F.E.A.R. 2 Gameplay Performance and IQ @ [H]]

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FrgMstr

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F.E.A.R. 2 Gameplay Performance and IQ - F.E.A.R. 2 is here for all of you to get your Alma fix. But is Alma Wade the only terrifying part of the game, or will the performance make you want to crawl out of your skin too? We'll find out with seven of today's most popular video cards.

Performance in F.E.A.R. 2 surprised us throughout testing. At every resolution we tested, all seven video cards allowed us to use maximum in-game graphics options with 16X AF and some level of AA.


At 2560x1600, the AMD Radeon HD 4870 X2 took a commanding lead, allowing us to use 12X CFAA. It was followed closely by the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 285, which allowed us to use 8X CSAA, and then the GeForce GTX 280, which permitted 4X MSAA
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Great article! I really want to get my hands on this game and one of the cards tested. Now I know what to expect.

Thanks [H].
 
Phenomenal article. It was really nice to see the three different levels of card offered and how they compared.
Is FEAR2 based off of teh same engine as FEAR1? It seems like performance like this (esp on the 4850) is the kind of thing you would expect from a well-hashed, and slightly older, game engine. If I remember correctly, and I may not, similar scaling was seen when HL:2 Ep:2 was reviewed.
 
Modred189 said:
Phenomenal article. It was really nice to see the three different levels of card offered and how they compared.
Is FEAR2 based off of teh same engine as FEAR1? It seems like performance like this (esp on the 4850) is the kind of thing you would expect from a well-hashed, and slightly older, game engine. If I remember correctly, and I may not, similar scaling was seen when HL:2 Ep:2 was reviewed.
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Yes, FEAR and FEAR2 are both powered by the Lithtech Jupiter EX engine.
 
Good to see what I knew i played save for the Xfire issue but with that said!

I played F.E.A.R 2 with my 4870 x2 and i have it that the Xfire icon appears on the upper right hand side when xfire = on. It was on through out the entire game but does that mean that it was lieing about xfire being on using the 9.1 & 4870 x2?
 
Nice review, but would have liked to see the inclusion of NV SLI either via a pair of 280/285/260 or a 295.

I guess my 4870 512 will more than suffice for this game, especially since I play @ 1600x1200 most of the time. I will prolly skip picking up that 4870x2 I have been eye balling.
 
GORANKAR said:
Nice review, but would have liked to see the inclusion of NV SLI either via a pair of 280/285/260 or a 295.

I guess my 4870 512 will more than suffice for this game, especially since I play @ 1600x1200 most of the time. I will prolly skip picking up that 4870x2 I have been eye balling.
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The Article said:
Unfortunately, due to the timing of this article and the severe lack of GeForce GTX 295 stock currently, we were not able to include the GeForce GTX 295 in this evaluation.
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I would have liked to include it as well, but we couldn't get one for it.
 
Awesome stuff. I just got xfx 4870 and can't wait to play fear2 and with that evaluation I know what I can do without playing with settings, just crank everything to the highest and enjoy myself :)
 
Nice write up!

It's cool to see that some of the latest games don't need an absolutely top-end system to run at decent settings. Seems like a couple of years ago, you'd need an upgrade every single time a new PC came out. Maybe it's just the effects of console-itis, though.
 
Brent_Justice said:
Considering our demo performance with it, and the great performance in general of FEAR 2, I would expect you to be able to play at 2560 with at least 16X CSAA enabled on the GTX 295.
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I play it on one at 1920x1200. Haven't tried 16X CSAA, just 8X, but it flies. I haven't played for a couple of days, but maybe I'll bump this up tonight to see how it goes. I play with VSync, so if it drops below 60 I'm not happy. :) Haven't seen it drop below sync at 8X though.
 
Zinn said:
Nice write up!

It's cool to see that some of the latest games don't need an absolutely top-end system to run at decent settings. Seems like a couple of years ago, you'd need an upgrade every single time a new PC came out. Maybe it's just the effects of console-itis, though.
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If it's a console port then it'll run fine at popular resolutions (say 1680*1050) on something like an 8800GT. With any current high end card you just end up arguing about how much AA you need at 2560*1600. This is true for pretty well every console port.

As most games are console ports it's barely worth reviewing them as you know the answer before you started.
 
I know it takes a long time to do these reviews. It shows in the quality of the review. Not to mention this is the only site I really "trust" to tell the truth.

That being said, the only complaint I have with this and many of [H]ardOCP's game performance reviews is the sheer lack of mid range graphics cards or last generation cards. It'd be nice to see how this game works on my 9600GT. Maybe include 1 or 2 last generation cards?

But I really liked the article. I'm not in the market for a new card any time soon, but it's nice to see the hard work all you guys do for us guys for free.
 
sbuckler said:
If it's a console port then it'll run fine at popular resolutions (say 1680*1050) on something like an 8800GT. With any current high end card you just end up arguing about how much AA you need at 2560*1600. This is true for pretty well every console port.

