Playing F.E.A.R for the 1st time and in glorious 3440x1440p!

heartburnron

heartburnron

heartburnron

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First of all, this game supports ultrawide natively and this game was released in 2005!! Shame on all those developers who don't build this in to their modern games.

So I had 15 year gap between gaming; from around 1997 to 2011 did absolutely none and therefore missed a lot of titles. I've been wiped out by how good this game looks and plays. The AI even of the enemy soldiers is really good, making full use of the area to flank you - it puts the modern call of duty games to shame. And oh ya flipper that scene at the start of the 3rd act as you're going down the ladder!! I got proper chills down the spine. :cool:

What sort of specs did you need to run this game back in the day though? I'm only getting 45FPS with a Fury X!

Here some screenshots of it in all its 3440x1440p glory...

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Edit: Ok so that was my first time trying to post screen shots. Tried to use Photobucket but that obviously didn't work. Instructions anyone?
 
Yeah, really enjoying it so far. I couldn't figure out how to map my controller so this is actually the first time I'm playing a game properly with the mouse and keyboard. Got killed a lot for the first hour but getting the feel of it now...
 
arc@css said:
I've never had any problems with regards to stability, and I would think most people can run it with most / all settings enabled. :)
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I'm running it with a Fury X at 3440x1440p with all settings maxed and was surprised to only be getting 45 FPS. It's a very steady 45 with no drops so it plays beautifully but I think there were some FPS issues for some with this game - I'm sure there are posts on the steam forum for F.E.A.R regarding it with suggested fixes.
 
No mods guys though something odd is going on. I went to test the settings - selected maximum for 'computer' and graphics which defaulted the resolution to 1024x768. Got an average of 125 FPS. Changed nothing and ran the test again and got and average of 43 FPS!? Ran the test another 6 times - this time at 3440x1440 resolution with various shadows, lighting, etc. settings on and off and got the exact same results each time. It's as if something is restricting it. The fact that the first test produced shows my set up is capable of 125 as you would expect from an i7 and Fury X. There is a post on the steam forums regarding some keyboards causing issues (link below) although I haven't tried the fix yet- maybe I will later.

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t

Not a big deal as the game plays really fast and smooth just a curious one...

Edit: Ok so I just shut it down and re-launched the game - when you go into performance for the first time after launching it says 'detecting system performance' - ran the benchmark, got 163 FPS average. Ran it again immediately afterward - 118 FPS. Ran it again - 53 FPS. Ran it again - back down to 43 FPS. Just closed it and down and repeated these actions - same pattern (173 FPS, 124, 73, 43) !! ???

Just tried playing the actual game there - starts and stays at the high frames for the first couple of minutes before dropping down to the 40's. So weird. To be honest though, in terms of smoothness and/or feel of the game I really can't detect the difference when the frames drop to 43 (and never have been able to detect any difference once the FPS in any game is close to 40 and above in any game for that matter - or we all really just obsessed with numbers or are my eyes just not tuned in to that yet!?), if anything it's a better experience in the 40's as the screen tearing is quite bad when it's around 150 FPS...
 
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Just completed the game for the first time. 22 hours of pure joy (and terror at times). Says a lot for modern games that I want to describe the experience of this game as 'refreshing'. Brilliant story too from what I could pick up - didn't always catch what the guy in my ear was saying when activating the laptops which is my own fault for playing this during the day when the kids were around. Going to read up on the full story behind it anyway.

On to Extraction Point...
 
arc@css said:
Yeah, the volume of Rowdy Betters is too low. As for the rest of the game, yes, a brilliant one and my all time favourite story in an fps. Enjoy the next one, I'll be interested to read your thoughts on it, too. :)
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I'll be sure to do that. Totally sucked in by it at the moment. I'm trying to play around 10 games at once at the moment (which is a bit stupid I know but since buying the Acer X34 monitor, all the my old games feel like new ones and it makes you want to play through them again at that resolution) but the draw to F.E.A.R is greater than any of the others which includes a few new titles like Just Cause 3 and Fallout 4.
 
arc@css said:
I've lost count of the number of times I've nearly pulled the trigger on buying a new monitor recently. The X34 is at the top of my list. :)
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Do it mate! You absolutely will not regret it. And don't be put off with all this talk about IPS panel bleeding and glow - it's completely insignificant and takes nothing away from the gaming experience.
 
arc@css said:
Yeah, the volume of Rowdy Betters is too low. As for the rest of the game, yes, a brilliant one and my all time favourite story in an fps. Enjoy the next one, I'll be interested to read your thoughts on it, too. :)
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Ha. Just played through the 'Holliday' part in Extraction Point. Didn't see that coming at all - it was so awesome I had to reload the checkpoint and watch it again! Just when I was thinking I was becoming desensitised to the scares too...
 
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Oh FFS! Just **** myself there in the bit with bloody room before you get on to the subway tracks. It's the sound effects and the musical score and my own bloody shadow that's terrifying! Ended up desperately spinning round in circles shooting blindly! lol. Proper chills. Class.
 
weyland yutani said:
I bought and tried this ages ago and it ran like crap. Looking at the steam forums people suggest disabling HID devices to get it running properly. . . wtf doesn't that mean mice and keyboards wouldnt even work? Seems an odd issue and sollution.
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Yeah I seen and thought that too. I've detailed some weird performance issues I was having further back in this thread but basically I'm only getting an average of 45 FPS with a Fury X, albeit at 3440x1440 resolution. I didn't bother trying the fixes as its runs beautifully at that speed with freesync but it would be worth for yourself to try and get if running as it's such a cool game.
 
marcus2704 said:
Bought this for less than £2, not thinking that it wont work with a 360 controller :/
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Up until I bought this game I played everything with a 360 controller. Sure I had tried the mouse and keyboard a couple of times for 5-10 minute spells with other games but it never felt comfortable. I decided to persevere with this game and after dying a lot and using the quick save after every kill for the first hour or so I soon got to grips with mouse and keyboard and completed the whole game using it. I've even started using it on some other FPS games I can use the controller for. I promise you if you stick with it for an hour or so it will just start to come naturally. It's not like some of the MMORPGs where there are a crazy amount of command keys...
 
I was reading some of the old reviews for this game and noticed this was originally made for PC and then ported to consoles - that doesn't seem to happen so much these days and I was wondering what were the last few examples of modern games that were built for PC first? Aside from the real time/turn based strategy games of course...
 
arc@css said:
Well, I really wanted to get the one you've got (Freesync version?), but I didn't want to pay the difference for G-SYNC. Instead I've gone for the Dell S2716DG 27" which has most of what I was looking for in a new screen. If I'm underwhelmed by G-SYNC / 144hz, then I'll send it back and grab the same screen as you, sell the 980Ti & pick up a Fury Pro or wait for Polaris. :)
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Hope you're satisfied with it then. I think the ultrawide resolution is likely to be the biggest compromise you've had to make but then you won't miss what you've never had as they say. :)
 
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