12 - Multi GPU F.E.A.R. (1)

Gaming: F.E.A.R.

As many of you will be aware, F.E.A.R. (or First Encounter Assault & Recon in short) involves a rather mysterious looking girl in a red dress, a man with an unappetizing taste for human flesh and some rather flashy action set pieces aka The Matrix. All of this is brought together by one of the best game engines around.

F.E.A.R. makes its cinematic pretensions clear from the start. As soon as the credits roll, and the music starts, you are treated to the full works. The camera pans across scores of troops locked 'n' loaded and ready to hunt you down, all seemingly linked to 'Paxton Fettel', a strange kind of guy with extraordinary psychic powers capable of controlling battalions of soldiers and a habit of feeding off any poor unfortunate innocents - presumably to aid his powers of concentration. It doesnt end there, after a short briefing at F.E.A.R. HQ you are sent off to hunt down Fettel equipped with reflexes that are 'off the chart'. These reflexes are put to excellent use, with slow motion effects like that of Max Payne, or the before mentioned Matrix. But here, it is oooohhhh so much more satisfying thanks to the outstanding environmental effects. Sparks fly everywhere, as chunks of masonry are blasted from the walls and blood splatters from your latest victim. The physics are just great, with boxes sent flying, shelves tipped over, and objects hurtling towards your head. And the explosions, well, the explosions just have to be seen, and what's so great about this is you can witness it in all its glory in slow motion.

Let me confirm to you that based on this, F.E.A.R. will have you shaking on the edge of your seat, if not falling off it. The tension is brought to just the right level with key moments that will make your heart leap. Play the demo and you will see what I mean. The key to this, is the girl. Without revealing anything significant, lets just say that she could take on the whole of Mars for creepiness.

ATI Radeon HD 4870 CrossfireX (2 GPUs - 2 Cards)

We of course could not leave out F.E.A.R.. Ever since it was released it has never been a title showing CPU limitations, and therefore is so much loved as a benchmark. But even with two 4870 cards in Crossfire at 10x7 we see some pretty thespian performance differences. One can only imagine what's about to happen when we move onto 4 GPUs. So let's do that.

ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 CrossfireX (4 GPUs - 2 Cards)

So then, Radeon HD 4870 X2 CrossfireX thus 4 GPUs spread out over 2 Cards. FEAR is holding up well though on the older Core 2 Duo based system but does need to acknowledge superiority to the X58 platform.

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260 SLI (2 GPUs - 2 Cards)

We see very similar performance scaling for two GTX 260's in SLI.