FEAR runs crappy, Quake runs fine

  • Thread starter Thread starter JB
  • Start date Start date
J

JB

I just started playing FEAR and it runs like soup through a fine-toothed
comb. Does anyone have any ideas? I have played around with the settings. It
looks butt ugly on "low" and runs choppy on "medium." The thing is, Quake 4
runs perfectly fine. I have an ATI X800 and 512RAM running on an AMD 64
2.4GHZ system. I also have the latest FEAR patch. I tried messing aroudn
with VM some as well; that didn't help.

In FEAR, at 800 x 600 with medium settings, there are tons of pauses and
stuttering, and nothing ever runs too smooth. But in low, at 640 x 480, all
the graphics look so low-res that the game is almost unplayable because I
can't hardly see anything clearly. I have Quake 4 set to about medium or a
little higher.

Oddly, I remember the demo running perfectly fine and the graphics looked
smooth and high-res. Any ideas?

Also, for some reason, both games do a performance check and put everything
pretty low, even though the X800 card shoudl be fast enough for at least
medium quality...

- JB
 
JB said:
I just started playing FEAR and it runs like soup through a fine-toothed
comb. Does anyone have any ideas? I have played around with the settings.
It looks butt ugly on "low" and runs choppy on "medium." The thing is,
Quake 4 runs perfectly fine. I have an ATI X800 and 512RAM running on an
AMD 64 2.4GHZ system. I also have the latest FEAR patch. I tried messing
aroudn with VM some as well; that didn't help.

In FEAR, at 800 x 600 with medium settings, there are tons of pauses and
stuttering, and nothing ever runs too smooth. But in low, at 640 x 480,
all the graphics look so low-res that the game is almost unplayable
because I can't hardly see anything clearly. I have Quake 4 set to about
medium or a little higher.

Oddly, I remember the demo running perfectly fine and the graphics looked
smooth and high-res. Any ideas?

Also, for some reason, both games do a performance check and put
everything pretty low, even though the X800 card shoudl be fast enough for
at least medium quality...

- JB
Click to expand...

Do you have soft shadows turned on? This puts a severe performance hit on
all but top-line cards?
 
there is a problem with the ati drivers and FEAR. It does improve with 5.11
but should be completely resolved with 5.12


MadHewi
 
there is a problem with the ati drivers. I found using 5.11 the game ran
much better but I understand it should be resolved in releasee 5.12


Regards
MadHewi
 
there is a problem with the ati drivers and FEAR. It does improve with 5.11
but I understand the main fix will be in 5.12

MadHewi
 
JB said:
I just started playing FEAR and it runs like soup through a
fine-toothed comb. Does anyone have any ideas? I have played around
with the settings. It looks butt ugly on "low" and runs choppy on
"medium." The thing is, Quake 4 runs perfectly fine. I have an ATI
X800 and 512RAM running on an AMD 64 2.4GHZ system. I also have the
latest FEAR patch. I tried messing aroudn with VM some as well; that
didn't help.

In FEAR, at 800 x 600 with medium settings, there are tons of pauses
and stuttering, and nothing ever runs too smooth. But in low, at 640 x
480, all the graphics look so low-res that the game is almost
unplayable because I can't hardly see anything clearly. I have Quake 4
set to about medium or a little higher.

Oddly, I remember the demo running perfectly fine and the graphics
looked smooth and high-res. Any ideas?

Also, for some reason, both games do a performance check and put
everything pretty low, even though the X800 card shoudl be fast enough
for at least medium quality...
Click to expand...

This is going to sound crazy but try renaming the fear.exe file to
something else, and then create a new shortcut to run it. There is a bug in
the ATI driver that tries to optimize fear but does it completely wrong.
 
Shinnokxz said:
Also, 512 MB of system memory doesn't cut it with today's games!
Click to expand...

just to confirm - rename the FEAR.exe to something else like SCARE.exe and
use that - it bypasses a bug in the drivers caused through catalystAI and
yeah - it does need more than 512mb of RAM. also some ppl have found
problems with the 1.2 patch so if the first 2 dont help reinstall and dont
patch until 1.3 comes out.
 
"just to confirm - rename the FEAR.exe to something else like SCARE.exeuse that - it bypasses a bug in the drivers caused through catalyst AI "

Yes that should sort it....I am running Radeon 9800 pro with FEAR at 1024 x
768 on HIGHEST settings and it seems at least as smooth as Quake 4 at same
Res...Your X800 should be better...
The lower Graphic settings are very much poorer..

Luv mouse
@@@@@
 
I just started playing FEAR and it runs like soup through a fine-toothed
comb. Does anyone have any ideas? I have played around with the settings. It
looks butt ugly on "low" and runs choppy on "medium." The thing is, Quake 4
runs perfectly fine. I have an ATI X800 and 512RAM running on an AMD 64
2.4GHZ system. I also have the latest FEAR patch. I tried messing aroudn
with VM some as well; that didn't help.

