F.E.A.R. GPU Performance Tests: Setting a New Standard
by Josh Venning on October 20, 2005 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
The Game/Test setup
There was a lot of hype about FEAR before it was released, which is common for ground-breaking games of this sort. Too much hype can be a bad thing as we've seen before with other games, and while it may have some similarities to the movies, we aren't quite willing to put FEAR on the same level as The Ring and The Matrix, in spite of the dramatic slow motion deaths and the scary looking little girl.
In this case, though, FEAR more or less lives up to the hype, and what we have here is possibly the most beautiful looking, first-person shooter that we've ever seen. The dark and moody atmosphere and lighting are nice, reminiscent of Doom 3 except that you can actually see most of the time. During heated action sequences, the combination of lighting effects from things like muzzle flashes and sparks from bullet ricochets, as well as dust that falls from wall shots creating hazy clouds create a beautiful scene of chaos. This is further enhanced by the much-copied (but still fun) bullet-time/reflex mode, which slows everything down so that the chaos of sparks, dust and bodies flying through the air resemble some bizarre ballet that will occasionally make you pause to marvel at its beauty. Other graphical elements worth mentioning are the fire effects, which are impressive, compared to most other games, as are the water effects (reflections, ripples and caustics).
To be fair, a few things could have looked better in the game. While the levels are pretty, they can be repetitive, as can the enemies, which are mostly hordes of a few different variations of clone soldiers, and the effectiveness of the games parallax mapped environment damage is not up to snuff. These are just a few complaints, however, and graphically, the good stuff more than outweighs the bad. Further more, because the enemy AI is so smart and action so intense, you'll be so caught up in gameplay that the small graphical problems won't matter much.
Not only is this the best looking game out right now, but it also happens to be the most graphically demanding, as we will see in our performance tests. It's so demanding in fact that it could be a good reason for people to upgrade their graphics card. FEAR only supports resolutions of up to 1600x1200, but only the highest end cards can handle this resolution well, especially with soft shadows and/or AA enabled. In fact, this may be the first game that puts the 7800 GTX to its full use, as our tests showed at 1600x1200 with soft shadows and AA enabled FEAR was barely playable.
We wanted to get an idea about how FEAR performs across a wide range of graphics cards, so we tested a good sample of high end and mid-range cards. These are the kind of cards that we could see paired with our high end test system.
NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GTX
NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT
NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT
NVIDIA GeForce 6600 GT
ATI Radeon X1800 XT (not yet available)
ATI Radeon X1800 XL
ATI Radeon X1600 XT (not yet available)
ATI Radeon X1300 Pro
ATI Radeon X800 GT
We also tested all resolutions possible up to 1600x1200, the highest that FEAR will run, with and without 4xAA and 8xAF enabled. FEAR gives the option to turn on a feature called soft shadows, which we will talk about later, and because of some issues that we saw with this, we ran benchmarks with and without this enabled. All other options were turned up to their maximum quality level. For those of you with older mid-range and lower end cards, maximal detail is not really an option at any resolution.
This is our test system:
NVIDIA nForce 4 motherboard
AMD Athlon 64 FX-55 2.6 GHz Processor
1 GB OCZ 2:2:2:6 DDR400 RAM
Seagate 7200.7 120 GB Hard Drive
OCZ 600 W PowerStream Power Supply
We also made sure to test with sound disabled. This test isn't as strict a test of graphics performance as some of our other benchmarks. For one, we used the built-in test feature. While this gives us a consistent "run" through a scene, physics variability and slight differences in what the characters in the scene do are apparent. This is similar to the Far Cry test if Crytek had added physics cues to the camera path of their benchmark.
While we would like to see more consistent action in order to compare cards better, the built-in tool is a much better option than using fraps while running through a level. As mentioned, we tested three different game settings. Driver settings were all default except for VSYNC, which was explicitly disabled.
Before we get to the numbers, let's take a deeper look at some of the graphics and performance issues that we noted previously.
There was a lot of hype about FEAR before it was released, which is common for ground-breaking games of this sort. Too much hype can be a bad thing as we've seen before with other games, and while it may have some similarities to the movies, we aren't quite willing to put FEAR on the same level as The Ring and The Matrix, in spite of the dramatic slow motion deaths and the scary looking little girl.
