I have an 850 with the 6.x drivers and FEAR is still slow. I know I can
turn down all the bells and whistles but that kind of defeats the purpose of
buying such an expensive card. I can't imagine that the nVidia chipset is
that much better - I'm guessing it is an ATI driver issue. Any guess on
when ATI will work on making FEAR faster?

"Boe" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:zIOdnVLAhc8od0neRVn-(E-Mail Removed)...
>I have an 850 with the 6.x drivers and FEAR is still slow. I know I can
>turn down all the bells and whistles but that kind of defeats the purpose
>of buying such an expensive card. I can't imagine that the nVidia chipset
>is that much better - I'm guessing it is an ATI driver issue. Any guess on
>when ATI will work on making FEAR faster?

What resolution are you running the game in, and what is your CPU and RAM?
Maybe you're just trying to get more out of your system than it will handle.

Thanks - I should have listed that. I have a P4 2.8 HT w 2 GIGs of RAM - I
run the game at all the same settings with a GeForce I borrowed and it runs
MUCH faster. Both cards had the latest drivers and 256MB of RAM. I've made
sure that no remnants of previous ATI drivers are present - they are the
latest ATI drivers. I even have browsed a few video benchmark sites and the
ATI is severely lagging behind the nVidia in FEAR. The problem is with ATI
and FEAR - not with my system.

"KCB" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:LIGdnRsau-SRokjeRVn-(E-Mail Removed)...
>
> "Boe" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> news:zIOdnVLAhc8od0neRVn-(E-Mail Removed)...
>>I have an 850 with the 6.x drivers and FEAR is still slow. I know I can
>>turn down all the bells and whistles but that kind of defeats the purpose
>>of buying such an expensive card. I can't imagine that the nVidia chipset
>>is that much better - I'm guessing it is an ATI driver issue. Any guess
>>on when ATI will work on making FEAR faster?
>
> What resolution are you running the game in, and what is your CPU and RAM?
> Maybe you're just trying to get more out of your system than it will
> handle.
>

Boe wrote:
> Thanks - I should have listed that. I have a P4 2.8 HT w 2 GIGs of RAM - I
> run the game at all the same settings with a GeForce I borrowed and it runs
> MUCH faster. Both cards had the latest drivers and 256MB of RAM. I've made
> sure that no remnants of previous ATI drivers are present - they are the
> latest ATI drivers. I even have browsed a few video benchmark sites and the
> ATI is severely lagging behind the nVidia in FEAR. The problem is with ATI
> and FEAR - not with my system.
>

have you tried renaming fear.exe to somethingelse.exe and then run it?

Yep. They had optimized it for the demo a while back so it was best to
rename the full version.
If anyone wants to see the poor performance of the ATI in FEAR vs. the
nVidia - select any of your normal benchmark sites such as Tom's or others
and you'll see what I mean. I was hoping 6.x would have some improvement
but it didn't change performance at all. I would hope that ATI is working
on some optimizations now as I've been using ATI for a few years now but now
I'm starting about hoping back to nVidia. ATI had been good about releasing
drivers to improve performance on a regular basis but I consider FEAR as
important as Q4 and HL2 - not something to be put on a to do list for an
eventual fix but a high priority.

"RzR" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:dr3kll$14p$(E-Mail Removed)...
> Boe wrote:
>> Thanks - I should have listed that. I have a P4 2.8 HT w 2 GIGs of RAM -
>> I run the game at all the same settings with a GeForce I borrowed and it
>> runs MUCH faster. Both cards had the latest drivers and 256MB of RAM.
>> I've made sure that no remnants of previous ATI drivers are present -
>> they are the latest ATI drivers. I even have browsed a few video
>> benchmark sites and the ATI is severely lagging behind the nVidia in
>> FEAR. The problem is with ATI and FEAR - not with my system.
>>
>
> have you tried renaming fear.exe to somethingelse.exe and then run it?

"Boe" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:rtudnSgeSNoI1UjeRVn-(E-Mail Removed)...
> Thanks - I should have listed that. I have a P4 2.8 HT w 2 GIGs of RAM -
> I run the game at all the same settings with a GeForce I borrowed and it
> runs MUCH faster. Both cards had the latest drivers and 256MB of RAM.
> I've made sure that no remnants of previous ATI drivers are present -
> they are the latest ATI drivers. I even have browsed a few video
> benchmark sites and the ATI is severely lagging behind the nVidia in FEAR.
> The problem is with ATI and FEAR - not with my system.

