Fear specs?

[Sensayshun]

I know there's been alot of threads like this.

I'm going to upgrade my graphics card to a 6600gt either 128 or 256mb.

If I have some money left over I plan on then doing another upgrade later in the year, to either 2gb of RAM or to an XP Mobile 2600.

So what would fear use more? The extra processing power of a better CPU or 2gb of RAM?

Or another option was to keep all the money and buy a 6800GT to go with an XP2200 and 640mb RAM.

[Fenris]

I would suggest for starters you need more RAM, 640meg just ain't gonna cut in FEAR.

I'm currently running a 6600GT 128Mb and it runs great on my system ( See sig for full spec ) you should get away with your CPU with more RAM and the 6600GT

[Sensayshun]

Do you still get the lag with 1.5gb of ram or is that extra 512mb worth it?

[Fenris]

Nope don't see any lag at all

[Donosio]

Funny you should mention this... I have a pretty High-End spec machine and fro the first time I have got a game where my system is having a slight problem with running a game which normally means it is time for an upgrade.

I have a nice 3.0GHz processor (Northwood) with 1GB of RAM and to be honest I struggled to run the game with the settings high so I lowered the settings a little and it runs like a dream.

F.E.A.R is a pain in the butt for certain graphics cards not working with 1280x1024 for some reason. So I hacked the Settings.cfg file in Notepad and added "ScreenWidth" "1280" "ScreenHeight" "1024" and I now have 1280x1024 resolution.

If you hate IGM ?In Game Movies? like me then these can be disabled by accessing config.cfg using Notepad and then look for Disable Movies: (set to disable)

Disable Sound: Removes all sound from the game. This improves performance however obviously is not recommended. Use to isolate whether your sound card is the source of a problem.

Disable Music: For a slight boost in available memory and performance, click this option to remove all FEAR music.

Disable Joysticks: Tick this option to disable all joysticks and game pads. This may resolve any problems you are having with keyboard and mouse controls in the game.

Disable Sound Filters: Sound Filtering effects will be disabled if ticked, meaning EAX reverberation effects. This can help reduce audio glitches such as crackling on cards with EAX 2.0 support, but will reduce audio special effects.

Disable Hardware Sound: Once again used to isolate whether your sound card is a problem by forcing Software Sound support only in FEAR. This can improve performance as well but reduces audio quality noticeably.

Although I would not recommend performing any of these options unless you are having major in game problems with F.E.A.R.

[Shannon]

Specs for F.E.A.R?

As high as you can possibly get, would be nice. Even top end machines (Athlon FX-57, 7800GTX SLI) only seem to manage around 50-60fps at max details with this game.

[Leo Natan]

That's not true! The only problem in FEAR is the "soft" shadows, which butcher fps, and that's due to poor coding and bad implementation. All other settings do not require that high specs.

[Cyrilix]

Minimum Specs:

1.7 GHz Pentium 4 (Willamette) or equivalent

512 MB RAM

64 MB Geforce 4 Ti

Recommended Specs:

3.0 Ghz Pentium 4 or equivalent

1 GB RAM

256 MB Radeon 9800 or 6600

...taken directly from the site.

  Quote

That's not true! The only problem in FEAR is the "soft" shadows, which butcher fps, and that's due to poor coding and bad implementation. All other settings do not require that high specs.

Uh, yes, other things *do* require high specs. Example: Antialiasing, volumetric lighting, maximum settings

My X800 XL runs it at 1024x768 with 2xAA, Trilinear filtering, no soft shadows, no volumetric lighting, max everything else. FYI, I get an average FPS in the performance test of 39, a minimum fps of 21. That's in the performance test. In reality, the minimum/average may be lower.

[Smigit]

  lnatan25 said:

That's not true! The only problem in FEAR is the "soft" shadows, which butcher fps, and that's due to poor coding and bad implementation. All other settings do not require that high specs.

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wouldnt say its bad programming. This sort of think takes alot of processing power, and when you consider the amount if physics calculations, dynamic lighting and AI and particles already being processed at any one time I can see why it will slow things down. Considering alot of games dont even have dynamic lighting yet I do think that soft shadows is probably a bit before its time, but in a year or two ppl will have hardware that can cope and well be glad for its inclusion.