In this case, though, FEAR more or less lives up to the hype, and what we have here is possibly the most beautiful looking, first-person shooter that we've ever seen. The dark and moody atmosphere and lighting are nice, reminiscent of Doom 3 except that you can actually see most of the time. During heated action sequences, the combination of lighting effects from things like muzzle flashes and sparks from bullet ricochets, as well as dust that falls from wall shots creating hazy clouds create a beautiful scene of chaos. This is further enhanced by the much-copied (but still fun) bullet-time/reflex mode, which slows everything down so that the chaos of sparks, dust and bodies flying through the air resemble some bizarre ballet that will occasionally make you pause to marvel at its beauty. Other graphical elements worth mentioning are the fire effects, which are impressive, compared to most other games, as are the water effects (reflections, ripples and caustics).
To be fair, a few things could have looked better in the game. While the levels are pretty, they can be repetitive, as can the enemies, which are mostly hordes of a few different variations of clone soldiers, and the effectiveness of the games parallax mapped environment damage is not up to snuff. These are just a few complaints, however, and graphically, the good stuff more than outweighs the bad. Further more, because the enemy AI is so smart and action so intense, you'll be so caught up in gameplay that the small graphical problems won't matter much.
Not only is this the best looking game out right now, but it also happens to be the most graphically demanding, as we will see in our performance tests. It's so demanding in fact that it could be a good reason for people to upgrade their graphics card. FEAR only supports resolutions of up to 1600x1200, but only the highest end cards can handle this resolution well, especially with soft shadows and/or AA enabled. In fact, this may be the first game that puts the 7800 GTX to its full use, as our tests showed at 1600x1200 with soft shadows and AA enabled FEAR was barely playable.
We wanted to get an idea about how FEAR performs across a wide range of graphics cards, so we tested a good sample of high end and mid-range cards. These are the kind of cards that we could see paired with our high end test system.
NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GTX
NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT
NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT
NVIDIA GeForce 6600 GT
ATI Radeon X1800 XT (not yet available)
ATI Radeon X1800 XL
ATI Radeon X1600 XT (not yet available)
ATI Radeon X1300 Pro
ATI Radeon X800 GT
We also tested all resolutions possible up to 1600x1200, the highest that FEAR will run, with and without 4xAA and 8xAF enabled. FEAR gives the option to turn on a feature called soft shadows, which we will talk about later, and because of some issues that we saw with this, we ran benchmarks with and without this enabled. All other options were turned up to their maximum quality level. For those of you with older mid-range and lower end cards, maximal detail is not really an option at any resolution.
This is our test system:
NVIDIA nForce 4 motherboard
AMD Athlon 64 FX-55 2.6 GHz Processor
1 GB OCZ 2:2:2:6 DDR400 RAM
Seagate 7200.7 120 GB Hard Drive
OCZ 600 W PowerStream Power Supply
We also made sure to test with sound disabled. This test isn't as strict a test of graphics performance as some of our other benchmarks. For one, we used the built-in test feature. While this gives us a consistent "run" through a scene, physics variability and slight differences in what the characters in the scene do are apparent. This is similar to the Far Cry test if Crytek had added physics cues to the camera path of their benchmark.
While we would like to see more consistent action in order to compare cards better, the built-in tool is a much better option than using fraps while running through a level. As mentioned, we tested three different game settings. Driver settings were all default except for VSYNC, which was explicitly disabled.
Before we get to the numbers, let's take a deeper look at some of the graphics and performance issues that we noted previously.
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LocutusX - Thursday, October 20, 2005 - link
I have FEAR, and have been playing it for the past day or so ("sick day" from work).I can't believe AnandTech would consider it good-looking on non-cuttingedge hardware where you have to put the details down. Have you actually played the game for more than 5 minutes? Performance & Graphics Quality in the later levels is CRAP if you're using mostly medium settings, which is a NECESSITY if you're using a slow X800 part or anything worse. (think X800XL)
For the level of graphics you get, the performance of FEAR is unacceptable. Chronicles of Riddick looked much better, and performed slightly better, on my system. That's an OPENGL game on ATI hardware! Significant, no?
BTW I also just tried Quake4... much much better performance than FEAR, and the indoor sequences look better by comparison (since I can afford to increase details in Q4, because the D3 engine actually runs pretty decently on ATI hardware with the most up-to-date drivers and CatalystAI enabled).
