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Crysis 2 DirectX 11 video shows off graphical upgrades

As promised, Crysis 2's "Ultra Upgrade" is available today. But what do all the new graphical effects look like when turned on?
Andrew Yoon
41

As promised, Crysis 2's "Ultra Upgrade" is available today. But before you can start enabling all the new graphical effects on your high-end PC, you'll need to patch your game to version 1.9. Thankfully, you can grab that right here. Once that's done, you'll want to do grab the High-Res Texture Pack, and the Ultra Pack, of course.

The "Ultra Upgrade" offers gamers the ability to replay Crysis 2 with a number of enhanced visual effects including tessellation, water rendering improvements, high quality HDR motion blur, and more. There's also an optional high-res texture pack you can install, if you so wish. But, maybe you need to see if the upgrade is worth it before downloading the gigs and gigs of updates? Don't worry, Crytek has released a video highlighting many of the visual treats awaiting high-end PC gamers:

The Crysis 2 "Ultra Upgrade" isn't the only bonus PC gamers are going to get this week. Additionally, the Map Editor Pack will be available to download starting Wednesday. And like today's releases, it will be available for free.

Andrew Yoon was previously a games journalist creating content at Shacknews.

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  • Shacknews legacy 10 years legacy 20 years
    reply
    June 27, 2011 12:15 PM

    Andrew Yoon posted a new article, Crysis 2 DirectX 11 video shows off graphical upgrades.

    As promised, Crysis 2's "Ultra Upgrade" is available today. But what do all the new graphical effects look like when turned on?

    • ClawHammR legacy 10 years
      reply
      June 27, 2011 12:41 PM

      cool, wonder if i should finally go on steam and get crysis 2.. oh wait

    • Jobos legacy 10 years
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      June 27, 2011 1:22 PM

      Will I need a DX11 card for these features? It's confusing now because my Windows Ult. 64 bit runs with DX11 installed. I mean, will some of the DX11 features work and others not?

      • Jobos legacy 10 years
        reply
        June 27, 2011 1:24 PM

        I should mention that I have a GTX 260, that was a DX10 card back in the day. But some games REQUIRE DX11 to play and I can play them (because DX11 is installed). Gah! Confusing!

        • soundcreepy legacy 10 years
          reply
          June 27, 2011 1:33 PM

          I would expect this would require a dx11 card because of the features (tess especially)

          What games have you been able to play that REQUIRE DX11 (if its games like Just Cause 2 it says it requires DX10/11)

        • CodeSlicer legacy 10 years
          reply
          June 27, 2011 1:38 PM

          The DX11 features will require a DX11 card. Pretty sure there are some improved DX9 effects in the patch however. Just curious... what games do you have that require DX11 cards? I know some games support it but I haven't heard of any requiring it yet.

          • CodeSlicer legacy 10 years
            reply
            June 27, 2011 1:39 PM

            Looks like a few people beat me in the time it took to sign up for an account :-)

      • Desmond4231 legacy 10 years
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        June 27, 2011 1:32 PM

        What? No. If your card doesn't support DX11 then you can't run any DX11 features.

        • factor27 legacy 10 years
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          June 27, 2011 5:16 PM

          This is false.

          You write a D3D11 game that runs on D3D9 cards.
          http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff476329%28VS.85%29.aspx

          Of course not all of D3D11 hardware features (like tessellation) will be available but the application can implement fallbacks for them.

          For example, paralax occlusion maps can be implemented on D3D9 hardware and they could have chosen to enable it on

      • LoioshDwaggie legacy 10 years legacy 20 years
        reply
        June 27, 2011 1:34 PM

        You will need a DX11 video card.

      • one random winner legacy 10 years
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        June 27, 2011 1:41 PM

        In order to run DX11 you need the following

        1) A DX11 capable GPU
        2) A DX11 capable OS
        3) A game that uses DX11

      • SpaecKow legacy 10 years legacy 20 years
        reply
        June 27, 2011 4:52 PM

        With this you will be getting texture upgrades and the restoration of many cryengine features like reflections and high quality ambient occlusion. The only DX 11 mandatory features are the tessellation and I think the parallax mapping?

