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Optimizing Graphical Performance
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For a good gameplay experience you generally want to have a fast and stable frame rate. Additionally, it's good to have quick response on user input.

Crysis is made for high image quality and runs best with a powerful main processor, a lot of main memory, and a powerful graphics card with a lot of video memory. The performance can be limited by one or more of the above mentioned points. By default the game prefers settings for better performance which means many options in the menu go to low quality mode. However if hardware allows, this can be changed by the user. By adjusting graphical settings you can find a good compromise for your computer. Some very high quality features can only be accessed when running on DirectX 10 which requires Windows Vista. Features which are not accessible appear grayed out.

It is advisable to have the latest graphic card drivers as the hardware vendors often include optimizations for specific games into their drivers. Some graphics card settings in the Windows display settings can affect performance or quality. Windows Vista is a bit more demanding on hardware side and drivers can be less optimized. This makes it even more necessary to get recent drivers and hardware running well on Vista. Memory management within Windows Vista has changed a bit which makes it more memory demanding. Microsoft released a patch to improve this situation. More details and the download can be found there:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/940105

Modern processors now support 64bit which mostly improves their memory managing capabilities. This feature is only available if the operating system support 64bits. As Crysis is demanding in its memory requirements it can benefit from a 64bit OS. On a 64bit system the engine texture streaming can be disabled as the operating system can handle all data in a level. 64bit also supports more main memory available for each application. Both are beneficial and can result in improved frame rate and frame rate stability.

Multiple processors allow processing of some tasks in parallel which mostly improves computational heavy situations like explosions. The game utilizes multiple processors automatically.

Some hardware vendors have solutions to utilize multiple graphic cards in parallel (e.g. Crossfire or SLI) and that can greatly improve render performance. This requires the engine to run in the "MultiGPU" mode. The speedup depends on the scene and system properties like the main processor performance. Frame rate can be less stable but is often much higher.

The screen resolution is one of the most critical options for performance and quality. For best quality on a TFT it's best to pick a resolution which fits the hardware resolution (check your monitor manual). Generally a higher resolution gives better quality but requires more memory and renders slower. However, this depends on the hardware configuration and sometimes increasing the resolutions does not even affect performance.

Crysis features soft real-time shadows which play an important role in the image look. Shadows can be activated and deactivated in the advanced options menu.

Crysis also features HDR rendering which can be activated via the shading quality in the advanced options menu. In HDR mode you can notice bright image areas not appearing burned out. You can also notice the eye adapting to the brightness of the environment. Deactivating HDR can give you higher frame rates as it requires more graphics card performance and graphics card memory.

Anti aliasing is a hardware feature to improve image quality. Edges become softer and lower resolutions can look quite acceptable. The hardware feature works for most engine techniques but some graphical features like atmospheric effects may appear slightly different.

If your graphics card supports multiple monitors you might not get full 3D acceleration on each display. This can be avoided by only activating one display in the driver control panel.

To get a stable frame rate you should make sure your computer is not busy with other tasks such as virus scans or downloading files.

Vertical Sync is a graphical option you can choose in your graphics card driver. Switching this option off gives you best frame rate but the image quality might suffer and the image may appear torn apart. This is mostly noticeable when doing a quick horizontal camera rotation. For benchmarking, this option is usually switched off.

Modern TFT monitors have short response times and other features which help when the eye is following fast paced action.

Input devices need to submit their data in some rate and with a better connection (serial, PS2, USB) or better hardware you can get a faster rate. This can result in improved response time and an improved game experience.