While it was only 13 years ago, 2007 was a very different time. A decade of bad mortgages was catching up to us, the original iPhone had just launched, and every PC gamer wanted to play Crysis. However, many of them couldn’t because Crysis required the latest and greatest hardware. Even then, it didn’t run particularly well. The remastered version should run better in 2020 — Crytek has released recommended specs for the game, and they’re pretty reasonable.
In 2007, Crysis featured bleeding-edge graphical technologies like volumetric lighting, Direct3D 10, and motion blur. It had 1 gigabyte of texture data, which was unheard of at the time. As a result, the game ran terribly on the more modest computers of the day — even midrange systems struggled, which led to the “Can it run Crysis?” meme. The upcoming remastered game, which launches later this month, won’t require the most powerful hardware on the market to break 30fps.
Over on the Epic Store, you can see the full system requirements. At the low-end, Crysis Remastered will need a third-gen Core i5 or AMD Ryzen 3, 8GB of RAM, and an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 TI or AMD Radeon 470 with at least 4GB of graphics memory. Most gaming PCs from the last few years cross that threshold.
Crysis Remastered isn’t just the same game support for modern hardware. The developers implemented new features like ray tracing, improved lighting, realistic reflections, and 8K texture resolution. Crytek actually delayed the game by several months to improve the visuals after a mixed response to the first trailer. If you want all the new eye candy, you’ll have to look toward the recommended specifications. Crytek says you’ll want a 7th gen Core i5 or AMD Ryzen 5, 12GB of RAM, and an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 TI or AMD Radeon Vega 56 with at least 8GB of video memory. That’s not nothing, but it’s still well within reach for many PC gamers. The GTX 1660 TI costs less than $300 these days. If you have even better hardware, Crytek says there’s a “Can it Run Crysis?” mode that will push your system to the extreme.
2020 hasn’t given us a lot to be thankful for so far, but at least we’ll finally be able to experience Crysis properly without a $3,000 gaming rig. The game launches on September 18th on PC as well as on PS4 and Xbox One, if consoles are more your speed. Plus, a version of the game with scaled-back graphics already launched on Nintendo Switch in July. What a time to be alive.
It runs badly on Ryzen 2700X at 4.3GHz, 64GB RAM and an RX5700XT, AMD's "fastest" gaming GPU: I get about 15 FPS in "Can it run Crysis Mode" at 4K. They did not even bother to optimize the game fot DX12 or Vulkan. The game doesn't look that great either. It is not worth the asking price on Epic Games Store. You can however get a $10 discount by downloading and installing Rocket League, that gives you a free $10 voucher that you can use to buy Crysis Remastered.
Alternatively run ReShade_GI on standard Crysis ...
Here is a test video of Crysis Remastered. Recorded at 4K. "Can it Run Crysis". Adrenalin 20200 20.9.1 driver, RX5700XT, Ryzen 2700X @ 4.3GHz. Video Still processing but should be available in 4K soon: Can it run Crysis Remastered? No. - YouTube
Crysis Remastered runs better on an HBM2 overclocked RX Vega 64 Liquid with HBCC set to about 12GB at 4K "Can It Run Crysis" mode. The much higher compute performance of the RX Vega 64 Liquid probably helps as well. However the game is mostly CPU bound.
Tested Crysis Remastered (https://crysis.com) on RX Vega 64 & 56. Adrenalin 20.9.1 DX 11 Crossfire Default = off. Options AFR Friendly, Optimize 1x1, AFR Compatible do turn on (Crossfire Logo appears) but give no benefit or negative scaling.
