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I feel that FEAR had better looking character models, but the environments in STALKER are much better, especially outdoors. The grass, trees, and amazing lightning make it look much better than FEAR ever did. Indoors is the same I feel, the textures are better, I remember FEAR seeming very bland indoors. That's just my opinion, but I do own both games.
Stalker's graphics are defiantly not as good as FEAR's. But Stalker "slapped" dynamic lighting onto their dated graphics to try to give it a more up to date look. All it really did was case the game to chug on all but top video cards. But luckily you can turn it off.
That said Stalker's environment is 10 times better than FEAR's because it's a real map of the real area of Chernobyl in Russia with some of the best weather effect of any game to date!  (My only complaint here is they didn't add snow!! This part of Russia gets a lot of snow in the real world!)
Fear is basically the inside of an office building that looks the same all the way through. People need to understand the difference in the terms "graphics" and "environments". Personally I will always take a great environment over great graphics (for example the GTA games have terrible graphics but fantastic environments). Oblivion is an example of a game that truly has both!
Another point I want to make is how much more detailed the indoor parts of STALKER are. Like in FEAR, a room would have a chair and a desk, that was it, in STALKER you have so much more detail, down to food on the table, or cabinets hanging open. That one screenshot of the room above illustrates this.
Damn Chrisoff_1, that first screen looks pretty good. I'm curious, what system are you running and what settings do you play at? What's your average framerate?
The reason why I'm asking is that I hear Stalker is plagued by performance problems, only thing keeping me from buying it.
Damn Chrisoff_1, that first screen looks pretty good. I'm curious, what system are you running and what settings do you play at? What's your average framerate?
The reason why I'm asking is that I hear Stalker is plagued by performance problems, only thing keeping me from buying it.
HavocEbonlore
sadly thats not on my system, i only have a 9800:(
fear's character models blow stalker's away, the detail is far higher and they just look way better, and they have a more coherent, solid feel to them too - and fear has lots of great effects (grenade blast, sparks and stuff) that are absent in stalker
stalker wins for just about everything else though - the brick textures are especially amazing (check out that guy's screenshot above, it's fantastic)
fear probably has better lighting, but stalker definitely has better shadows - they have a more realistic opacity and are cast in a more realistic way
it's not that the stalker engine is somehow more powerful - because i don't particularly think it is, just that fear is so bland that it's hard to make an accurate assessment of the quality of the engine, but the game, however, is easy to assess - stalker looks better
and that is amazing, considering that stalker has huge, sprawling outdoor areas that reach far into the distance, while in fear you can usually only see perhaps twenty feet ahead of you before you hit a wall
stalker too has many effects not present in fear that add to the quality of the visuals, the day/night cycle and weather effects are all awesome... having the whole world lit up by lightning at night is just a-ma-zing in a way that fear couldn't hope to achieve, and fear is an awesome looking game
i have a tendency to get a little overexcited when i start playing a game and really love it, so these comments could probably be taken with a pinch of salt - but stalker is a damn good looking game
Sorry, but STALKER has by far better and more detailed graphics (maxed)... and now that "complete 2009" mod is out, STALKER can compete with FEAR 2. Yes, you need a space computer to run it at max, and yes, FEAR is more scalable, but talking graphics purely (since that was the original question)... STALKER wins hands down.
(Check out some Stalker SOC Complete 2009 screenshots if you are not convinced.)
http://profile.imageshack.us/user/mrlihtster
That said Stalker's environment is 10 times better than FEAR's because it's a real map of the real area of Chernobyl in Russia with some of the best weather effect of any game to date! (My only complaint here is they didn't add snow!! This part of Russia gets a lot of snow in the real world!)
basersx
If you are such good friends with the map, you would know that Chernobyl is not in Russia... cough* ...Ukraine... cough* and the game was made there btw...
F.E.A.R has better graphics then Stalker. Even though F.E.A.R is indoors in the office, it still has awesome graphics. Stalker is outdoors so the world looks good but the detail of the guns don't look that good. The explosions in F.E.A.R look really good.
Aside from the low poligon wireframe in characters and the character animations, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. crushes badly F.E.A.R. in a technical comparison. F.E.A.R. is imo > than F.E.A.R. 2 in visuals, thanx to his soft shadows, great particles fx and lightning, that were nerfed to some degree because the F.E.A.R. 2 game was focused towards to the console versions.
But a sinle watch to the multiplayer maps is enought to see how limited is the Jupiter Engine compared against X-Ray Engine, specially in terms of size of the landscape and alpha textures -grass- management. The "Death Forest" multiplayer map in F.E.A.R. has worse trees than some UT 2004 maps.
Anyway, both are very good games, F.E.A.R. mp is better ans S.T.A.L.K.E.R. sp and tech is better, IMO.
Damn Chrisoff_1, that first screen looks pretty good. I'm curious, what system are you running and what settings do you play at? What's your average framerate?
The reason why I'm asking is that I hear Stalker is plagued by performance problems, only thing keeping me from buying it.
HavocEbonlore
These issues were fixed with a patch years ago. You've been missing out my friend.
Nope, fear 2 has better textures!!!Aside from the low poligon wireframe in characters and the character animations, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. crushes badly F.E.A.R. in a technical comparison. F.E.A.R. is imo > than F.E.A.R. 2 in visuals, thanx to his soft shadows, great particles fx and lightning, that were nerfed to some degree because the F.E.A.R. 2 game was focused towards to the console versions.
But a sinle watch to the multiplayer maps is enought to see how limited is the Jupiter Engine compared against X-Ray Engine, specially in terms of size of the landscape and alpha textures -grass- management. The "Death Forest" multiplayer map in F.E.A.R. has worse trees than some UT 2004 maps.
Anyway, both are very good games, F.E.A.R. mp is better ans S.T.A.L.K.E.R. sp and tech is better, IMO.
Ondoval
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