Frontlines: Fuel of War

Author: Joe Martin
Published: 23rd March 2008

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Graphics

Before we get on to looking at the multiplayer side of the game though, it’s worth having a quick gander at how the game looks graphically.

Graphics are a deceptively important part of multiplayer games because, though most at-home gamers obviously want to get their game looking the very best they can, most pro and clan gamers will want to turn the graphics right down. It is very common to see pro gamers at tournaments run the game on the lowest possible settings in order to max out the framerates. In multiplayer, performance is king.

Unfortunately, that proved to be a problem for Frontlines and our gaming system was quickly defeated by the higher settings. With the game running on anything above the medium graphical preset even our overclocked Core 2 Extreme X6800 CPU and 8800 Ultra were bought to a halt every few seconds, even when we upgraded to 4GB of RAM.

A quick glance at task manager revealed that the reason for this was that game was throttling the CPU – leaving it running at 100 percent load constantly. We experimented for a bit to find the best graphical/performance trade-off and we’ve documented our fiddlings below.

Very High

Rather than spend ages tinkering with individual settings, we elected to use the graphical presets to gauge the game. There are many on offer; Very High, High, Medium, Low and Very Low. Running on Very High our system stalled every few seconds, sometimes crashing – but we have the screenshots below regardless.

Frontlines: Fuel of War on Very High graphics

Running on this setting, the game looks pretty good. The textures are detailed, the draw distance is fine for the long-distance artillery spotting and sniping that are a hallmark of the game and the animations and models are all decent on top of that.

Unfortunately though, the game is also a bit unplayable and so the whole experience is bought tumbling down. Recommended specs for the game are 1.5GB RAM, an 8600 GTS/2600 XT or superior and a 2.13GHz CPU. We’re punching far above that in every category and still suffering, so our advice is to stay away from this setting.

Medium

At Medium settings the game is definitely a lot more playable. There was no stalling at all in fact and the game ran smoothly on our hardware at all times. Unfortunately, the graphics are lessened in intensity – check out the screenshot to see what we mean.

Frontlines: Fuel of War on Medium graphics

The draw distance here is still good enough for you not to really have to worry, but a close eye will spot that the amount of foliage has been reduced, which is either a good thing or a bad thing depending on whether you want realism or to see the other guy coming.

The textures are also a little blurrier if you look closer, but it isn’t a massive difference and we were easily able to cope. Given that this setting provides decent performance, this would be the setting we’d run the game at if we were you – at least until a patch (hopefully) makes the higher settings more stable.

Very Low

This is the lowest preset that the game can run at and, to be frank, it does show. Passers-by in the bit-tech offices (which are more populated than we geeks would like) often commented that the game looked a few years old. You can make up your own mind though with the screenshot below.

Frontlines: Fuel of War on Very Low graphics

Now, if you ask me, the graphics here aren’t all that bad. A little dismaying, sure, but if this is the absolute worst that the game can look then that’s to be expected. The game remains playable and enjoyable on this setting provided you aren’t looking for a polygon bonanza.

That said, the textures are starting to look a bit washed out and you kind of get the impression that it rained all over the level before the pixels were allowed to dry. The draw distance is reined in a bit also, which is an unfortunate necessity of this low setting.

If you’re having severe performance problems even on the Medium settings then you can definitely scale back to this and still enjoy the game, but our personal preference would be to bump the game up as much as your system will allow.