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So the question is, are you missing much by disabling Soft Shadows? And I have to say that I dont think you are. If you take a look at the screenshots below you can see what I mean:

Soft Shadows - Disabled

Soft Shadows - enabled

With soft shadows enabled you can see a visible banding which is meant to represent the variation in shadows. However, this is a pretty poor representation, and personally I think the game looks better with out it. Props to Monolith for their attempt in implementing the latest and greatest features though, and its always worth having for individuals (with enough graphics horsepower) to make their own mind up about. Personally, Ill be sticking to my attempts to run AA rather than Soft Shadows.

So basically, where graphics power is concerned you are going to need SLI, or a 7800/X1800 series card to play this game as its meant to be played at the very highest settings. Talking of SLI, all of you lucky enough to have an SLI rig will be very pleased at the way SLI is implemented. F.E.A.R. is one of a few recent releases to have SLI actually built into the game. Therefore it doesnt actually have an SLI profile in the drivers. Instead the game itself decides how best to render across the two GPUs. This is a lot better on two levels, as firstly you are guaranteed SLI support out of the box, while secondly SLI will have been implemented in a more efficient manner or at least thats the idea. In terms of other requirements, I would certainly recommend 2GB of RAM. It seems games are gradually heading over the 1 GB barrier these days. F.E.A.R. is no exception. According to my system monitor, the game can touch up to as much as 1.4 GB of memory usage, and on average uses between 1.2 GB and 1.3 GB of memory.

I certainly noticed a difference and overall smoother game play when I moved from 1GB to 2GB. This will probably be most noticeable for those attempting to run at the highest settings and resolutions on the latest graphics hardware, because of the amount of memory needed in such situations. If you are noticing sudden drops in FPS or stuttering due to hard drive utilisation, then more memory is what you need! Despite the hefty requirements it is hard to deny the game engine looks fantastic when in motion. With the clouds of dust temporarily blinding you, fantastic explosions and a rain of bullets taking chunks out of the walls and floor. It is astounding to watch, and F.E.A.R. creates moments of pure FPS heaven as a result.