Too bad that the innovation of gameplay together with technology has been on a complete stop since.. well 2000 I guess..
There hasn't been a single game in at least the last 5 years that popped up with ground-breaking, limit-pushing graphics, while offering awesome pew-pew gameplay of massive win. Ofcourse, there have been games with pew-pew gameplay of massive win, but they usually look like crap (Nintendo stuff).
I agree that evolution in technology is a great thing and I'm OK with developers pushing the limits, but that doesn't mean gameplay should suffer. People still -play- games (keyword: play), they don't watch them (that's what cinema is all about). Crysis is a buggy and basicly **** game, it just looks awesome.. Same goes for UT3 (eventhough they went a bit over the top on the bloom-department).
I'm not saying they have to be on the same scale. I'm saying, eventually graphics will reach a point where they can't be "technically" improved and all that's left to differentiate games from one another is gameplay, art design and story.
I've played Crysis, and I haven't found any bugs--nor is it crappy. It's an interesting sci-fi shooter.
As for my computer...
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4ghz
XFX Nvidia nForce 680i Sli Intel Motherboard
XFX GeForce 8800GTX 768mb
2x1gb DDR2 800 (PC2 6400)
Western Digital 150gb Raptor Drive
It ran both games on max, with no stuttering or lag. I say, make the games look good for low-end and high end systems. I don't mind having to SLI two nvidia cards in the future. Even if it will be the new 8900's.
This is BS. Even the current triple SLI 88800GTX setups can't run Crysis at 1920x1200 with more than 20-40 fps, with fps dropping craploads in certain places.
"Max" settings on 1024x768, perhaps. But currently existing hardware can't play Crysis at max resolution, max settings.
I have a very similar rig to yours:
Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz, overclocked to 3.2GHz
Tuniq tower 120 cooler
Abit IP35 Pro Motherboard
GIGABYTE GV-NX88T512HP GeForce 8800GT 512MB
4GB Corsair XMS PC-6400 DDR800, 4-4-4-12 timings
150GB WD Raptor X
---
13,700 3DMarks in 06, in the 98th percentile of all systems scanned.
Despite this--I can play Crysis at very high settings up to about 1280x768 reliably. Any higher than that and I get some spots that are playable, others aren't. All the benchmark sites list even sli/triple SLI solutions of 8800GTXs as being unable to reliably play at 2560x1600 or 1920x1200.