I am a loyal GRAW 2 PC fan that has been saddened and dismayed at the lack of support for this game.

I have a good friend that has the XBOX 360 version of the game and after seeing his I began to do some research.

The XBOX 360 GRAW 2 has had a ton of support including a:

-extra weapons pack

-bonus co-op map pack

-several bonus map packs INCLUDING the original GR map packs recreated for GRAW

Why hasn't the PC version gotten any support at all? When is support forthcoming?

GRAW 2 PC fans would KILL to have the original GR maps for GRAW 2

How hard would it be to transfer the new maps and stuff from XBOX 360 to PC?

Not that frigging hard!

If the PC version of GRAW 2 recieved the add-ons that the 360 version got I think a lot more players would be sticking around and still playing the game.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: ColinCJ,

... Next!

We'd wish.

This falls into the category of extras, not support, though support is of course lacking too. On support issues I don't place the blame squarely on the shoulders of only Ubi like many do though. I feel Grin let a lot of PC customers and Ubi down in their poor engine architechture and game scripting.

As far as extras go, it's part of the MS 360 hype. However, although you DO get extras over PC versions in some ways, you also pay $10 more for console titles and get smaller maps, few if any graphics settings to adjust, and often less graphics quality. Thus there are tradeoffs. Offering all the extras is a bit moot if the game, especially it's engine, isn't made well in the first place. A poorly made engine exacerbates every other problem. Engines take a long time to make and because of that rarely are core problems with them patched.

Despite my many frustrations with poorly made PC games lately and the expense of upgrades, the tradeoffs with consoles and their clumsy gamepad controls keep me from even considering jumping the PC platform ship. Indeed if I were to do that and somehow eventually get used to the crappy gamepads, I'd still feel I sold out to the industry that is ruining gaming via dominating the younger crowd with hype and leaving a wake of games that are horribly ported to PC.

There are a lot of complaints about the GRAW series, few of which touch on this main problem with it, the engine. I can actually run Crysis with higher average FPS and less FPS dips with my P4 3GHz, X1950Pro 512MB AGP, 2GB RAM spec. GRAW 2 averages 30 FPS and dips to 10 FPS or less with worse graphic quality. I can run Crysis at 35 FPS average, dipping to no less than 20 FPS.

Worse than that if you mention it to Grin, Ubi, or GRAW forum staff you get excuses insulting your intelligence with implications that your hardware and/or PC knowledge is lacking. The game was simply not ready for launch. It's easy to see from GRAW 2's over-exaggerated auto detect settings that this game cannot produce what it promises.

You must be running Crysis on all low, and GRAW on high if thats the performance you get with that rig.....

quote:

Originally posted by A_M_S_DNJ..:
You must be running Crysis on all low, and GRAW on high if thats the performance you get with that rig.....

LOL, sorry pal, but that sounds like yet another remark made in denial on this forum. I happen to run Crysis with High textures, Medium shaders, shadows, water, sound, rest Low, at 1200x900 with 8x AF averaging that 35 FPS and as mentioned never dipping below 20 FPS.

Besides that those settings make Crysis look way better than GRAW 2 does even at Grin's autodetect settings, which I reduce just to get a slight bit better performance but still with extreme FPS drops when the tanks are active.

As well I have reduced shadow map resolution and turned post processing completely off as per the tweakguides.com tweaks, the latter of which makes nightvision malfunction. I actually have to turn NV back on in game for the prison break mission then rewrite the tweak in the game script after because of that little quirk. What a friggin joke that is.

Why is it so many have a hard time admitting how poorly optimized this game's engine is? It's really plain as day to see. Your skepticism brings up a valid point though. Why should a game as advanced as Crysis which clearly has superior graphics run so much better than this bargain bin title? I feel the answer is obvious, Grin are amatures and Crytek are pros.

I'll redownload the GRAW2 SP demo see what framerates I get since I dont have the game. Then reinstall Crysis and play the first part in Crysis at the settings to say you run. Aside from res being 1280x1024.