In FEAR, at 800 x 600 with medium settings, there are tons of pauses and
stuttering, and nothing ever runs too smooth. But in low, at 640 x 480, all
the graphics look so low-res that the game is almost unplayable because I
can't hardly see anything clearly. I have Quake 4 set to about medium or a
little higher.

Oddly, I remember the demo running perfectly fine and the graphics looked
smooth and high-res. Any ideas?

Also, for some reason, both games do a performance check and put everything
pretty low, even though the X800 card shoudl be fast enough for at least
medium quality...

- JB
Click to expand...

Defrag the drive and make sure you have at least 10-20Gigs free. Some
games are more prone to low drive space and fragmentation than others,
but if you're over 25% fragmentation, it will make a difference in
gaming.

I personally kept putting off defragging my drives and I was told that
NTFS didn't need defragging, so I just forgot about it. My game
performance tanked over the last year, worse on some games than
others. On checking the fragmentation in Norton, I was shocked to see
it was at 60% fragmentation. No wonder it was grinding to a halt. On
defragging, my games are back to what they were months ago.

Do it at night while you sleep as defragging takes hours to complete.
 
: I just started playing FEAR and it runs like soup through a fine-toothed
: comb. Does anyone have any ideas? I have played around with the settings. It


With a 1.5 yr old geforce card and newest drivers, turning off DX9
shaders did it for me.
 
Howard Goldstein said:
: I just started playing FEAR and it runs like soup through a
fine-toothed
: comb. Does anyone have any ideas? I have played around with the
settings. It


With a 1.5 yr old geforce card and newest drivers, turning off DX9
shaders did it for me.
Click to expand...

That is a lot of stuff to keep track of! I will start with renaming the EXE
and see what happens.

Thanks for your help.

The thing witht he RAM, though -- wouldn't Quake 4 run like crap as well?
Actually, COD2 ran silky smooth as well.

I have the latest game patch and latest ATI driver.

Now, I am a 15 year PC gaming vet, but it sure sticks in my craw to know
that a game will run *worse with the latest graphics card driver (not to
mention one of the latest graphics cards).

- JB
 
|I just started playing FEAR and it runs like soup through a fine-toothed
|comb. Does anyone have any ideas? I have played around with the settings. It
|looks butt ugly on "low" and runs choppy on "medium." The thing is, Quake 4
|runs perfectly fine. I have an ATI X800 and 512RAM running on an AMD 64
|2.4GHZ system. I also have the latest FEAR patch. I tried messing aroudn
|with VM some as well; that didn't help.
|
|In FEAR, at 800 x 600 with medium settings, there are tons of pauses and
|stuttering, and nothing ever runs too smooth. But in low, at 640 x 480, all
|the graphics look so low-res that the game is almost unplayable because I
|can't hardly see anything clearly. I have Quake 4 set to about medium or a
|little higher.
|
|Oddly, I remember the demo running perfectly fine and the graphics looked
|smooth and high-res. Any ideas?
|
|Also, for some reason, both games do a performance check and put everything
|pretty low, even though the X800 card shoudl be fast enough for at least
|medium quality...
|
|- JB
|
Click to expand...

Until the 5.12 cat drivers come out there is a work around for the known 'issue'
with a tweak that worked for the demo but NOT for the retail. Just rename the
fear.exe file to something else. (Ie. Copy of Fear.exe) and use that shortcut to
play. You should see 15-20fps increase alone. (with ATI cards)

Also.. turn off Volumetric Lighting to see a major boost in framerate as well.

Pluvious
 
|there is a problem with the ati drivers and FEAR. It does improve with 5.11
|but I understand the main fix will be in 5.12
|
Click to expand...

Yes. rename the .exe file and play with that shortcut instead for a workaround
for now. :)

Pluvious
 
Until the 5.12 cat drivers come out there is a work around for the known
'issue'
with a tweak that worked for the demo but NOT for the retail. Just rename
the
fear.exe file to something else. (Ie. Copy of Fear.exe) and use that
shortcut to
play. You should see 15-20fps increase alone. (with ATI cards)
Click to expand...
It's definately *better but not nearly as smooth as other games. I just get
a lot of stuttering in most resolutions with some stuff disabled and with
the rename EXE trick.

So maybe I will wait for the new ATI driver or get more RAM. Whenever there
are a few guys on screen at one time, the hard disk start chirping away.

But, also, I have another computer with a 6800 but no DVD drive. Is there a
way to move the game onto that system?

- JB
 
So, this renaming thing is not for the retail version? (which is what I
have)
Click to expand...


AFAIK this trick is for the retail version, because the demo didnt have
that problem. It should be fixed in the next catalyst revision probably
5.12.

I thought that this performance bug was only affecting the new x1800
cards.

All I said could be completely wrong since i dont even have the game.
 
Back
Top