As most games are console ports it's barely worth reviewing them as you know the answer before you started.
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Ever played GTA IV?
 
sbuckler said:
If it's a console port then it'll run fine at popular resolutions (say 1680*1050) on something like an 8800GT. With any current high end card you just end up arguing about how much AA you need at 2560*1600. This is true for pretty well every console port.

As most games are console ports it's barely worth reviewing them as you know the answer before you started.
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That seems kinda backwards to me. I thought for sure console ports generally run worse.
 
Thanks for doing other resolutions besides 49,856x32,867. I now have an actual idea of what my real world performance would be.
 
Interesting that this game engine runs really well on pretty much any current gen video card while the original FEAR was a real system killer. I mean you needed 2 7800 GTX's to play that game with any AA at all.
 
Already played FEAR2 on PC, the game was OK but nothing to go crazy over.

Here's what I feel is wrong with this game.

#1 Some reason a lot of Xbox 360 ports have this grain effect. It pisses me off and gives me a headache. Some games have the option to disable it, but I couldn't find it in this game.

#2 Extra mouse buttons aren't supported on my DiamondBack mouse. I like to use the back button to jump but like many games it wouldn't recognize it. I could fix it by making the button assigned to the space bar but screw it. Besides this game did very little jumping anyway.

#3 Gameplay is extremely linear. I never like getting lost in games, but I also hate having doors you can't open. As long as you can press the forward key and shot things then beating this game is inevitable.

#4 Pistol, shotgun, machine gun, rocket launcher. Every FPS has them since the days of Doom, and these guns are just as boring. In fact you never need to pull out the pistol. You'll have a real gun long before you need to fire it. If you use the pistols it's because you're bored.

#5 The story is extremely vague. Even when you beat the game you still know very little of what's going on. Was hoping they'd give me more detail about what's going on and the next thing you know they kill the fat man that was going to spill his guts, but instead does so literally.

#6 The game has some reading material in it that is extremely pointless. At some point I gave up reading the stuff and just moved on.

#7 You can beat the game in a weekend.

#8 The frames per second would slow down drastically when the game saves, and the game will save often.

What I did like about the game.

#1 Less military foot solders and more monsters. The first FEAR felt like a rip off of Counter Strike, but in this game you do get to deal with a number of irregular enemies such as ghosts and crazy feral like humans.

#2 When you jump into the Mech suits the gameplay is extremely fun. They could have probably made a better game revolving you jumping into Mechs and fighting your way around. Sadly the use of the Mechs are very shot lived.

#3 The graphics were good. I say good because it looked pretty, but I've seen better graphics in other games that didn't tax my system as much. The animations weren't as good as Half Life 2, especially when they talked.

#4 The game will scare you. Sometimes the game goes into ghost fighting mode, and you gotta fire at ghosts. You can barely see the ghosts but you know they're coming for you. Plus the game does random things like moving dead bodies and opening a row of lockers. Something about little girls is just scary.
 
TYoda said:
the original FEAR was a real system killer. I mean you needed 2 7800 GTX's to play that game with any AA at all.
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not really, a single 7800gtx 256 was perfectly capable of 4xaa at 12x10. you just needed two to get to 16x12. monolith's jupiter ex engine produced particle effects no one had seen before at the time. the underlying framework of fear2 is still jupiter ex albeit modified. hopefully fear 2 will be successful for monolith and they might be able to persuade sega to release condemned 2 on pc.
 
Already played through this game.

LOVED IT. Great addition to the series. They did change up the scare tactics a little too.

Played through the whole thing at 1600x1200 on my 4850. There are a couple of things they could have done better.

1. 4x3 resolutions. I had black bars on top and bottom, despite having 1600x1200 res.
2. Blood animations. Why did every Replica soldier I kill have the same blood splatter on their body's? You could shoot one in the leg, but the guy's face would be covered.

And for those of you that think its a console port...I just don't see it. I am fairly certain this game was simultaneously developed for consoles and PC's. Yes, the interface and menu navigation is similar to consoles, but that's about it. Doing certain things similar on both platforms makes sense for development time and cost.


And for those that have played through the ending... Did anyone else think the ending was a real mindfuck ? :D:D;)

I laughed my ass off at the ending. I guess the developers wanted to redefine the word.
 
FEAR22009-02-1321-47-41-51.jpg
FEAR22009-02-1321-48-17-48.jpg

FEAR22009-02-1321-49-05-14.jpg
FEAR22009-02-2312-38-10-55.jpg

FEAR22009-02-2312-45-52-07.jpg
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This game needed more recognition, as I see little to none F.E.A.R. 2 topics. :(

Was surprised by the high frame rate the 4870 X2 took on the 1900x1200 res. With the 285 coming in third behind the 280. Don't think the 0.5 fps difference matters much, though. Solid and high frame rates of all three cards is impressive on that high res regardless.

