Bad FPS - FEAR

FEAR arrived the other day, and I'd heard about how system hungry it was but I didn't expect gameplay to be this bad with the graphical lag I'm getting.

I used the in-game option to define my own settings for me, and I think it put both computer and graphics settings to medium. At driver level there is no AA or AF enabled. I'm running at 1024x768 on my Dell 2005fpw (yum :undecided ). I get between as low as 11 and as high as 23 frames per second as reported by FRAPS (noticably bad, either way). My system is as follows:

Windows XP Pro x64
Asus A8N-SLi Premium (with quite an older bios I believe, could be the problem?)
2x1gb OCZ EL DDR PC-3200 Dual Channel Platinum
Opteron 146 running @ 2.2 (is that the bottleneck?)
Asus EN7800GTX TOP 256mb (overclocked, core clock: 496mhz / mem clock: 1.36Ghz)
Audigy 2 ZS

I did notice last time I entered the BIOS, that the memory timings seemed wrong (2.5 CAS to start) and mem was running at 2T. I changed the timings to what they were advertised to run at and changed mem to 1T and it failed to boot, finishing with a clearance of the CMOS to get it to work again. All I think I changed this time was the memory to 1T (as I've heard this can result in poor performance) and Windows boots fine. I have used Everest Ultimate Edition to generate a report of my PC if you need to look into this further to come to some sort of conclusion.

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I'm not making a big fuss out of nothing am I? The game is hardly playable, and at the current settings, Half Life 2 looks better to me :P

FEAR is more GPU limited than CPU.. Firing Squad has an article about that.. apparently anything between AMD 2.8Ghz and 2.0Ghz should be only marginal (3~5) fps.

Did u dl new pathces for the game? Or install new drivers for it? Im using 81.85 on my 6800GT and 7800GT and they're fine.

Running 2T shouldnt be a problem, my system running 6800GT is playing on 4 sticks of 512 (2T) and I'm getting much better FRAPS than u in FEAR. You could however, try running everything stock. See if thats the problem. Drop your overclocks and leave mem timings to AUTO or SPD. Just leave ur gfx overclock on for the moment. If you're still getting ****ty fps then post back.

Its just a hunch, but might just be the x64 windows ur using. I doubt its the Mobo BIOS, but I could be wrong.

I'm using 81.89 drivers, but I think the same.. x64 is probably the cause. It seems to support x64 OS anyway.. on the DVD itself it states "Windows XP, x64 or 2000 with latest service pack installed". Thats the only thing I can put it down to tbh, I haven't tried what you've suggested yet but I probably will do tomorrow. I put FRAPs on to measure the framerate, prior to that the game was playing very strangely. I was playing online, the framerate was as usual poor, then suddenly everything was smooth, I checked it wasnt moving into a certain area that had caused it. I was running around particularly busy areas alot more smoothly, then suddenly it went back to normal. Its hard to describe, seems like something had unloaded and loaded in the background. All that was running was NOD32 AV, StyleXP, and probably MSN.

That shudnt hurt too much.. maybe u shud also use riva to tune ur clocks during low 3D load and high 3D load. Maybe GTXs doesnt like stepping clocks too often.. you might have forced the GTX to work at its registered clock during a busy area then everything went smooth, and when the firefight cools down.. it just went back to idle clock. Never had a GTX before, so I cant comment much..

I know, the box even states that it works with x64 windows. At first I was convinced that it will need 4GB of memory to run smoothly due to the x64 support. I guess you could try running everything at stock to see if the problem persist. If it does, drop ur gfx clock down to stock as well. My next hunch is probably.. really.. ur gfx overclock, happened to me during SS2ndE on my 6800GT long time ago. Everything was fine ons stock, then the framerate just throttled when I clock it to Ultra speeds.

Give it a shot and post back..

Just to let you know, it wasn't overclocked when I played it :P I've done that since to see if it helps - but haven't had the chance to play it again yet!

Im running a x800pro (overclocked) and an Athlon XP 3000+ with 2GB of RAM, I can run FEAR fine at 1024x768 so there appears to be something wrong...