Greetings Nighthawk and Team,
After playing about with the latest EFX 1.61 Free version for a while, and testing out all the great features, there is but one aspect that
majorly concerns me.
First things first, I am running a pretty High end system with 4GB Geil Black Dragon DDR2 Ram, AMD Dual Core 2.8Ghz Processor and a BFG 8800GTS 320MB OCX. I get a score of 11.7k in 3DMark 06 and Can play Crysis on high at 47fps average [There is a point to all of this].
So, after loading up FPSC with EFX Mod 1.61, I chose the laboratory large prefab as my testbed. I then added the refraction shader to the windows, added one weapon and one enemy (along with a small bit of water). Not demanding at all, remember this is one basic prefab with NO dynamic objects (apart from the weapon and enemy of course). Once the test game had loaded, I was greeted with
47fps...that was until I picked up the weapon and the enemy came into motion. Straight down to
29fps!. Now this is the bit that concerns me. This was a rather basic level, and yet EFX struggled to maintain a decent framerate for a level of its size, even on a high end system. Now take into account that not that many people have a high end system, ecpecially those outside of the TGC Forum group, such as average joe's who you would sell your game to, and the fact that virtually everyone of this forum creates levels that are far bigger and more complex than the testbed I used...How is this mod going to cope?? I tested this mod also on one of my Demon Sun levels, which also ended in the drastic falliure of 12fps straight through. If the Mod cannot run smoothly on cutting edge or decent hardware, then what can it run on??. Forget the "Can you run Crysis on high?" question...The new question will very soon be "Can you run EFX on Level 3 quality with a one room level?"
Attached is a quick screenshot just showing the the testbed
CoZ
EDIT: Screenshot now attached!
