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.
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route66 - Friday, September 30, 2005 - link
There's something wrong with me because I liked Doom3Griswold - Saturday, October 1, 2005 - link
Nope theres nothing wrong with you. Doom3 was just as fun as HL2 to me - but in a different way. Matter of fact, D3 was the first game since the original Doom that actually had some scary moments for me. THAT is fun.I pity those who cant appreciate that, probably because they did not play Doom way back in the day when it was the non-plus-ultra.
bob661 - Friday, September 30, 2005 - link
You are not alone. :)karioskasra - Friday, September 30, 2005 - link
Like? I thought bloom looked like crap, but seriously what else is there to do? With PPU units coming and dual core drivers handling some of the GPU loads, I just hope they're not merely limited by direct xStuckMojo - Friday, September 30, 2005 - link
meh. to me, from the screenshots, it looks better without it.bloom alone really blows, the sand is all washed out.
full hdr is nice, but you can tell the textures on the buildings weren't created with HDR in mind, they wash out quite a bit with HDR.
I was reading about this in game developer, and IIRC, you have to modify your textures to really get a bang from HDR.
Frallan - Friday, September 30, 2005 - link
Im one of the guys who are on the brink of getting that secong 6800gt how does a SLi setup work w. this?Sunrise089 - Friday, September 30, 2005 - link
I'm pretty unimpressed with this technology if this is all it will ever look like, not to mention, is this some great step forward from Doom 3's lighting effects, or is Valve just a year behind?As far as the coverage goes, I know you can only test so many graphics cards, but why the x800 xt and x850 xt, they are so similar in market and performance. I would have substituted an x800 xl or x800 pro for the x800 xt.
DerekWilson - Friday, September 30, 2005 - link
though doom 3's shadowing is better, valve's hdr lighting is far beyond what doom 3 does.the real advantages can't be shown from a screenshot. it's moving between dark and light areas that really show off the capabilities of the engine. Blooms are nice and add a subtle effect to lights and reflections. But the adaptive exposure has the potential to change the way games are designed and played on a fundamental level. Stealth games would actually change the most with shadows and blooms helping to actually conceal enemies and players naturally.
Even shining a flashlight in someone's face could be a gameplay aspect. In a dark room, a flashlight would effectively blind the target if used correctly.
Avalon - Friday, September 30, 2005 - link
Is it just me, or was the resolution not stated for those benches?Bullhonkie - Friday, September 30, 2005 - link