CryEngine 3: New Video Shows Real-Time Indirect Illumination

A new CryEngine 3 video has been emerged which shows impressive real-time indirect illumination.

[AbyssGravelord]

Looks pretty damned impressive!

I just hope I won't have to spend a thousand dollars to get games to look like that on my crappy PC.

[phosphor112]

Sadly this wont be seen on consoles and in games for quite some time. This technique involves ray tracing the light source which is a hefty process. Thankfully it's not as much of a resource hog as ray tracing reflections.

[Shaman]

Mate,you are wrong.Its going to be on the consoles...here take a look,ps3 and 360 frame time with real time GI

http://www.crytek.com/filea...

i have been telling people Crytek has something special in store for everybody :)

[aGameDeveloper]

Shaman, did you even read the hardware these small demos required to run at interactive framerates? If you think this tech will run on current consoles in real games, you are sadly deluded. I'll copy those requirements here, in case your pause button was broken:

Hardware and software used:
All video fragments are captured live with CryENGINE 3 SandBox
on nVidia GeForce GTX285 @ 1280x720, no MSAA

According to recent TomsHardware charts, the GTX285 looks to be something like 4.5x faster than the 8800GTX (current charts don't go back to the 7800GTX) which itself is about 2x faster than the 7800GTX (according to a chart from 2008). This yields an approximate multiplier of 9x.

While all of the demos were running between 30 and 120 fps, all of them were much, much smaller than a real game world (the 50 fps "real game world" could have only been limited to a simulated corner of a map, looked to have many serious hitches, and did not even to attempt the worst-case scenario of the player view turning rapidly...) An actual game level could be anywhere between 5 and 100 times as big as the levels in these demos. While what is actually rendered into the framebuffer has a greater effect on performance than total level size, there is a significant effect, especially given the fact that the GTX285 has 4x the memory of the 7800GTX (so there's a lot of effort spent uploading textures to to older card). There are too many variables to come up with a good number, but lets say it is only twice as expensive to render/stream 20x the geometry.

So, if my assumption that this tech is heavily-dependent on the GPU for these effects is true, we're looking at a factor of anywhere between 10x - 20x between running it on a fast PC versus the PS3. So the worst case would have the stuff shown in the 30 fps demo running at 1.5 fps on a real game on the PS3, while the best case would be a real game running at 12 fps for the stuff shown in the 120 fps demo.

Sure, you could move much of the implementation to the SPUs...which are already busy doing all the other things modern games need running there (collision, physics, animation tasks, etc), or you could make use of the marginally-better GPU on the 360...which is already running all the stuff that the 360 does not have SPUs for.

[aGameDeveloper]

I should probably add that IF you see this technique on consoles, it will be severely limited.

The paper to which Shaman provided the link is called "Light Propagation Volumes" and says that the technique MIGHT be used on a 30 fps game on the consoles.

The video, on the other hand, is titled "CASCADED Light Propagation Volumes". The relevant definition of "Cascade" is "A succession of stages, processes, operations, or units".

So, if a single light propagation volume MIGHT run on consoles, a succession of Light Propagation Volumes probably will not. You will probably only see the singular definition and probably at a much lower quality level, if at all (see the limitations section of the video).

I hope these posts help put this in perspective. While I hope to be proven wrong, I think gamers are being misled into thinking they are going to see high-quality PC Crysis on consoles with CryEngine 3.

[aGameDeveloper]

I thought I'd also point out that the "real game demo" in the video is called an "outdoor environment with foliage" in the paper, lending credence to my assertion that it is likely only a "real game-like demo".

I should also point to the title of the article, "Cryengine 3 for Xbox 360 and PS3: New video shows impressive lighting in real time", in support to my concern that gamers are being misled into thinking they are going to see high-quality PC Crysis on consoles with CryEngine 3. This video is clearly showing a new research technique (one of the people credited looks to be a grad student) running on a high-end PC, which will almost certainly not run at the same quality level in a real game running on a console.

[Shaman]

LOL at disagrees from people who didnt even read presentation.First of you are wrong in comparing gtx280 to consoles gpus,because consoles are closed box,you can do much more with them then with same hardware on pc,in this case 7800gtx.Did you even read this article i gave you?page 29,it says results of global illumination on consoles,and they get under 33ms rendering whole scene.

They try it on gtx280 but that definitely doesent mean it cant be done on consoles,i dont gat why disagrees and it clearly states that they are doing it on consoles.

[Shaman]

http://www.vis.uni-stuttgar...

Here also, take a look...its all about exposing consoles power th right way.If you remember original xbox had 64mb of ram but it still could run Doom 3 respectably,even with celeron 733mhz and ge force 3 graphics card,so dont compare PC to consoles because consoles with right optimization and great engine surpass the same range PC by quite a bit ;)

[El_Colombiano]

Indirect lighting in real time is something I have been waiting for in games forever.

[Basil-Rathboner]

This new engine has been named after the botters reaction to the new God of War 3 footage.

[tdrules]

that footage is on PC.
troll moar

[W831SOLIDSNAKE]

God of War Sh!ts all over this.

PS3 Unrivaled Graphics

Oh and don't come at me with "PC" it's the graphics and processors that run the game. I have a PC that won't run Crysis so I can say PC's SUCK!

[CernaML]

No. You can say that YOUR PC sucks. :)

[CaliGamer]

The question is will the consoles have all of these features or will some be cut. I wonder if the PS3 version will have the advantage, seems likely especially after seeing the GOW3 footage.
This will be interesting.

[SOAD]

Um...no. The current generation of consoles couldn't even begin to process this. The PS3 is equivalent to a mid-range PC from 4 years ago. Who are you kidding?

[gtamike123]

yawn

[Immortal321]

I feel like those 360fan when they see gt5 screen pic! when this game coming out already!

[dRanzer]

well,i dont get it.they says 360 & PS3 video.but at the beging,write:
HardWare - Geforce GTX285\

[dirthurts]

It really adds to the realism of any given area.

[Aphe]

The game, like its predecessor, will p*ss all over the graphics on console games. Only on the pc though.

Consoles will be different. But the pc version will blow the consoles away graphic wise, just like the first one does.

[ATi_Elite]

YEh right! The GTX 285 is a $320 Beast of a graphics card. Sorry you can combine the PS3 and 360 into one machine and it couldn't do anything that the GTX 285 could do.

This is running real time at low resolution on a PC with nothing else going on. The PS3 and 360 would rip it's own ram out trying to do this in real life.

[arakouftaian]

than anything cryengine has show so far even on the best pc

HEAVY RAIN
GOD OF WAR 3
GRAN TURISMO 5

looks better than anything on the cryengine 3

but the cryengine 3 still looks nice
and not outdated

[KRUSSIDULL]

I swear there must be some kind of air with drugs coming from the PS3 making people delusional thank the maker that I dont play PS3 that much or maybe I would be delusional aswell.

[RagTagBnd445]

Cryengine 2 kills all those games in terms of technical graphics. Fact.