Crysis demo released

By Tom Bramwell Published 29 October, 2007

Crisis: not enough disk space!

EA and Crytek have released the long-awaited Crysis single-player demo for PC gamers ahead of the game's release on 16th November.

The 1.7GB demo consists of one level and a level editor, and works with DirectX 9 and DirectX 10 graphics card, which is good news if you - like me - bought a new PC a while ago and still struggle to find new and screen-shattering things to make it cry.

Anyway, you can find a list of download mirrors on Voodoo Extreme, and users of NVIDIA's funky brand of graphicsability should be aware that they will need a new beta driver in order to make it go.

Interestingly, it looks like Crytek ended up in a bit of a rush to get things out the door, too, since Rock, Paper, Shotgun reports that they left some fairly spoilerific material (and some new screenshots) in one of the bundled files. Worth looking into if you don't expect to play the full game but do want to pretend you did, or something.

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About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000. Follow him on Twitter.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (26) Latest comment 5 years ago

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

  • mkreku #1 5 years ago

    I downloaded this demo over the weekend, but my computer cried and begged me not to install it. So I didn't.

  • Xerx3s #2 5 years ago

    "bought a new PC a while ago and still struggle to find new and screen-shattering things to make it cry."

    Don't worry, give it 6 months. ¬_¬

  • Talha #3 5 years ago

    By the time the demo will finish downloading on my PC, actual game launch will arrive!

    As for making PC's cry - well, any piece of software can make any PC cry, given the right broken drivers by NVidia.

  • Killerbee #4 5 years ago

    Just out of interest, what are the minimum specs for this?

    Will my 128MB Geforce 6600GT run it or am I wasting my time?

  • Talha #5 5 years ago

    The latter, I am afraid ;-)

  • Grump #6 5 years ago

    I don't understand minimum specs anymore. Is a 1.8ghz dual core the same as a 3.6ghz single? or somewhere in between?

  • Darren #7 5 years ago

    The game certainly looks pretty when running on High settings but, unfortunately, on my setup it runs like a slideshow in the jungle bits and is only borderline playable on roads and the beach. To be honest, other than the graphics, I'm not the impressed with the game, it looks and plays like Far Cry on Steroids. The A.I. is good and its cool the way the environment is almost completely destructible - shoot a tree and it'll break and fall down - but it feels like a game I've played three years ago, which is true... kind of. I don't think the game is worth me spending hundreds of pounds in upgrades to get it running decently and I'd rather play it on maximum detail with AA.

    That means that I won't be playing this until late next year when I buy a new quad-core 4 GB PC with a GeForce 9 graphics card; by then DX10 games should be more commonplace and the hardware will be powerful enough to run games like Crysis with ease.

  • YourMessageHere #8 5 years ago

    I can play it on low settings but with medium physics detail quite comfortably. 6800 Ultra, 1.5gb ram, Athlon64 3700+. It's still damn good; it's an FPS for FPS fans and don't expect anything more amazing than that. It will not convert you to loving FPS if it's not something you like, but if you do, it'll go down very well indeed. The details are marvelous even on low settings, my only problem is the detail pop-up which is quite shortranged on my settings.

  • Scrumhalf #9 5 years ago

    I have a 4400 Athlon X2 and two 7800GTs in SLI - and it failed to even run. I think it is because I have Vista and only 1Gb of RAM!!!

    Can I be bothered - I am getting a new MacBook Pro with Leopard and I really hate Windows and Vista is shocking. What are the chances of this being on the XBox 360?

  • Nallen #10 5 years ago

    Core2Duo, 2Gb of DDR2 and an 8800GTS. Will it run, or kick it in the balls?

  • mrsquare #11 5 years ago

    Good tip - turn of AntiAliasing - it properly knackers the framerate. If you're running at a decent resolution it doesn't really cause a massive drop in quality either.

    "Core2Duo, 2Gb of DDR2 and an 8800GTS. Will it run, or kick it in the balls?"

    Thats my spec (proccy is a 6300) Everything on medium, 1440 * 900 - very playable and looks lovely.

  • Maldoror #12 5 years ago

    3Ghz Intel Dual Core
    4Gb RAM
    8800 GTX

    The game looks _amazing_ and runs fairly smooth on my PC, but I can't run it on the highest setting and there is no AA. The amount of detail that went into this game is just incredible.

    Gameplay is very similar to Far Cry and there are going to be complaints about the AI, which is sometimes fairly stupid. Also the enemies take an unrealistic amount of bullets to die, especially at a distance.

    edit: 8800 GTX, not 6800 GTX
    Edited by Maldoror at 29/10/07 @ 18:51

  • Pike #13 5 years ago

    It ran at almost playable levels on my AMD 3500+ with 1,5 GB of ram and a 7600GT on medium settings, which looked good, though not close to what trailers have showed. Set to low it ran perfectly smooth, but looked rather ugly.

