Video: Mini-ITX 2.0 with VIA Nano really does play Crysis
By Thomas Ricker 
posted June 5th 2008 8:05AM
posted June 5th 2008 8:05AM
Read -- Mini-ITX 2.0 announcement
Read -- Crysis
posted June 5th 2008 8:05AM
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Don't get the complaints, this only consumes 5W to 25W, so it's pretty darn good.
Yeah, but how many watts does the 8600GT that actually allows the system to play Crysis eat up? I'm pretty sure its a whole lot more then 5W-25W.
Its kinda like dropping a hayabusa engine in a smart for two. Yeah it can keep up with a Ferrari now, but you kinda loose a bit of the economy that the smart for two originally had. Not saying its not a good idea, just don't go talking up the efficiency of the car anymore.
Hayabusa for Two
@kal326
You're wrong. Dropping a 9800GX2 would be as you say, not an 8600GT. The 8600 is a friggin budget card that costs < $60.
Pretty impressive but will it also feature in laptops and desktops I can buy or will it just sue for anti-competitive behaviour at a later date :p ?
Breaking News: VIA lays off monkeys, hires engineers to design its chips
Ed :so , CJ , how ya doin today ?
CJ: Yawn, er , im excited.
CJ. Yawn, We are thrilled to death to show this off now, wake me upwhen its all over.
yes, its boring , but still less boring than Atom news.
Now why would you throw a turtle?
I guess you'd have to ask that same question to all those millions of Mario Kart fans...
So the CPU only uses 5 to 25W? That's pretty good, only running Crysis will tell you nothing about it's performance given that Crysis is mostly graphics card bound, and I bet that 8600GT was using 20x more power than the CPU, so that rig they where showing off is still quite power hungry. Also the only bit of 3D in that demo was the last bit with the turtle, the rest was just the intro which is pre-rendered video and would probably run fine on my old P2 266 + Graphics Blaster Exxtreem system.
It isn't pre rendered, all movie sequences in crysis are rendered on the fly, why else would you see the frame rate drop??
It cant handle the videos as well as it can handle the game??? lol
I've had to debug this game a few times. All the stuff showing off the features of the suit is pre-rendered video. The bit in the plane is 3D and the bit where he throws the turtle is 3D, that's it.
Centaur Tech was the brain child of Integrated Device Technology and originally was created to compete against Intel by creating low power x86 chips. Unfortunately, IDT wasn't successful with it in the market place even though the architecture and engineering was outstanding. Via came in and bought it seeing that they would have the marketing power to put this amazing tech to work. Centaur has now shown that this chip is pretty awesome and now it's up to VIA to use it's muscle to get it into the marketplace and prove intel/amd isn't the only game in town. I hope VIA is successful.
Amen!
I am all for more competition. Despite falling out of the woodworks in the chipset business, I think VIA can make a comeback in the mini-ITX arena if it just stop pricing their products in stratospheric mode. Intel will seriously dent VIA's foothold if it releases a successor to their D201GLY2 mini valley series.
Vista x64 with an x86 processor?
why?
well... as far as i know the nano is a x86_64 processor
I am so tired of the "yeah but does it play 'insert game name here'" jokes.
Maybe it was funny the first time engadget said it, but when 20% of the comments on nearly every article are about Crysis...I think it's time to let go.
Please?
20% of the comments are about Crysis on a post that is about Crysis... whats wrong with that picture?
Sweet. it's about time that VIA delivered something far better than the defunct Transmeta Crusoe and Efficeon. The C7 was a good start but this Nano is truly a good HTPC worthy CPU. i would be happy to have one of these CPU's in my secondary laptop as well.
Wasn't much of that demonstration video just the intro video for Crysis? I assume that is pre-rendered--not exactly a great means of demonstrating performance.
Finally someone said this! It only showed seven seconds of actual game play, where that guy is talking to you before you make the jump. The rest was just a pre-rendered cut scene.
cant remember throwing turtles was in the rendervideo
What a load of tosh!!! I've been following crysis since beta and that was a FULL MOTION VIDEO - not the proper game being played. Only the opening sequence where the black guy is staring at you is in game and that framerate sucked.... This is nothing special ;)
impressive
That projector probably is only 1024x768 and I bet there playing on low-medium.
How is anyone going to play this game if it takes a $5,000+ computer to run it a a standard monitor resolution?
My $1000 (as of 3/08) computer plays Crysis just fine at 1680x1050 on High. Can't do Very High or too much AA though.
Am I the only one who noticed that they weren't PLAYING Crysis? That was the trailer for it, not the game.
I noticed that too. Turn the settings down on Crysis and it will run AND still look pretty good.
I thought the same thing. I have been trying to find the footage that it reminded me of.
Note to self: NO PRESS CONFERENCES AT MY OWN APARTMENT.
ehm, when you start crysis you get to see a video of the gameplay, I believe thats what we are seeing here, not the actual in-game screens rendered by this system.
Will it blend?