Stolen Pixels #92: Crysis Demo, Part 1

[Blackbird71]

That's longer than it takes to reboot my computer

Well then you obviously don't have vista, I could go grocery shopping during the start up loading times.

That's odd. I have Vista, and my PC gets to the point where I'm browsing the internet in around 45 seconds from initial power-button pressing. And I have quite a few of programs that run at startup.

Yeah, I never get this either. I run Vista, and my time from hitting the power switch to being able to actually use the computer is less than 30 seconds (closer to 20), which is a few times faster than XP ever was for me. I have to wonder how much of the Vista hate that gets posted is just crap repeated from early reputation, because I've been running it for over a year and a half, and it's been smooth and fast the whole way without a crash.

Here's a tip for operating systems that has always served me well: Never (and I mean never) buy an OS when it first hits the shelves. Always give it at least a few months for the major bugs to be worked out, preferaby wait until the first service pack is released (you know there will be one). Why? Because whatever OS you've been using has most likely been on the market for years, during which time it has been patched and fixed many times over to reach it's current incarnation, while any new OS will be very buggy (swuch is the nature of the PC and its variety of confiburations, there is no avoiding it). The result is that if you install a new OS before it has been properly vetted and repaired, you will always be disappointed when comparing it to your experience with your older "tried and true" OS. This approach should be common sense, and anyone violating it has only themselves, not the OS, to blame for the subsequent frustration.

 

[Dev Null]

I think the Core Duo add is to tell you what to go buy when you find out that Crysis wont run on anything less...

 

[ElArabDeMagnifico]

The only thing I can't skip is the EA cutscene.

YOU POOR SOULS!

I think the Core Duo add is to tell you what to go buy when you find out that Crysis wont run on anything less...

Well I was stubborn and managed to run it on a 5 year old Pentium D - har har, take that "unskippable" ad.

 

[shMerker]

Isn't this sort of thing normally Paul and Graham's job?

 

[droid]

If your computer boot time is less than the time to boot the game, then it is obvious that your computer is too weak. Real machines take hours to boot! If you wanted a low boot time then you would get a microwave.

 

[Lord_Ascendant]

yeah i know what you mean. I hate unskippale opening splashes. and Crysis is very proud of itself for butt-screwing processors into the 10th ring of hell.

 

[samsonguy920]

If your computer boot time is less than the time to boot the game, then it is obvious that your computer is too weak. Real machines take hours to boot! If you wanted a low boot time then you would get a microwave.

You sheltered person. The microwave I got stuck with for over a year at my new place took 5 minutes for one refrigerated burrito, and sometimes longer if it felt like procrastinating.

 

[illiterate]

I think i recall this experience when i played the crytek demo. I had a trackball rather than a proper mouse.. so my experience with crysis demo
1) ooh, this is pretty
2) let's monkey around with the settings to get my framerate up a bit.
3) whee! I'm jumping around!
4) this is an awesome animal cruelty simulator
5) hey those guys are shooting ba..

and then it got uninstalled. sure was pretty though. mostly i just wanted to see if crysis would run on my new 200$ gaming rig. was ok.

 

[hopeneverdies]

When I tried to download the demo it pretty much, nope your PC is too shitty to even play this demo. Go back to playing browser games, cheapass. And this PC is almost 6 months old.

 

[Stegofreak]

They should put these ads in Commander Keen. Because that's someone who needs to upgrade.

Am I the only person who read that and thought DAMN! I need to get my hands on a copy of that again? Actually more keane5e than anything else.

 

[Caliostro]

I know you mentioned it in the description, but I read the comic before the description and the same thing kept going through my head: "Yeah... You don't skip it with Esc because you skip it with space..."

...If I remember correctly you can skip all of them too...

 

[Mistwraithe]

That's odd. I have Vista, and my PC gets to the point where I'm browsing the internet in around 45 seconds from initial power-button pressing. And I have quite a few of programs that run at startup.

Is that a full boot or just start up from Hibernate?

Start up from Hibernate is quite snappy and by default the button on the Start menu which looks like a power button actually hibernates your machine.

However doing a full boot is like waiting for the second coming...

 

[searanox]

Yeah, this always annoys the shit out of me. Thankfully you can skip them by moving the movie files, but it's still awkward that they can't be skipped at all by default. Whoever thought of that needs to be shot.

 

[jamesworkshop]

Have you not figured out that you can just delete all the videos called trailers from the instal directory and that works for almost every game on the market.

 

[hida_dragonbane]

That's longer than it takes to reboot my computer

Well then you obviously don't have vista, I could go grocery shopping during the start up loading times.

Exactly what I was thinking.

 

[Shamus Young]

Yeah, I never get this either. I run Vista, and my time from hitting the power switch to being able to actually use the computer is less than 30 seconds (closer to 20), which is a few times faster than XP ever was for me. I have to wonder how much of the Vista hate that gets posted is just crap repeated from early reputation, because I've been running it for over a year and a half, and it's been smooth and fast the whole way without a crash.

Rather than assume otherwise reasonable people are taking part in some sort of anti-Vista conspiracy, I'm betting it's just that Vista has serious problems with some configurations and works fine for others.

The stuff Vista is doing under the hood is pretty outlandish:

http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.html
And most of it is obviously obscured from the user. The user has no way of knowing that the IM program they installed (or came pre-installed) that they use once a month is actually launching at startup and getting hooks to multimedia devices for webcams and microphones and such, which triggers the Vista slowdowns as it does whatever it does.

It's the OS equivalent of airport security. Sometimes, with the right passengers the line can move right along. But all it takes is a couple of misbehaving applications (passengers with double-laced shoes, three laptops, a purse full of silverware, and belt buckles all over their clothing) to bring the whole show to a standstill.

Upgrading TO Vista might be another source of trouble. Its probably is less likely to have hardware freakouts on a machine designed for Vista from the outset.

For the record: I'm skipping Vista. I'll be going directly from XP to W7, assuming it's as good as people are saying so far.

 

[mikecoulter]

That's longer than it takes to reboot my computer

Well then you obviously don't have vista, I could go grocery shopping during the start up loading times.

My Vista loads within a minute on a pretty normal laptop... Try using "Ccleaner" once in a while ;D

 

[Liverandbacon]

That's odd. I have Vista, and my PC gets to the point where I'm browsing the internet in around 45 seconds from initial power-button pressing. And I have quite a few of programs that run at startup.

Is that a full boot or just start up from Hibernate?

Start up from Hibernate is quite snappy and by default the button on the Start menu which looks like a power button actually hibernates your machine.

However doing a full boot is like waiting for the second coming...

Full boot. On my Vista laptop, which isn't nearly as nice hardware-wise as my desktop, the startup takes a bit more than one minute, but is still fast. My XP laptop, on the other hand, takes so long to boot up to a usable state that I can make myself a sandwich, and still have time left over.

OT: Yeah, the ads at the beginning of Crysis were really annoying until I figured out that I was meant to press the spacebar.

 

[Doom Marine]

I hope you're not planning on plaing Crysis Wars....

 

[Weaver]

I find it a big ludicrous that the major flaws being pointed out are long logo screens, which are not exclusive to Crysis and all but two of them (the EA logo and the legal one) are actually skipable. Why don't you do a thing on how long it takes to quit from assassin's creed on the PC? That was quite insane:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwOvuY0UbFM