Interesting: FEAR runs better with Soft Shadows on?? Need insight..

2006-07-19 07:33:57

#1

T4rd: Member; +44|6977|West Point, NY

After upgrading from a 256 MB X850 XT PE to a 512 MB X1900XTX, FEAR ran noticably smoother when I maxed it out. But there were still some areas of the game that didn't seem graphicly intense still run kinda choppy when looking around. So I went into the graphics options and started turning stuff down. Nothing really made a difference at all... until I started messing with the shadows. When I turned shadows completely off; silky smooth. When I turn them on with max shadow detail and "soft shadows" off, it went choppy again. It stayed choppy with "shadow detail" at "minimum" too. So I tried turning "soft shadows" on to see how much choppier it would get. Then it get noticably better, lol. Wtf? I've read on 3Dguru.com on their card reviews that this options significantly reduces performance on their tested cards, so they always test with it off. It did significantly reduce performance on my X850 XT PE, but noticably improves performance with my X1900XTX!

So then I did the ingame "test" to see what a diff it made there:

Soft shadows off:

Min: 20 FPS
Average: 37 FPS
Max: 60-sumthin FPS

Soft shadows on:

Min: 37 FPS
Average: 45 FPS
Max: 75 FPS

Weird as hell, right? I was wondering if anyone else has this card out there and could tell me what they get FPS-wise in FEAR. This is the only game I have that can bring my FPS down below 30 FPS with graphics maxed out. I find this quite vexing when I always see people boasting over 60 FPS average with nVidia 7600GTs and stuff. Do these numbers sound right to you guys?

Check out my sig for PC specs.

2006-07-19 07:39:46

#2

DoNER90: Member; +14|6818|South Africa

on the X1900XTX it is recommended that you turn all the setting on max because it bottleneck's when the setting are on low because of the Huge 512 ram and the 512 bit interface

2006-07-19 07:40:41

#3

Slayer: ---hates you; +1,137|7057|Hell, p.o box 666

Well my results with Geforce single 7900GTX 512MB, 4096MB RAM and AMD64 4000+ are:

soft shadows off:
min: 32 FPS
Average: 54 FPS
Max: 89 FPS

soft shadows on:
min: 28 FPS
Average: 71(!!!) FPS
Max: 102 FPS

seems, strange huh? Dont know why, just tested it on my rig...

A 7600GT will not get average over 50 FPS, never!

btw: moved to Tech

2006-07-19 07:50:08

#4

T4rd: Member; +44|6977|West Point, NY

I wonder why this is the only game that can drop my FPS so low like that? With my X850, it seemed to have a harder time runing BF2 than FEAR and it's the oppisite with this card.

Do you OC your card or CPU any, Fonslayer?

Edit: I have an AMD Athlon 64 4000+ also @ 2.4 GHz.

Last edited by T4rd (2006-07-19 07:54:13)

2006-07-19 07:52:48

#5

Slayer: ---hates you; +1,137|7057|Hell, p.o box 666

Hm, maybe you dont got this issues because the X850 only runs Shader 2.0...

No I havent overclocked anything atm, just reinstalled this system at sunday. Only BF2 and F.E.A.R are installed. Not tested with the 2nd GTX card though...

2006-07-19 07:57:09

#6

T4rd: Member; +44|6977|West Point, NY

Be sure to post the results here or in a new thread when you get the second card in. I'm considering getting a second X1900, but I want to see what a diff it makes with this CPU (A64 4000+). I know we have 2 completely diff cards, but the concept and results shouldn't be too much diff. since we got the same specs otherwise.

Oh.. and what resolution are you running FEAR at?

2006-07-19 08:00:19

#7

Slayer: ---hates you; +1,137|7057|Hell, p.o box 666

1600 x 1200 full AA full AF

2006-07-19 08:01:40

#8

T4rd: Member; +44|6977|West Point, NY

Crap, I need to know what AA and AF level you're running it at too! Those numbers were taken with 4x AA and 16x AF on @ 1280 x 960 (I think that's the weird resolution it's got on there.

Edit: You just posted at the same time as me. Full = 6x AA 16x AF?

Last edited by T4rd (2006-07-19 08:02:47)

2006-07-19 08:03:21

#9

-r3-anubis: Member; +73|6838|florida

Some games are made with certain graphics cards and those cards will max out the game since the game was made with it. My 256 MB 7800 GTX maxes out FEAR and frames are great!

2006-07-19 08:05:01

#10

Slayer: ---hates you; +1,137|7057|Hell, p.o box 666

T4rd wrote:
Crap, I need to know what AA and AF level you're running it at too! Those numbers were taken with 4x AA and 16x AF on @ 1280 x 960 (I think that's the weird resolution it's got on there.

Edit: You just posted at the same time as me. Full = 6x AA 16x AF?

AA=8 (not ingame settings, driver settings), AF=16 (ingame)

2006-07-19 08:17:46

#11

T4rd: Member; +44|6977|West Point, NY

Thanks for the replies, Fonslayer.

Anyone else have an X1900XTX that I can compare it to?

BF2S Forums Interesting: FEAR runs better with Soft Shadows on?? Need insight..

T4rd wrote:

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