Well, first of all, don't think the cutscenes in Crysis are like CG, they are real-time rendered. Or... whatever it's called, it's the same as the game itself anyways. As you might already know of course, I'm just saying... But I've seen more people having trouble with lower performance in cutscenes on new computers. And I have an old crappy computer, and it performs the same in playing the game and cutscenes It's not like I have good performance, but at lowest settings I do get pretty consistent framerates of like 10 to 20. And then it's not like it suddenly drops drastically, like it would stutter or freeze in my case, at cutscenes. It just continues to do the same as it did with playing the game. Sure, when more stuff has to be rendered, performance does drop, but that's either during gameplay or cutscenes. Even less with cutscenes actually, which is kinda logic since they are usually less action-heavy. Which makes all you guys with new(er) system unlogical...
XP is just lighter on your computer. For every new Operation System counts, give it some time and it will work well too. Especially since everybody gets better and better computers. Just like Windows 98 was fading out, and probably still is since many users like it better, Windows XP will fade out one day too. Probably in a couple of years, but I think I'll stick with XP until their support stops in like 2014. And by the time "Vienna" will probably be out, I'll probably switch to that one, depending on what the difference is...
Wow, rather "forgiving" since there isn't much difference between most High and Medium settings. Especially like the textures doesn't matter a thing on what setting you put it. Well, not the screenshots they show for textures here. But I mean, the Very High and High are the same and Medium and Low are the same. While only showing a small change of some small details, not even the textures getting blocky and blurry or whatever else... But you can run it good on hardware that is available today, even at Higher settings. If you're not satisfied with 30-40-50+ frames per second, play at Medium for a while. You can call the game a ripoff, but that's just because you can't run it because this game's technical side is so advanced.
Even if all players of each game looked alike, all gamers would automatically pick the best graphical picture. Because that's just how gamers are these days, jumping right to the technical aspect. While I find that Live08 has the sharpest graphics, they all have that gray slimy "realism" layer over them. Meaning, trying to make it all realistic while the colors aren't true to the original or reality. Besides that, why do at least 3 Live08 look cross-eyed or have a similar disorder? It seems like a bug to me... And all the NBA08-players simply look like caricatures.
Oh yeah, and something else: All those "tough 1337 hardcore gamer guyz" with their top of the line parts thinking they're the best players just because they have the best systems... THAT'S @$&^%®þå^$&!¡! Sure you need flowing performance, you can't use stutters and lag. But the system doesn't make the player, you're only as good as you are in reality. A good system only helps, or should I say cán help, but if you can't play, an actual good player with a worse system will win. And listen again BIKEMBA: The actual AGP-interface will still drag the higher end AGP-cards down despite the high specifications. Like I said, I have personally tried it, I only got the performance slightly better than my 6800XT, the only difference was that the X1950XT didn't stutter (as much). Besides that, the other parts like CPU, RAM, etc. that AGP-motherboards support are ususally not higher than pre-DDR2 and P4s. Which will also not do justice to an AGP-card's high specifications. But do you have the card now and does it get you high performance? Also, what does the rest of your system exist out of? Maybe it's just the rest of MY system to blame...
Yes, it seems like they're all PCIe, and I also don't think the guys at GameSpot would recommend anyone an AGP-version anymore. Even if you have a higher end AGP-card, the whole AGP-interface/technology will just not be able to handle it I'm affraid. Like I'm still stuck with AGP and tried an X1950XT, it's too fast for it's own good, in AGP-setup that is. For the newer games, say from 2005/2006, you really need PCIe, so I recommend you get it somehow. But even PCIe in combination with older CPUs and RAM and such will take your card down, but it's probably always better than AGP. And also, the companies creating those higher end AGP-cards, are just trying to make money by ripping you off. That's what I found out after spending over 250 bucks for the performance of a 6800XT anyways. AGP is dead for the latest games... Unless they come up with an AGP 16x technology or whatever, either way you'll have to get away from the AGP 8x and upgrade.
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