Crysis 2 system requirements released

By Fred Dutton Published 2 February, 2011

Does it top notoriously greedy original?

The minimum PC system requirements for Crysis 2 are in the wild, and they're down slightly on the notoriously demanding specs its predecessor asked for.

According to the game's German Facebook page, as translated by Big Download, your PC will need to pack the following:

  • Internet connection required for activation
  • OS: XP/Vista/Windows 7
  • CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo 2 Ghz, AMD Athlon 64 x2 2 Ghz or better
  • GPU Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT 512 MB of memory or higher; ATI/AMD Radeon 3850HD 512Mb RAM or higher
  • Memory: 2 GB of RAM
  • Hard Drive Space: 9 GB
  • DVD-ROM with 8x speed
  • Audio: DirectX9c compatible
  • Keyboard, mouse or Xbox 360 controller for Windows

Perhaps due to the fact the franchise has gone multi-platform, that's a slightly more manageable list - in some regards, at least - compared to what the first game demanded back in 2007:

  • CPU: Intel Pentium 4 (2.8GHZ for XP; 3.0GHZ for Vista)
  • Memory: 1 GB RAM for XP; 2 GB RAM for Vista
  • Hard drive space: 12GB of free space
  • Graphics: DirectX 9.0c compatible graphics card with 256 MB VRAM
  • Audio: DirectX 9.0c compliant sound card
  • 1 Mbit/s internet connection for online play
Picture of Fred.

About Fred Dutton

Fred Dutton is Eurogamer's US news editor, based in Washington DC.

Read more articles from Fred by visiting the Fred Dutton archive page.

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Comments (26) Latest comment 1 year ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Hunam #1 1 year ago

    The thing is with Crysis, once you broke the main barrier of the recommended specs, the game ran well enough and looked insane. Still does even if some of the effects are a bit dated, the actual levels and characters still look benchmark.

  • chaywa #2 1 year ago

    The word 'Crysis' is now synonymous with benchmarking results.

    Minimum specs on low settings are largely pointless for Crysis 2, as 98% of all players will have specs that way surpass that.

  • NimbusTLD #3 1 year ago

    Why do they still list DVD drive speed requirements? Surely all it'd do is affect installation time.

  • azic #4 1 year ago

    Hope this does not suffer due to it's console siblings.

  • mrblonde #5 1 year ago

    Hope the pc versions visuals are far, far better than the consoles (going off 360 demo). no doubt they will be , but cryengine 3 looks to be a huge disappointment graphically unless the 360 demo was a very old build , when i eventually got in a game i was dumbfounded how poor they actually were. It looks like crytec have problems with optimisation for lower powered hardware(i.e. consoles/older pc's) , what with crysis2 imo looking worse than many recent 3rd party unreal engine3 games.The metro2033 engine on pc/360 would be a far better alternative for 3rd partys to use instead of U3 .

  • SHPanda #6 1 year ago

    Good, I'm glad to see it. Lower minimum specs are much appreciated and mean more PC owners can buy it and play it, while those with beefed up monsters of PCs can still set all settings to high and make it look like a beast.
    Edited by SHPanda at 02/02/11 @ 19:08

  • mumblyjoe #7 1 year ago

    That is only the minimum spec dont forget, good luck trying to get it to look anything like crysis with those specs

  • mrblonde #8 1 year ago

    @pspplayer if SP and MP were dev by different teams like you said, surely crytec will want the visuals to be up to the exact same standard as the campaign as MP is probably its biggest selling point.
    I also think CRYTEC are an overhyped developer, i think devs like naughty dog who get amazing visuals out of lower powered consoles have far more tech talent. I bet over 50% of devs in the industry given the budget and aiming at ultra powerful pcs could have produced crysis 1's visuals

  • TitusCrow #9 1 year ago

    I'm rather surprised at that Mr Blond. I am mostly a PC man myself having a rig that can max crysis at about 60-90fps when I heard the exclusive was coming to the xb260 live I had to go through about 5 updates i haven't had it on for so long.

    When I did DL and play it I thought I would be underwhelmed but It felt really good and I thought it looked pretty decent as well on my 32" HDtv. Of course the city will not compare to the jungle terrain but I thought it was pretty good and looked better than anything I had seen on the system to date.
    I also assume it runs at 30fps and I usually hate this. If anything gets to me about consoles its the 30fps. This time however if felt really smooth; they must have put a damn clever blur effect in there for it to feel like it does.

    Of course if you have the PC for it there is no contest which platform to get it on, but I think those with consoles will be in for a great game as well.

