Crysis Warhead Tweak Guide

[Page 2] Troubleshooting Tips, Patches & Copy Protection

As mentioned on the front page, this guide is quite short and is not meant to be used in isolation - it is designed to be used in conjunction with the Crysis Tweak Guide. The reason is that 99% of the settings, tweaks and advice in that guide apply equally to Crysis Warhead and Crysis Wars, as they are all based on the same engine and do not contain dramatic differences. This guide simply contains additional information which is not included in the Crysis guide, or advice which differs for Crysis Warhead and Crysis Wars. Even if you're not new to tweaking Crysis, I strongly advise that you read the Crysis Tweak Guide to refresh your memory and get across all the important information and tweaking potential of CryEngine 2. You will also find information that you may not have seen elsewhere, so it's worth the effort.

To start with, in this section we look at additional Troubleshooting Tips, provide information about any Official Patches, and examine details about Crysis Warhead and Crysis War's new copy protection system.

Troubleshooting Tips

Official Support: If you're having problems and need help, the first place to look for official support details is in the Readme.txt file in your \Program Files\Electronic Arts\Crytek\Crysis WARHEAD (or Crysis Wars)\Support directory and read the Readme.txt for minimum hardware requirements, known issues and tips. Also check under the \EA Help subdirectory and launch the Electronic_Arts_Technical_Support.htm file for further troubleshooting help. Next, you should check the Official EA Support Site for more details of known issues and solutions. Finally, you can get community tech support via the Official Crysis Forums, as well as fan sites such as the InCrysis Forums.

64-bit Users: At the moment Crytek has not released the 64-bit binaries for Crysis Warhead, however they have released the 64-bit binaries for Crysis Wars as part of the 1.1 Patch - see below for details. However note that the PunkBuster anti-cheat system still doesn't support the new 64-bit version of Crysis Wars, so if you want to play with cheat protection you will still need to launch the 32-bit executable as normal.

Update: Both Crysis Wars and Crysis Warhead now have 64-bit binaries as of the latest versions. To run these, create a shortcut to the following game executable: \Program Files (x86)\Electronic Arts\Crytek\Crysis Wars\Bin64\Crysis.exe (Crysis Wars), and \Program Files (x86)\Electronic Arts\Crytek\Crysis WARHEAD\Bin64\Crysis64.exe (Crysis Warhead). Alternatively, for Crysis Warhead in Vista 64-bit, right-click on the game's icon in Games Explorer and select 'PlayDX9 (64-bit)' or 'PlayDX10 (64-bit)'. The 64-bit version is recommended for Warhead users because it should help resolve memory-related issues.

Note: Games saved when using the 32-bit version won't work properly when running the 64-bit version and vice-versa.

Crashes: Crysis Warhead is a very strenuous game, and as such can crash for a variety of reasons. Don't just assume that every crash or problem is a bug - almost all issues are due to incorrect system configuration and poor system optimization - see the TGTC link below for more help on how to resolve this. However there is a known bug which can cause crashes and stuttering: if you disable texture streaming (Using the r_texturesstreaming=0 command) then this will result in texture corruption and then an eventual crash - see the next page for more details. For crash problems related to SecuROM, see the Copy Protection section further below.

See Page 3 of the Crysis Tweak Guide for more important troubleshooting tips which you should not ignore. Importantly, the biggest performance improvement and troubleshooting step you can undertake is to download and run through the comprehensive TweakGuides Tweaking Companion (TGTC).

Official Patches

Crysis Warhead has received a 1.1 Patch which fixes several issues and includes 64-bit binaries for the game. Note that shortly after the original release of this first patch, Crytek has released a '1.1 Hotfix' version of the patch with some additional fixes - the link above is for the latest Hotfix version which is recommended.

The multiplayer component Crysis Wars has received a 1.5 Patch which contains a range of bug and balance fixes and some general improvements.

Check back here for details as patches are released in the future.

Copy Protection

One of the more controversial aspects of Crysis Warhead has been its increased copy protection. Due to the high levels of piracy for the original Crysis, Crytek and EA have implemented the SecuROM copy protection system which incorporates an online activation component. Unfortunately there has been a great deal of misinformation and FUD spread about this protection system, so let's just examine the facts. Both the Steam version and the DVD version of Crysis Warhead and Crysis Wars are protected by SecuROM in the same manner. If you are interested in the actual facts regarding Crysis Warhead's copy protection and SecuROM in general, I urge you to read the following official documents:

Crysis Warhead Copy Protection FAQ

Crysis Warhead Steam Copy Protection FAQ

SecuROM FAQ

Below I summarize the most important points:

Whether using Steam or the DVD version, there is no disk check component. That is, you do not need to keep a DVD in the drive for the game to run.

Immediately after installing Crysis Warhead, whether on Steam or via DVD, you will need to connect to the Internet to allow SecuROM to authenticate/activate your copy. This process takes literally a couple of seconds.

Connection to the Intenet for activation of Crysis Warhead is only required upon installation, and when installing updates. At other times you do not need to be connected to the Internet to play Warhead.

Crysis Wars, the multiplayer component of Crysis Warhead, does not need activation, only authentication online using the CD Key which comes printed on the back of your game manual.

There is a 5 activation limit for Crysis Warhead, but there is no limit for Crysis Wars. The 5 activation limit for Warhead is not the same as 5 installations - you can uninstall and reinstall the game multiple times on the same PC and not use up any more activations. Only if your PC hardware has significantly changed, or you reformat your drive, or upgrade the OS, or try to install on a different computer, will an additional activation be used. Crytek has also promised to provide a 'revoke tool' shortly to help manage and free up activations.

If you run out of activations you will need to contact EA Support - see the links under Troubleshooting Tips further above, as well as checking the back page of your manual. This is necessary because assessing whether claims for additional activations are legitimate is done on a case-by-case basis.

If you are experiencing problems with SecuROM, see the SecuROM FAQ further above, and also make sure to turn off X-Fire, Process Explorer, or Virtual Drive software as these are known to cause conflicts with SecuROM when a protected game is run. Disable these, reboot and retry activation or launch of the game.

It is important to understand that SecuROM does not run in the background when a protected game is not running, it does not have any general performance impact on your system, it does not spy on your personal information, it is not a rootkit or malware, and when uninstalled, it only leaves behind a set of Registry keys holding license information. All of this is explained in detail in the EA SecuROM FAQ linked further above. Increasing piracy has forced companies to protect their multi-million dollar investments in PC game development and thus increase DRM measures to discourage casual piracy. If you wish to feel outraged about these measures, I would encourage you to aim your anger at the pirates who for years have downloaded all manner of games, whether good or bad, cheap or expensive, protected or unprotected, under an endless variety of excuses. DRM is not the source of piracy; rampant piracy has unfortunately forced DRM upon us. There is no magic solution to this problem.

Update: Crytek has released a Revoke Tool which allows all users to manually revoke and thus free up any unused Activations of Crysis Warhead.

Mods

Crytek has announced that a Sandbox Editor and SDK for Crysis Warhead and Crysis Wars will be released soon. Until then, they point out that many maps developed for Crysis MP can also be played in Crysis Wars.

Update: Crytek has released the Mod SDK for Crysis Wars, allowing users to create custom maps for multiplayer and singleplayer use.

There is also a popular Mechwarrior: Living Legends total conversion mod for Crysis Wars.

The next section goes into detail about any new or altered In-Game Settings and Advanced Tweaks, as well as some handy tips and performance information.