Jackyl - Thursday, October 20, 2005 - link
LOL. He thinks X800XL is "slow"! A few months ago, everybody here was raving the X800XL as being best price/performance that actually beat a lot of higher end Nvidia cards. Ugly on medium textures? Go play the first DOOM or Wolfenstein 3D, and then come back and say Medium textures are ugly on Fear.Some people just won't be satisfied. It's people like you that pay $400-600 for a graphics card, that is causing prices to inflate. I really can't wait until silicon hits the limit where they can't reduce size anymore, and Moore's Law goes obsolete. Then the engineers will have to actually OPTIMIZE the hardware and drivers, instead of just cranking out more raw GPU power. I'm really sick of upgrading, and a lot of my friends have already stopped upgrading their systems, two generations ago. They just gave up.
Tell me something...Everyone sure talks big on here, wanting to upgrade their cards. But why is it when I go to a game store, there are barely any PC games available on the shelves? I don't think a lot of people are buying PC games today, even though ATI and Nvidia would like to say otherwise. The shelves are totally full with console games instead.
LocutusX - Thursday, October 20, 2005 - link
Jackyl, thanks for your totally useless post:"LOL. He thinks X800XL is "slow"!"
Yes, compared to the 7800GTX - which apparently is what you NEED for Fear to run at a decent rate AND look good - the X800XL is slow.
"Ugly on medium textures? Go play the first DOOM or Wolfenstein 3D, and then come back and say Medium textures are ugly on Fear."
Not necessary to go back 10 years, chico. Anyone who has played Doom 3 (August 04), Half-Life 2 (December 04) or even Far Cry (March 04) will agree that Medium textures are "ugly" on Fear, although some may not use such strong language.
"It's people like you that pay $400-600 for a graphics card, that is causing prices to inflate."
Uh, no genius, I paid less than $200 for my X800Pro at a fire sale. And then I overclocked the sh!t out of it, so now it's a little bit faster than a stock X800XL.
"Then the engineers will have to actually OPTIMIZE the hardware and drivers, instead of just cranking out more raw GPU power."
Uh, that's precisely the point of my post - sorta. FEAR is a horribly unoptimized, perhaps even poorly-written, engine. In my opinion, it is unacceptable that an X800XL-class card should have so much trouble with it.
So, what exactly was the point of your post anyways?
Pannenkoek - Thursday, October 20, 2005 - link
On the esthetics of FEAR: it would have been kind of the article writers to include screenshots to underline their judgement. As one who has seen Unreal2 rendered by a lousy GF2 I can understand the parent poster's point. Also thanks for listening to my request for the absence of subjective opinions on the "playablity" of a game in benchmarks...Kegh - Thursday, October 20, 2005 - link
I played through the demo and thought the graphics were pretty good (considering my setup - 9700 pro, AMD 2500). But more to your point... I have never been a big fan of the Monolith LithTech Engine, every game or demo I have played which used it always feels clunky, the controls always seem "off" and the general engine performance is generally not on par with the other 3d game engines available. To be fair, I haven't played enough of this game to bash the current engine that much and once the game goes on sale I will probably pick it up. But not until after I buy a new system. :)michal1980 - Thursday, October 20, 2005 - link
common now, high end with no sli, maybe the 7800gt/gtx X 2 could really for the first time shine?Jackyl - Thursday, October 20, 2005 - link
Tried the demo with my 9800 Pro 128MB, 2.2GHz 64-bit proc, 1GB DDR. I ran the game in 1024x768, no soft shadows and no AF/AA, medium textures, and it still ran great on my system. It also still looked great with medium textures and ran smooth.I'm not sure why the X800 GT got such low framerate? Because of high textures? Maybe I'll try that on my card too tonight.
Jedi2155 - Friday, October 21, 2005 - link
At first i was very skeptical that my friends system could handle it but it worked great and was perfectly smooth @ 1024x768 with medium details. And he's only running a AXP 1800+ with a Radeon 9800 pro. So it can still work pretty well on the old systems.xsilver - Thursday, October 20, 2005 - link
high end textures absolutley kills the 9800pro - killed mine anyways ;)if you let it autodetect the settings it should run smooth, all the tests here were on max settings except for the aformentioned soft shadows and AA/ansio
with your settings in the demo (i had basically the same setup), while the frames were good, it still hitches when there is a lot of enemies/action going on
it would just be good for AT to test it to compare apples with apples :)
Jackyl - Thursday, October 20, 2005 - link
Actually I had ATI's 2x AF turned on in the drivers.