    • Xulu legacy 10 years
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      June 27, 2011 1:50 PM

      crytek videos are forever about a bunch of bullets off of a check list

    • isolated1 legacy 10 years
      reply
      June 27, 2011 2:46 PM

      OK, highest settings dx 11 w medium motion blur, everything else maxed out 1080p on core i7 860/gtx 480 i get 30 to 60 fps. In the wide open areas it went around 30, and an enclosed area (like when you meet gould it was mostly 40 to 60. It never went under 29 fps or over 60, which is weird but whatever. Its probably not worth playing again if you already finished it in dx9 like I did. I still like the muliplayer but I may dial that back to direct x 9 for a better framerate and just make use of the better textures.

      • Entity legacy 10 years legacy 20 years
        reply
        June 27, 2011 6:24 PM

        Bringing Object detail down from Ultra to Extreme helps alot. Also, you never went over 60 because you had VSync turned on.

    • Topsiderover legacy 10 years
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      June 27, 2011 3:36 PM

      I'll wait for the valcan_s review.

      • Volatus32x legacy 10 years
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        June 27, 2011 3:51 PM

        MAXIMUM awesome]b \m/ \m/

        • Volatus32x legacy 10 years
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          June 27, 2011 3:51 PM

          Heh, that's why I'm not valcan_s

          • valcan_s legacy 10 years legacy 20 years mercury super mega
            reply
            June 27, 2011 4:00 PM

            LOL :) its all good man, my god I love this update, I am re playing the game now its so amazing.

            Good thing the game already had solid gameplay and level design so this update makes it the ULTIMATE FPS you can get right now.

            Hope you have a chance to try it out on your rig.

            • hanged_man legacy 10 years
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              June 28, 2011 1:43 AM

              i agree about the visuals but that still doesnt make it a fun game, for some reason i keep losing interest during the SP campaign and never finishing it compared to replaying crysis 1/warhead tons of times

    • abrasion legacy 10 years legacy 20 years
      reply
      June 27, 2011 3:45 PM

      I'm gonna try this out over the next week, see if the gameplay in the game still makes me want to stab kittens or if I can get over it.

      I think the first 15 minutes (getting off the ship, escaping the warehouse, killing my first 20 dudes) was quite fun, it's just after that it got more and more .. linear and the bad guys bugged me.

    • Downforce legacy 10 years legacy 20 years
      reply
      June 27, 2011 3:58 PM

      WOWWWWWW ok this is the system melting crysis I'm used to. DX11 with the ultra pack is intense.

      I gotta back down the settings, this 5850 is getting tortured, but probably CPU limited in a big way.

      sure looks nice though, impressive.

    • samduhman legacy 10 years legacy 20 years
      reply
      June 27, 2011 4:03 PM

      Wow, seeing that actually has convinced me to buy it. I didn't think it would make a difference.

    • Saldrin legacy 10 years
      reply
      June 27, 2011 4:10 PM

      I'm tempted to buy this now... problem is Steam doesn't sell it. All my games are on Steam.... Guess I'm not gonna buy it.

      • abrasion legacy 10 years legacy 20 years
        reply
        June 27, 2011 4:13 PM

        The steam version looks like it's 32bit only - I'm trying to make sense of their forums. Apparently one of those patches requires 64bit :/

        • isolated1 legacy 10 years
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          June 27, 2011 4:24 PM

          So I bought the game on steam and installed the hires texture pack, the hires textures aren't being used because the steam version has no 64 bit binaries, despite turning on the hires textures in options???

        • [deleted] 1324565298 legacy 10 years
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          June 27, 2011 4:46 PM

          [deleted]

          • abrasion legacy 10 years legacy 20 years
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            June 27, 2011 5:40 PM

            Hang on, how does this work? The high res textures need 64bit but it doesn't even exist? How does one get it?

            • at0micgarden legacy 10 years legacy 20 years
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              June 27, 2011 5:46 PM

              I thought maybe it needed to use some ridiculous amount of RAM, but it says it only needs 768mb, so I dunno. There's still no bin64 folder in the Steam version post-patch, but now the game says it's unavailable so I can't test.

            • [deleted] 1324565298 legacy 10 years
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              June 27, 2011 6:13 PM

              [deleted]

              • abrasion legacy 10 years legacy 20 years
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                June 28, 2011 3:26 AM

                How am I being an idiot? The notes state it needs a 64bit bersion yet you state there isn't a 64bit binary for the game?

