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
How about a walk on the beach?
Just like in the original Half Life, Half Life 2’s levels are split into multiple parts and are loaded as you encounter them in order to make the game flow more like a story rather than your average first person shooter. Our next benchmark is a continuation of the d2_coast levels: d2_coast_12.
This particular demo takes place on a beach during the early morning. In the demo, our player walks along the beach only to be ambushed by a few soldiers, which he mows through with ease. Here’s where things get interesting though; one of the most stressful shaders in the entire game is located in the d2_coast_12 level. There are a couple of huts armed with machine guns placed on the beach, but to protect the operator of the gun there’s a bit of protective glass much like a windshield at the front of the huts. The glass shaders end up severely reducing frame rate, although with all of the cards we have here the game is still playable.
While it doesn't look like much here, the glass in front of our player causes a pretty decent frame rate drop
Our player stares at the glass of one of these huts for a bit before moving on, finally coming across a couple of enemies in an elevated hut. The player fires a few rockets at the hut, which produce explosions that are also fairly GPU intensive, while being shot at from above. The demo closes with our player tossing a grenade at the enemy hut as a last resort.
We chose this level and section of the game for two reasons: 1) The GPU intensive glass shader we mentioned earlier intrigued us and slowed down even the fastest GPUs, and 2) the level had a lot of good combat which we were lacking from some of the other demos. Once again, you can see how this demo is also typical of Half Life 2 gameplay.
Here, business is as usual with ATI’s X800 XT at the top of the charts, but once again only outperforming the 6800 Ultra by 5%, which is consistent with our first demo. The 6800GT and X800 Pro offer basically identical performance, and the same can be said about the 6800, 6600GT and X700 XT.
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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 ;)