Valve's High Dynamic Range Explored
by Josh Venning on September 30, 2005 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Final Words
Performance-wise, we've seen how the HDR effects have a significant impact on performance in Day of Defeat, and in some cases, the impact was surprising. On cards like the X800 and the 6600 GT, it's interesting to see how HDR requires the kind of resources that would effectively cut your framerate in half, especially given the general subtlety of the lighting effects.
We've also shown that ATI seems to handle Valve's implementation of HDR better than NVIDIA, and if we could have tested with one of the next-gen ATI cards, the 7800 GTX would have assuredly been beaten out for the highest fps. But most of the cards that we tested were able to handle the performance hit from the HDR settings. Unfortunately, if you have a less-powerful card than these that we've tested, you will probably have to either turn down your resolution or forego the HDR.
While the HDR effects in the game are subtle, we should mention that after a bit of play testing, we found that our eyes tended to adapt to the auto-exposure and bloom effects and everything seemed to blend together in a way which added a lot to the gameplay. In fact, when playing the game with the HDR settings turned off, the game looks surprisingly flat by comparison. We are impressed at how Valve was able to enhance the source engine in such a major way, while keeping everything subtle enough to sometimes forget that it's there. Much like the Matrix, it's hard to understand until you experience it for yourself.
If you played much Day of Defeat before the upgrade, the source version will no doubt make you very happy, just as Counterstrike: Source did when it first came out. However, by now, the Halflife 2 engine isn't quite as new and exciting as it was when CS Source came out, and in spite of the new HDR effects, the "wow" factor isn't quite as pronounced. Still, there is no denying that the new lighting effects add a kind of sparkle to the HL2 graphics, which, while still excellent, had seemed to have lost a bit of luster with time. These graphical enhancements are certainly a step forward, and it will be very interesting to see how these new effects will be used in games of the near future.
We will also be excited to see if Valve is able to stick to their guns and continue to enhance Source on the way to their next major project. This new method certainly seems to make more sense to us as Valve's engine customers will have access to a better quality engine and gamers will reap the benefits of new technology faster. We look forward to the surprises Valve has in store for us in the future.
Performance-wise, we've seen how the HDR effects have a significant impact on performance in Day of Defeat, and in some cases, the impact was surprising. On cards like the X800 and the 6600 GT, it's interesting to see how HDR requires the kind of resources that would effectively cut your framerate in half, especially given the general subtlety of the lighting effects.
We've also shown that ATI seems to handle Valve's implementation of HDR better than NVIDIA, and if we could have tested with one of the next-gen ATI cards, the 7800 GTX would have assuredly been beaten out for the highest fps. But most of the cards that we tested were able to handle the performance hit from the HDR settings. Unfortunately, if you have a less-powerful card than these that we've tested, you will probably have to either turn down your resolution or forego the HDR.
While the HDR effects in the game are subtle, we should mention that after a bit of play testing, we found that our eyes tended to adapt to the auto-exposure and bloom effects and everything seemed to blend together in a way which added a lot to the gameplay. In fact, when playing the game with the HDR settings turned off, the game looks surprisingly flat by comparison. We are impressed at how Valve was able to enhance the source engine in such a major way, while keeping everything subtle enough to sometimes forget that it's there. Much like the Matrix, it's hard to understand until you experience it for yourself.
If you played much Day of Defeat before the upgrade, the source version will no doubt make you very happy, just as Counterstrike: Source did when it first came out. However, by now, the Halflife 2 engine isn't quite as new and exciting as it was when CS Source came out, and in spite of the new HDR effects, the "wow" factor isn't quite as pronounced. Still, there is no denying that the new lighting effects add a kind of sparkle to the HL2 graphics, which, while still excellent, had seemed to have lost a bit of luster with time. These graphical enhancements are certainly a step forward, and it will be very interesting to see how these new effects will be used in games of the near future.
We will also be excited to see if Valve is able to stick to their guns and continue to enhance Source on the way to their next major project. This new method certainly seems to make more sense to us as Valve's engine customers will have access to a better quality engine and gamers will reap the benefits of new technology faster. We look forward to the surprises Valve has in store for us in the future.
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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