F.E.A.R. = choppy

[deadseasquirrel]

Originally posted by: DragonFire

Originally posted by: deadseasquirrel

Originally posted by: DragonFire
munky, I do believe Anand has an article somewhere saying that even a FX-55 is a bottleneck for two 6800's. The game might depend on gpu power but a 3200+ can only pump out so much info to such a poweful gpu such as a 7800 that the cpu holds back the gpu.

A faster processor will not help a bit in a game like FEAR.

Text

Your missing the point, I didn't say a faster cpu would make the game run faster. I said a anthing as slow as a 3200+ would be a bottleneck for an SLI setup.

No, I'm just responding to the advice you gave him, which was

Originally posted by: DragonFire

ascarytiger, if I was you I would see about upgrading the 3200+

... which would do absolutely zilch. 0% performance gain for money spent (at least on this game). Whereas SLI would definitely increase performance for money spent. If you spend $200 upgrading a CPU for 0% gain instead of spending $275 for another GPU for 20%+ gain (50% in some games), then you're not making a wise price/performance decision.

Originally posted by: munky
You dont need a top of the line cpu, all you need is a display with a 1600x1200 or greater resolution. Then you will easily see the benefits of dual cards.

:thumbsup:

 

[Elfear]

Originally posted by: DragonFire

And my single 7800GT cuts thru it as well with max everything, 4XAA, 16xAF, with soft shadows on at 1280x1024, so whats the points of having SLI then?


yup, this is why I think SLI is a waste. Unless you have a FX-57/60 or an Opteron that overclocks likes mad you end up with a setup that is being held back. I'll admit that SLI does offer a performance boost but at the price you have to pay for it I want a setup that can be used to it's max anf give me every last FPS the SLI cards can give something that won't happen without a top of line cpu.

Again, after running FEAR with the processor at 2.2GHz and 2.95GHz a saw a whopping 2fps increase. FEAR is almost completely gpu bound.

Most games played at mid to high resolution (1600x1200 or greater) will see a significant increase from SLI. FEAR shows an almost 100% increase vs. a single card. Lots of games show a 50-80% increase. Not all, of course, will show a great improvement, but almost all the games that need SLI to run at max eye candy and res will show a nice improvement.

Would you mind posting the results you get at the settings you mentioned for FEAR? Just curious what you're definition of 'buttery smoothness' is.

 

[DragonFire]

I so wish I could find that article that I read about needing a powerful cpu no matter what game was being played. It was a very good read and even showed that even a FX-55 was holding back a pair of 6800's execpt for exterm res (past 1600x1200) Anyways, I am not trying to say getting a faster cpu will make the game run faster. I not even sure how to explain what I mean.....hmmm... Because the 7800 series of cards are so fast, lower end cpus like the 3200+ become a bottleneck for the video card. Put in a SLI setup and that bottleneck becomes worse.

A poor example would be, would you rather pay $300 for a faster cpu which will boost performance across the board and it will improve game play since the bottleneck between the video card and cpu will be smaller or would rather pay $300 for another 7800 knowing you paid for a V8 engine and your only getting V6 performance because your 3200+ cant pump out the data to the cards fast enough?

EDIT:
Elfear, my idea of buttery smoothness at 1280X1024 4XAA 16xAF soft shadows on, and everything on MAX is THIS

 

[imported_Noob]

I you turn of Shadows (not talking about Soft Shadows) the game does run a lot smoother. In my experience it runs twice as smooth.

 

[Munky]

To really appreciate dual card you need to run at a resolution like 1600x1200 or higher. If you run at a lower res then you dont need SLI and if you do get SLI the cpu will be a bottleneck in most games. But play FEAR or COD2 at 1600 res with AA/AF, and only dual cards can run those settings smoothly. If anything, in newer games like FEAR, COD2 and SS2 even dual 512gtx's will not be bottlenecked by the cpu if you run at a crazy res like 2048x1536.

 

[deadseasquirrel]

Originally posted by: DragonFire
Elfear, my idea of buttery smoothness at 1280X1024 4XAA 16xAF soft shadows on, and everything on MAX is THIS

That is the score you got at 1280x1024 4xAA 16xAF with soft shadows on?

Even Anandtech didn't do that well. 1280x1024 4xAA (didn't mention AF settings) and no soft shadows since they didn't like them-- Avg 29fps. Half of what you got.

Firing Squad didn't have the exact same resolution setting, but did use the 16xAF-- 33fps avg. Seems on par with Anandtechs, though at a little lower of a resolution... which would explain the higher score even though they used 16xAF.

AMD Zone used SLI GTs at 4xAA and 8xAF and got an average of 58fps, which is close to your results. That's with SLI GTs to your single GT.

Something must be wrong with your numbers.

 

[DragonFire]

Originally posted by: munky
To really appreciate dual card you need to run at a resolution like 1600x1200 or higher. If you run at a lower res then you dont need SLI and if you do get SLI the cpu will be a bottleneck in most games. But play FEAR or COD2 at 1600 res with AA/AF, and only dual cards can run those settings smoothly. If anything, in newer games like FEAR, COD2 and SS2 even dual 512gtx's will not be bottlenecked by the cpu if you run at a crazy res like 2048x1536.

