Crytek Used The Spirits Within As Benchmark For CryEngine 3
See Full ImageWith Crysis 2 in the works and plenty of industry insiders talking up the new CryEngine 3, it stands to reason that Crytek CEO and founder Yevat Cerli had some things to say at this week's GamesCom event in Cologne, Germany.
Yerli's session was entitled "The Future of Gaming Graphics," and perhaps surprisingly, he believes we won't be seeing any significant visual upgrades between now and 2012. This is due to the fact that "engines are bound to console cycles," and therefore, this means he thinks the next generation of consoles will arrive around 2012. He also says this is when the next major upgrade for his team's CryEngine will be available. However, while this may sound disappointing on the surface (why do we gotta wait so long for better graphics?!), Yerli did say we'll still see definite improvements in the areas of "physics, AI, and simulation of special effects over the next few years." As for comparisons to CGI movies, he says we'll see Ice Age visuals in games (in real time) in 2013, and as a nod to Final Fantasy fans everywhere, Yerli said he has used "Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within" as a benchmark goal for the CryEngine 3.
"We wanted to beat the faces in the Final Fantasy movie, but doing in real time what they were doing offline. Every day I was getting posted images from the Final Fantasy movie." Then, after showing off one of the faces his team has produced, he proudly announced that "one face has more technology than the entire first Far Cry."
For our part, we've always wondered when we'd be seeing in-game visuals that are similar to those of the modern-day CGI films. And if any team is capable of pulling it off in the next three or four years, it's Crytek; Crysis was most impressive and everyone is expecting great things from the sequel. Do you agree with Yerli's predictions?
8/17/2009 Ben Dutka
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Comments (29 posts)
Jawknee
Tuesday, August 18, 2009 @ 1:32:54 AM
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Victor321
Monday, August 17, 2009 @ 10:13:03 PM
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Mr Bitey
Monday, August 17, 2009 @ 10:25:13 PM
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WorldEndsWithMe
Monday, August 17, 2009 @ 10:27:53 PM
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Victor321
Monday, August 17, 2009 @ 10:32:05 PM
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Oyashiro
Tuesday, August 18, 2009 @ 12:50:54 AM
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WorldEndsWithMe
Tuesday, August 18, 2009 @ 6:46:24 AM
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Xra897
Monday, August 17, 2009 @ 10:57:04 PM
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Last edited by Xra897 on 8/17/2009 10:57:50 PM
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tes37
Monday, August 17, 2009 @ 11:21:33 PM
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3 up, 1 down
dveisalive
Monday, August 17, 2009 @ 11:39:55 PM
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Kiryu
Monday, August 17, 2009 @ 11:42:08 PM
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2 up, 3 down
Qubex
Tuesday, August 18, 2009 @ 3:15:54 AM
When the game actually runs, it is a different story...
Actually, hardware wise the PS3 could come close... what stops it... RAM!!! Always the damn RAM... we needed more of it. Sony made a mistake not releasing the PS3 with 1 gigabyte of ram as minimum; or at least make it expandable... that would not have hurt at all, to give us "ram" access via slot where we could have added an extra bank or two. Pity!
Q!
"i am home"
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Jawknee
Tuesday, August 18, 2009 @ 1:27:52 AM
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Qubex
Tuesday, August 18, 2009 @ 3:12:28 AM
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Simply do some research on the net and see what NVidia, ATI, IBM (and their Cell), AMD and the like are doing with regards to advancing multi-processing core silicon. Cores will double, triple and quadruple in the next few years, with GPU's jumping quickers and further than all other components of a general purpose PC. Sony, Nintendo and M$ will undoubtedly look at incorporating this brutish hardware into their console pipeline in the years to come... so honestly, it is no surprise... it is what is expected I think...
Let us throw in the ability expected of engines to natively churn out 1900x1200 visuals as standard (for all platforms and games) in the future, once can see what you need. Processors and GPU's with multi-core architectures 2 to 3 times more powerful we have today (at least), and ram of 2 to 4 gigabytes as minimum ...an yes, a PS4 will have some catching up to do 3-4 years from now... If we do indeed get new hardware in a similar format as we have today.
Let us not forget where services such as "OnLive" would have developed to by then...
...will we really need next generation hardware in our living rooms at all in the future?
Here's to Final Fantasy, The Spirits Within graphics in real-time in the not too distant future... cheers to that!
