» Tue Sep 06, 2011 9:32 pm But things are now beyond a joke.
When I first bought Crysis 2 there were a few bugs which tarnished the polish of the game; no support for nVidia SLI and nano points not saving correctly. Both issues meant I put Crysis 2 on the back shelf as I didn't want to play the game without being able to upgrade my suit or enjoy the game without the ability to run full settings.
I basically forgot about Crysis 2 for the next few months - I even uninstalled it from my system. That's no surprise or criticism though - I often have a backlog of games and got on with catching up on others while I faithfully assumed Crytek would iron out any issues.
Then I recently purchased two new gfx cards for my rig which supported DX11. "Great", I thought, "I'll give them a nice run through on the games I own which support DX11".
I installed Metro 2033 and set it to max DX11 settings. Beautiful game and even though it is a very very good-looking game I could run it averaging 41fps even in busy monster-heavy areas. My face was similar to that of a child at Xmas when he realises he WILL be getting that Xbox game he wanted.
I then set about downloading Crysis 2 from Steam again, installing the DX11 and hi-rest texture packs. Configured all the settings to Ultra and, shaking like a child with a box of raisins, prepared to be impressed.
And for the first 30 seconds of actual gameplay I was. Once the game kicked in and we had to venture out of the sub, I was immediately impressed by the lighting and visual style which looked great in DX11. 60fps with v-sync on, even in an internal environment, was very encouraging.
But as soon as I had to swim to escape the sub, the game crashed. Window minimized to taskbar and, although the sounds of the game could still be heard, the window refused to come back to full screen. Disgruntled, I force quit the game via Task Manager and tried again.
Exact same story.
Logged onto the Crysis 2 forums and had a look around - was dismayed to see multiple threads about DX11 crashes with no discernible fixes or even acknowledgement of a patch incoming. Things weren't looking good.
Most people suggested that "your rig can't handle it" or "you need to up your voltage" which seemed curious.
My specs are:
Win7 x64
Intel 7 920 @ 3.5Ghz per core
6GB of DDR3 ram
2x Gigabyte 560Ti OC's w/ 1GB of ram in SLI w/ latest nVidia drivers.
Velociraptor 10k rpm HDD
More than capable of running Crysis 2 at max settings without too much difficulty, imo.
Baring in mind the issue was DX11 related, I went without the DX11 to get to a part of the game that wasn't mostly cut scene then re-enabled DX11 for testing.
I then set about diagnosing the issue.
I tried playing the game several times and crashed at the same stage each time. 45 seconds of gameplay then BOOM, minimize to taskbar. Didn't matter if I went left, right or down the middle - it wasn't as if I certain spot on a map was glitching. It would crash if I looked at a barrel or stared at a tree like it had tiks.
With the concern about how hard Crysis 2 is on systems, I checked my temp settings. Cards were running at 60 celsius (well within their 95 celsius max load) and the rest of my rig was running much cooler (I'm running with a water-cooled CPU and the usual excellent Alienware fan setup).
It didn't appear to be a case of temps being a problem - this also ruled out Crysis 2 being too hard for my rig.
Curious about the previous SLI issues, I removed one of my gfx cards and tried the game again. Exact same issue albeit at only 25fps - game crashes after about 45 seconds of play.
I reseated my 2nd card and completely uninstalled the current drivers and went back to a previous version.
Still crashing.
Note: The drivers don't crash or restart - the game simply minimizes to task bar.
I then turned off Steam overlay. Didn't fix it.
I then tried overclocking my cards. Didn't fix it.
Underclocking my cards? Yup, tried it. didn't work.
Ran the game with minimal Windows services running to prevent conflicts. Didn't work.
Set my CPU and RAM to stock settings? Oh yeah, that didn't work.
I can run the game without a glitch on DX9 max settings.
The only conclusion is that DX11 is broken. Critically broken and in desperate need of a patch.
Don't make me shelve this game for another 6 months, Crytek. I'd actually quite like to play the game how its meant to be played.
Summary of troubleshooting attempted:
1. SLI and non-SLI configuration. Tried using one card solo then the other.
2. Changed to different nVidia driver versions.
3. Ran memtest.
4. Ran all my hardware at stock settings.
5. Reduced Windows services to bare minimum required to load up.
6. Turned off Steam overlay.
7. Defragged drives just in case.
8. No BSOD or power down - rules out the game stressing my system too much.
9. Reinstalled the game from fresh along with the DX11 and hi-rest texture packs. Left game settings to what they are without changing them in any way.
10. Event Viewer shows no error messages for the crash.
Now what are YOU going to do, Crytek? If you're not going to bother patching it then at least tell me. That way I can stop wasting time trying to play your game and I'll go play another game.
