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
The Slowest Level in the Game
For our fifth and final demo we turn to one of the last levels in the game – d3_c17_12. This city level takes place mostly outdoors and gave us the lowest average frame rates out of any level we played in during our testing of Half Life 2. A combination of all of the fire shaders as well as the explosions and weapon fire and the outdoor lighting make for one very stressful test.
Our player fires upon one of the mammoth mechanical spiders using a handful of weapons, including the RPG which in itself ends up being decently stressful on the GPU.
Although this demo yielded the lowest average frame rates out of our entire suite of demos, the level itself does not appear to be overly GPU bound. Instead it would seem that even at 1280 x 1024, we’re mostly CPU bound here which is definitely not what we expected.
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alexlck - Wednesday, November 17, 2004 - link
In map AT_coast_05.dem, GF6800U have no performance penalty with 4xAA@1024x768?HardwareD00d - Wednesday, November 17, 2004 - link
hey, #27, I was gonna say that ;)jediknight - Wednesday, November 17, 2004 - link
Well, it's obvious from the benchmarks. They don't lie.ATI RULZ NVIDIA SUXORZ!!
(lol@#3)
bob661 - Wednesday, November 17, 2004 - link
Do you need HL2 to play CS: Source? Thanks.wien - Wednesday, November 17, 2004 - link
#24 There is.. It's called Counter-Strike: Sourcebob661 - Wednesday, November 17, 2004 - link
Anyone know if there's multiplayer support in HL2? Thanks.L1FE - Wednesday, November 17, 2004 - link
Nice and thorough comparison. That 6600GT looks more and more enticing...Rekonn - Wednesday, November 17, 2004 - link
Great article, looking forward to reading the next one with slower cpus. Being cpu limited with an A64 4000+ is a little scary, I wonder what kind of fps an XP3200+ gets when paired with an AGP 6600GT. (still running an overclocked Barton 2500+)Jalf - Wednesday, November 17, 2004 - link
I'm surprised at how well NV stacks up... And good to see the 6800 GT beat the X800 Pro. Not because I'm an NV fan, but simply because it makes it easier to choose. When the 6800 GT wins over the equivalent ATI card, even in an ATI-optimized game, then it's kinda easy to choose what to buy... :DIt's a lot harder with the other cards, where both companies scores some wins in different games.
Regs - Wednesday, November 17, 2004 - link
Yeah, I'm hoping a CPU round up will come after part two! I can afford a 400 dollar video card but not paired with a 700 dollar AMD CPU.I did notice a lot of stuttering in my gaming experience with a A64 3000 + 6800 GT/1024 MB pC3200. I was playing at 1280x1024 with 4x/8x max details. So likely I would have to cut out the 8x Aniso to have smooth gameplay. I don't know if that was what Anand was mentioning about with the "Shimmering" of textures with the Manhatten calculations.