But I remember getting a around a constant 70fps in the GRAW2 MP beta and MP demo MAX settings (when I could connect to servers, which is why I didnt buy it, also no AA).

I'd probably get more now since Im running an higher overclock on both CPU and GPU. Drivers have also advanced for my card since then.

E6600 @ 3402MHz (378MHz FSB x9 Multipler)

2GB PC2-6400 running at 1:1 DDR2-756 4-4-4-12 (Underclocked from DDR2-800, to get best CPU OC..)

8800GTS 640MB 648 Core 1512 Shader 1944 Memory

2-SATA WD Caviars in RAID 0

quote:

Originally posted by Six_Gun:
On support issues I don't place the blame squarely on the shoulders of only Ubi like many do though. I feel Grin let a lot of PC customers and Ubi down in their poor engine architechture and game scripting.

I could not have agreed more!
As I've said a few times, I feel GRIN should start developing 3D Pac Man or 3D Monopoly. They should stop developing FPS games immediately, because they really stink at it.

quote:

Originally posted by presti71:
I am a loyal GRAW 2 PC fan that has been saddened and dismayed at the lack of support for this game.

I have a good friend that has the XBOX 360 version of the game and after seeing his I began to do some research.

The XBOX 360 GRAW 2 has had a ton of support including a:

-extra weapons pack

-bonus co-op map pack

-several bonus map packs INCLUDING the original GR map packs recreated for GRAW

Why hasn't the PC version gotten any support at all? When is support forthcoming?

GRAW 2 PC fans would KILL to have the original GR maps for GRAW 2

How hard would it be to transfer the new maps and stuff from XBOX 360 to PC?

Not that frigging hard!

If the PC version of GRAW 2 recieved the add-ons that the 360 version got I think a lot more players would be sticking around and still playing the game.

I understand how you feel about support or continued upgrade.

Posting here is good but letting Ubisoft know directly is a far better option.

Six Gun, I understand the point you are trying to make and it is a valid one but next time try to pick a better game LOL!

I have cloe to the same level PC you do and I am running GRAW 2 at all high settings but I can barely run Crysis at Medium settings and only run it smoothly at low settings.

I do agree that Grin dropped the ball on this one and probably UBI as well. I don't know enough about the situation to pick which one to blame!

quote:

Originally posted by presti71:
Six Gun, I understand the point you are trying to make and it is a valid one but next time try to pick a better game LOL!

I have cloe to the same level PC you do and I am running GRAW 2 at all high settings but I can barely run Crysis at Medium settings and only run it smoothly at low settings.

I do agree that Grin dropped the ball on this one and probably UBI as well. I don't know enough about the situation to pick which one to blame!

First off you don't detail what you mean by "close to the same level PC", what res you're running the games at, etc. At least my examples were fairly detailed, except for mentioning the res I use in GRAW 2, which is 1024x768. Second, many that cry about Crysis (pun intended) do so without really learning about how to optimally choose settings, which I'm fanatical about.

Take a look at the TweakGuides.com guide for Crysis, read it thoroughly, and you will notice there are some do's and don'ts as far as settings go for the game for those that have mediocre spec. http://www.tweakguides.com/Crysis_1.html

It's common for people that say Crysis is a resource hog to lazily set everything on High or Medium rather than carefully picking and choosing only the settings that make a big visual difference. Post Processing in Crysis for instance has boatloads of blur in it even on Medium. You can choose to leave this at Low or fine tune the amount of blur via the blur commands for the game. There are other examples, that's just one.

Too many people whine about Crysis and they're usually those that don't do any reading on how to set it up well. Even in it's present state Crysis is far more optimized than GRAW 1 or 2 and they've yet to release the performance patch promised for it. You simply won't see ANY patches for either of the GRAW series, PERIOD.

GRAW2 SP Demo, start to finish of level. FRAPs benchmark Min/Max/Avg. Max Game settings, 1280x1024 16AF.

