I am not impressed with the graphics card industry.

[jim1976]

Originally posted by: Soviet

We might well be in the future, all the console needs is... a mouse! then any console user can play FPS's and RTS's with as much speed and accuracy as a pc user.

That's not true. There are many parameters especially in the genres you mentioned, that will always make PCs better than consoles. We can discuss them in another thread if you want to, but not here I don't think it's the appropriate one.

Farcry had the stunning visuals (stunning at the time, still pretty good now) to justify the hit in performance, and if i remember correctly it was aa/af that really slowed it down, the 9800's and 5900's were the best cards at the time and werent particularly good at running games with a decent resolution and a high aa/af setting, a happy medium would be the best idea. Nowadays cards can handle aa/af better and it shouldnt give as much of a performance hit. Ive seen quite a few benches where the 7800GTX loses only 10-20 fps when aa is turned on.

I do agree that FEAR engine is not efficient (not everyone is Carmack or Gabe) and the use of soft shadows is bad, but that doesn't negate the fact that it has some awesome features. Have you actually played the game to see the gfx or you just played the demo? There are some areas inside the game that I was left with the mouth open... Extensive use of real time dynamic shadows in some areas,volumetric lights,amazing shaders, some nice textures in outside areas and many more.. Play the game till the end and observe the gfx if you know what to look for. Just because FC was a "shiny game" with vibrant colours and vast open areas that doesn't make it a "technically" better game... This is true about Doom3 too. Many were bitching about it being dark and gfx sucked, but OMG I was amazed by its gfx.
And as Anand mentioned and I agree AA is not essential in FEAR. Developers have done a great job in that area. As for AF(which I can't live w/o ) I play at 12x9 with everything on and 16XAF @42fps.

I really hope theres noone with a similar attitude to you making pc games.... Basically what your saying is, if your poor, sod off and dont play. Itll be that attitude that kills pc gaming one day, expensive niche sports have a way of dying.

No let's do the opposite... Let's stay for 2-3 years with the same games. Hell let's not have evolution at all so that you can justify your gpu for long term use!! I told it b4 and I'll say it again. That's the way things were that's the way things are gonna be.. Whether you like/afford it or not.. Why should I buy then a high end gpu? To play games with the same feautures @100fps with 4AA/16AF? I want evolution, otherwise I would be better off with a console. And afterall it's only a game. If you can't play it and find the requirements unecceptable for you don't buy it!! There are plenty of games out there for you to be satisfied.

How does it bring evolution? It brings a 7800GTX to its knees for no apparent good reason other than inefficient coding.

It's one thing the inneficient coding and another the implementation of new features.. You see that's what I said previously. They don't fvckin care or do it in purpose or simply don't have the experience to bring a well coded engine with these features. As I said not everyone is Gabe or John... But experience brings better and more advanced games faster than they do appear. Consoles have great games not only because they have a standard coding base but because game developers are maximizing their capabilities. Why the fvck can't we see something similar in PCs? And we are paying much more money than a console user(many of us own them too) but we see only a few good games that worth our investments every year!! And not only that but then we have to face complaints too when we see games like FEAR. That happened with myriads of games in the past with their release.

I'll ask you this. What's the purpose of buying a gpu every year if I'm not to see evolution in games? Why shouldn't I buy a console and have my piece of mind if I can't see new advanced games? I'm not rich neither I have money for waste, but I luv gfx and I sacrifice many things to buy every year a new gpu.
PC gaming will not die as long as ordinary ppl like me are willing to pay the premium for a gpu every year. Just like with many things in tech life. Always there are ppl that are willing to pay the premium to have something marginally better than the mainstream market.
And I can't accept that someone that has passion with games can't buy at least a mainstream card every year. He just doesn't want to sacrifice other things for it.. Well buy a console and be happy with it. You can't have it all..
What we need is not bitching about new demanding games. On the contrary we need more of them in our way..

 

[nRollo]

I just fired up FEAR at 16X12 2X8X, seemed to run fine. Will play around with it some, see what I can do.

Seems like a fun game, pretty spookie.

