Widescreen Gaming Forum

Short form: The F.E.A.R. widescreen hack works, but regardless of widescreen resoultion or no, my PC gets a massive performance hit for running it on my widescreen monitor. Is there a known reason and preferably a fix for this?

Long form:

Okay, so I'm running on a gig of RAM, a GeForce 7900GTX 512mb and an AMD64 3700+ processor, overclocked to 2.31GHz. I can and have been running F.E.A.R fine on pretty much max (everything maxed out, except with x2AA, x8AF and no soft shadows) for a while now on my 4:3 CRT.

I've just recently switched to a 19" 16:10 LCD monitor, and every one of my games runs perfectly on it. Except for F.E.A.R, which used to run at 50 frames per second, but now it's averaging 14 frames per second, and it's still horribly low when I switch FEAR down to a low resolution and medium graphics.

Is there any known reason for this? It's driving me nuts.

there is no reason that should be that low. Try updating your drivers.

Already tried that, got the latest forceware and still no difference. :/

patch the game?

Now patched, still as stuttery as before, unfortunately.

Delete your .cfg files for the game and try a 'clean run'...

Deleted every config file available and all profiles. Still no luck.

Edit: Also tried a full reinstallation. No dice there either.

What resolution did you run it at on the old monitor, and what res do you run it at on the new one?

I found with my 7900GT that the game screwed up because I had AF enabled in game at the same time I had it enabled on the Nvidia control panel thing.

I ran it 1600x1200 on the old monitor, and 1440x900 on the new (though it won't work with any resolution I set it to now).

Just checked the nVidia control panel, and everything is set to application controlled.

wow i'm glad i'm not the only one with this problem. i sent an e-mail to vivendi and this is what i got back:

I understand that you are facing issue with the frame rates. In this scenario I would suggest you to follow the below mentioned steps

1: Clear the temp files.
a: Click on Start.
b: Run
c: Type in %temp% a pop-up box appears select all the files and delete them

2: Change the monitor refresh rate.
a: Right Click on desktop.
b: Properties.
c: Settings.
d: Advanced.
e: Monitor set the refresh rate to minimum 60 hz.

3: Increase the page file size.
a:Right Click my computer.
b: Properties.
c: Advanced.
d: Under Performance
e: Settings.
d: Advanced.
e: Change.
f: Select system managed size.
g: Set.

none of that helped by the way... i tried reinstalling directX and nvidia drivers. it momentarily worked. but after exiting the game and restarting it was back to really slow framerates. it really sucks because i've played the game before and i want to go through the single player again. oh yeah and i've been trying to run it at 1440x900.

Ah, finally - someone who has my problem.

Well, I'm not sure how much help this'll be for you, but I did a little test.

I switched back to my original monitor and ran FEAR. What's strange, is that it still ran terribly.

So, I'm pretty sure now that although the monitor may have triggered it, it's not the monitor that's causing the problem. Another weird thing is how A. Reinstalling the drivers worked for you, and resetting hardware acceleration worked briefly for me.

It's a long shot, but have you overclocked anything? If you haven't, I'll rule that out, but right now I'm trying to find any and all abnormalities that might be causing a problem for F.E.A.R.

I'll just say that FEAR runs fine on my PC, which is a AMD 3700+ overclocked just like yours, with a 7800GTX which is similar to yours, and a 24 inch widescreen. The game runs fine on max settings with full AF, as long as I keep AA and soft shadows off. You could try putting in another stick of RAM. RAM really helps in FEAR, i've found that 1.5 GB helps the room-to-room stuttering, though you may need 2GB if you have a messy computer with lots of stuff in the background. I never have anything running other than video and sound drivers and some IM programs so 1.5 is enough for me.

Wait a sec, you overclocked a 3700+ to 3.3GHz????? Holy crap!

That really sucks. My slow as hell 754 Sempron 2500 (1.4 stock, OC @ 2.1GHz) with 1.28GB of ram and a Radeon 9800 Pro runs it faster! I sure hope you can figure out what happened because um... Thats terrible :P.

I'll just say that FEAR runs fine on my PC, which is a AMD 3700+ overclocked just like yours, with a 7800GTX which is similar to yours, and a 24 inch widescreen. The game runs fine on max settings with full AF, as long as I keep AA and soft shadows off. You could try putting in another stick of RAM. RAM really helps in FEAR, i've found that 1.5 GB helps the room-to-room stuttering, though you may need 2GB if you have a messy computer with lots of stuff in the background. I never have anything running other than video and sound drivers and some IM programs so 1.5 is enough for me.

Wait a sec, you overclocked a 3700+ to 3.3GHz????? Holy crap!

Thing is, the PC could run it fine before. In the stress test, 100% was over 40 frames per second before, and the only change was the monitor. Not to mention the time it ran fine earlier. It's strange.

Edit: Oh, about the 3700+ - Sorry about that, I'll edit my original post, it's only at 2.31GHz. Must have been a typo at first, and then I just wasn't paying attention to what I was saying! Baaaad. Bonus points to the man paying attention!

I'm guessing you did the hack for it in the shared documents folder.

mine works flawlessly at 1680x1050.
weird...

try backing up your saves and reinstall fear. is their anything else running in the background that wasnt before?

No extra background processes, and tried re-installing quite a few times.

The weird thing is, it worked temporarily when I restored my driver defaults of performance settings on my nVidia drivers. That's a clue, but unfortunately not really enough.

so your running everything at application preference in the nV panel, and in game are maxed out... is soft shadows turned on?

Nope. The weird thing, is that even if I tone the settings down much lower than usual, it never gets much past being between 12 and 16 frames per second.

it would point at 6xAA being forced... i wonder what the hell is going on. how are 3dmark scores?