Frames: 67695 - Time: 678234ms - Avg: 99.811 - Min: 55 - Max: 266


Crysis Full game, First Level (Same as Demo)

Settings you said.

Textures High
Objects Low
Shadows Medium
Physics Low
Shaders Medium
Volumetric Effects Low
Game Effects Low
Post Processing low
Particals Low
Water Medium
Sound Medium

8x AF forced

Frames: 160485 - Time: 2424635ms - Avg: 66.189 - Min: 31 - Max: 114

While it ran better then I thought it would, it still ran at 34 FPS Avg lower then GRAW2.

Though, I really didnt like those settings. Objects and textures were popping in and out from not that far away. Really noticable. Many objects werent destructable like at higher settings either.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: A_M_S_DNJ..,

LOL, I really don't know why you're obsessing over this, you don't even say what your system spec is. Trust me man, Graw 2 runs WAY worse on my rig than Crysis does and it looks crappier doing it.

I have also done much more than just tweak in game settings to try and make GRAW 2 run better so I know what I'm talking about. The game just wasn't play tested very well. If you can run Crysis at higher settings than mine THAT is your problem.

Crysis is having issues with some higher spec machines and they are making a performance patch for that priority one. You won't see anything coming in the way of a patch for GRAW 2 and on many systems it's needed.

To tell you the truth I much prefer that Crysis plays better on my rig than GRAW 2 anyway because although I prefer the gameplay of CoD4 to that of Crysis it's a way better game to play then GRAW 2 by far.

I would like to know however which setting you found caused the objects to start popping in and out in Crysis? It's one thing that annoys me to no end (mainly rocks on the ground), I'd like to limit or get rid of it without compromising visual quality or FPS.

I've read a suggestion for tweaking texture lod bias settings in the game script for that but I've yet to see anyone detail how to do it well enough for me to feel comfortable experimenting with that.

If I could solve it with just bumping up one in game setting it would be a lot easier but I fear it will drop my frames lower than I like. At 35 FPS average I never dip lower than 20, which makes aiming during heavy firefights much easier.

If you really want good visual quality in Crysis though you're going to have to forego some of the settings being on High that have nothing to do with visual quality like physics, unless you have an uber rig.

Like I said I can tell by how spoiled you are with Crysis settings that you have a better rig than mine. Either that or you don't mind it looking like poo just so you can blow more things up, which really doesn't make sense to me.

I did say what my system is.

E6600 @ 3402MHz (378MHz FSB x9 Multipler)

2GB PC2-6400 running at 1:1 DDR2-756 4-4-4-12 (Underclocked from DDR2-800, to get best CPU OC..)

8800GTS 640MB 648 Core 1512 Shader 1944 Memory

2-SATA WD Caviars in RAID 0

Viewsonic vx922 19" LCD 2MS 5:4 1280x1024

--------------------------------------------------

Though Ive since lowered my OC to 3.2GHz 400x8 DDR2-800. Load temps and voltage was a little too high for 24/7 use.

I used the same settings in Crysis which you said you used. In GRAW2 I just maxed all the settings.

I agree Crysis looks better, also that It'll probably have more support from this point on. I think the most expected for this game is one more patch. Which who knows what all it'll contain.

As to the cause of rocks popping in/out at close range, its probably due to Objects being on Low. But I havent tested to see which setting, affects it.....

quote:

Originally posted by presti71:
I am a loyal GRAW 2 PC fan that has been saddened and dismayed at the lack of support for this game.

I have a good friend that has the XBOX 360 version of the game and after seeing his I began to do some research.

The XBOX 360 GRAW 2 has had a ton of support including a:

-extra weapons pack

-bonus co-op map pack

-several bonus map packs INCLUDING the original GR map packs recreated for GRAW

Why hasn't the PC version gotten any support at all? When is support forthcoming?

GRAW 2 PC fans would KILL to have the original GR maps for GRAW 2

How hard would it be to transfer the new maps and stuff from XBOX 360 to PC?