    Gameplay wise it feels like an evolution of the fairly non-linear and open ended approach of Far Cry, which is a good thing, in my opinion.

  • paulf #14 5 years ago

    a playable mid to high 20's fps on my dual core with 8800gtx, windows xp, 2 gig ram at 1920x1200 (all settings at high)

    my first impressions of the game are it looks pretty but nothing out of this world, but seems a bit generic in gameplay. It didnt grab me in the way the first 10 minutes of bioshock did (to be fair though not many games have)

  • Darren #15 5 years ago

    Unless you set Objects to High, which kills the framerate, then the game has horrid amounts of scenery pop up with rocks and trees magically materialising as you wander about. The game looks a mess on Medium and even worst on Low and since my PC can't run the game adequately on High then I won't be buying this game. My setup is 2GB, Athlon64 X2 4200+, 512 MB GeForce 7900 GT btw and I'm running the game on XP rather than the crap-for-games-IMO Vista.

  • garengarch #16 5 years ago

    game won't run at all under xp for me, and looks lovely but the sound gets borked under vista.
    sigh
    dual core 8800gts 2gb ram
    if I can't improve it tonight then pre-order=cancel

  • Caimbeul #17 5 years ago

    Athlon 64 X2 4400+ (Dual Core)
    7800GTX (256Mb)
    2GB RAM
    Fresh Install of Windows with latest DX & Drivers, Defragged HDD etc etc

    The games recommended settings when you set it to "optimal" = 800x600 everything on LOW.

    Can get half decent frame-rate (note only half decent) with everything medium at 1024x768. For a laugh I set everything to high at my monitors native res of 1680x1050...Completely corrupted screen followed by complete crash! Woo Hoo!

    Not played enough to comment on gameplay - apparently you can edit the config file and enable DX10 effects on XP....love Quad core from what I hear.
    Edited by Caimbeul at 29/10/07 @ 16:15

  • yagisencho #18 5 years ago

    On loading the demo, my X1900XT made a soft but distinct crying sound.

    Well, more of a high-pitch screech, but it came across as despair.

    (Ultimately, it did run well under medium settings, no AA.)

    I should add, mainly for Scrumhalf's benefit, that this was on Vista Ultimate 64-bit. 4GB RAM.

    Scrumy, did you not read the readme? The one that lists 1.5GB of RAM as a requirement for running the game under Vista? Can't speak to NVidia's crap drivers though - I run ATI cards in my systems.
    Edited by yagisencho at 29/10/07 @ 19:01

  • Caimbeul #19 5 years ago

    interesting and well done benchmark of the game.

    http://www.legionhardware.com/document.p...

  • davisorle #20 5 years ago

    Post deleted at 20:44:35 16-04-2012

  • Emortal #21 5 years ago

    Here's some interesting things for you then :)
    Running this on XP with 8800GTX connected to a HDTV (720p)

    Here are my settings:
    I start with High settings, set shadows to MEDIUM, then tweak the config files to get VERY HIGH detail on shaders and all the fx stuff (volumetric lights, game effects etc), this makes the sunrays and lightning appear that very high brings on vista, plus I get the texture deformation of very high (shaders, etc makes cartracks and pebbles stick out of the ground, very cool).
    I get a very smooth fps of 40 with these settings.

    Plus, I connected my xbox 360 gamepad too, and I got a xbox 360 gamepad icon when starting the game with controls set for the gamepad, also brings in very nice force feedback, very immersive :p

  • VMerken #22 5 years ago

    My medium end (non-overclocked) system cranks out about 25fps@800x600 with half the settings on medium and the other half on high. Very nice results - I expected the engine to do worse, but what I'm seeing is ok. There's a sizeable chunk of game in the demo, which is good. DRM issues are acceptable too, so I'll probably pick it up at the stores and have a little fun with this fps that lets you play as Turrican in near future north Korea.

  • broony #23 5 years ago

    Emortal:plus, I connected my xbox 360 gamepad too, and I got a xbox 360 gamepad icon when starting the game with controls set for the gamepad, also brings in very nice force feedback, very immersive :p /quote

    What do you need to get the controller to work with your PC, Ive just got a wired one recently and was thinking of trying. I heard it was possible a while ago with some unofficial drivers, is there a supported method now?

  • login_name #24 5 years ago

    Runs like a dream on my machine (Core2 6600, 8800GTX, 2GB of ram) with all settings on high. I was also surprised at how nice it looks on XP, can't see the jump to DX10 being all that much better tbh. I think I'd take the slight loss in shader detail and run in XP than 'upgrade' to Vista. Also, the nVidia beta drivers are not needed, I run 162.18 and it's fine.

  • Emortal #25 5 years ago

    @broony, just connect the usb cable and install the official drivers from Microsoft: http://www.microsoft.com/hardware/gaming...

  • broony #26 5 years ago

    Cheers mate