Rename fear.exe for performance increase?

[JRivera]

Not sure if there is a thread on this yet, but I found an article that stated you could rename fear.exe (for the action-packed first person shooter game F.E.A.R.) and notice a performance increase of 10fps?!

This increase is for those with ATI cards. I haven't tried it yet as I am not home at the moment but I wanted to see if anyone else gets a performance increase or not.

Anyway, here is the article: http://www.techpowerup.com/?6389

Sorry if this has already been posted, I did a quick search but nothing came up.

[Centercore]

I saw this at ign forums I suppose its worth trying people said it works with the x800 series

[geid3811]

I'll believe it when it has been confirmed by some of our people. If it is true then that is pretty weird. I assumed the "plays best on nvidia" stamp meant they coded the game to take advantage of nvidia card strengths, not to just make it run slower on ati.

[Packrat]

nVidia has a function in the control panel that changes the drivers for each particular game, like a performance loadout. If you change the exe name, it no longer uses its specialized loadout.... I don't know if ATi's driver package contains this "feature" however.

[SinsFeelNatural]

yea that trick seemsl like a fake, makes no sense at all. I hav a x800gto and Im not even going to try it.

It reminds me when I was younger, you tell a kid " if your hand is bigger than your face, then you are retarded" when he raises his hand to test it out, you smash it into his face.

[JRivera]

I'll give it a shot and post my results in a couple of hours. I have an ATI x800XL U2 Edition Card so we'll see how it goes. :)

[Frenuck]

I don't understand how this improves things, but here are my results.

Drivers are set to application controlled.
Game resolution is forced to 1280x1024 (LCD Native).
In game settings are mostly medium, 2xAA.
Clean boot before and after name change.

Fear.exe
First Run in Performance Test
MIN 17FPS
AVG 24FPS
MAX 49FPS

66% 25FPS
33% 25-40FPS
1% 40+

Second Run in Performance Test
MIN 17FPS
AVG 25FPS
MAX 49FPS

61% 25FPS
38% 25-40FPS
1% 40+

Renamed to bogus.exe, fresh boot
First Run in Performance Test
MIN 19FPS
AVG 32FPS
MAX 69FPS

33% 25FPS
49% 25-40FPS
18% 40+

Second Run in Performance Test
MIN 19FPS
AVG 32FPS
MAX 69FPS

29% 25FPS
53% 25-40FPS
18% 40+

:shrug:


-EDIT- Rig in sig isn't full up to date. Right now my 3200 is at stock, video is a Gigabyte X800XL 256MB

[Schalldampfer]

I don't understand how this improves things, but here are my results.

Drivers are set to application controlled.
Game resolution is forced to 1280x1024 (LCD Native).
In game settings are mostly medium, 2xAA.
Clean boot before and after name change.

Fear.exe
First Run in Performance Test
MIN 17FPS
AVG 24FPS
MAX 49FPS

66% 25FPS
33% 25-40FPS
1% 40+

Second Run in Performance Test
MIN 17FPS
AVG 25FPS
MAX 49FPS

61% 25FPS
38% 25-40FPS
1% 40+

Renamed to bogus.exe, fresh boot
First Run in Performance Test
MIN 19FPS
AVG 32FPS
MAX 69FPS

33% 25FPS
49% 25-40FPS
18% 40+

Second Run in Performance Test
MIN 19FPS
AVG 32FPS
MAX 69FPS

29% 25FPS
53% 25-40FPS
18% 40+

:shrug:


-EDIT- Rig in sig isn't full up to date. Right now my 3200 is at stock, video is a Gigabyte X800XL 256MB

Interesting... so the trick does work. There's a similar thing for Call of Duty 2, too... It's the sign of astonishingly bad coding... Heh. Too bad I'm too much of a wimp to actually get the game.

[Midnight Dream]

Interesting... so the trick does work. There's a similar thing for Call of Duty 2, too... It's the sign of astonishingly bad coding... Heh. Too bad I'm too much of a wimp to actually get the game.