  • infernox1 #10 1 year ago

    well the minimum specs to play crysis 2 would have played crysis on high settings. i know because i have a slightly better pc than the minimum specs. i thought it would be better optimized since so far it doesnt look much better than crysis did.

  • mrblonde #11 1 year ago

    @titus I honestly thought the visuals in the MP demo on 360 were worse than the unreal3 powered bulletstorm demo released and i D/L on the same day. It might have been a bad map or an older build BUT the draw distance was poor and buildings horribly low in detail, plus the much hyped destruction (shattering windows!) was embarrassing.
    If this demo was anywhere near final quality , i dont know how crytec have kept a straight face saying their at the "cutting edge" and are maxing out both consoles with Cry3.
    The pc will be better ,but how much?, i cant see crytec having pushed the boat out like they did with the first, as most of crysis sales will be from consoles this time

  • uknortherner2000 #12 1 year ago

    "Internet connection required for activation"

    Oh fuck off already. Really. Just fuck off.

  • Bleemo #13 1 year ago

    Maybe I'm just getting too old for generic shooters but nothing about this interests me despite being a PC gamer who could get Crysis to run well enough. I quit the original part way into the alien levels through boredom.

  • Rack #14 1 year ago

    Lower minimum specs are much appreciated, but these being 4x as high as the original, less so. You need a rig capable of practically maxing Crysis 1 out just to crawl along at 15fps on minimum here.

  • bad09 #15 1 year ago

    Come on people I despise the anti-consumer DRM scumbag publishers infect games these days with but in a world where we are being forced to game with constant phoning to servers or phoning to servers every few days surely a one time online authentication is hardly a bad thing.

  • Kaminari #16 1 year ago

    @Bleemo

    No, you're not getting too old. Beyond its technical achievements, FarCry was already boring -- and that was 7 years ago.

  • ThePissartist #17 1 year ago

    "Minimum specs on low settings are largely pointless for Crysis 2, as 98% of all players will have specs that way surpass that"

    98%? I don't know what planet you come from. My (newish) laptop is essentially these exact specs (Radeon 5650 instead of 8800GT). Additionally, I have zero interest in playing this on a crusty old tower (we're not in 1999 anymore), not do I want to shell out a massive amount of money on a Media Center (sic) PC that'll be considered old in six months.

    Fuck that. Nvidia/ATI need to sort out their new hardware release schedules, as new hardware every six-months-to-one year puts off most consumers. MS, Sony, and Nintendo have got it right - five years per new hardware makes perfect sense. I've long since had enough of upgrading for marginal FPS upgrades.

    If I choose to buy it, it'll be on my 360 where I know the performance will be solid.

    No more fucking around with settings.

    /rant over

  • estarriol #18 1 year ago

    @Bleemo - funny, I was just watching the trailer before I came here and thought "OK, so it's pretty, but looks utterly derivative and I can't see a single novel feature". So that's three of us so far.

  • IneptPercy #19 1 year ago

    I do always wonder what resolution they base minimum specs on as I am sure its easier to run at 1028x768 than 1920x1080 etc

    Having a decent PC makes this a no brainer for me.

  • Sharzam #20 1 year ago

    Funnily enourgh just got a new graphic card for my PC so naturally the first thing i do is play Crysis Warhead at max settings , and i have to say compared to the Crysis 2 demo on the 360 the orginal game really trounce it.

    So even after 3 years the orginal still beats the new 360 game atleast looks that way, i am so looking forward to crysis 2 on the PC it should really blow away.

  • MattyD #21 1 year ago

    Anyone hoping to get decent performance out of a machine with minimum specs will be disappointed I reckon. Will still look better than the console versions though or at least play in a higher resolution!

  • ThePissartist #22 1 year ago

    @MattyD

    I doubt min spec will look as good as 360/PS3. Maybe it's a challenge for digitalfoundry.

  • MENTAL1ST Verified Senior Software Engineer, Picsel UK Ltd. #23 1 year ago

    512 meg of video ram is a bit steep, especially since they're getting it to run on a PS3 with half that.

  • Mnia786 #24 1 year ago

    @mentalist - If they get the spus to work like how naughty dog did in uncharted, they should have no problems. Uncharted is the best console game out there, no denying it so they should be able to match or out-perform if they are seriosu IMO. Obvs naughty dog are sony devs so get more support but all the devs get 1st party support these days to make sure the game is better (e.g. sony snet guys to r* for the ps3 version of gta iv).

  • hiddenranbir #25 1 year ago

    Console versions will clearly give it a ceiling...but original Crysis had a 64-bit exe...hopefully Crysis 2 has that as well.

  • flaming.carrot #26 1 year ago

    Hoping for a Mac version at some point.