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How to Optimize Crysis Guide (Mac Pro)

M

Mercuric Oxide

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jan 6, 2008
277
26
NYC
Hi Guys,

I wanted to share some tips with everyone which drastically improved my Crysis game performance on my Mac Pro (Early 2008). If you don't own Crysis and simply want to test your system as a gaming platform, download the single player demo at:

http://www.gamedaily.com/games/crysis/pc/game-downloads
/crysis-single-player-demo/4960/7238/


My Specs:
Mac Pro, 2 x 2.8 Ghz QC Intel Xeon (the Ocho), 6GB 800 MHz RAM, ATi HD 2600XT Ram
(Don't worry, My 8800GT is on order ;) )

Before:
1024 x 768 Resolution, All Medium Settings, Avg 16 fps
1440 x 900 Resolution, Medium-High-Very High Mix Avg 4 fps :eek:
massive clipping and glitches

After:
1024 x 768 Resolution, All Medium Settings, Avg 29 fps
1440 x 900 Resolution, All High/Very High (excp shdws/shdrs), Avg 16 fps
no graphic glitches or artifacts

The ATi GPU is the clear bottleneck in the new Mac Pro system, but the MP architecture will help compensate until your 8800GT arrives.

Guide (while running Windows):

Boot Camp is a must for this game. I recommend playing on Windows XP, as that provides about 5-10+ fps over Vista. Very High mode is only available on Vista, but you can rewrite your CVAR files to enable Very High (this deletes the Low settings, so Medium becomes your new minimum).
Instructions and file download are here (can be applied to demo version as well):

http://mrgnome.wordpress.com/2008/01/25
/crysis-enable-very-high-dx10-settings-in-xp-new-updated-hack/

The next section will deal with updating your ATi GPU, but first, update your .NET Framework so that it works properly:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID
=333325FD-AE52-4E35-B531-508D977D32A6&displaylang=en

Now, before you play the game, make sure you have the latest drivers from ATi. This is crucial and the main factor that increased my performance. Ati's site doesn't have the drivers listed under the apple section, you must download it from the PC section. Download and install Option 1 Catalyst Software Suite:

http://game.amd.com/us-en/drivers_catalyst.aspx?p=xp/radeonx-xp

And with those simple steps, you're ready to play Crysis! 1024 x 768 resolution all Medium is the best for performance, but you can still try out 1440 x 900 all High and have it not play like a slide show.
 
Game Settings

These are the game settins for Crysis in the advanced options:

Texture Quality
Objects Quality
Shadows Quality
Physics Quality
Shaders Quality
Volumetric Effects Quality
Game Effects Quality
Post Processing Quality
Particles Quality
Water Quality
Sound Quality

Typical rules of thumb:

DO NOT turn Shadows or Shaders past Medium settings. Doing so will reduce your framerate by up to 10 fps. Please wait until the nvidia 8800GT ships to crank up these settings.

Post Processing should be placed on Low to Medium.

I also forgot to mention: With the Very High download, the settings will still read Low Medium High, with Very High grayed out. Choose Low for Medium, Medium for High, and High for Very High.

If anyone has any questions, feel free to ask.

Enjoy
 
The patch seemed to help low-end systems (particularly single cores) and crossfire/sli setups the most, not much love for the midrange or mid high-end but yeah results with the patch vary wildly.
 
Will crysis run on VM ware? or should I boot into xp? and do I need windows installed to use VM ware or parrallels?
 
Yes excellent thread... I didn't want to deal with Vista but wanted to run Crysis... glad to hear it gets better FPS.

Anyone try Crysis with the nVidia GT8800 yet?
 
A few questions if anyone can help.

I installed the demo to see how it would run. I did as the thread starter stated and ran the game once then tried to run the patch. I play bf2 quite a bit and get terrific performance but noticed that the folder that bf2 is in an EA folder. Crysis is in a different folder 'Electronic Arts'. When I tried to run the patch, it says the game being patched is missing or that is the wrong patch. Not sure if anyone else has had that problem.

Next, I went to update my framework like the post suggested but once it tries to download the 63mb file, it hangs up there and indicates 0/sec transfer. Without that file, the ATI file won't update because it says I need something relating to my dx to be updated. I was assuming that has to do with the framework not updating.

When I play the game I get about 19 to 24 fps. I have a 20" iMac 2.4ghz, with 4 gig of ram even though windows only recognizes 3 of them. I get in bf2 about 70 to 80 fps consistently so was wondering if people think that fps is fine. The game seems to never lag until it auto-saves. Other than that it doesn't seem like that fps is a problem. Unless my competitors, should I upgrade to the multi-player version, are getting significantly more.