That proves nothing. You have to consider all many sorts of variables. This was not a controlled situation.

The logic of it is simply absurd. To change the executable name and get a system performance boost? I declare a statement of non-belief without a real experiment under controlled conditions.

[Frenuck]

What else would you like me to do in order to provide a better sampling? I would have been the first to declare shenanigans on the whole thing (hence the name "bogus" for my second file), yet when I tried with my very basic and "uncontrolled" tests this is what I came up with.

Break down what your idea of controlled is and I will see if I am up to it. I'm stopping short at a complete format and fresh install of XP between tests because I just don't have that kind of time.. :p

[Midnight Dream]

You have to ensure that you have the same conditions on both runs. Any sort of discrepency will give an unfair advantage one way or the other. I suggest a name change back to the original fear.exe, restart the computer, let everything finish loading, start the game, run a test. Document the results, close the game, rename to bogus.exe, reboot, let everything finish loading, start the game, run a test. Document the results. Post.

[Schalldampfer]

That proves nothing. You have to consider all many sorts of variables. This was not a controlled situation.

The logic of it is simply absurd. To change the executable name and get a system performance boost? I declare a statement of non-belief without a real experiment under controlled conditions.

Well, it looks like Frenuck's done a rather good job at it, in my opinion. If I read it correctly, he didn't change anything but the executable name, so all the control variables were not altered.

[Midnight Dream]

Well, it looks like Frenuck's done a rather good job at it, in my opinion. If I read it correctly, he didn't change anything but the executable name, so all the control variables were not altered.

That cannot be proven. A simple thing of closing down the browser can provide a performance boost versus the open browser. There are also various things that would be unnoticable.

[Xymurgy]

Looks like someone fogot to close a parenthesis or something.

>>It’s a "bug" in that we simply got an IF statement backwards Thanks for pointing this out to us, you have just helped us get a big performance gain. Of course there is no difference in the rendering, it’s just a CATALYST AI game specific optimization that was good for the demo version, but backfired in the final version. We will get it sorted out in a future Catalyst (not 5.11 which is being posted tomorrow by the way).<<

http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/showthread.php?t=25456&page=3

PS I think Frenuck conducted a nice experiment.

[SolidxSnake]

nVidia has a function in the control panel that changes the drivers for each particular game, like a performance loadout. If you change the exe name, it no longer uses its specialized loadout.... I don't know if ATi's driver package contains this "feature" however.


That definately explains it. Most logical, at least.

[JRivera]

I decided to run 3 tests.

The first screenshot is FEAR.EXE
The second is TESTRUN.EXE
The third, I renamed it back to FEAR.EXE

Screenshot 1 (http://www.kaotickoncept.com/jeff/fear_test01.jpg)
Screenshot 2 (http://www.kaotickoncept.com/jeff/fear_test02.jpg)
Screenshot 3 (http://www.kaotickoncept.com/jeff/fear_test03.jpg)

I read some people were claiming that gameplay increased for them but it didn't increase at all for me from what I noticed. Anyway, just thought I'd share this topic with everyone.

[Frenuck]

You have to ensure that you have the same conditions on both runs. Any sort of discrepency will give an unfair advantage one way or the other. I suggest a name change back to the original fear.exe, restart the computer, let everything finish loading, start the game, run a test. Document the results, close the game, rename to bogus.exe, reboot, let everything finish loading, start the game, run a test. Document the results. Post.


Sorry about that, I probably wasn't clear enough in my first post. By "Clean Boot" I mean that I did a reboot between each name change. So I rebooted, shut down Motherboard Monitor and ATI tools, and then ran the tests. Renamed to Bogus, rebooted, shut down MBM and ATI Tools again, and then reran the tests.

-edit- Quoted wrong post, corrected that.

[Midnight Dream]

That definately explains it. Most logical, at least.

But that really wouldnt explain it, because the basis was on nvidia's performance boosts for games. What likelyhood is there being with a nvidia based driver affecting an ATI card? Even more-so, what likelyhood is there with a nvidia based driver being installed on an ATI system?

