To recap, they have 1 big texture for the bigger forms combined with a very small tilled map. ( can use this for normal or specs)

    This way, when you stick your face objects in a game, DONT see the pixelisation, OMG smile.gif. Now thats certainly a step forward into realistic graphics.

    Now you might not want that tile detail texture (spec) to be applied everywhere on the surface and thats where the vertex color or color mask comes in.

    They use one mask R, G, B, that can act as 3 b/w masks. This way, it gives control on the amount of diffuse, normals and spec you want so you can add 'rythm' to the texture.

    They built their own shader tool to combine multiple diffuses, spec 1 spec 2 and normal 1, normal 2 and mask togheter.

    Its really hard to explain without visual support, but when this technology will spread to game devs and you get to see the results, you wont wanna go back to making 2048 or 4096 maps. Specially when you can achieve better results with smaller maps.

    just a quick numeric example: for a character. (head, body, boots)



    most common way : (supposing the character can fit on 2 2048 sheets)

    2 x 2048 diffuse + 2 x 2048 normals + 2 x 2048 specs = 6*2048 maps



    different technique: ( not sure thats those numbers are exact but you get the idea)

    Diffuse 256 (head) + 512 (armor) + 256 (boots) 512 sheet = 512 + 2*256 sheet

    Normal 512 (head) + 1024 (armor) + 512 (boots) = 1024 sheet + 2* 512 sheet

    spec: 256 (head) + 512 (armor) + 256 (boots) = 512 sheet + 2 * 256 sheet

    spec detail : 256 * number of materials (lets say a character has 8 type of materials) = 2*512 sheets

    Masks: 2* 512 sheets

    for a grand total of : 512 + 3*1024 sheets



    No need to be a great mathematician to see that
    6*2048 >>>>>> 3*1024+512

    I hope my writing wasn't too confusing (im francophone), someone will probably explain this way better than me with visuals but I thought it might be interesting info to bring up.

    Cheers.
  • nacire
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    nacire polycounter lvl 17
    Pretty interesting Wizo. I haven't played Crysis yet, but I'm curious if that is how they are handling their character assets?
  • SouL
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    SouL polycounter lvl 18
    The disadvantage of having multiple smaller textures is that it eats up drawcalls on PC games. But I don't think that's really much of an issue for more up-to-date graphics cards.
  • CrazyButcher
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    CrazyButcher polycounter lvl 18
    actually it remains a major limit (batch count). as batchcount is mostly dependent on CPU/api. However small textures (especially unique ones) might be thrown in atlas textures at runtime, to maximize batchsizes.
  • kendo
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    kendo polycounter lvl 18
    Thought some of you might be interested in this

    pyshics video

    sadly not in realtime but really nicely done all the same.
  • moose
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    moose polycount sponsor
    finally got around to playing this tonight. it looks ace, some really pretty areas. my comments:

    the night/dawn/morning cycle is very abrupt, its there and its cool, but i wish there was more ease in it.

    I really don't enjoy the guns and combat. FFS, i aim at someone's face at point blank and they dont die. i fire from the hip and spray, and they fall down. I guess i got too used to COD4, with being able to shoot through thin materials... i wasted soo many bullets that way frown.gif Im in a super suit, and they're wearing BDU's, yet 3 bullets from them sends my armor to 0 and my health down; yet they can take nearly an entire down-the-sights aimed clip to the chest. I turned the difficulty down to easy (im not ashamed), and doesnt change much, other than its harder for me to die. Frustrating. I played for a few hours, and unlike Call of Duty, where after a while i feel like a badass because ive mastered how to shoot the skull, its highly unpredictable in Crisis to get those sweet "im a marksman" fights.

    I dont understand why they give you a SCAR, when no one you fight has SCAR rifles. Just let me pick up bullets and use em in my scar frown.gif

    I enjoy being stealthy, and love that you *can* be stealthy... but i loathe the fact that you cannot correct being seen - and that alerting one random douchebag in the jungle alerts the entire camp next to it, helicopters, and every patrol out in the jungle. I guess it may have been too easy otherwise :P I kept expecting the MGS-like "warning" bar in the lower left to reset the enemy hate towards me when it emptied... but it never seemed to function like that.

    Its been running like butter at 1920x1200 (no 2560 support?!?! weeeak), with the exception of some post-saving areas of dropping frames. Don't have AA on.

    its pretty entertaining, some really rad bits in it. All the post processing really sells and adds to the immersion. The DoF is well done, only got overly blurry in a few spots.

    punching walls has never been so much fun.
  • pliang
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    pliang polycounter lvl 17
    Delta was actually easier for some reason...I had less problems shooting at them since in easier difficulty they tend to move a lot more.
  • Motz
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    Motz polycounter lvl 12
    Hmm I hear a lot of people talking about the head shot issues. I've never run across it. I stealth, aim for the head, and one shot kills. If they have a helmet, it pops the helmet off, but requires another shot to kill.