 

[PrayForDeath]

THe answer is: Lazy game programmers

 

[Jeff7181]

Originally posted by: PrayForDeath
THe answer is: Lazy game programmers

Or it could just be that it requires an even more knowledgable programmer to extract the best performance. Look what's being done with drivers... optimizing them for individual games because the hardware manufacturer knows the hardware very well. Maybe what's needed is either a closer working relationship between hardware manufacturers and developers... or less complicated GPU's that don't require optimization for individual games.

 

[PrayForDeath]

Originally posted by: Jeff7181

Originally posted by: PrayForDeath
THe answer is: Lazy game programmers

Or it could just be that it requires an even more knowledgable programmer to extract the best performance. Look what's being done with drivers... optimizing them for individual games because the hardware manufacturer knows the hardware very well. Maybe what's needed is either a closer working relationship between hardware manufacturers and developers... or less complicated GPU's that don't require optimization for individual games.

No no no no no, anything but that. We don't want another HL2/D3 scenario. But I mean if you compare Riddick to FEAR, I think both look the same (in some places riddick looks better and vice versa) and see how Riddick runs WAY faster than FEAR. IMO, the problem is with lazy programmers. They see new hardware and say: Why should we bother spend more time optimizing the game if there's already a hardware capable of running it (and costs a fortune)? Whereas in consoles, developers spend a huge amount of time making the game playable on 3+ years old hardware with nice graphics.

 

[Jeff7181]

I've never played Riddick so I can't comment on that... but the screenshots I've seen from it don't look as though they compare to FEAR... more comparable to HL2. But... can't tell much from simple screenshots.

 

[MedicalEntropy]

I dunno, but I have nearly full graphics for FEAR MP demo, and I get 40-50 FPS, with 1280x1024, 4x AA, 16x AF.
Rare times I get 30 or under, and that's only when there's like more than 12 players in the same room, firing chunks of bullets and nailguns (penetrator).

Have A64 3200+ 754, X800 XT Platinum, 2gb OCZ Ram.

Is there something in FEAR retail that MP demo is missing?

 

[Acanthus]

Originally posted by: Soviet

Originally posted by: jim1976
You do need to realize ppl that this is pc gaming not console...
We are paying the extra premium( pc gaming is an expensive sport ) in order to have the best from our hardware even if that means that our $$$ gpus are dated somehow in the end of the day.
You should be happy with gaming evolution, not acting like this. What do you want? A game that has nothing new to add to the inventory? What are we, console users?

We might well be in the future, all the console needs is... a mouse! then any console user can play FPS's and RTS's with as much speed and accuracy as a pc user.

For example many are bitching about FEAR performance.
Do you remember when FC came out how taxing it was on systems?
Chronnicles of Riddick with soft shadows was unplayable and still is for the majority.
HL2 might be a great scalable engine, but it adds nothing extraordinary to the gfx department.

Farcry had the stunning visuals (stunning at the time, still pretty good now) to justify the hit in performance, and if i remember correctly it was aa/af that really slowed it down, the 9800's and 5900's were the best cards at the time and werent particularly good at running games with a decent resolution and a high aa/af setting, a happy medium would be the best idea. Nowadays cards can handle aa/af better and it shouldnt give as much of a performance hit. Ive seen quite a few benches where the 7800GTX loses only 10-20 fps when aa is turned on.

I do realize that the vast majority of pc users are nowhere near high end pcs, but you should realize that pcs are just like that from day1 of 3d evolution.
Do you have the $$$? You can play at max resolutions with max filters and goodies on 90% of the time.
Do you have a mainstream card? You can play at medium resolutions with some sacrifices on the visual sector.
Do you find yourself incapable of catching up with pcs budget?(there's nothing wrong with that and I'm not being an a$$ just stating the truth). Then you should seriously consider the purchase of a console and keep your low budget pc for games that you can't play with a console...

I really hope theres noone with a similar attitude to you making pc games.... Basically what your saying is, if your poor, sod off and dont play. Itll be that attitude that kills pc gaming one day, expensive niche sports have a way of dying.

That's the way it was that's the way it's gonna be.

But plz stop bitching. Make a decision. We should all be happy when we see games like FEAR reaching to pc gamer because this brings evolution.. We are not console, we are pc users.

How does it bring evolution? It brings a 7800GTX to its knees for no apparent good reason other than inefficient coding.