[Midnight Dream]

Sorry about that, I probably wasn't clear enough in my first post. By "Clean Boot" I mean that I did a reboot between each name change. So I rebooted, shut down Motherboard Monitor and ATI tools, and then ran the tests. Renamed to Bogus, rebooted, shut down MBM and ATI Tools again, and then reran the tests.

-edit- Quoted wrong post, corrected that.

Ok, well done, but at the same time, it does not explain the varied results. People who are within the affected cards do and do not get changes. What gives? :shrug:

[Captain Newbie]

I'd like to see a broader sampling of ATI card users before we start calling this 'conclusive'.

[Xymurgy]

ATI has already identified this as an issue. The Catalyst AI is unoptimized for FEAR (same problem nVidia ran into with one of their driver updates - some people had to rename their nVidia profile for FarCry to get HDR to work).

[superdaveviii]

When I try to run the FEAR.exe after renaming it, I get an error message.

"A required security module can not be activated. This program can not be executed."

That's all it says, and an "Ok" button to close the window. Am I missing something special I have to do?

EDIT: Figured it out. Had to mess with the "Run as" settings, and all was well. Did see an increase, but not as dramatic as others.

[Schalldampfer]

That cannot be proven. A simple thing of closing down the browser can provide a performance boost versus the open browser. There are also various things that would be unnoticable.

Right... but I would imagine Frenuck's smart enough to have the background prcoesses be kept the same...

[threeme2189]

i think it was a pretty good test.

[John G]

But that really wouldnt explain it, because the basis was on nvidia's performance boosts for games. What likelyhood is there being with a nvidia based driver affecting an ATI card? Even more-so, what likelyhood is there with a nvidia based driver being installed on an ATI system?

I think it was meant that the explanation was that ATI was simply doing the same thing as nVidia. It wasn't meant as something to do with an nVidia driver affecting an ATI system.

Based on the information in an earlier post, it looks like that was the case. The ATI driver was running optimizations for the application...but, they did them for the DEMO version of Fear. With the full version of the program the optimizations were causing a performance drop instead of an increase. Renaming the application avoided the optimizations that were actually doing harm.

[Midnight Dream]

Right... but I would imagine Frenuck's smart enough to have the background prcoesses be kept the same...

Please dont misunderstand my skepticism for insults.

[Schalldampfer]

Please dont misunderstand my skepticism for insults.

Heh. I'm not. I understand; sometimes, the web's not a trustworthy source. But since we're all on the OCF, I'd imagine we're all above average in terms of intelligence.

[Frenuck]

Please dont misunderstand my skepticism for insults.

I know that you're just trying to be thorough... :cool:

My test proves that on my system with the same conditions and same processes running, renaming FEAR.exe to bogus.exe resulted in what appeared to be improved performance according to the built in benchmark.

I'd like to see others repeat the same tests so that we can get a broader sampling.

-edit- For the sake of clarity, extra emphasis on "my" in the above statement. This proves nothing for anyone else's system. :D

[IR1]

Maybe there was some shady dealings with the developers of Fear and Nvidia. Who the heck knows. But this is like the 5th thread in as many forums that have confirmed this so Midnight it is true name change is effecting performance. This isnt that absurd if you are aware of the events of "Quack 3"(ATI) and the "3Dmark03 scandal" (Nvidia). And the executable name changing scenarios that got the two companies in big trouble before. This is not so crazy... it is just twisted around.

[Benvanz]

It reminds me when I was younger, you tell a kid " if your hand is bigger than your face, then you are retarded" when he raises his hand to test it out, you smash it into his face.

Same here, except you had cancer :eek:

[ninthebin]

hmm well ill be...

using Catalyst 5.11s with restart inbetween changing the .exe name

Fear.exe
min - 24
avg - 38
max - 74

wub.exe
min - 25
avg - 47
max - 99

surely if this is down to AI being unoptimized for fear it would just not have a profile for the fear.exe? either way - w00t! :)