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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Kovie - Wednesday, November 17, 2004 - link
Mis-type, meant to say 6600GT being gouged.Kovie - Wednesday, November 17, 2004 - link
"Recently a number of users have asked that we compare the $300 GeForce 6800 to the $200 GeForce 6600GT to see if the added cost is truly worth it."Actually we asked to compare the currently $245 6600GT (newegg) against the currently $250 6800 (outpost). Once the 6800GT stops being gouged and goes down to its supposed price then it will be a better buy. Right now the $5 difference between them and the ability to potentially unlock the extra pipes on the 6800 make it a better buy.
Le Québécois - Wednesday, November 17, 2004 - link
For my part I'm more curious about Slower CPU, to see how much it affect the FPS.mikecel79 - Wednesday, November 17, 2004 - link
Where's the ATI 9600 and 9500 series cards in this? The are DX9 cards also.LocutusX - Wednesday, November 17, 2004 - link
So... I wonder how all the poor souls who went with GF59xx's are feeling now... ;)But yes, both manufacturers' "current-gen" parts are doing very well.
ciwell - Wednesday, November 17, 2004 - link
I find the 6800 vs the 6600GT results to be intriguing as the 6600GT stacks up very nicely. I wonder how the comparison is in other games though.Akira1224 - Wednesday, November 17, 2004 - link
I know the flames are going to start soon. I would like to say great job to both Nvidia and ATI. Both cards are spectacular this round and we should all be impressed with the tech being shown in this roundup. To anyone who is gonna start with the ATI RULZ NVIDIA SUXORZ or vice versa lets all just save it. The performance is so close either way you can't lose. For the record I have a 6800GT.Jalf - Wednesday, November 17, 2004 - link
Well, I can give you the results with my hardware. :)I'm running an ancient Geforce 2 GTS (32mb) and Athlon TBird 1400 MHz.
I haven't noted down actual FPS values, but in 800x600, with medium-ish settings, it runs perfectly smoothly. That's impressive, if you ask me. :P
So I doubt you'll have a problem. :)
ksherman - Wednesday, November 17, 2004 - link
i wonder how old, old hardware will be... mabye theyll go as far back as the 8500 and Ti400's.... (cuz thats what i have ;)