      • Marrbe legacy 10 years
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        June 27, 2011 4:54 PM

        Get it on GoG, then. There's no better place to get a game if it's available there. You get free hosting of a compatibility-fixed, legally cracked game along with extras and forums/support.

    • Korban legacy 10 years legacy 20 years
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      June 27, 2011 4:47 PM

      i can't wait for this to get released on Steam

      • at0micgarden legacy 10 years legacy 20 years
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        June 27, 2011 5:35 PM

        I think Steam just downloaded the prereq patch and I'm currently downloading the two optional packs now, so it should work fine.

        • at0micgarden legacy 10 years legacy 20 years
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          June 27, 2011 6:32 PM

          Works fine on Steam and looks fuuuuuuucking gorgeous, as expected. It still sucks that we couldn't play Crysis 2 as it was meant to be played until just now, but I held out on the SP game for the most part until this patch. God damn, it looks so good. The explosions and water in particular look insanely good now, and tessellation combined with hi-res textures just make this game look how it should have looked from the beginning.

          Quick note for AMD users: When I turned off "AMD Optimized Tesselation" and changed it to "App Settings" in CCC

          • DarkDeus legacy 10 years
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            June 27, 2011 6:38 PM

            damn i wish i could get my game working on steam. I'm downloading the latest nvidia beta driver to see if it helps. I've verified my game cache and everything and it still won't load.

            • at0micgarden legacy 10 years legacy 20 years
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              June 27, 2011 6:51 PM

              My game had to re-activate for some reason, possibly the activation servers (EA) are messed up right now/slammed?

    • squeakychimp legacy 10 years legacy 20 years
      reply
      June 27, 2011 5:51 PM

      im putting my consoles on craigslist and upgrading my PC. I dont know what the hell i was thinking when i bought this game for the x360.

      • SpaecKow legacy 10 years legacy 20 years
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        June 27, 2011 6:57 PM

        Well back then it didn't look THAT much better on PC.

    • vynn legacy 10 years legacy 20 years
      reply
      June 27, 2011 6:05 PM

      can't wait to try this!

    • DarkDeus legacy 10 years
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      June 27, 2011 6:07 PM

      Is anyone else not able to load their games now? It crashes when loading the level and says an error has caused crysis2.exe to stop working. I have a gtx470, windows 7 64 bit, and have the game on steam. It worked fine before the dx11 and hi res texture patch.

      • DarkDeus legacy 10 years
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        June 27, 2011 6:26 PM

        I guess the patch broke my game for now. I can't play even with the dx 11 and hi res features turned off : ( It looks like some other people have the same problem though including people with ATI cards.

      • The Wilhelm Scream legacy 10 years
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        June 27, 2011 6:58 PM

        Loaded a save fine for me.

      • Entity legacy 10 years legacy 20 years
        reply
        June 27, 2011 8:31 PM

        First mission I completed with the patch enabled crapped out (and I had to do an annoying boss fight over again) once, but it hasn't happened since.

      • Downforce legacy 10 years legacy 20 years
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        June 27, 2011 9:53 PM

        oh it loads..... at 5 FPS maybe. hahaha. I gotta turn this shit back down!

    • filthysock legacy 10 years legacy 20 years mercury ultra mega
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      June 27, 2011 6:50 PM

      the water... omg

    • The Wilhelm Scream legacy 10 years
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      June 27, 2011 6:57 PM

      Game looks great now (I thought it did before). Looking forward to some performance tweaks by Nvidia.

    • crummynz legacy 10 years legacy 20 years
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      June 27, 2011 8:07 PM

      Does the 720p option even do anything on this video?

    • at0micgarden legacy 10 years legacy 20 years
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      June 27, 2011 8:53 PM

      Some DX11 Screens:

      http://steamcommunity.com/id/at0micgarden/screenshots/?tab=all&showdate=1&filter=app_99830

    • ant_hillbilly legacy 10 years
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      June 27, 2011 10:29 PM

      Looks very very nice. I hope BF3 has an option to grab high res textures if they dont ship with the game.

    • RuskiSnajper legacy 10 years
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      June 28, 2011 12:45 AM

      EDITOR ON WEDNESDAY

    • [deleted] 2084680424 legacy 10 years
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      June 28, 2011 8:01 AM

      [deleted]

      • jbury legacy 10 years
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        June 28, 2011 1:11 PM

        Ah you guys make me chuckle :)

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