F.E.A.R. DirectX 8 Shaders

[exciter]

To get more performance out of F.E.A.R. I decided to enable Dx8 shader instead of Dx9. Usually this gives you like a 5-10fps boost but it did the exact opposite. When I enable DirectX 8 shaders I get like a 5-10fps drop instead. How can using more obsolete graphics give worse performance. Is there any specific reason or fix for this because its really bugging me. Thanks. 😀

 

[MarkG]

What video card? Modern hardware is probably optimised for DX9 and above, so it may well not handle older shaders as efficiently.

 

[exciter]

Well, that's the weird thing. It's an Intel 945 (GMA 950). That is most definitely NOT a modern video card. With DirectX 9 I get between 9-30 fps. But as soon as I switch to DirectX 8 mode my frame rate just plummets. On other games such as Half Life 2 enabling Dx8 improves performance drastically so why not for Fear?

During the game I checked the Task Manager and Video Card Properties. When I am using DirectX 9 my Cpu usage is at 20%-30%, my RAM usage is 1.25 (out of 2 Gbs) Gigabytes, and lastly my Video Memory in use is 109 megabytes (out of 256mbs). Then I switched to DirectX 8 mode. These are the results I got. Cpu usage was 16%-25%, RAM was still at 1.25 Gigabytes, and My Video Memory usage was only 91 megabytes. DirectX 8 uses a less resources than directX 9 yet it STILL lags more!

 

[Gman450]

Patched the game ?

 

[exciter]

Patched the game ?

Yep. Patched to 1.08. And before some asks, because I know they will. Yes, I do have the latest drivers for everything.

 

[Gman450]

Have you tried re-installing the game ? Perhaps that may solve your issue.
And you mentioned that it doesn't happen with Half Life 2 ?

 

[exciter]

Have you tried re-installing the game ? Perhaps that may solve your issue.
And you mentioned that it doesn't happen with Half Life 2 ?

Reinstalling didn't do the trick, I've tried. And yeah, enabling directx 8 in Half Life 2 and Gmod (source games) I get like 10 more fps.

 

[Gman450]

What about DirectX ? Is it updated ? Try re-installing from microsoft's website.

If still the problem is not going away, then I'd suggest you put it in DirectX 9 itself and not in 8.

 

[exciter]

What about DirectX ? Is it updated ? Try re-installing from microsoft's website.

If still the problem is not going away, then I'd suggest you put it in DirectX 9 itself and not in 8.

Every time I try to reinstall directx I get a message saying I already have the latest blah blah blah... I'll give everything a try but if I can't find a solution I'll just use Directx 9. Thanks.

 

[exciter]

Best answer selected by exciter.

 

[Mousemonkey]

This topic has been closed by Mousemonkey