    The SCAR is slighty more stable when zoomed, so it can be usefull as your stealth wep where you have single shot selected, then switch to the others for autofire etc. You get SCAR ammo throughout the game but not often.

    The alerting is realistic. If I saw a guy in a super suit shooting at my mates, I would'nt forget about it in 15 seconds. I'd go tell someone or shoot up a flare.
  • pliang
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    pliang polycounter lvl 17
    Its odd that even when they just shot a flare...if the guard is taken out a second or so afterwards the sequence is void and no additional guards come along...
  • dfacto
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    dfacto polycounter lvl 18
    The biggest problem with the stealth system isn't that they don't forget about you, it's that you can't stealth-kill enemies. Even if you stealth up to someone and kill them with a silenced pistol shot to the face, EVERYONE knows.

    Additionally, the hitboxes are generally alright, it's just the damage model which is piss poor. Some random Korean should not be able to take more hits to the chest than me, but for some reason all of them can, and the Korean nanosuit guys can take a few clips worth of bullets to the head. The game sets you up to feel like a superman, but then it pulls stuff like that which deflates the whole illusion. :/
  • TheWinterLord
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    TheWinterLord polycounter lvl 17
    dfacto stop using the silencer and they will not take that many hits anymore. Doesnt make sense? I know, but trust me...
  • dfacto
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    dfacto polycounter lvl 18
    Yeah... I figured that out some way in after figuring out that the silencer didn't actually have any stealth benefits. But they still didn't die nearly fast enough. I mean, especially the boss battle with the Korean general, DAMN! That guy took three clips to the back of the head to kill. Fine, maybe I missed 1/4 of the time or something, but that's still absurdly resilient considering I take 3 and drop.

    American design just isn't worth much in 2020 I guess.

    Additionally, am I the only one who thought it was laughably stupid that the AA batteries were taking out the F-22/JSF (?) fighters? I mean, what fighter flies that stupidly low anyways when they can just tag everything on the ground with missiles from a few miles away?
  • Motz
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    Motz polycounter lvl 12
    I just went stealth, and shot someone in a face with a silenced wep. No one noticed. Then again, no one had a visual. You really have to take in account visual cues. You can't just drop a guy and have his buddy walk next to him and not notice. Throw object or tap structures to get their attention, when they are away from whatever visual box the others have you can do whatever you want. Most people regardless where you shoot them, make a noise when they die. Make sure you are out of audio range etc.

    You cant seriously think to stealth in the middle of 5 guys and kill one, then re-stealth, repeat and expect it to be un-noticed. It's very realistic, the AI continuously knows he is in danger until the threat is gone, closer to what would actually happen, then vs a metal gear type system.

    Also a silencer slows a bullets speed and spin, how does it not make sense that it would also lessen the damage? The suit is also rubber thin, and if you watch the video simply hardens so there is no penetration. Take 4 shots to the chest in a lead vest and tell me you aren't on the ground in pain. In this case your organs would be bruised and bones would be broken. You aren't supposed to be invincible in this, it's just helpful.

    Maybe in 2020 AA batteries can reach high altitudes? The korean general had a suit as well. But I don't remember a head mask like your character does.
  • dfacto
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    dfacto polycounter lvl 18
    [ QUOTE ]
    You really have to take in account visual cues. You can't just drop a guy and have his buddy walk next to him and not notice.

    [/ QUOTE ]

    Ok, I shoot a guy in the face, and his buddies 100 yards away notice, nevermind the forest cover. Speaking of which, those koreans are awfully good at spotting you through dense cover. Funky? The game AI has quirks, and they're not particularly consistent either.

    [ QUOTE ]
    Also a silencer slows a bullets speed and spin, how does it not make sense that it would also lessen the damage?

    [/ QUOTE ]

    Makes perfect sense. Just that I don't think a silencer suddenly means you need to empty 15 rounds into a normal dude's chest to kill him.

    [ QUOTE ]
    The suit is also rubber thin, and if you watch the video simply hardens so there is no penetration. Take 4 shots to the chest in a lead vest and tell me you aren't on the ground in pain. In this case your organs would be bruised and bones would be broken. You aren't supposed to be invincible in this, it's just helpful.

    [/ QUOTE ]

    I agree, and the damage model for the player is fine. But why are all the enemies without the suits as tough as I am, and the nanosuit enemies about 12 times as tough? Seriously, what the crap?

    [ QUOTE ]
    Maybe in 2020 AA batteries can reach high altitudes?

    [/ QUOTE ]
    No, they just showed the jets flying in 100 meters above ground as if they were WWII prop planes strafing a convoy.

    [ QUOTE ]
    The korean general had a suit as well. But I don't remember a head mask like your character does.

