This is kinda frustrating, isnt Crysis supposed to run smoothly with HD4870?
All settings on "High", 1440x900 res and no AA.
The stuttering becomes particularly severe in combat scenes, which turns the game into a slideshow at times.
I still get about 7900 gpu points in 3DMark Vantage which is, as far as I know, a decent value for this card running at stock.

I've tried with both the asus drivers and the latest Ati drivers (along with the "hotfix" ) and although I get much better performance with the ati drivers compared to the asus version, I'm still not satisfied.

Is there a problem with my card? drivers? or perhaps Crysis is simply too demanding for my system? The only game I've tried with this card aside from Crysis is BF2 which runs with no problems.

GPU: Asus Extreme Radeon HD4870 512MB
CPU: C2D E6750 @ 3,2 GhZ
MB: Asus P5KC iP35
PSU: 750W Corsair
RAM: 2GB Corsair DDR2 PC2-6400
OS: Vista x32 SP1

Your first problem is that you purchased an Asus video card. I have had so many problems with their graphics cards over the past 12 months that I simply refuse to buy anything but their motherboards anymore.

Now, my rant aside, Check the card temps and make sure you're not close to a run away nuclear reaction.

Vista is your plague. Get XP, with modified configuration files you'll have basically all the effects that DX10 has minus the massive performance loss (it actually looks better to me).

It may not have to do with the graphics card at all. Is there a lot of hdd activity during the stuttering? If so your system may be running out of ram. Vista itself takes 1+gb of ram at any given time, and Crysis hogs 2+gb after a while of gameplay. I use Vista 64bit with 8800gts, and get 45+ fps minimum, including heavy combat scenes, at 1280x1024 resolution, which is roughly the same area as 1440x900 widescreen.

It could also have to do with cpu overheating and throttling. Run prime95 and see what the max temperature is.

On the graphics card side, how much do you get in 3dmark06? I can't run Vantage because the trial version has limited number of runs and I don't want to pay for the full version.

Aside from benchmark, try to stress the gpu and see how hot it gets.
http://www.ozone3d.net/benchmarks/fur/

Im runing a Q6600 at 3.2 ghz 4 gig ram and a force 3d HD4870, runing vantage at 1280x800 (i dnt no if reselution run at efects the final score) but i got 9823 at stock and when OCd in CCC to 790/1100 i got 10429, which means yours is running slow (if the reselution run at doesnt effect the score)

Try OCing in CCC just pull both bars all the way 2 the right in overdrive and use the fan fix thing you can do so it dont run hot

Maybe only 2 gigs of ram isnt helpin

+1 to the ram issue. especially on vista. not sure why they even have a 32 bit vista with all the ram it uses. this might not be your only problem but it will be a problem. check the other stuff but at somepoint you are definitely going to want to spend a few $ (probably $50 or so) to get 2 more and go 64-bit.

Even with the 4gb limitations (around 3.2gb realistically), it should still be enough. 2gb is not.

Go here, find the right drivers, and download away. These will help, alot, and dont forget the AA http://www.ati-forum.de/general/ne [...] /?b100be32

If you're using Vista you should go 4GB+ and 64bit. Kind of stupid that you need that extra ram and will still trail behind XP SP3.

4gb is enough. You do not need more than 4gb for typical programs.

32 bit sucks the big one. <------pointless comment

4 gigs is plenty. And 32 bit, youre stuck with 3.2 anyways. 64 bit, like dagger says, can use 8 gigs, but what programs actually needs that much? Anything over 3 gigs is overkill ATM

I have Vista x64 and a 512MB 8800GT and I get perfectly playable FPS under DX10 all high settings. You can easily force Crysis to run under DX9 in Vista anyway, but driver updates have made the performance difference between DX9 and DX10 pretty much negligible. And WTF the hacked DX9 very high settings don't look better than 'real' very high; despite what you might hear from the Vista hating crowd there are some effects in Crysis that absolutely will not work properly under DX9.

What s1m0rgh describes does not sound like a RAM issue. More likely something is getting too hot or a driver needs updating.

Those 8.8 betas I posted are said to give at least a 20% increase in very high settings.

if he's running Vista 32bit he cannot have more than 4 gb or ram

well mate go for XP sp2 with all the latest update (integrated on the xp cd)

A friend of mine owns crysis and works perfectly with the Nvidia 8800gt and XP sp2

Try turning down the shadows in crysis, its the only setting that chokes my 4850 a little. (catalyst 8.7)