Q!
"i am home"
1 up, 0 down
___________
Tuesday, August 18, 2009 @ 4:34:40 AM
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when are we going to see games that take advantage of TODAYS! hardware not 2 years ago hardware.
i wish valve ID and crytek just stuck to the pc and keep producing the quality titles they were doing, every system has its exclusives so why not PC?
im starting to wish i dident spend 3K on my PC, by the time theres games taking advantage of it im going to be in a nursing home.
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orangpelupa
Tuesday, August 18, 2009 @ 6:41:41 AM
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i really dont understand with people who buy 3k pc.
my 350USD pc already run games in max in 1440x900 and it still run CoD4 in 130-200fps.
there still too many power left unused on my pc.....
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Andysw
Tuesday, August 18, 2009 @ 10:52:00 AM
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Day_v
Tuesday, August 18, 2009 @ 1:12:44 PM
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Ravagerfromhell
Tuesday, August 18, 2009 @ 3:04:29 PM
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KoldStrejke
Tuesday, August 18, 2009 @ 3:17:33 PM
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Bull dookie, graphics changes are bound round PC hardware and always have been. Look ATI and Nvidia are in the consoles now as well so that statement is false. Have always been in the forefront and never was it the other way around.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nvidia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATI_Technologies
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jude_law666
Tuesday, August 18, 2009 @ 5:23:47 PM
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when he said that "engines are bound to console cycles," first he was referring to games consoles and not to PC's, two his statement is true because once a console is built whatever components it has its stuck with for the life of the console cycle, so what he meant is that they cant create a game engine that is more advance than the tech supported in a game console, in that essence the engines are bound and limited to the consoles life cycle until the next wave of more powerful and faster processing power and better graphics consoles come out and then whatever engines available then will be bound to those consoles until the next advancement in visual and computational technology. now on the PC that statement is not true because computer hardware is constantly being upgraded and newer tech is available for computers roughly every 6 to 8 months theres new tech developments going on in the PC side of the tech and game industry.
so your taking the comment out of conttext and misunderstanding the point of the comment in the first place.
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ParallaxScroll
Tuesday, August 18, 2009 @ 6:29:28 PM
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We have been in the MULTI-CORE era for years now. Multi-core means a processor that has between 2 and 8 cores. Any dual-core, quad-core or *current* Cell processor with 6, 7 or 8 SPEs is still a multi-core processor. The NEXT major leap is called MANYCORE, which means at least 10 cores if not more, scaling up to tens of cores or dozens of cores, and eventually to hundreds of cores. Intel's upcoming LARRABEE GPU / GPGPU architecture is one of the most anticipated chip-families of the coming manycore era. Also, the NEXT-GEN Cell processor, which IBM has said will be coming in 2010-2011, will have 32 SPEs. It will therefore be a manycore processor also.
Everyone else is working to bring manycore chips to the market over the next few years.
This decade has been the multi-core era, the next decade(s) will be the manycore era.
@ Everyone:
The next-generation of consoles in the next 3-5 years (3rd-gen Xbox, PS4) will probably combine manycore CPUs with a few dozen cores (i.e. 32 SPE Cell) with massively parallel GPUs (advanced versions of Larrabee or similar) that are more advanced than the yet-to-be-released DirectX11 AMD R8xx and Nvidia GT300 GPUs. The upcoming DX11 GPUs should offer 2-3x more impressive graphics than the best current cards, and next-gen consoles should be of the DX11+ or DX12 gen.
Larrabee will be unlimited in capability (beyond DX11) performance will only be dependant on # of cores.
Will next-gen consoles push real-time in-game graphics that look every bit as good as Final Fantasy The Spirits Within CGI movie? No I highly doubt that. However, it should be reasonable to expect real-time graphics on par with LOWER-END but still DECENT pre-rendered CGI, such as those used in videogame INTROS and CUT-SCENES from the PS2-Xbox1 era. That's what I am hoping for, anyway....
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Day_v
Wednesday, August 19, 2009 @ 6:20:40 AM
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somethingrandom
Wednesday, August 19, 2009 @ 2:18:08 AM
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ParallaxScroll
Friday, August 21, 2009 @ 6:48:28 AM
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Jed
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Monday, August 17, 2009 @ 10:06:53 PM
Last edited by Jed on 8/17/2009 10:07:36 PM