    [/ QUOTE ]

    So he just has a titanium skull? I'm not the only one who's run into seriously messed up problems with the damage and aim, so stop trying to rationalize your way around it. It's broken, and the game needs a balance patch to fix the sluggish combat and inconsistent AI. Especially the eagle eye pontoon boat phenomenon where they spot you on a hill 400 yards out and nail you with pinpoint accuracy.
  • MoP
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    MoP polycounter lvl 18
    The AI and damage model / damage feedback are fairly poor IMHO. Completely agree with dfacto about all of the points about the enemies taking tons of hits to go down, even less than yourself when they're not even armoured.

    The AI problems are pretty much the same issues I had with them in Far Cry, you can be moving as quietly as you like and out of all line of sight in the middle of dense foliage then all of a sudden something happens and all the guys within 200 metres know exactly where you are and can magically shoot you with great accuracy, while you can barely see them to shoot back due to the dense foliage.
  • rooster
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    rooster mod
    ive actually just been having a lot of fun stealth killing guys, and even when there are 3 of them about. Its pretty easy to switch to armour, nail one and camoflage again, rinse and repeat. feels like I'm predator muahaha..

    I also had NOT a lot of fun being prison-sexed by a helicopter that followed me for about 20 mins, who could shoot me with precision through the forest canopy the instant I poked my nose from behind a rock.

    The sniper-like boat dudes are a goddamn pain, and I had one spawn right next to me at one point. whoops.

    I'm getting bad slowdown in some areas and when I look at whats on the screen I don't see what the hell is taxing my quad core so hard

    if you get caught in the open in a firefight its pretty much game over for sure.. the bullets sap your energy and if you try to camoflage itll last a second. can't run, cant do anything except lie down and die

    wish I'd put it on easy so I could dick about more

    EDIT: oh yeah, the only reason I escaped that helicopter was at one point I just heard a great big BOOM behind me and the thing had exploded.. dunno if it shot a missile at a tree top it was next to or what
  • dfacto
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    dfacto polycounter lvl 18
    You can change the difficulty level on the fly rooster. And really, you should unless you're a masochist. :P
  • moose
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    moose polycount sponsor
    Stealth killing is fun, i don't want it to seem like my comments make it impossible :P I had one sweet silent choke assassinations of some dudes in the dark that had me giddy smile.gif choke, drag under water, punch die! arrrrrrrr!

    I did the same kind of stuff in MGS3... i'd wait for 5 minutes for the perfect time, grab a dude, slit his throat, and pull him in the bushes.

    It is possible and fun to do in crisis, just feels clunky.
  • pliang
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    pliang polycounter lvl 17
    Turn firing mode to single shot = Problem solved.
  • Slipstream
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    Slipstream polycounter lvl 19
    Second time playing through I upped the difficulty to Delta and adjusted the diff_bauer config file to equalize the damage I can take vs the computer. By no means invincible, but at least I wont die while pumping 6 shotgun rounds to into a guys chest and having him NOT die.
  • rooster
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    rooster mod
    you dont get much more ACTION!!! than an upside down helicopter shooting the fuck out of a tank! no siree!!
    action.jpg
  • Pedro Amorim
  • rooster
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    rooster mod
    happy birthday bitmap!
    btw, it states in the video that it was rendered at 8 seconds per frame smile.gif
  • Motz
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    Motz polycounter lvl 12
    Dfacto: Did you try the single shot fire rate? I'm just trying to tell you that the glitches you have are not experienced by everyone. The AA thing is odd, but believing that makes it a tad more enjoyable. God forbid you try to find a way to enjoy the 50 bucks you spent?
  • rooster
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    rooster mod
    (spoiler)



    well hot damn that was SHIT just there. I'm fighting the alien ship on the ship deck, ive blown off the hatch and theyre all 'now nuke the bastard!!'

    and I'm all like 'hell yeah!!'

    GO NUKE!
    NUKE..FIRE!
    SHOOTNUKE!
    ..emm, please fucking find something to lock onto so I can fire and finish the Goddamn boss fight?

    and that's how crysis ends, with nomad standing alone on the carrier deck soaking wet, with a bloody great indestructable alien ship sitting over it, forever. roll credits.
  • dfacto
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    dfacto polycounter lvl 18
    Dude, they tell you exactly where to fire the nuke. :P

    Or are you talking about some bug?

    Motz: Yeah, of course I did, I played most of the game with single shot on, didn't mean it wasn't messed up anyways.
  • rooster
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    rooster mod
    I do know where the nuke is supposed to go, but apparently the tac gun doesnt
  • dfacto
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    dfacto polycounter lvl 18
    Reminds me of the Red Faction bug where an elevator door refused to open and let me progress in the game, even if I went through save games. :P Fun times.
  • Ged
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    Ged interpolator
    It seems I am not the only person experiencing dissatisfaction with crysis and its graphics technology. I bumped into this article today while doing research for my dissertation. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20071130.wgtcrysis/BNStory/International/
  • rooster
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    rooster mod
    I replayed the level again, same bug. its a game breaker. Can't complete crysis.
    edit: ok managed to get past it if I didnt save and just used the checkpoints.. on a side note: that was the last level?? feels like I've only played 3/4 of the story :/
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