That is very ture and I agree but just how many posts have you seen that have a SLI setup that do run at such a high res? In most cases I find people running at the most 1600x1200 because that is the max they can run with many running at only 1280x1024. Thats why I said what I said.

 

[DragonFire]

Originally posted by: deadseasquirrel

Originally posted by: DragonFire
Elfear, my idea of buttery smoothness at 1280X1024 4XAA 16xAF soft shadows on, and everything on MAX is THIS

That is the score you got at 1280x1024 4xAA 16xAF with soft shadows on?

Even Anandtech didn't do that well. 1280x1024 4xAA (didn't mention AF settings) and no soft shadows since they didn't like them-- Avg 29fps. Half of what you got.

Firing Squad didn't have the exact same resolution setting, but did use the 16xAF-- 33fps avg. Seems on par with Anandtechs, though at a little lower of a resolution... which would explain the higher score even though they used 16xAF.

AMD Zone used SLI GTs at 4xAA and 8xAF and got an average of 58fps, which is close to your results. That's with SLI GTs to your single GT.

Something must be wrong with your numbers.

I dunno, I just ran the test settings and that is what I get. I'll provide other screenshots in a little bit. In the Anadtech review they used a FX-57, I'm using an Opteron 148@3Ghz AMDzone's mistake was using a 3800+...

EDIT:
You comments got me thinking and so I went and doubled check my settings. Everything is as before but I was using only 2XAA., I thought I had put it on 4XAA. Sue me. Anyways I'll rerun the test using 4XAA but now that I know I was using 2XAA, I find it more then enough at 1280x1024.

TEST with 4XAA. I still seem to do better then the Anadtech test...hmmm

 

[Powermoloch]

memory?

 

[NokiaDude]

Originally posted by: Dethfrumbelo
The game just isn't coded well.

Drop textures a notch, turn off soft shadows, and drop to 2xAA.

You can probably blow through it in less than 10 hours and you'll never play it again after that.

Why is it that when next gen games don't play well on last gen hardware, people complain it isn't coded well? Halo PC was the same way when it was released but today a 7800GTX handles it like a champ. Fear is coded pretty well, you need at least a 7800GT and 2GB to play with silky smooth framerates. And an A64 CPU would help out alot. The Barton is old and outdated.

 

[addinator]

i'd throw in another gig of ram, and see what that does for you. i noticed a much larger difference when i threw in just a half of gig into mine. granted, i noticed quite a gain in fps from my sli setup though it was still choppy even at that with only a gig... its worth a try i think.

 

[deadseasquirrel]

Originally posted by: DragonFire
EDIT:
You comments got me thinking and so I went and doubled check my settings. Everything is as before but I was using only 2XAA., I thought I had put it on 4XAA. Sue me. Anyways I'll rerun the test using 4XAA but now that I know I was using 2XAA, I find it more then enough at 1280x1024.

TEST with 4XAA. I still seem to do better then the Anadtech test...hmmm

That looks a lot closer to what Firing Squad got. Look all the way down on the bottom of the page for the 12x10 scores. I completely missed them before. 19min and 74max. That fits in line with yours, with a little deviation that could be due to gpu/cpu overclocking, or other testing methods. But close enough nonetheless.

Your original score looks like one with 0xAA. AA in this game, especially 4x, gives a huge performance hit. Note that same Anand test, where they show 0xAA getting 56fps (right around yours) and 4xAA getting 29fps. That's a huge hit.

Either way, this is way off topic, but to sum it up, desirable settings for one person might be far different than that of another. FEAR is pretty demanding, even on top end systems. Those that are limited to 12x10 resolutions are the lucky ones because they're not tempted to crank it up to 16x12 and see their system brought to its knees.

When I tried to play FEAR at your settings, I found it not smooth enough for me. So I dropped even lower in res to 1280x960 and 2xAA with no soft shadows. This kicked things upward to about 60 which improved things quite a bit, granted at the cost of some eye candy.

I still say to the OP that SLI is the way to go for this game if he wants to keep the high settings and have smooth gameplay. $275 will buy him about a 50% improvement. No other upgrade can do the same when it comes to graphics. FEAR, COD2, Quake4, Doom3... all get about a 50% increase with SLI (with those being the new games, I wonder if this is a trend). No, it's not 100%, and I agree, that I would rather have 100% improvement for 100% more money. But, still, when it comes to upgrading, no other upgrade will give you that price/performance increase like SLI will.

 

[Elfear]

Originally posted by: deadseasquirrel

I still say to the OP that SLI is the way to go for this game if he wants to keep the high settings and have smooth gameplay. $275 will buy him about a 50% improvement. No other upgrade can do the same when it comes to graphics. FEAR, COD2, Quake4, Doom3... all get about a 50% increase with SLI (with those being the new games, I wonder if this is a trend). No, it's not 100%, and I agree, that I would rather have 100% improvement for 100% more money. But, still, when it comes to upgrading, no other upgrade will give you that price/performance increase like SLI will.

:thumbsup:

I'll add that even at 1280x1024 you'll see an 80% gain with SLI in FEAR according to Firingsquad.

 

[Munky]

About the FEAR benchmark, you know that you cant use soft shadows and AA at the same time, right?