Yes, that system should more than handle the game. I have a 7800GT and it
played great on that system, with Athlon 64 3200+, 1.5GB RAM. I haven't
been able to play it on this system I'm typing on, with X850XT PE, 2GB
RAM,Athlon XP 2700+. I'll see how it does as soon as I get a chance.

On Mon, 23 Jan 2006 22:47:22 -0500, "KCB"
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>>"Boe" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
>>news:rtudnSgeSNoI1UjeRVn-(E-Mail Removed)...
>>> Thanks - I should have listed that. I have a P4 2.8 HT w 2 GIGs of RAM -
>>> I run the game at all the same settings with a GeForce I borrowed and it
>>> runs MUCH faster. Both cards had the latest drivers and 256MB of RAM.
>>> I've made sure that no remnants of previous ATI drivers are present -
>>> they are the latest ATI drivers. I even have browsed a few video
>>> benchmark sites and the ATI is severely lagging behind the nVidia in FEAR.
>>> The problem is with ATI and FEAR - not with my system.
>>
>>Yes, that system should more than handle the game. I have a 7800GT and it
>>played great on that system, with Athlon 64 3200+, 1.5GB RAM. I haven't
>>been able to play it on this system I'm typing on, with X850XT PE, 2GB
>>RAM,Athlon XP 2700+. I'll see how it does as soon as I get a chance.


Well, you are talking about two different generations of cards
there. Not really a fair comparison. The X8xx's from ATI were
of the same generation as the 6xxx from Nvidia.

Crash7
remove x's from email address to reply

The first 7800s came out at the same time as the X850s.

"Crash7" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> On Mon, 23 Jan 2006 22:47:22 -0500, "KCB"
> <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
>>>"Boe" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
>>>news:rtudnSgeSNoI1UjeRVn-(E-Mail Removed)...
>>>> Thanks - I should have listed that. I have a P4 2.8 HT w 2 GIGs of
>>>> RAM -
>>>> I run the game at all the same settings with a GeForce I borrowed and
>>>> it
>>>> runs MUCH faster. Both cards had the latest drivers and 256MB of RAM.
>>>> I've made sure that no remnants of previous ATI drivers are present -
>>>> they are the latest ATI drivers. I even have browsed a few video
>>>> benchmark sites and the ATI is severely lagging behind the nVidia in
>>>> FEAR.
>>>> The problem is with ATI and FEAR - not with my system.
>>>
>>>Yes, that system should more than handle the game. I have a 7800GT and
>>>it
>>>played great on that system, with Athlon 64 3200+, 1.5GB RAM. I haven't
>>>been able to play it on this system I'm typing on, with X850XT PE, 2GB
>>>RAM,Athlon XP 2700+. I'll see how it does as soon as I get a chance.
>
>
> Well, you are talking about two different generations of cards
> there. Not really a fair comparison. The X8xx's from ATI were
> of the same generation as the 6xxx from Nvidia.
>
> Crash7
> remove x's from email address to reply

On Tue, 24 Jan 2006 17:59:58 -0800, "Boe"
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>>The first 7800s came out at the same time as the X850s.

Yes, but the X850 was a refresh. No more than a slight speed
bump, really. Probably wouldn't have even been such an animal
if the R520 based cards had come out on time.

Crash7
remove x's from email address to reply

Crash7 wrote:
> On Tue, 24 Jan 2006 17:59:58 -0800, "Boe"

>>> The first 7800s came out at the same time as the X850s.

> Yes, but the X850 was a refresh. No more than a slight speed
> bump, really. Probably wouldn't have even been such an animal
> if the R520 based cards had come out on time.

Don't think so. The X850s came out in December 2004, and the GeForce
7800s didn't show until June '05. The 850 was a six-month refresh of the
800, which came out in May '04, while nVidia didn't do a refresh of
their 6800 cards, which were introduced in April '04, rather relied on
SLI to keep them on top. ATi's problem was that the 1800 wasn't ready
when the 7800 was, so in some sense they ended up missing that round now
that the 1900 puts them back on schedule. nVidia still seems to be on an
annual schedule, but ATi can't have that luxury, probably needing to
have something new in the next six months, I'd think.