That is just BS, parralax mapping and incredible effects, coupled with volumetric lights (often multiple) and ultra high shadow detail. (NOT seen in doom, farcry, or HL2) are what drags the top tier graphics cards down.

Look at the walls in some of the levels in fear, the ceiling. Everything has physics associated with it, everything is destructible, parralax mapping takes the detail level on walls to a whole new level.

I dont understand where you guys are coming up with "fears graphics dont justify the performance hit".

 

[CaiNaM]

Originally posted by: Acanthus
I dont understand where you guys are coming up with "fears graphics dont justify the performance hit".

i share your opinion on this, and further, i laugh when ppl come on here claiming it's poor coding, etc. wtf do they know about it?

i suppose when the new ut engine finally arrives and ups the ante on system reqs, they're all gonna say sweeney's code sucks and he doesn't know how to optimize code??

 

[dfloyd]

I cant speak for everyone but what I know is what i see.

Say you have two games running side by side. One looks better and runs smoother, then wouldnt you automatically deduct that the code was programmed a bit more efficently?

And yes Fear looks nice, it looks very nice. But imo Quake IV looks WAY better. The lighting in Quake IV is just so utterly unbelieveable. Compared to Doom III even its night and day difference in how much better Quake IV looks. The detail of the characters looks just as good in Quake IV as it does in Fear and in some ways it looks much better. So comparing how smooth Quake IV runs at higher resolution with higher settings turned on is how I made my deduction that Fear was not programmed as good as it could have been. At least compared to how Quake IV was coded.

 

[Acanthus]

Originally posted by: dfloyd
I cant speak for everyone but what I know is what i see.

Say you have two games running side by side. One looks better and runs smoother, then wouldnt you automatically deduct that the code was programmed a bit more efficently?

And yes Fear looks nice, it looks very nice. But imo Quake IV looks WAY better. The lighting in Quake IV is just so utterly unbelieveable. Compared to Doom III even its night and day difference in how much better Quake IV looks. The detail of the characters looks just as good in Quake IV as it does in Fear and in some ways it looks much better. So comparing how smooth Quake IV runs at higher resolution with higher settings turned on is how I made my deduction that Fear was not programmed as good as it could have been. At least compared to how Quake IV was coded.

Quake IV does not use parralax mapping, which is a major part of the performance hit everyone sees in fear.

 

[Busithoth]

You know, I'm thinking that this is more on the shoulders of the game programmers.

Source was optimized to hell, and consequently runs impressively on many older video cards.
Doom3 was less kind, but it wasn't the engine that made me stop playing.

For instance, Rome: Total War sees a bog-down when you use fire arrows, and I doubt that either my video card or CPU is really getting pegged by that. (eyes CPU suspiciously)

Fear seems to be first in line of games that would benefit greatly from having that physics add-in card.
Said card offends me to the core, as someone who finally talked himself into buying a $350 video card this year.

 

[CaiNaM]

Originally posted by: dfloyd
I cant speak for everyone but what I know is what i see.

Say you have two games running side by side. One looks better and runs smoother, then wouldnt you automatically deduct that the code was programmed a bit more efficently?

not when they support different feature sets and/or graphics effects.

the one thing in comparing say, quake4 to fear as far as which "looks better" is that it's pretty subjective. both accomplish what they intened, but have a distincly different look and feel. which "looks better" is often highly subjective, but it's obvious fear is doing a lot more with the hardware than q4 is (i would think even on a cpu level, as the the npc ai as well as the physics are doing much more).

And yes Fear looks nice, it looks very nice. But imo Quake IV looks WAY better.

well, that's kind of my point... it's your opinion, and you're certainly entitiled to it, but that does not reflect the "efficiency" of the code, nor the abilities of the programmers who wrote it.

The lighting in Quake IV is just so utterly unbelieveable.

have you even noticed in q4 your character doesn't have his own shadow? umm.. yea.. it's unbelievable that light sources cast on your character doesn't create shadows....

