F.E.A.R
F.E.A.R. is slowly aging, but it is still mean on cards that do not have enough horsepower to drive it. This can be seen by how fast the frame rates drop from one resolution to the next. Using the Doom 3 engine, frame rates were halved when switching from 1024x768 and moving to the maximum resolution of 2560x1600. That is half the performance for four times number of pixels that need to be rendered.
We see performance halving happen in much smaller steps with F.E.A.R. Going from 1024x768 to 1600x1200 shows a doubling of the rendering workload, and in that jump we see a halving of the performance. This is where the lower shader unit counts of the G84 and G86 processors fall far short of the Foxconn 8800GTS 320, which shines in comparison to the 8600GTS and GT cards. While the 8600GTS drops from 123 fps to 62 fps in the 2 MPixel jump to 1600x1200 (50% drop), the 8800GTS 320 only drops from 166 fps to 112 fps (33% drop).
With higher image quality enabled, the change is even worse for the 8600GTS. It moves from an easily playable 69 fps down to a noticeable 29 fps (a drop of almost 60%). While the 8800GTS suffers the same percentage degradation in performance, the game play is still smooth, with an average of rate of 51 frames per second. To make matters even more clear, at that resolution the Foxconn 8800GTS 320 NEVER dropped below 29 fps (the average frame rate of the 8600GTS).
