i am able to run the demo on medium and a few options to high ....

but i just don't want to play it yet because it still looks worst than half-life 2

i'll buy the game in a year or so

Not bad.

Can I show you my machine pics?

My machine wasn't actually 900 bucks. it was 875, but shipping threw it way above 900.

there are aliens in Crysis??? zOMG SPOILERZ!
Also, is there a hi-res video?

LoL, Crysis can actually be PLAYED by a PC? :p

I'd be real curious to see the stats of this machine. I noticed some volumetric lighting in there so the graphics card can't be total ass. Other than the somewhat lackluster explosions near the end, I'd say this is totally playable.

@Waka in Japan: I'm guessing that's the highest resolution the $900 PC can handle.

Of course the funniest thing about this is that people are surprised.

IT'S NOT THAT HARD

@MeanMF: Wouldn't be a surprise; the game didn't run well enough for me on an 8800GTX.

[www.ibuypower.com]

LOLOLOLOL without the stupid gauges and floppy drive, oh and no 12 in 1 media reader.

Nzxt Alpha Gaming Tower
500 Watt -- NZXT PF-500 Power Supply
Intel Core 2 Duo Processor E6750 (2x 2.66GHz/4MB L2 Cache/1333FSB)
Extreme-Performance INTEL CPU Cooling Fan System Kit
MSI P35 Neo-F P35 Chipset w/7.1 Sound, Gb LAN, S-ATA, USB 2.0 PCI-E MB
Corsair 2048MB [1024MB X2] DDR2-800 PC6400
NVIDIA GeForce 8800GT 512MB w/DVI + TV

I threw in the cdrw/dvdrw drive from my old comp, and three hdds. Mygame storage is a 160 gb sata pos. my cpu is on a 160 gber and my storage itself is 500 gb.

Crysis $50.

PC to play it on $900.

Playing Crysis on a $900 PC. . . priceless. . . actually, it's $950.

@MeanMF:

Well, constant above 30 fps on High settings. Very High, I dont get above 15 fps at 1280x1028.

I haven't tried using my Tv as the main display yet though.

ack! Just saw the post a bit further down the page detailing the specs of the machine. 512mb 8800 GT, indeed. That's almost $300 of the $900 specified. And I love how they suggested XP sp2 instead of Vista :)

@Waka in Japan: There are links to the videos in the previous post, over at the Crysis forum. The game is played in 1280x720, apparently.

I downloaded one of the high-res videos, and while it's technically on "high," it's pretty clear that there were things disabled to improve performance at the expense of quality. For example, there was plenty of screen-tearing in the video I downloaded, and even then it still stuttered a bit; certainly wasn't a silky-smooth 60FPS or anything, but I think that's pretty unrealistic to expect out of a sub-$1000 machine.

@luisrm: Call of Duty 4 is superior on PC. Dunno about you but being able to lean is amazing.

That being said, im no pcfag.I LOVE cod4 on 360.

@Waka in Japan: Here's a high res .mov file. You can choose to download it or watch/download a .wmv version by clicking on the small video here.

@olion597: [www.gamevideos.com] Hmm, link didn't work last time...

@Pikadrew: yeah, the 8800gt 512 is best you can get on "mid range" cards atm.

I love how the benchmarks are amazing for the card.

Gotta admit though, After seeing the game in the frozen alien ship on Very High, I can understand the demand for high specs.

@manjikengo: What's a "pcfag"?

@okenny :):

>.>; been in /v/ too much sorry.

such a pretty game

Yet another reason to purchase a console. Spending upwards of $900 -- heck, spending upwards of $500 -- for ONE game is just insane.

What's worse is that Crysis 2 or whatever new game that comes out in another 8 to 12 months will require even more upgrades and even more money to invest.

I'll stick with paying a few hundred bucks now and being set for at least the next 5 to 6 years (or 4 if Microsoft repeats their Xbox timeline) knowing developers are pushing the box to its limits.

Meanwhile the graphics card people buy today for $400 bucks won't be worth a cup of piss in less than a year.

A "Pcfag" is what xbox users call PC owners because they are more often young, immature and annoying. Also stupid, why would you pay 500$ for a console when you can get a solid PC for a little bit more then that.

I took my old PC parts, and spent just over 800, and I can play Crysis on very high, 2x aa, 1280 x 1024.

@incredibilistic: i spent the 920 bucks on my new computer because I NEEDED one.

Dude, when you run games like WoW at low settings and only get 10 fps....you NEED to upgrade.

