Time for action – installing the CryENGINE 3 Free SDK

Before we dive in, we must ensure that our computer system meets the requirements for development with the CryENGINE 3 SDK. As opposed to some reports, it does not take a super computer to run the CryENGINE 3 SDK. It should be noted that the system requirements for a developer do differ from that of a player, otherwise known as the end user.

Note

The CryENGINE 3 SDK is designed to scale reliably on a variety of systems with varying amounts of video and computational processing power.

The system requirements for a developer are as follows:

• Supported Operating Systems: Windows XP SP2, Windows Vista SP1, Windows 7.

• Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo 2 GHz, AMD Athlon 64 X2 2 GHz, or better.

• Memory: 2 to 4 GigaBytes of RAM.

• Video card: NVIDIA 8800GT 512 MB RAM, AMD 3850HD 512 MB RAM, or better. Shader Model 3 is the minimum.

Note

A multi-core processor is strongly recommended for development, as subsystems in CryENGINE 3 SDK can make use of multiple cores.

The system requirements for end users are as follows:

• Supported Operating Systems: Windows XP SP2, Windows Vista SP1, or Windows 7.

• Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo 2 GHz, AMD Athlon 64 X2 2GHz, or better.

• Memory: 1 GigaByte of RAM is the minimum, however, 2 GigaBytes is strongly recommended.

• Video card: NVIDIA 8800GT 512 MB RAM, AMD 3850HD 512 MB RAM, or better.

To get our hands dirty, we are going to need to download and install CryENGINE 3 SDK. This will allow us to create and run new games and the included sample content. Following are the steps to download and install CryENGINE 3 SDK:

1. Go to http://www.crydev.net.

2. Register yourself to create a unique login, which we will soon use to run CryENGINE 3 SDK.

3. Once registered, download the CryENGINE 3 Free SDK package.

4. Extract the content of the downloaded package to your desired directory. For this book, create a new directory on your C:, and name it Crytek. Then, create a new folder in the Crytek folder, and name it cryengine3_sdk. You should end up with all files from the archive in the directory C:/Crytek/cryengine3_sdk.

   

What just happened?

In the previous section, we took our first and very important step on our way to becoming a CryENGINE developer.

Now that you've installed the CryENGINE 3 Free SDK, you can run and view the sample content. Now, you can also interact with the rest of the CryENGINE 3 developers, post screenshots, ask advice, or even download other developer's creations on http://www.crydev.net.

Come in...stay awhile

Now, we can go to explore the sample level. This sample map should give you a good idea of the fidelity of rendering and interaction that can be achieved with the currently available generation of the technology.