Compared to Doom III even its night and day difference in how much better Quake IV looks.

yes, it's not as dark

The detail of the characters looks just as good in Quake IV as it does in Fear and in some ways it looks much better. So comparing how smooth Quake IV runs at higher resolution with higher settings turned on is how I made my deduction that Fear was not programmed as good as it could have been. At least compared to how Quake IV was coded.

the level of detail is similar, and i suppose you could argue a preference over one or the other, but you have to realize that if you actually LOOK at both games, FEAR is doing so much more in rendering a scene than Q4 does -- the most obvious is far more use of shadows (can q4 even do "soft" shadows?), volumetric lighting from a greater number of light sources, parallax mapping, particle effects, and so on (not to mention the slo-motion mode that really taxes the gpu), that your statements just don't hold up..

personally i think far cry does a better job of rendering an "entire" envoriment than either fear or q4, but fear does bring some very demanding things to the table the others do not...

 

[CaiNaM]

Originally posted by: Busithoth
You know, I'm thinking that this is more on the shoulders of the game programmers.

Source was optimized to hell, and consequently runs impressively on many older video cards.
Doom3 was less kind, but it wasn't the engine that made me stop playing.

source doesn't do nearly as many things.... it's at min. a 3 year old engine...

For instance, Rome: Total War sees a bog-down when you use fire arrows, and I doubt that either my video card or CPU is really getting pegged by that. (eyes CPU suspiciously)

hmm.. arrows all have to render fire.. how does that not affect video?

Fear seems to be first in line of games that would benefit greatly from having that physics add-in card.

in its current state FEAR doesn't do that much w/ physics

Said card offends me to the core, as someone who finally talked himself into buying a $350 video card this year.

 

[Acanthus]

i welcome any innovation that makes games more realistic, as long as its supported by developers.

I want the Ageia PPU to succeed, it is clearly a more elegant solution than trying to force that kind of FP power out of a CPU. But its also painfully clear that both ATi and NV are working on physics solutions of their own.

Heres hoping they at least settle on a physics API and we dont wind up with physics branching because nothing is standard

 

[Jeff7181]

Originally posted by: Acanthus

Originally posted by: dfloyd
I cant speak for everyone but what I know is what i see.

Say you have two games running side by side. One looks better and runs smoother, then wouldnt you automatically deduct that the code was programmed a bit more efficently?

And yes Fear looks nice, it looks very nice. But imo Quake IV looks WAY better. The lighting in Quake IV is just so utterly unbelieveable. Compared to Doom III even its night and day difference in how much better Quake IV looks. The detail of the characters looks just as good in Quake IV as it does in Fear and in some ways it looks much better. So comparing how smooth Quake IV runs at higher resolution with higher settings turned on is how I made my deduction that Fear was not programmed as good as it could have been. At least compared to how Quake IV was coded.

Quake IV does not use parralax mapping, which is a major part of the performance hit everyone sees in fear.

What is parralax mapping used for? Just bullets deforming walls? Or other stuff too? Cause if it's just the bullet holes I could do without those since they don't look that great anyway. Wonder if it can be disabled...

 

[Acanthus]

Originally posted by: Jeff7181

Originally posted by: Acanthus

Originally posted by: dfloyd
I cant speak for everyone but what I know is what i see.

Say you have two games running side by side. One looks better and runs smoother, then wouldnt you automatically deduct that the code was programmed a bit more efficently?

And yes Fear looks nice, it looks very nice. But imo Quake IV looks WAY better. The lighting in Quake IV is just so utterly unbelieveable. Compared to Doom III even its night and day difference in how much better Quake IV looks. The detail of the characters looks just as good in Quake IV as it does in Fear and in some ways it looks much better. So comparing how smooth Quake IV runs at higher resolution with higher settings turned on is how I made my deduction that Fear was not programmed as good as it could have been. At least compared to how Quake IV was coded.

Quake IV does not use parralax mapping, which is a major part of the performance hit everyone sees in fear.

What is parralax mapping used for? Just bullets deforming walls? Or other stuff too? Cause if it's just the bullet holes I could do without those since they don't look that great anyway. Wonder if it can be disabled...

It is now mainly used for walls and ceilings, it takes a wall and makes a 3d image out of it, instead of a flat painted texture on a flat wall.

In fear, its very visible on almost every wall in the game, especially wood/brick. I believe the shaders involved in the bullet holes as you mentioned, are also part of parralax mapping, but i could be way off base there.

 

[meelk]

having to purchase a $200 or $300 (or more) PPU will completely turn me off gaming.

