Half Life 2 GPU Roundup Part 1 - DirectX 9 Shootout
by Anand Lal Shimpi on November 17, 2004 11:22 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Let’s go for a Drive
Our second demo comes from the d2_coast_05 level, which starts off with the Half Life 2 buggy. After hopping in the buggy we take a spirited drive down the high way, (poorly) avoiding enemies as well as abandoned cars. There is some exchange of fire towards the end of the demo, and overall the demo is fairly short.
This demo offers a good idea of general outdoor performance in Half Life 2 where elements such as water are not involved. There are a handful of explosions that take place while the buggy’s machine gun ignites a flammable barrel that also stress the GPU a bit. With the absence of water, the flashlight or any reflective surfaces, we find ourselves with a demo that is far less shader bound than our first benchmark, but just as important since not all areas of Half Life 2 are going to be incredibly shader bound.
The fact that there’s basically no performance difference between the top four cards in this test indicates that even at 1280 x 1024, the fastest GPUs from ATI and NVIDIA still find themselves CPU bound in some Half Life 2 scenarios.
The relatively flat resolution scaling curves of some of the GPUs indicates that we are still fairly CPU bound here, which, interestingly enough, happens quite often in Half Life 2.
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zhangping0233 - Thursday, January 5, 2012 - link
Try xecconlight.com and Flashlightbox.com, you will find the best flashlight for the world. Shipping to all the world.nthexwn - Thursday, November 18, 2004 - link
I've also noticed that having the steam client running in the background can place quite a load on your entire system! After downloading all the content to cut down on network/disk/buffering wierdness I did some tests benchmarking UT2004 with the ons_dria demo from nvnews and noticed that my fps drops up to 10 when steam is running in the background!Might it be possible to compare performance between the retail version of Half-life 2 and the steamed version available for internet purchase to see if there's any sort of performance difference? Or does the retail version just run through an offline steam client anyway? (I bought over web)
cryptonomicon - Thursday, November 18, 2004 - link
if your game crashes when switching to fullscreen it is because you have refresh overrides in place.add:
-width X -refresh Y
to your command line, for example
-width 1024 -refresh 100
it fixxed all my video problems.
meatless - Thursday, November 18, 2004 - link
#10 - That's a pretty stupid thing to say. Kyle used the cards that his readers were most likely to buy; I know I wouldn't waste my money on a non-BFG nVidia 68xx card, and I know most other gamers wouldn't either. It's a part of [H]'s focus on doing real-world-style benches instead of OMG LETZ C IF NV RULZ ATI 2DAY IN HL2!!111111With all that said, it's great to see stiff competition in the video card arena, finally--should make for exciting product lines on the next go-round.
Jedi2155 - Thursday, November 18, 2004 - link
#64there is a hidden HL2 MP in the game....however its not yet complete....
quote
11/17/2004 22:58 PST | Half-Life 2 | by MarmaladeMan
HL2 World is reporting that they've found a working Half-Life 2 multiplayer built in to standard retail HL2. Here's the story, including how to do it:
Here's how:
net_start
sv_lan 0
deathmatch 1
maxplayers (whatever you want)
map (mapname)
restart
It will add you to the master server and it works. I know, it looks like the leak, but I assure you this is the retail HL2.
They have a screenshot, as well as a test map for you to check out if interested. Head on over to HL2 World for the full story.
http://www.hl2world.com/
/quote
jonmcc33 - Thursday, November 18, 2004 - link
Get back to Half-Life 2? Why? There's no point other than the fact it's a pretty single player game. If I wanted single player than I would have raved about Max Payne 2, which I didn't. Why Valve didn't think to make a Half-Life 2 MP side is beyond me. That's where the market is these days. Single player games, you play them once and you are done. Multiplayer is always changing. I don't want to wait for any stupid MP mod either. Curse you, Valve, for making us wait a year longer and then only giving us one piece of the cake!TrungRacingDev - Thursday, November 18, 2004 - link
you do realize that the fx5900 is default directx 8.1 right? if u think its beautiful now...try a directx 9.0 card =)Motley - Thursday, November 18, 2004 - link
I'm glad I didn't read this article before actually playing HL2.My system:
P4 3.4GHz, 2GB Ram
5900 Ultra video card
ASUS P4P800 Motherboard
I was playing HL2 at 1280x1024 with 6xAA, and 16xAnitropic Filtering, with everything else turned on to maximum. Besides a half-second stutter just after loading a new level, the game played GREAT, looked GREAT.
Then again, maybe I'm not expecting the world, but, I can say that I was pleased, and maybe the x800 or 6800 can turn out better numbers, HOWEVER, at no time did I feel that I needed (or even wanted in the slightest) faster frame rates, or smoother gameplay. It just owned from the beginning to the end.
southernpac - Thursday, November 18, 2004 - link
Anand, In light of the significant ATI X800XT DX9 (HL2) performance over the nVIDIA 6800 Ultra, would you today favor the X800XT PE graphic card in combination with the MSI K8N Neo2 motherboard? In your last High-End Buyers Guide (30 August) you recommended the nVIDIA 6800 Ultra be used with the MSI K8N Neo2 because Wesley thought that motherboard performed "a bit better" with a nVIDIA card. What would your recommendation be today? Can we anticipate another High-End Buyers Guide this month(its been 3 months)? Billblckgrffn - Thursday, November 18, 2004 - link
I know, I know, but if gf2 can play at 800*600 MQ than maybe they can handle 1024*768...that would mean that a bunch of my friends wouldn't have to upgrade from their $60 cards, and they would be overjoyed :)