Not that frigging hard!

If the PC version of GRAW 2 recieved the add-ons that the 360 version got I think a lot more players would be sticking around and still playing the game.

They got your $50 What were you thinking?

quote:

Originally posted by A_M_S_DNJ..:
I did say what my system is.

E6600 @ 3402MHz (378MHz FSB x9 Multipler)

2GB PC2-6400 running at 1:1 DDR2-756 4-4-4-12 (Underclocked from DDR2-800, to get best CPU OC..)

8800GTS 640MB 648 Core 1512 Shader 1944 Memory

2-SATA WD Caviars in RAID 0

Viewsonic vx922 19" LCD 2MS 5:4 1280x1024

Sorry, missed that. No wonder you can run GRAW 2 better than me, you have way better spec than I do. Still though, GRAW 2 IS poorly optimized, in fact very much so. You know when lowering settings doesn't help it's a poorly made engine. I also think that you ought to be able to run Crysis fine too though, you may just be setting it up wrong or being too picky about your settings.

BTW, I found ought how to keep the rocks from appearing/disappearing while on Low objects quality, and yes, that was the setting that has to do with it. You just take the e_view_dist_ratio_detail and e_view_dist_ratio_vegetation values, which are part of the objects detail system config, and set them to 22 and 26 respectively.

These values are right in between Med and High settings for those commands. You can make a text file, rename it to System.cfg, place the tweaks in it, and put it in the Crysis directory. The objects quality tab will then say Custom. It still drops FPS a bit but not nearly as much as high objects quality.

Also, read this excerpt from one of my posts on the EA Crysis forum, it may help.

1) High shaders adds a subtle amount of HDR and a heavy amount ambient occlusion lighting, the latter of which makes everything look very washed out and hazey as with a bright overcast day. This desaturates all the colors and to a large degree detracts from the otherwise nice lighting effects.

High shaders also enables AA on everything but foliage which is far more taxing FPS wise than just turning up the res to at least 1200x900 or 1280x800.

2) High post processing adds an overly generous amount of motion blur while moving and depth of field blur while aiming. High post processing also adds AA to foliage, which again is more FPS taxing than just bumping up the res.

3) High objects quality adds more rocks and vegetation, NOT more detail. Thus objects "quality" is a bit of a misnomer. You can easily overcome the rocks appearing and disappearing in front of you that Low objects quality settings result in by using a tweak I devised which changes the e_view_dist_ratio_detail and e_view_dist_ratio_vegetaion values to 22 and 26 respectively. These values are right in between the Med and High values the game gives for these commands. It's just enough to keep the rocks from appearing and disappearing in front of you with MUCH less FPS drain than using High objects quality.

4) High shadows only makes shadows visable at a farther distance and very slightly softens their edges. Even Med shadows look pretty good and it's hard to tell the difference unless you look at the map more than play.

5) High particles only slightly increases smoke, dust and heat haze quality. In fact even at Low heat haze looks pretty good.

Note that these are half of the 10 graphics settings and the most taxing FPS wise other than textures, which is the only one that really need be set to High. In fact in some cases like the overdone ambient occlusion lighting of high shaders and the heavy blur of post processing you get LESS visual quality IMO and even less realism. Somewhere in all the hype about the graphics of Crysis this never gets mentioned and I dare say many probably aren't even aware of it.

Without such knowledge and careful adjusting of settings and tweaking Crysis is more of a resource hog born of overly lavish and in some cases unecessary, less desirable and less realistic features. The heavy blur also somewhat counters high res and texture settings when it kicks in.

Many insisting on High and/or Very High settings are tolerating frame rates that are too low to really play the game via any tactics they want without trouble aiming. I feel obtaining a 35 FPS average is essential for the headroom necessary to handle intense firefights with any method you choose.

If you insist on using High on the above settings though, besides my tweak mentioned you can use the e_ambient_occlusion and motion blur commands here to fine tune to your personal taste and/or raise FPS.