F.E.A.R. Graphics & Gameplay

Author: Geoff Richards
Published: 24th October 2005
Comments (27) Stumble
F.E.A.R. Graphics & Gameplay Graphics 2


Graphics Options

Having established the importance of Shadows and Anti-Aliasing, there are several other areas where you might look to tune the performance of your computer. One of the biggest causes of slowdown in a firefight is the debris and particles flying about the place. To start with, you can limit the number of objects in the level by adjusting the World Detail. We played on Medium, so there is a good spread of boxes, cans and other random stuff without causing a major performance hit.


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Secondly, you can control the number of Particles generated. This is one of the coolest features of F.E.A.R. so again, it is a shame to limit the detail. On the left is Minimum while on the right is Maximum, in a scene where some innocent boxes are caught in the crossfire. Not surprisingly, Medium is a reasonable compromise of performance hit versus eye candy. As with all these options, it is possible to play the game with them set to Minimum or turned off completely, but to do so ruins the atmosphere completely.


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Volumetric light is used sparingly but to great effect in places. It is the dusty air lit by a bright light source like you can see here. If you're a graphics geek, you will appreciate just how nice it is and while stop for a minute to pay your respects. We have seen other gamers just run right past it, so if you're all about the action, you could afford to set this to Minimum.


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Water is similar in a way: it is the familiar Direct X 9.0 water that is so impressive in games like Half-Life 2 and many others, yet appears so infrequently that you won't improve your overall baseline performance by scaling back the detail. Of course, you can disable Reflections if you need to, leaving the gorgeous pools of water grey and flat in comparison, but really, unless the areas with water cause significant slowdown, we would just leave it set to Medium or Maximum, depending on your system.


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Texture detail can be a big influencing factor, depending on whether you have an ageing 64MB card or a modern 256MB beast. Our X850 card has 256MB, so we were able to play with Textures set to Maximum. The detail is truly impressive: everything looks almost photo-real, and you will find yourself reading Post-It notes on people's desks, work schedules and other random stuff just because you can.

Click these thumbnails to see the full 1024x768 screenshot. Maximum Detail is on the left, and Minimum is on the right. If you're forced to play at Low Texture Detail, the game world still looks the same from a distance, but up close, surfaces are blurry and a bit nasty. You can still enjoy the game, but again, the immersive impact will suffer when objects don't have the detail they rightly should.


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One final piece of eye candy isn't actually an option, but graphics geeks will get a kick out of it: Refraction. There are several different types of glass in the game, and each affects light in different ways. There is corrugated glass (left) and steel mesh re-enforced security glass; bulletproof glass and even some retro glass bricks (right). It is the extra attention to detail like this that makes the F.E.A.R. environment seem so real.

Now, let's break out the big guns and put the game through its paces...

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