Nothing wrong with using them Enthusiast cards on each those specifics res' :p

Random Screenshots of Interest, I was hoping to see Alma in any of them and did like how you did capture her during the cinema bit. That particular moment made me jump since it was unexpected. Also like for the conclusion of that bit has child Alma on the swing looking at the reader. :p

Overall, this certain was a good review and read. :)

Was hoping to see the staff do a review of the demo once after the demo hit, did not really expect to see an actual composed review.

Having said that, the writer did focus on the game story a bit than much of the technical aspects. The end does leave at a cliffhanger yeah, and the writer was well enough to give a summery of this. Actually feel the main focus and aspect of the game is the scare factor and like how the writer expressively notes this.
 
Kyle, thank you for using the 1680x1050 resolution and finally conceding it is the most commonly used native res with today’s 20 to 22 inch LCD. Good review!!
 
maleficarus said:
Kyle, thank you for using the 1680x1050 resolution and finally conceding it is the most commonly used native res with today’s 20 to 22 inch LCD. Good review!!
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We've been using all three 1680, 1920 and 2560 as standard in our gameplay perf evals since last fall.
 
fuelvolts said:
That being said, the only complaint I have with this and many of [H]ardOCP's game performance reviews is the sheer lack of mid range graphics cards or last generation cards. It'd be nice to see how this game works on my 9600GT. Maybe include 1 or 2 last generation cards?

But I really liked the article. I'm not in the market for a new card any time soon, but it's nice to see the hard work all you guys do for us guys for free.
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Well, while I wish we could afford to put every video card configuration into the mix, we simply do not have the resources available to us in terms of time.

And for what it is worth, we write these for folks looking to upgrade their gaming experience in general. The forums are here for you guys to compare results on older hardware.

g-money said:
Kyle,

I don't know if this is a type or not, but on the Apples-to-Apples Comparisons page (page 7), it says GTX285 vs GTX 260 -- but under the graph it says GTX 280.

Great review, i'm going to try the demo asap.
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I will kick Brent in the head for you. ;)

maleficarus said:
Kyle, thank you for using the 1680x1050 resolution and finally conceding it is the most commonly used native res with today’s 20 to 22 inch LCD. Good review!!
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Finally? Thank you for finally RTFAing. ;)
 
So just tell me which card will give me the opportunity to fight something resembling a Boss at the end of the game and which CPU to get to somehow make sense of the stupid ending.

Please?
 
You say that Fear 1 was released 1.5 years ago on the first page, which is a bit wrong since it came out in 2005. The last expansion came out then, but neither one of the expansions were made by Monolith and were horribly optimized since I'm pretty sure that they still to this day run slower in parts than Fear 2 does.
 
TYoda said:
Interesting that this game engine runs really well on pretty much any current gen video card while the original FEAR was a real system killer. I mean you needed 2 7800 GTX's to play that game with any AA at all.
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wee bit of an exaggeration there. It played smooth with 2x AA and max(ss off) settings on a 7600gt at 1024x768. also on an 8600gt I got nearly 80 fps on max(ss off) settings and 4x AA at 1024x768 the 8600gt also got over 100 fps with 2x AA max(ss and shadows off) settings.
 
thanks for the other res than 2560x1600!. and acutally affordable vga in lineup.

This is not a personal need, i personally got a kickass system, 1920x1200, 4ghz quad, and only bottleneck i can experience is the vga memory 2x 512mb, which leaves me at total 512 mb.

But nice seing 1680x1050, nice to see the 4850!


Very nice review, you missed out image quality between amd and nvidia, and had one typo, wrote GTX 285 instead of 280, just to mention it ;)

But again thanks for 4850, 1680x1050 and thanks for not using a 10000 usd computer(core7), CFX, 295 QSLI.
 
Actually I like the new way [H] does graphics review now, the results made so much more sense by benching the cards' highest playable setting using the same screen resolution for comparison. This is the first time I truly enjoy reading a graphics review from [H].
 
sbuckler said:
If it's a console port then it'll run fine at popular resolutions (say 1680*1050) on something like an 8800GT. With any current high end card you just end up arguing about how much AA you need at 2560*1600. This is true for pretty well every console port.

As most games are console ports it's barely worth reviewing them as you know the answer before you started.
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Yep, agree with the console part, which IMO is why till this day, we don't see anything more powerful than CryEngine 2, since most games on PC today are multi-platform titles anyway

That said, there's still the factor of whether the porting to PC was done correctly or not. If it was done badly, then we end up with crappy performance on PC

I believe this review shows that FEAR 2 was a well made game, its performing as it should be on PC platform. (except for the black bars on top and bottom of the screen:( )
 
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