Figures. The weekend I go out of town, is the same weekend they decide to release a demo of one of my most anticipated games of the year, Crysis. So yesterday morning (Monday) I start to download the demo via BitTorrent. I tried downloading from several other HTTP servers, but their download time was going to take a while longer than BitTorrent. Still, the demo took about 3-4 hours to download.

Once downloaded, I installed, and ran the game. Like most games, they have an auto-detect feature which scans your computer's hardware and sets the game's graphical settings accordingly. No surprise, but Crysis decided I needed to run the game at 800x600 resolution, with all advanced settings set to Low. I said this was no surprise because most games like to low-ball the graphic settings so you get better performance through the game.

Well, I like pretty and shiny things. So I cranked up the resolution to some normal, wide screen res, like 1280x800 or something. I also changed all the advanced settings to High. After that I entered the game. The level load time was surprisingly quick and on par with other games out there like Half-Life 2, Doom 3, and Far Cry. But when the loading was done and the game started, I think my computer had a mild heart attack. The opening scene shows your squad's airplane flying through some clouds over an island. This scene rendered at about 1-2 frames per second (fps).

"Ah crap," I thought to myself. It seems my computer doesn't like this game. So I paused the game and lowered the resolution a bit. I also changed some of the advanced settings to Medium. This time the game was a little smoother, but still annoying at 10-15 fps. So I lowered the resolution again and changed all advanced settings to Medium. There we go. Now I could play the game. At least for a short while.

Shortly into the demo you have to meet up with one of your squad members and follow him through this lush jungle. At this point the game bogged down to about 10-15 fps again. It was unplayable for me, so I changed all advanced settings to Low. Now the game ran fine at about 25-30 fps, but it didn't look like a next-gen game. The game looked pretty crappy, but I had to trade off quality for performance.

What's this about a new computer?

Yes, it looks like it's time to build a new gaming rig. I built my current one about 2-3 years ago and it's starting to show its age. This Crysis demo is only a glimpse of things to come. First, it will be Crysis running and looking horrible on my computer, then it will be every other game that comes out after it. So, it's time to upgrade and that's what I'm doing.

I just ordered all the parts for my new computer. Below are the specs and links to the parts on NewEgg.com:

• Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 3.0Ghz Processor
• ASUS P5K3 Deluxe Motherboard
• Corsair 2GB DDR3 1333 Dual-Channel RAM
• Seagate 750GB SATA Hard Drive
• EVGA Nvidia GeForce 8800GTX 768MB PCI-Express Video Card
• Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate DVD

Along with some other items, like a new case, power supply, and input devices, this computer will be rocking, and should last me for 2-3 years like the previous one. I can't wait to get the parts and start putting it together. I'll post another article with pictures when this happens.

Surely, Crysis and any other next-gen, DirectX 10 games stand no match to this setup. I can't wait to try it!