General ??'s about FEAR

Not really a gamer but I am getting my 9300 shortly and I want something for my downtimes. I have the 128MB ATIs™ Mobility Radeon™ X300 card. How is this game and would I need to get a mouse to play?

 

x300 would run it at 800x600, settings set not too high I'm afraid. Mouse is actually very needed for this type of game!

Cheers,

 

Hmmm, well I think FEAR is ok. I got a little bored with it quick, it just feels like you are doing the same thing over and over again (Half-life 2 for example seemed to move along much better). I would find it pretty difficult to play it without a mouse though.

And I am gonna go ahead and say it, why did you get the x300?? I haven't really checked prices lately, but I would assume it would cost next to nothing to get the 6800, and there is gonna be a HUGE difference in how well that game is gonna play. I don't know how it would perform on the x300, it's a pretty demanding game. Someone else will have to answer that

 

My x600 can handle hl2 @ medium @ 1024x760 well.
havent tired fear, but highly though thtat I could play even with medium settings

 

sublime,

I totally agree. The 6800Go is a little bit of a jump in price $150 I think. I have the 6800GO oc'ed so that I can play on amost the highest settings, being at the 1440X900 resolution. The X300 might be able to run this game on low-medium settings at acceptable FPS. But man...the 6800GO is almost a necessity, for me anways.

 

thanks for the responses. As said before, I am not a serious gamer therefore I didn't get the 6800. Just looking for something to kill time and is fun. Any other suggestions for a game this type?

 

Yes, you'll need a mouse. With an x300 card, you can play FEAR with low to medium settings.

 

Well...if you are talking about 1st person shooters, sure.

Soldier of Fortune 2 should play seemingly well on your setup.

 

Wow, it is still a $150 add on?? I still think gamer or not, the price ends up being worth it though. For one, you might not be a gamer now, but what IF you would like to game?? Such as you are already seeing, you will be left out of the newer games. But the biggest advantage to me is the resell value. I made the mistake of getting a Dell i8600 with a 32mb video card in it for my first lappy. Had to sell it for pretty cheap, because everyone interested in that computer, wanted the 128mb 9600. I assume everyone looking for a i9600 when you sell it, will be looking for one with a 6800 in it. Not trying to say you should listen to me, I just was mad for not spending the extra $100 on the 128mb card, and selling the computer for probably $200 less than I would have if I had it, so I don't want to see others make that mistake too.

But as far as games, I really do like Half-life 2. Again, you won't be maxing everything out, but it should play pretty well, and it's fun!!

 

You'll be limited to 640x480 (medium) or 800x600 (low) settings with the X300 card. It will not be that enjoyable...might look into Half-Life 2 as mentioned, or maybe Star Wars Battlefront 2, that is not too demanding.

 

just out of interest would we say that fear is a highly optimised game from a coding point of view?

 

Good question, I have the same feeling. Somehow I think it should perform better on x700.

Cheers,

 

It will perform better on the X700 - FEAR is a Direct3D coded game, and developed with ATI.

 

Performs great on mine. I'm running an x700. With an x600 you can play at medium settings.

 

i hav a question. whenever i play fear, it plays ok but sometimes the picture "studders" when there are a lot of things moving around and shooting etc, it will lag...its never smooth. any ideas on how to fix this besides setting lower settings? ive already set it to fairly low settings, and on 800 by 600. ive got the nivida 128 mb 6600 go. could it be the RAM? i only have 512...would 1.5 gb be any better at all?

 

With only 512MB of RAM, that's a big performance limiter. I'd say bump that up to at least 1GB. The Go6600 is quite a capable card, and with more RAM, it should handle medium-high settings.

Cheers,

 

1 gb at future shop is 269 99 plus tax. that is wayy too much, and its called AzenRam. i would be willing to purchase the 512, which is about 180. would 1.5 gb be a lot more noticable than 1 gb?

 

Just to confirm. Friend of mine with 512MB had same issues. Upgraded to 1 GB - no problems. Far Cry also likes 1GB!

Cheers, and Happy Christmas guys (and girls),

 

anther question...whenever i play fear a warning comes up that my virtual memory is too low and that applications that request memory usage may be denied. will more RAM fix this too?

 

Yes - the reason you are using virtual RAM is because you only have 512MB. If you get 1.0GB or more, then that should solve your problem. You can always set up the amount of virtual memory, then you won't get that message all the time.

 

you said "if you get more than 1 gb" were you implying that i should get another stick of 1gb so that my total would be 1.5? or were you implying that i should a stick of 512, to bring my total ram to 1gb?

 

I would go for the 1.0GB stick - the games will be faster with that, especially FEAR, Quake 4, and future games.

 

yeah thats what i figured. well, just ordered a 1gb stick off of ncix.com for 191 canadian. well see how it goes..

 

Hi Big_B,
Ram will surely help with games, but maybe it is also a good idea to check free space on your system disk. It should not be too small. Those messages also appear when the swap file is too small (set manually).
Also, more RAM, usually the bigger pagefile.sys (my is 2 GB on disk, and I have 2 GB RAM from which is currently used 553 MB of physical memory!) Also if you use hibernating option, hiberfil.sys is large as much you have RAM.

Cheers,

 

i have a 100 gb, of which i have about 39 gb left.

 

All in one partition C: I presume. That shouldn't cause the problem. Good choice to upgrade RAM, and happy gaming.

Cheers,