Half-Life 2 Benchmark Date

[Gigora]

does anyone know if my chicken4300 pro turkey will work wif HL2?

[Mobius?]

KGarcia wrote..

/me waits for my 9800 pro 256 to arrive today

I hate you.

[-AK-]

man that's pretty lame...even though I'm gonna get a ATi card, but still...people who bought new Nvidia cards got jipped, this corporate sponsorship of each others products is gonna get out of hand...



VALVe Ad:



Introducing Half-Life 3, specifically designed to run on nothing less than a Pentium 5, 7 ghz, 2 GB RAM, 600 GB Dual HD Alienware computer...don't mind that it costs $10,000 and requires a loan and credit check just to pre-order...your wallet will thank you later when you are blown away by the intense super realistic graphics only achieved by alienware computers...the future is now!



Act now and we'll throw in a FREE!* HL3 boxcover and jewel case for your HL3 CD



*while supplies last, offer not valid in U.S., Canada, and any other non-third world country



¬_¬

[KGarcia]

I almost went with a 5900 ultra... then I read about how HL2 was gonna be shipped with a radeon r360, 9800XT so I just decided to get the 9800 pro. ended up being $40 more but if those benchmarks are right and ati is that much better then I guess I made the right choice in changing to the radeon the last minute!

[[CyW]-=BigBear=-]

Right! That benchmark was supossed to be released *before* HL2, not together with the game, ffs!! Now I have to buy a new card without knowing beforehand how it does in HL2.. So I will have to go with all the rumours and go for a ATi (Hercules Prophet 9800pro probably)..

[-:Nighthawk:-]

Edited by [user="26841"] @ [time="1063300810"]

Coolleroy wrote..

Well EA games say their games run best with Nvidia and Valve now says their games run best with ATI. I seriously doubt they run any different, its just marketing that does it.

There actually are differences. It's all about optimization, and what features you make a big deal in your game. Little things make big differences. Let's pretend a specific nVidia card only can do 2 textures per pixel per clock, where as an ATi card can do 3 textures.



If I design my game to only require 2 textures, the nVidia card will probably be doing the best, as it's optimized for that number and probably runs at a higher clock as a result, where as the ATi card isn't using its full potential.



If I up it to 3, suddenly the speed of the nVidia card drops to half (it has to run over the same area 2x to get the total of 3 textures), where as it stays the same with the ATi card. So the ATi card is probably doing quite well.



Bump it up to 4 textures, and again the nVidia card is running fairly optimized (2 passes of the 2-texture render, all power utilized), where as the ATi card now has to go over that same area twice, and could have done up to 6 textures. So 2 textures get left unused, and the card appears to not have as much power as it really does.



That's a very untechnical example, but it gets the basic idea across.



Little things like that totally affect the performance of one card or another. Take any ID game like Quake III or Doom 3, and there's separate code for ATi cards vs. nVidia cards. Because little things like that affect the performance of both, you want to optimize your game for both user bases to maximize the appeal of your game. Perhaps VALVe didn't fully do this, or perhaps they just wanted to add things that nVidia cards don't do well with at the very highest levels of detail.



Regardless, no worries, drop the detail a little and you're fine.

[lopinboy]

I don't understand why they won't just tell everyone that they optimized the game specifically for ATI. When you make deals with companies like that, you normally sign an agreement stating you'll do something for them, in this case, VALVe makes the game run better for ATIs to make more people want to buy ATI games.



It'll be interesting to see how Doom3 compares NVidia and ATI, because theres the agreement between NVidia and iD Software. They say its not optimized for either card, but without a doubt, it'll run better on NVidia.



As said, this is most likely just a marketing scam, where they didn't run both computers exactly the same.

[Steve_81]

Heres a summary of what Valve is saying:



Nvidia cards cannot run DX9 they way it is supposed to be run. They have to optimize the game just for the card and even then the results aren't as great as just turning the games settings down to DX8. Valve is also saying they are pissed at Nvidia for putting tons of cheats in their drivers to make it look like it could keep out even outperform the ati cards at DX9 games when it clearly cannot.



On the other hand ati actually made their cards right and they actually work using DX9 they way they are supposed to. They didn't have to spend tons of time and money making the game work specifically for Ati card because they already worked the way they were supposed to. After seeing that then they made the deal with Ati. Them teaming up with Ati has nothing to do with the fact that Nvida released a piece of shit card that cannot run DX9 they it should and they fact that Nvidia lied to the consumers thinking it will work good by releasing driver cheats.



EDIT: Also all of you who are saying that Valve optimized the game for Ati only are wrong. They optimized it for Nvidia not Ati. Ati cards worked Nvidias didn't so they had too.

[Ho Hum (Ma$h3d)]

ukHazard wrote..

Well, apart from the fact that the 9700 Pro was the best consumer graphics card until early this year. Stopgap indeed!



(<-- R9700 Pro Owner :o) )

Own one myself. However looking round sites you always seem to see the tests include either the 9600 and 9800 models. *Shrugs* I think my 9700 will grab this game by the blx and give it s good shake!



Roll on HL2!!!

[PRiMACORD]

Ummm 60fps



Is that the max we'll be able to get out of this game at 1024*768 with no aa/af?



I'm getting a new pc between now and sept30th and i'm going all out so i want to be to run this game with aa/af and at 1280*1024.



They didn't specify what processor they were using but i'm sure it wasnt a 1.4ghz amd :x



I think it's pretty stupid that there is no machine that could run the game with decent settings (1280*1024 aa/ff) at release.

[helloworld]

Ok, first of no they did not optimize for Nvidia. They said they could but wouldn't. Also for the millionth fucking time ATI cheated at benchmarking to, but there cheats did not pull as much performance. However if your going to be all fucking upity and call Nvidia immoral then you have to call Ati on it because cheating is cheating, and just because they were not as good at it does not make them any less guilty. Anyone who remebers the first 2-3 generations of radeons rembers the bullshit ATI pulled just to make them perform ok, and were not talking small things were talking "why the fuck does my game look like shit" things.

[kSaini]

helloworld, stop crying because you bought an fx for hl2. BAHAHAHAH

[thrombose]

Hahhahahaha..... HL2 at 640x480 on my poor R8500 LE.... maybe that would run.... Besides, I'm only waiting for CS2, not HL2. Because I hate FPS adventure games.

[helloworld]

I have a 9800 and a fx between my machines. But people need to fucking quit spreading bullshit. ATI isn't sqeaky clean. You cannot pick and choose who to persue and demonize for cheating just because it is convinient ATI has done it for years too, so if you act like there some kind of fucking holy grail and bastion of truth your sadly mistaken.

[TsN-MarshallX]

I have a 5900 ultra....crappity. Hopefully Nvidia does something about this.