Get 'Very High' in Crysis with Windows XP
Oh happy day, Crysis at the locked (but for you, unlocked!) highest detail settings runs like a dream on my DirectX 9 Windows XP "take-a-hike-Windows-Vista-ain't-gonna-miss-ya-dee-ex-10" PC.
What's he talking about? XP vs. Vista. Have the latter and you can run Crysis full bore; have the former and you can only crank the visual throttle up to three-quarter, tops.
Unless of course you simply copy and paste a few lines of text in a handful of game directory CFG files, at which point the ostensibly DX10-only 'very high' special effects for water, shadows, shaders, textures and more can be yours, sweetened by Windows XP's superior performance.
How?
Click here for the ActionTrip thread, specifically reply #7 which explains the nifty trick in detail. The only files you'll modify are text-based. Just be sure to make a backup of the directory 'CVarGroup' before fiddling to your heart's content.
What's it do?
Turns out Crysis isn't as DX10-y as some might have you believe by making the 'very high' detail settings unusable unless you're running Vista. Crysis on XP is out of the gate locked at 'high', a significant visual downgrade from 'very high' in all instances.
While fiddling with the text file parameters for Crysis' configuration settings, someone figured out that by placing the 'very high' settings under 'high', the game not only (mis)reads them, they actually render. Sun rays, depth of field, advanced physics, particles, and volumetric effects -- all available, and apparently not DX10 effects. What's more, Crysis under XP runs dramatically (~10fps) faster on my system, setting for setting, be it 'low', 'medium', or 'high'.
"As good" looking on XP and faster? What's up with that?
The cynic will argue Crytek cordoned 'very high' off from XP users arbitrarily and merely to help Microsoft promote Vista. Look at Shadowrun, they'll say, a Vista-exclusive game that was shown to run identically under Windows XP.
The idealist will probably argue that there's still a DX10 component not parsing in the above tweak, i.e. Crysis on XP using 'very high' settings is still in some capacity (notable or no) at least technically inferior to Crysis under Vista. Cache logs suggests Shader 4.0 calls, which is a hardwired DX10-exclusive.
In any event, the truth is that Crysis does look appreciably better with the above tweaks running under XP, and there's no way Crytek or Microsoft are going to be able to pretend that it doesn't. But publicly ignore? Probably.
Let's just hope the powers that be don't "break" the tweak in the final version which just went gold and should hit store shelves Friday November 16.
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if you dont want the tweak broken, THEN DONT ADVERTISE IT TO EVERYONE!!! stupid people nowadays... want to let all the secrets out, but when they finally figure it out that the reason our troops are dying in iraq (which is because we are telling everyone where they are on our national and openly accessible like the internet news, we just blame everyone on Gods green earth except the media for it happening. so i again state, DONT TELL ANYONE AND THEY WILL NEVER BREAK IT!!! or at least not till the game releases and its too late anyway.
I hate to break it to you Yuffiek133, but the folks at Crytek (or Microsoft, or Electronic Arts) are probably a thousands times more savvy than you're giving them credit. As if they need me to tell them about all the threads that have sprung up in dozens of Crysis-related forums relaying the information in far more detail than I have here.
As easy as it is to apply, you almost have to wonder if it wasn't somehow premeditated...