FEAR, graphics problems, lag

Shroom Man 777 · Post by **Shroom Man 777** » 2006-04-21 01:21pm

My friend has a sweet system, at one point he installed both Doom 3 and Half Life 2, and each time we played either game, they were running smoothly and had very pretty graphics.

He uninstalled both games, and the only games he has now is Civilization and the recently-installed FEAR.

Now, something's not right. Instead of running as smoothly as a liquified shit, FEAR is lagging and we've been reduced to playing it with graphics reminiscent of Counterstrike or something. And this is from a computer that can run Half Life 2 smoothly!

What gives?!

Arrow · Post by **Arrow** » 2006-04-21 02:28pm

First, we need specs for the machine to help you out. Second, FEAR is whole different animal than Doom 3 or Half Life 2.

Xon · Post by **Xon** » 2006-04-21 02:31pm

FEAR eats computers who can play HL2 and Doom3 at high quaility for breakfast.

Shroom Man 777 · Post by **Shroom Man 777** » 2006-04-21 04:03pm

Why? And why can't we run it on decent graphics? I'll ask my friend for stats tomorrow.

Arrow · Post by **Arrow** » 2006-04-21 04:06pm

Because its an entirely different engine, with a different way of processing graphics, different art, different physics and different AI. It simply requires more processing and memory to run.

Edit: Let me add that I have two SLI'ed 7800GTXs, a dual core processor and 2GB of RAM, and FEAR still wants to choke on me at 1600x1200. And that's with softshadows off. My old machine, a P4 2.8GHz, 1 GB of RAM and a 6800GT could just barely handle 1024x768.

Captain tycho · Post by **Captain tycho** » 2006-04-21 04:07pm

Shroom Man 777 wrote:Why? And why can't we run it on decent graphics? I'll ask my friend for stats tomorrow.

The engine is woefully ineffecient, for one. I can run HL2 with literally everything (including 4xAA) maxed out at 1600x1050, but FEAR will chug along at 30 fps or less on a lower res.

Post by **weemadando** » 2006-04-21 09:04pm

FEAR is the most unoptimised game I've ever played (short of unpatched Morrowind). Its "benchmark/settings test" demo is a blatant fabrication. As a general rule, take the optimal settings that it gives you and drop all of them by 2 notches at least. And forget having soft-shadows on.

Shroom Man 777 · Post by **Shroom Man 777** » 2006-04-22 02:10pm

This is shit. We (me and friend) can't play it on HL2-style graphics?

Ace Pace · Post by **Ace Pace** » 2006-04-22 02:22pm

Its possible to play it on high settings aslong as you turn the soft shadows down and you have a strong card.

Post by **weemadando** » 2006-04-22 07:32pm

Dude, on this system:

P4-2.8c
2gb DDR400
256mb X800Pro

I still have to turn many options WAAAAAY down on an up-to-date version of FEAR. The game kills systems that it has no business killing.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2006-04-22 07:34pm

Wow, so FEAR is a crap modern engine? I've never played HL2 on any of my systems, but they all play FEAR okay-ish.

Anyway, for the OP example I'd suggest turning down shadows and turning off 'soft shadows'. They're massive resource hogs.

Post by **weemadando** » 2006-04-22 07:41pm

Its flight-sim syndrome. Give it another year maybe and computers will finally be able to run FEAR as it should be run.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2006-04-22 07:43pm

LOL Shame it sucks and have virtually no replay value. I do wish I had a decent, modern vaguely-realistic FPS, though... everything is bloody WW2 or bloody Bet On Soldier. I want something like Infiltration but less poo on the eye.