Also, my motherboard wasn't compatible for sata, ddr3 and f'in pci-e

@manjikengo:
Rules 1 & 2 please.

@Providence:

Only during raids.

Here is one under $700 I threw together that will overclock to 3.4 without any problems:
[secure.newegg.com]

Incredibilistic, you pay upwards of 900$ for many games, including a gigantic list of free games, and if your talking about unlegit, you could save thousands by downloading torrents and roms. Never mind, movies, music, and whatever else that you can't get over your silly consoles.

I upgrade mine every 4-5 years.

@Hatchetx:

But we ALL buy our games legally >.> so we really own the witcher, cod4, tf2, hlf2 and cs:source.

@Providence: plus, that's /b/

I love how people generalize PC gaming from Crysis. I'm pretty sure not every game requires that much horsepower and really the machine spec'd here is really good to play every other game as well. Think of games like Spore and Starcraft 2 and I just feel sorry for the console elitist s.

@slikz21:

Dude, I don't drop below 60 fps on WoW with about 120 mbs of addons enabled.

I haven't seen one little bit of framerate issue with Oblivion and the Open Cities mod.

@incredibilistic:

Don't you mean "Yet another reason to get a PC"? Afterall, you have to spend anywhere between $300-$600 for a console "just for one game". And then, if you're crazy enough to say that consoles have more than one game, what is to keep everyone else from pointing out that PC's also have more than one game? How about how PC's have free online services? PC's have a nearly limitless supply of Backwards compatible games? PC's are quite convenient for browsing the internet and watching movies? PC's are excellent for doing homework and typing essays? PC's grant access to copious amounts of free porn?

For only a few hundred extra for all of the extra features, I'd say it's a steal.

@IAMSPOO
NICE!... that is my board, best MB I have ever had

I built a computer similar to their "$900" computer for a mere $600, do I get a prize other than $200 in savings?

i'm thinking you could get crisis running for less than $900

It should be noted that on ZDNet, Adrian Kingsley-Hughes put forth a good guide to building a sub-$1000 gaming PC that can run Crysis pretty well: [blogs.zdnet.com]

Plus, anyone that's got a decent tower, or doesn't mind using some parts from an existing PC, can use some of the saved money to upgrade one of the only questionable parts of that guide (like the motherboard).

It's not as hard as most of the press make it out to be, really.

@incredibilistic: The PC with the graphics card you buy today for $400 that "won't be worth a cup of piss" in a year will beat the performance of the 360 on any game that's properly programmed for both systems, easily. See, as time goes on, the games coming out on 360 will be running at lower and lower settings and framerates. Sure, they'll squeeze more out of the system toward the end of its life, but it still will never stack up to the PC with the video card that was $400 three years before.

And what's this jazz about "ONE game"? Right now I have installed: Counter-Strike Source, Day of Defeat Source, Half-Life 2, HL2:Ep1, HL2:Ep2, HL:Source, Portal, Team Fortress 2, Oblivion, Darwinia, Gish, Call of Duty 4, Crysis, Quake 4, Unreal 3, Diablo II, Morrowind, Hitman Blood Money, Tomb Raider Anniversary, Bioshock, and Guild Wars.

My $800 machine plays all the above games at absolute maximum settings (except Crysis) flawlessly, and a HELL of a lot smoother than 360. For example: not only can I actually aim quickly in TF2, but I can play with 30 people instead of 10 or so, I can connect to servers to do so more easily, I can do it at 60+fps, rather than 30, and I can do it at a higher resolution and higher texture quality than 360 to boot!

Now, I understand the appeal of consoles and the reasons one would have one, but don't go bashing the $800-$900 PC (that can play pretty much all the latest games at max settings better than 360 can play them at medium settings) because it costs more. It's not just a game machine, you can also do all your reading, music and movie watching and storage, work, and communication on it.

If only they had added achievements.

Woo, my wishes were granted! Thank you Kotaku! :D

(Looks quite amazing too)

Wow. I had my doubts, but this looks so much better than I'd expect from a 900 dollar machine. Still... my 4000 dollar Alienware monster laptop can maybe hopefully do better.

But I don't like to brag.

@scorpi: For $4000, that thing better give you a backrub and serve you sundaes while you're playing Crysis.

looks pretty good I would like to see some specs.

I recently threw together a new box after my old one shit the bed. Ended up getting an Athlon X2 5600 (2.8ghz) ($130, $75 mobo), 2 gigs of ram ($40 on sale from $99), GeForce 8800GT ($220, though this usually goes for ~$260). Had to get a new PSU (500W, $50), and ended up grabbing a 500 gig SATA for $99.