ANewMacGuy
 
ANewMacGuy said:
A few questions if anyone can help.

I installed the demo to see how it would run. I did as the thread starter stated and ran the game once then tried to run the patch. I play bf2 quite a bit and get terrific performance but noticed that the folder that bf2 is in an EA folder. Crysis is in a different folder 'Electronic Arts'. When I tried to run the patch, it says the game being patched is missing or that is the wrong patch. Not sure if anyone else has had that problem.

Next, I went to update my framework like the post suggested but once it tries to download the 63mb file, it hangs up there and indicates 0/sec transfer. Without that file, the ATI file won't update because it says I need something relating to my dx to be updated. I was assuming that has to do with the framework not updating.

When I play the game I get about 19 to 24 fps. I have a 20" iMac 2.4ghz, with 4 gig of ram even though windows only recognizes 3 of them. I get in bf2 about 70 to 80 fps consistently so was wondering if people think that fps is fine. The game seems to never lag until it auto-saves. Other than that it doesn't seem like that fps is a problem. Unless my competitors, should I upgrade to the multi-player version, are getting significantly more.

ANewMacGuy
Click to expand...

Your iMac plays everything pretty well. The patch may only work for the full version of the game, sorry if I said otherwise earlier.
 
 
Just got to the Tank Level.

I am so impressed by this game. The reality. Of Everything. Its not just the Graphics its the game play as well.

Mac Owners who can install Bootcamp (and at least a 2600XT or 8800 Graphics card) really should try this game.

Its a great game.
 
Great useful post. But just FYI, there is a little thing called "Edit" , so you dont need to post a new post... just "edit" your previous one.... ;)
 
Can anyone confirm whether installing .NET 3.5 actually improves performance? My 3.0Ghz 8-core Mac Pro w/ 8800GT runs things pretty well (everything on "High" in XP w/ ~ 32-37FPS). Sure wish it would actually make use of the extra cores though. There was all this talk about how it would use them, but it seems pretty false to me. Playing Crysis uses 13% of my CPU power. Though I guess it's probably the GPU that is the system bottleneck.

Regardless though, this game ROCKS!
 
BirdInTheCity said:
Can anyone confirm whether installing .NET 3.5 actually improves performance? My 3.0Ghz 8-core Mac Pro w/ 8800GT runs things pretty well (everything on "High" in XP w/ ~ 32-37FPS). Sure wish it would actually make use of the extra cores though. There was all this talk about how it would use them, but it seems pretty false to me. Playing Crysis uses 13% of my CPU power. Though I guess it's probably the GPU that is the system bottleneck.

Regardless though, this game ROCKS!
Click to expand...

.NET 3.5 is needed for the ATi drivers to install properly.
 
The proper ATi drivers aren't on the Leopard disc? That's all I've done after installing Vista.

The drivers from the ATi site are different?
 
Mike Teezie said:
The proper ATi drivers aren't on the Leopard disc? That's all I've done after installing Vista.

The drivers from the ATi site are different?
Click to expand...

Those are just basic drivers for functionality and severely outdated compared to the ones from ATi's/nVidia's respective sites. When in Windows, always download the drivers from those sites. ATi saw 2 updates in the past month!

I honestly wish Apple would let them write drivers for OSX. Games that are for both Mac and PC run terribly on the mac side for me, and it's probably because Apple doesn't update its drivers for the sake of any of the games available. Which is why it should let these companies handle it, who know the process better for their own cards.
 
Great post Mercury Oxide. I got my MBP with the 8800GT (ordered it the day it was announced) and today I purchased Crysis and installed it. I can't wait to play it as I thought FarCry was (in my opinion - next to HalfLife) the best game to date.
Alan
BTW FarCry2 is due out this spring
 
OK, total n00b followup question (and everyone feel free to pwn me):

What's the best way to determine framerates? I assume there's some little ditzel thingamabob that'll display the framerates.

I just loaded Crysis (full game), and running 1.0 in Vista-64 is awesome (with the 8800GT). It runs actually pretty smoothly on its own self-diagnosed optimal settings (which is everything on Very High). I manually downgraded everything to High, and it's now like buttah.

I downloaded and patched in CoolBits to see if it'll let me see how warm the GPU gets while playing Crysis.

I am so impressed with the MP, I have to tell you. This is fun!

Stuart
 
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