Fear hardware guide

KdjaCL

http://hardware.gamespot.com/Story-ST-x-2661-x-x-x&body_pagenum=1


ughhhh guess it medium 1024 for me.

kdjac

jones

Dont suppose you could paste it in here?? i cant get into gamespot from work (dam net nanny)

Mr E

Its 4 or 5 pages with lots of graphs comparing hardware configs.

Bottom line - turn off soft shadows. They'll slow you down no matter what your config is. And don't run it higher than 1024x768 unless you have 2 graphics cards.

jones

Nice one buddy!!! pain not being able to get into any game sites in work!!! looks like these next gen games are finally starting to get the better of my 9800XT!!!

Mr E

Yeah, tell me about it. The autodetect on FEAR didn't really work for me (I had alot of shearing and black spots appearing when things got busy). Turned down a few settings and that fixed it.

jones

Auto detect is a load of poo never works for me on any game!
i havent got my copy of FEAR yet waiting on Án Post to pop it through my letterbox.
just as a matter of interest what settings did you turn down? (apart from soft shadows)

orangerooster

TmB wrote:

The autodetect on FEAR didn't really work for me.

Lol tell me about it-convinced itself that my system could run it with everything at full tilt which isnt right at all, crashed my pc good. Its a great game though and still looks very nice on the medium settings.

Mr E

Jones - I can't rember exactly off the top of my head, but I know turned shadow detail to minimum and that seemed to help alot. The autodetect turned most settings to medium and I left most settings at that.

ShiverinEskimo

I reckon I'll be safe enough with soft shadows off - seems to be a bit of a beast for the gfx cards..76fps @ 1600x1200 with SLi 7800 GTX?? Feck.

Giblet

I play with with everything on low with the pixel doubler and it looks horrible and it's not so smooth either.

ShiverinEskimo

Giblet wrote:

I play with with everything on low with the pixel doubler and it looks horrible and it's not so smooth either.

your spec?

jones

Giblet wrote:

I play with with everything on low with the pixel doubler and it looks horrible and it's not so smooth either.

thats sounds bad, what you running??

stevenmu

Giblet wrote:

I play with with everything on low with the pixel doubler and it looks horrible and it's not so smooth either.

I tried the demo with the pixel doubler (without realising what it was) and it actually ran less smooth for me, aswell as looking horrible, probably best to leave it off.

CombatCow

I played it here at 1280x1024 everthing at max but without AA and AF on a 2.8 P4 1Gig and x800xt.

I'll play it at home on a 3800+ 1Gig and 6800GT at 1600x1200 everthing at max but no shadows AF or AA


CC

Dooom

1280x1024 with everything on. Max AA and AF. Runs like a dream so it does.
FX-55, 7800GTX and 2GB or RAM. I could boost it up to 1600x1200 but I'm not that bothered, plus if I did I'd have to lower the AA.

If you have AA on though, having soft shadows on won't make any difference. Just thought I'd throw that in, it's in the readme.

Edit:/ Ah no! Just booted it up again to check a few things and the silly thing's running at 1024. How the hell I didn't notice that..

KdjaCL

The auto detect worked fine for me and i have to say the TEST option is super why the hell isnt that in every game.

kdjac

pred racer

I was thinking of getting this, and seeing how the review doesnt mention it
does anyone know how my 9800pro would fare?
full spec P4 3GHz, 1Gb mem, 9800 pro.

Giblet

My machine is a 2500+amd, 9600 pro and 512 ram! Upgrading it soon though

Plays Quake 4 reasonable well.

jones

pred racer wrote:

I was thinking of getting this, and seeing how the review doesnt mention it
does anyone know how my 9800pro would fare?
full spec P4 3GHz, 1Gb mem, 9800 pro.

My system is fairly similar to yours
P4, 3.4GHz, 1Gb RAM
9800Xt 256mb
and i never have any problem playing any of the 'big games' (farcry/half life2/doom3) with all the bells and whistles.
i havent got my copy of FEAR yet but i'll post here how it plays

ShiverinEskimo

Giblet wrote:

My machine is a 2500+amd, 9600 pro and 512 ram! Upgrading it soon though

Plays Quake 4 reasonable well.

Slightly off topic I know, but whats the single player like in Q4?? Recommend it?

koneko

Ran the test, very handy, I agree with KdjaC, would be handy to have in every game.

1280x1024, 2xAA, 4xAF, soft shadows on, everything set to max, 58FPS average (168 max, 22ish IIRC minimum). Soft shadows are nice, leave them on if you can.

Ciaran500

What computer you got koneko?

koneko

Woops.

2x 6800GT, A64 3500+, 1GB RAM, MSI K8N (nf4), X-Fi

ShiverinEskimo

I reckon SLi is the only way to go to be able to leave soft shadows on..according to the guide a 7800GTX struggles..

Dooom

ShiverinEskimo wrote:

Slightly off topic I know, but whats the single player like in Q4?? Recommend it?

It's alright to distract yourself from FEAR for a few hours. Nothing special though, quite average.

ShiverinEskimo wrote:

I reckon SLi is the only way to go to be able to leave soft shadows on..according to the guide a 7800GTX struggles..

Think you're wrong there mate. If you have AA enabled, then having soft shadows on or off won't make a difference. I've only got a single GTX and even at 1280x1024 with 4xAA it's still smooth everywhere, only time I got a bit of choppiness was when there's a ton of people on screen.
Personally I think RAM makes a difference, I've got 2gb of it and I've read on a few other forums that people with the same setup as me, bar with 1gb or RAM, had a lot of choppiness.

cregser

2GB of RAM... What is the world coming to!

I get choppiness when new sounds or enviroments are loading, which suggest my 1GB of RAM is not enough... jaysus. I have to say, I think FarCry and HL2 look much better than FEAR, I don't feel the need to upgrade just for this game.

My PC: A64 3500+, 1GB RAM, 6800GT, MSI K8N Neo2 (nf3), Audigy2