[Sensayshun]

  Cyrilix said:

Minimum Specs:

1.7 GHz Pentium 4 (Willamette) or equivalent

512 MB RAM

64 MB Geforce 4 Ti

586721697[/snapback]

Bah, I've got an XP 2200 (1.8GHz), 640mb RAM and a geforce 4 mx 4400, won't even run on my system. IIRC I got an error about directx 9.

[Cyrilix]

  Sens said:

Bah, I've got an XP 2200 (1.8GHz), 640mb RAM and a geforce 4 mx 4400, won't even run on my system. IIRC I got an error about directx 9.

586721989[/snapback]

Your card is DX7. Don't even bother with FEAR.

[Leo Natan]

  Smigit said:

wouldnt say its bad programming. This sort of think takes alot of processing power, and when you consider the amount if physics calculations, dynamic lighting and AI and particles already being processed at any one time I can see why it will slow things down. Considering alot of games dont even have dynamic lighting yet I do think that soft shadows is probably a bit before its time, but in a year or two ppl will have hardware that can cope and well be glad for its inclusion.

586721973[/snapback]

It doesn't metter if other games have dynamic shadows ot not. I'm talking about FEAR's implementation. Not only do they kill the fps on any other than 7800 and 7800 SLI, but they also look plain ugly. Perhaps not from far, but looking at something close, those shadows are ugly. Another example would be Riddick's sof shadows, where they used a simillar technique, and the soft-shadows were a resource hog, but atleast they looked OK (there were problems there aswell).

[Smigit]

well if they slow other games down it would likely indicate they are an intensive process, similar to games using HDR lighting. *shrug*, wait a year or so for better hardware, perhaps they cant make it look better without killing performance more than they have already.

[Leo Natan]

But if it looks ugly, why do it at all? id Software removed soft-shadows from the current versions of D3 enginge, because it looked bad, and not as they had planned.

[Raa]

I've got a P4 3.8ghz, 2gb ram, 7800gtx (single)

And Fear REALLY crawls along at 1600x1200, MAX details, NO FSAA....

Think i'll have to drop that res.... what a shame too..... And boy does it eat ram.... my memory counter went up to 1.6gb ram used total (counting in ~300mb of processes)

@lnatan25 : Who IS that girl in your sig? :p

[Smigit]

The developers said themselves it will struggle at higher res due to the dynamic shadows, physics and particles. Each time a light moves all the pixels needa be updated so at higher res you end up doing alot of processing. I heard your better of lowering the res and getting some AA in there.

And as for why have soft shadows. Some people think they look great, its really a personal preference. Its an option anyway thats off for most by default so it didnt hurt being there

[mediVh]

my pc, specs in sig, running at 1280x1024, full maxxed settings, and all lighting and shadows on full, runs flawlessly, min fps around 35 - 40 maxs out at around 80fps although i use Vsync so it limits too 60fps, but with Vsync off i run about 80fps.

i dont understand why you guys seem to have problems running i havent had one audio, video glitch and not one bit of lag.

[OrcoXP]

I have 512 MB RAM and a Athlon 1333MHz (not Athlon XP) on a mobo capable of Athlon XP3200 and I have a Forsa FX5200 (not sure if it is 64bit mem or 128)

I have to turn down everything and I am running at 800x600 and the quality looks like Half-Life 1...@ 640x480 it looks like Doom2

It runs...but I do get some lag...lol...not sure what the FPS is tho'

[tickbabies]

i can run it with maxium settings but some levels lag real bad. so for me setting everything to high or medium is great. soft shadows really slow it down.

[stncttr908 Veteran]

Soft shadows aren't really that impressive anyway. Maybe if they didn't almost halve framerates. Using the tweak guide from TweakGuides.com is a good way to figure out which options can be turned down without sacrificing quality.

[Leo Natan]

  orcoxp2004 said:

I have 512 MB RAM and a Athlon 1333MHz (not Athlon XP) on a mobo capable of Athlon XP3200 and I have a Forsa FX5200 (not sure if it is 64bit mem or 128)

I have to turn down everything and I am running at 800x600 and the quality looks like Half-Life 1...@ 640x480 it looks like Doom2

It runs...but I do get some lag...lol...not sure what the FPS is tho'

586730718[/snapback]

Man, cancel the pixel doubling, that's what's casing it to look bad. 640x480 with the feature on is 320x240 and 800x600 with it is 400x300. Cancel it, and it'll be fine.

I had actually checked how the game looks with everything turned off, and it actually look quite good. There may not be all the effects you have with options turned on, but it's OK.