Hi all I'm currently playing the game called FEAR
(
http://www.whatisfear.com). But I'm experiencing very bad frame rates.
Does anyone know what is the recommended setup for this game? Sorry if
this is in the wrong newsgroup.
Gary
Im not sure. I have a beef with many game review sites. I wish they
would have DETAILED hardware requirements on ALL games they review. If
they are too lazy to do it have a separate link so readers can post
about their problems and recommendations. Yeah I know MOST sites have
reader feedback where people post their reviews but they may or may
not post about hardware. Have separate HARDWARE link to each game so
that if you have questions you can easily look it up and not read
EVERY review where they might or might not be some hardware info.
Im not a rabid gamer and everyones frame of reference is different so
its hard to say whats acceptable or not. I keep seeing these people
claim they have a wimpy PC with a ATI 9250 or something who say they
can play almost every game out there "decently" though obviously at a
lower res.
Ive got 3 PCs now so Ive tried say Quake 4 with a 9600 non pro with a
1600 XP athlon 512 megs clearly unacceptable. I havent tested it with
a AMD 3200 AMD 64 754 with the same 9600 to see of the much faster CPU
fixes the problem. I did try swapping a 9600XT level card in the same
1600XP and it was a huge improvent but still very marginal for me. It
went from the 640x 480 to 800x600 with a fair amount of glitches.
I generally dont like play games but after getting my 26" LCD HDTV -
the Olevia which has been on sale all over the place since black
friday ---- its night and day. It is SOOOOOO IMMERSIVE , Ive been on a
game playing tear.
Anway --- I also have an AMD 3000 64 939 1 gig of mem with a ATI
800XL 256 and played FEAR on it and its fine. No anti aliasing though.
I had it on widescreen mode and 1100 x NNN 0r 1200 x NNN res somewhere
around there and had the quality set on high though I cant remember
the exact settings. The hard disk Im using -- I have 5 of them on my
main system , is the Hitachi SATA 16o gig. Ive posted about it but Ive
found it makes a noticeable difference vs the PATA drives Ive been
using and still use for all my other drives. My system disk and the
one I installed the games on is the Hitachi drive.
Unless you finetune the setup - sometimes in the ini file or get
updates etc most games Ive tried even on a neighbors 6800 Nvidia tends
to have sporadic glitches. In general itll run smoothly but during
some scenes itll catch for a second or so.
In general it ran what seemed to be smoothly. The frame rates were
30-40 though according to the test in FEAR. Some game freaks I know
want everything way way up there if its possible. I think some games
limited the frame rates.
I found FEARto be an AWESOME game. I wasnt all that hot on playing
it since I get nauseous playing 3d games , the supernatural angle
sounded lame - a RING or something ripoff and though frankly I tend to
only like first person shooters --- I expected yet ANOTHER of the same
old thing. The funny thing is --- it is kind of the same old thing.
But the graphis eversince DOOM3, FAR CRY and HALF LIFE2 have been
amazing and this is no exception. Its really crisp and clear and the
dark hallways in the buildings , complexes are spooky and the music ,
sound effects are very very good. The story line is a bit hokey and
its straight forward FPS but as one review said the gun fights are
much better than the usual FPS with better AI for enemies -- its not
just blasting away at various dumb monsters.
I liked Quake 4 too though I found the first part boring if anyone
hasnt played it yet. Usually game maniacs have played it the first
week any game came out or even before it comes out.
Anyway Quake 4 also has amazing graphics. Its also has tons of stuff
going on --- a whole war on Mars I think on a huge complex with tons
of different alien monsters to fight. Theres tons of variety in Quake
unlike FEAR but despite the huge martian complex you invade and all
the stuff going on which is amazing --- its actually kind of boring a
bit. The gun fights are as involving as in FEAR. The incredible amount
of thought that went into setting up the atmosphere is amazing --- the
variety of aliens and advanced weapons etc on both sides. It only
grabbed me about halfway through with a unexpected GRUESOME twist that
suddenly makes the whole thing much darker and disgusting. It actually
startled me how gruesome it got but somehow after that part the whole
game got a lot more involving.
One thing --- Im not sure what the problem was but the graphics broke
up in a few scenes in Quake 4. Didnt have any problems with FEAR but
Quake it ran but it seemed to produce large sections of weird shaped
sections but only in a few scenes in Quake.