Runs just as smooth in that video, with everything on 'high'. I never once had to think, "Hmm, I should really bump down the settings a notch, it's bringing things down."

I did not try the tweaks to get 'extra high' going under XP (yet), and enabling antialiasing dropped the framerate very quickly. Luckily, it looked fine without it.

I didn't check to see exactly how what my FPS rate was, but like I said, it's definitely as smooth as in the video.

About $500 over the course of a month, shopping at New Egg. (Not including OS and case, both of which I already had.)

Meant to add that it's running at 1440x900, if that matters.

@manjikengo: Not knocking PC gamin, I'm just saying, for someone who doesn't have a high-end computer (or $950), is it really worth it just to play Crysis? That's a lot of money any way you slice it.

@luisrm: Most people who buy PCs suitable for Crysis are probably not buying it ONLY to play Crysis. Believe it or not, there are other PC games out there worth playing and more to come in the future.

That's not Budget Machine for me, I would say a PC for 500USD is a Budget. For 900USD I would say that's a mid-high level PC...

Then again, I'm sodding cheap.

sad thing is, it doesn't run much better on my pc:

Windows Vista™ Home Basic 64 bit
Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.40GHz (4 CPUs), ~2.4GHz
Memory: 4094MB RAM
DirectX Version: DirectX 10
bfg 8800 gtx 768mb

which is the problem right?

Since I don't like spending money on PC parts, my Xbox 360 works just fine for me. I have a laptop that can handle lesser games like Civ 4 and WoW which suits me just fine.

I guess I don't care about frames per second or floating points or whatever the hell it is people like bragging about these days. I just enjoy gaming, and if I can get the most gaming out of a $300 console then that's what I'm going to stick with.

I feel bad for people who feel like they need to argue about inane topics on the Internet.

@Yuki:

Yep!

Not to mention just about every PC has more re-playability than your standard, buy it, play it, trade it in console game. Due to mods, and other cool features.

So a ton of older games that run bitchin' still are played like crazy cause of this.

Console gamers are finally getting a taste, with Oblivion, and now UT3 on the PS3!

Yeah, the video looks smooth and all, but here's the thing: I'm much more interested in the perfomance during the more graphically-taxing sections in the jungle, where most of the game takes place.

Dell has this system for about $936.
Core 2 Quad w/ GF 8800 GT and then some.
Check it out: [forums.slickdeals.net]

@scorpi:
I don't know if you are being serious but this machine would kill your laptop.
@TouchMyBox:
Ya you get a prize but we have to take it back cause you failed the skill testing question.(Ya skill testing question seems to be a Canadian thing but still!)

I know it has been mentioned already but the argument that its $900 for one game is so stupid. For that amount of money you are getting an amazing computer that can play pretty much any game at max settings and is infinitely better then any console.

OK, my $900 computer can run Crysis at stable 30fps at 1680x1050, Athlon 64 x2 5000+ and Raden HD 2900 Pro nothing too special. As long as you buy a decent graphics card that costs half as much as an "HD" gaming console (which doesn't actually do the graphics internally at an HD resolution for many games, yay for pixel counters with no lives) you can run Crysis at Medium, and High/Very high really doesn't make much difference in terms of performance, at least for me it goes down to 20-24fps which isn't too bad. Plus the 1.1 patch supposedly improved performance a lot, I only played the demo so I don't know.

According to Nzone's Can I run it, I would be peachy if I had some more ram. Currently, I'm at 1 gig, so maybe I'll bump up to two or three gigs. Everything else passed with flying colors: EVGA Geforce 8800GTX(768mb), Intel core duo 6600, evga nforce 680i mobo, and a sweet 24" dell widescreen monitor.

@TouchMyBox: Yes, you get an additional $100 in savings

So... this would make Crysis a $950 game? This is really bad marketing from Crytek's part. I run Crysis just fine well under $500. (not including 24'' widescreen monitor and the La-Z Boy)

...and when I mean La-Z Boy I mean a $5 wooden chair from Goodwill that's about to fall apart and permanently damage my lower back. I think it's time to upgrade by "sitting" hardware.

@phextin:
I don't think this is bad marketing. Since when is playing Crysis at the highest quality settings for the average gamer? Crysis is the state of the art when it comes to video games you gotta pay to play. I'm sure Crytek is just tired of seeing message boards full of people who have no clue about PC gaming going on and on about needing a $2000+ PC just to play Crysis.