F.E.A.R. Graphics & Gameplay

Author: Geoff Richards
Published: 24th October 2005
Comments (27) Stumble
F.E.A.R. Graphics & Gameplay High-End Benchmarks

High-End Benchmarks

First off, we tested the video cards using the game's built-in stress test at both 1600x1200 and 1280x960 with 2xAA 8xAF with all in game details set to their maximum setting. This was more for curiousity's sake than anything else and it helped us to gauge how well these video cards were able to handle the graphics side of things - it also serves to provide you with some Apples to Apples comparisons. As we will prove later, this benchmark does not represent the often intense sections of gameplay in F.E.A.R.

The Recommended Hardware on the box is listed as a 3.0GHz processor, 1GB of RAM and a 256MB Direct X 9.0 graphics card like a GeForce 6600 or Radeon 9800 Pro or higher. Naturally, we were able to go quite a bit higher than that to see how hard the game would push some of the fastest hardware available.

High-End System Setup:

AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ (operating at 2400MHz, 12x200MHz); DFI LANParty nF4 SLI-DR (NVIDIA NForce4 SLI); 2 x 1GB Corsair XMS4000 Pro (operating in dual channel at 200MHz with 3.0-3-3-10 timings); Western Digital Raptor 74GB, 10000RPM SATA 150 Hard disk drive; OCZ PowerStream 520W Power Supply; Windows XP Professional Service Pack 2; DirectX 9.0c; NVIDIA NForce4 Standalone chipset drivers, version 6.66.

Video Cards:
  • 2 x NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GTX 256MB - operating at their default clock speeds of 430/1200MHz in SLI mode using Forceware version 81.85 WHQL.
  • 1 x XFX GeForce 7800 GTX Extreme Gamer Edition 256MB - operating at its default clock speeds of 490/1300MHz using Forceware version 81.85 WHQL.
  • 1 x NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GTX 256MB - operating at its default clock speeds of 430/1200MHz using Forceware version 81.85 WHQL.
  • 1 x Sapphire Radeon X1800XL 256MB - operating at its default clock speeds of 500/1000MHz using Beta Catalyst drivers, version 8.173.
  • 1 x XFX GeForce 7800 GT Extreme 256MB - operating at its default clock speeds of 450/1050MHz using Forceware version 81.85 WHQL.
  • 1 x NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT 256MB - operating at its default clock speeds of 400/1000MHz using Forceware version 81.85 WHQL.


F.E.A.R. Graphics & Gameplay High-End Benchmarks

F.E.A.R. Graphics & Gameplay High-End Benchmarks
The game is built to use NVIDIA's SLI technology from the ground up, so there is no need for a profile in the driver control panel in order to force an SLI profile to work in the game. Instead, it worked out of the box, as you would expect being an official The Way It's Meant To Be Played title.

At 1600x1200, we saw an 81% increase in average framerate and a 104% increase in minimum framerate for 7800 GTX SLI over a single card. At 1280x960, we witnessed a 71% increase in average framerate, while the minimum frame rate only increased by 31% at the lower resolution - we feel that 46-47 frames per second is a CPU limitation rather than a video card limitation.

Also, we found that the Radeon X1800XL was slower than the reference GeForce 7800 GT using this benchmark. Finally, there was some healthy framerate increases as a result of the increased clock speeds on both of XFX's GeForce 7-series Extreme Edition video cards in comparison to the reference clock speeds.

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