 

[Acanthus]

Originally posted by: meelk
having to purchase a $200 or $300 (or more) PPU will completely turn me off gaming.

You wont have to, there will be a software physics option, that wont be as good.

Much like almost every gamer (with a graphics card made in the last 2 years that was more than $100) here can play fear with the features turned down.

 

[coomar]

Originally posted by: Busithoth

For instance, Rome: Total War sees a bog-down when you use fire arrows, and I doubt that either my video card or CPU is really getting pegged by that. (eyes CPU suspiciously)

I went from a xp-m at 2.6 and a 9600xt with the same problem to an x700le and venice at 2.6

solved the problem

either the 4 extra vertex shaders or the a64 solved it

and the x700 was cheaper than what i got for my 9600xt (switched to pci-e)

i've seen reviews where they have mentioned that total war really stresses the cpu

 

[kaishaku72]

The thing about Q3 though, you can lower settings for great performance.

If you make FEAR look much worse than Q3, it doesn't run nearly as well.

This is a bad thing imho, in more than just the simple inconvenience of it.

 

[Gheris]

Originally posted by: kaishaku72
The thing about Q3 though, you can lower settings for great performance.

If you make FEAR look much worse than Q3, it doesn't run nearly as well.

This is a bad thing imho, in more than just the simple inconvenience of it.

I agree 100%, not everyone can dish out the money required to run some of the games even when the options are toned down. FEAR is a perfect example of the direction that PC Game developers should NOT be heading. The market needs to compensate for players who cannot dish out the dough every 4-5 months for the latest/greatest GPU.

 

[hooflung]

Originally posted by: kaishaku72
The thing about Q3 though, you can lower settings for great performance.

If you make FEAR look much worse than Q3, it doesn't run nearly as well.

This is a bad thing imho, in more than just the simple inconvenience of it.

This is the one sane argument of this whole thread. Whether or not you think FEAR uses the prowess of the hardware effectively or not... good code is judged realistically by scalability. In that department FEAR is probably the worst coded 3d engine out. Its nice when you can afford it... and its terrible when you cannot. That said, it all comes down to content that will see if FEAR can capture the FPS market like Quake did. I don't think FEAR will have any derivatives like Half-Life or Counter-Strike. I am quite sure it will fall into Monolith's karma... good timing to generate revenue and a decent single player capaign; but, poor support and ultimately just being a game of the year for some magazine noone reads.

Like most of today's hollywood trailers, they have shown the best parts on their trailers and there is not much reason to pay to play. I will wait for bargain bin. Monolith and Ubi will always be second string to Valve and id.

 

[Maximilian]

Originally posted by: Gheris

Originally posted by: kaishaku72
The thing about Q3 though, you can lower settings for great performance.

If you make FEAR look much worse than Q3, it doesn't run nearly as well.

This is a bad thing imho, in more than just the simple inconvenience of it.

I agree 100%, not everyone can dish out the money required to run some of the games even when the options are toned down. FEAR is a perfect example of the direction that PC Game developers should NOT be heading. The market needs to compensate for players who cannot dish out the dough every 4-5 months for the latest/greatest GPU.

Shouldnt really be about dishing out the dough, if you game with a pc and know enough about the thing to upgrade it etc then chances are your not living on the doll. It just sucks that we HAVE to dish it out every so often to run these new games. I would rather keep my cash or buy the new ipod or maybe buy some food? im really lacking in that atm. Buying another new graphics card atm just makes me think "its not that freaking long since i bought my 9800PRO" now its terribly obsolete compared to what we have today. Hell it dosent even seem that long ago that it was the most reccomended card on these forums and it was almost the best. Its sad it became so obsolete so fast.

But another thing is, i dont see the same performance improvements in lower end cards that i do in higher end cards. The X1300 should maybe perform the same as a 9800 pro since it was two generations ago, but it dosent. It sucks. The low end always sucks and never seems to improve any. Havent seen benchmarks in a while so i could be wrong about this, but im pretty sure X1300 6200TC X300 5200FX and 9200 are all pretty much the same with differing features and all suck.

 

[jam3]

Did you ever stop to think that FEAR might just be poorly written? 9x out of 10 software is WAY behind hardware. You can think about it in a better light by thinking that its not written as efficiently as it could be.