Of course, if you want the game to look the absolute finest, you'll need DirectX 10 hardware. It's a bit hard to get DirectX 10 cards right now, though, since they're not on the market, but the first cards should be out by the time Crysis ships. What sort of difference will DirectX 10 provide? Judging from what we've seen, DirectX 10 visuals elevate the graphics from beautiful to absolutely cutting edge. Subtle effects that really help immerse you into the game's world are only really possible with DirectX 10. However, to take advantage of DirectX 10, you'll also need Windows Vista, the long-awaited successor to Windows XP. That's due to the fact that the DirectX 10 API will only be released with Windows Vista, since Microsoft has basically rewritten the decade-old DirectX technology from scratch to take advantage of Vista's new driver model.

What's interesting is that Yerli told us that if you have Windows Vista and an older DirectX 9 card, you should still see better performance with Windows Vista than Windows XP, even if the hardware remains unchanged. "DirectX 9 on Vista will run faster throughout due to the better device driver model...which is a great thing because just upgrading the operating system on the same rig, you get a better gaming experience," he said.

In addition to your graphics card, Crysis will most likely make maximum work out of whatever CPU you have. The game will run fine on current, single-core CPUs, but it will take advantage of the latest multicore CPUs, as well. Yes, that means Crysis is multithreaded, which means that it can make maximum use out of dual-core systems. Where's all that processing power going? Well, part of the CPU's time will be taken up by Crytek's proprietary physics engine (called CryPhysics, of course), and it's the reason why you'll be able to saw apart trees with gunfire and why vegetation will bend and deform when someone passes by--or when the force of explosions blow them back.