Valve's High Dynamic Range Explored
by Josh Venning on September 30, 2005 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Day of Defeat Performance Tests
Half life 2 is one of those games that usually gives us pretty good framerates on a wide variety of cards. It's interesting to see how Day of Defeat: Source seems to up the ante (so to speak) in the graphics department, giving our cards a work-out even without the HDR effects enabled. The fact that the fps of all the cards without HDR enabled is similar suggests that there is some CPU limitation to the game. It's also safe to say that turning on the full HDR mode causes quite a significant performance hit, especially in the 6600 GT, the only 128 MB card that we tested.
In the past, we've noticed that ATI performs a little better than NVIDIA in Half life 2, and not surprisingly, we see the same thing here with Day of Defeat. While it's true that the 7800 GTX gets higher framerates than any of the ATI cards, keep in mind that NVIDIA's 7800 series is in a class above even the fastest ATI cards out now (although not for very long), and the fact that the framerates on the ATI cards aren't far behind says something here.
Half life 2 is one of those games that usually gives us pretty good framerates on a wide variety of cards. It's interesting to see how Day of Defeat: Source seems to up the ante (so to speak) in the graphics department, giving our cards a work-out even without the HDR effects enabled. The fact that the fps of all the cards without HDR enabled is similar suggests that there is some CPU limitation to the game. It's also safe to say that turning on the full HDR mode causes quite a significant performance hit, especially in the 6600 GT, the only 128 MB card that we tested.
In the past, we've noticed that ATI performs a little better than NVIDIA in Half life 2, and not surprisingly, we see the same thing here with Day of Defeat. While it's true that the 7800 GTX gets higher framerates than any of the ATI cards, keep in mind that NVIDIA's 7800 series is in a class above even the fastest ATI cards out now (although not for very long), and the fact that the framerates on the ATI cards aren't far behind says something here.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
47 Comments
View All Comments
8NP4iN - Friday, September 30, 2005 - link
Yeah... where´s the shadows of those objects?ballero - Friday, September 30, 2005 - link
Seems to me it's Low-DR not High-DR. After playing Farcry and SC:CT the Valve' hdr looks like a step backwards...Questar - Friday, September 30, 2005 - link
http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/lostcoast....">http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/lostcoast....Leper Messiah - Friday, September 30, 2005 - link
I think it looks a lot more realistic, while actually playing. The screenies don't do it justice.Just think though. Flashbangs with HDR. *cackle*
Phantronius - Friday, September 30, 2005 - link
Thank god BF2 doesnt' have HDR or I woulda given up on itbob661 - Friday, September 30, 2005 - link
I would've just turned it off.yacoub - Friday, September 30, 2005 - link
Yet when the goal is to win, the last thing I'd do is add something optional that impinges MY ability without equally affecting everyone else's. =
So maybe in a singleplayer game or maybe if it was something in a couple years that is defaulted to ON and doesn't easily turn off, it would be useful. But really, graphical settings should never be optional if they directly impact the player's ability like that.
That would be like returning to the days when people figured out you could turn off the FogOfWar or smoke effects so you could see the full draw distance and totally snipe people before they could even see you coming.
DerekWilson - Friday, September 30, 2005 - link
valve says hdr gives an advantage because the contrast differences make it easier to spot players moving through the environment -- or something like that. Like a player who steps in front of a dark tunnel occludes the light outside and will really stand out.Personally, I don't think it's that useful or detrimental ... I do think it adds some pretty nice realizm to the scene in many places. This HDR implimentation is not perfect, but its better than many others out there.
The balance is good in my opinion.
route66 - Friday, September 30, 2005 - link
Overrated.Developers need to find better usage of my CPU and GPU load than subtle lighting effects.
segagenesis - Friday, September 30, 2005 - link
More like too bad they didnt do this from the beginning with Half-Life 2 and it didnt look any better to me from the start. I wonder when people will ever get it in thier heads that graphics != gameplay. A game could have all these fancy smancy effects but if it still plays badly the graphics do NOT make up for it. Read: Doom 3.Concentrate on the game first, not the graphics.