Big GPU-Shootout; Part III, PCIe 1.0 vs. PCIe 2.0
F.E.A.R.
Note the soft shadows
F.E.A.R. – First Encounter Armed Assault – is a DX9c game by Monolith Productions that was originally released in October 2005 by Vivendi Universal Production. Later, there were two expansions with the latest, Perseus Mandate, released in 2007. Although the game engine is aging a bit, it still has some of the most spectacular effects of any game, showcasing a powerful particle system, complete with showers of sparks, puffs of smoke and dust for collisions with objects and walls as well as including bullet marks on walls and other visual effects including “soft shadows”. This is well highlighted by the the built-in performance test although it was never updated. This performance test will tell you how F.E.A.R. and its first expansion Extraction Point will run, but Perseus Mandate is more demanding on your PC graphics and will run slower than the demo. We always run at least 2 sets of tests with all in-games features at ‘maximum’ – one featuring “soft shadows” and the other with 4xAA instead, as they do not run well together. F.E.A.R. uses the Jupiter Extended Technology engine from Touchdown Entertainment.
All settings are set to ‘maximum’ as we first we test at 1920×1200 with no AA but with Soft shadows enabled and then with 4xAA, no soft shadows:
Finally we test at 1650×1080 with no AA but with Soft shadows enabled and then with 4xAA, no soft shadows:
We see GTX280 taking advantage of the PCIe 2.0 specification, but no one playing on a P35 motherboard would notice any practical difference. Ditto for 4870 and 4870 but we see far more mixed results. CrossfireX-3 generally gets more performance out of X48 and in most of the F.E.A.R. benches it is an advantage to have a 1GB card in the second slot – especially with 4xAA applied.
Curious, why’d you set Catalyst A.I. to “Advanced”?
How about a few links to explanations of Catalyst AI and what “advanced” really does? Here is an old article on it:
http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NjY2LDI=
Here is the tweak guide which supports my own research:
http://www.tweakguides.com/ATICAT_7.html
“Catalyst A.I. allows users to determine the level of ‘optimizations’ the drivers enable in graphics applications. These optimizations are graphics ‘short cuts’ which the Catalyst A.I. calculates to attempt to improve the performance of 3D games without any noticeable reduction in image quality. In the past there has been a great deal of controversy about ‘hidden optimizations’, where both Nvidia and ATI were accused of cutting corners, reducing image quality in subtle ways by reducing image precision for example, simply to get higher scores in synthetic benchmarks like 3DMark. In response to this, both ATI and Nvidia have made the process transparent to a great extent. You can select whether you want to enable or disable Catalyst A.I. for a further potential performance boost in return for possibly a slight reduction in image quality in some cases. If Catalyst AI is enabled, you can also choose the aggressiveness of such optimizations, either Standard or Advanced on the slider. The Advanced setting ensures maximum performance, and usually results in no problems or any noticeable image quality reduction. If on the other hand you want to always ensure the highest possible image quality at all costs, disable Catalyst A.I. (tick the ‘Disable Catalyst A.I.’ box). I recommend leaving Catalyst A.I enabled unless you experience problems. ATI have made it clear that many application-specific optimizations for recent games such as Oblivion are dependent on Catalyst AI being enabled.
Note: As of the 6.7 Catalysts, Crossfire users should set Catalyst A.I. to Advanced to force Alternate Frame Rendering (AFR) mode in all Direct3D games for optimal performance. Once again, Catalyst A.I. should only be disabled for troubleshooting purposes, such as if you notice image corruption in particular games”
In other words, one can choose the aggressiveness of your optimizations, either “Standard” or “Advanced”. The Advanced setting ensures maximum performance – as for benchmarking games – and with no noticeable image quality reduction. However, if you are doing IQ comparisons as BFG10K did, and want to guarantee the very highest image quality, then disable Catalyst A.I. [but not for crossfire; set it to “Standard”]. I have always recommended leaving Catalyst A.I enabled unless you experience any glitches in games.
You have to realize that Cat AI is not necessarily supposed to give you a boost in every single game. It tries to do optimizations, if possible, but many times these are either not possible with a particular game, or the settings you’ve chosen in the game may be too low for it to make any noticeable impact.
That is why I recommend leaving it on “Advanced”; you get a possisble performance boost; if not then you lose nothing. Or you can set it to standard or off if you feel your image quality is being degraded.
Hope that explains it.
Very interesting, I’ll definitely be I check your site on a regular basis now.