Half-Life 2: Lost Coast Update

[CSN NewsBot]

Our friends over at HL Fallout spotted additional information regarding Half-Life 2: Lost Coast's HDR rendering technology:

There will be two quality settings for that level — "Best Quality" & "Lower Quality".



The "Best Quality" setting will require a graphics processor capable of 16-bit Floating Point filtered textures, 16-bit Floating Point targets with alpha bend support, and Shader Model 3.0. The "Lower Quality" setting will require 16-bit Fixed Point filtered textures and Shader Model 2.0 support.



Currently, only the nVidia Geforce 6 series support Shader Model 3.0. It may imply that the upcoming ATi R520 "Fudo" will support Shader Model 3.0 as well.

Click here for the full scoop.

[ph03nix(k)]

Holy Shit! Way to keep the news flowing, its a news overload.

[Syx]

I <3 my 6600GT

[HACKER HELL STORM]

i gotta bba X800Pro which i love, bu this is kind of a bummer. i wasst too excited about this anyway.

[xlokix]

Edited by [user="41447"] @ [time="1115690052"]

Oh cmon guys.

http://www.hardwareoc.hu/kepek/roadside...del%203_2.jpg

Without Shader Model 3.0



http://www.hardwareoc.hu/kepek/roadside...del%203_2.jpg

With Shader Model 3.0



Do you really notice a huge significance?

[peagle]

xlokix wrote..

Do you really notice a huge significance?

nah, but isn't it something you'll notice more obviously when you're moving through a dynamically lit environment?

[Shadow]

NO. XLOKIX IS RIGHT AND THERES NOTHING YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT.



I'm just kidding. It's there if you took a SS while moving but it wouldn't be if you stood still and then took it, because the shader comes into effect during oh I don't know what I'm talking about.

[kerosine99]

Are there areas that would take advantage of the shader technology better then that shown in those shots? Or is that a fair representation of the technology?

[-:Nighthawk:-]

First off, I should state that quality comparison pictures should never be jpeg files, seeing as that format has quality loss.



SM3.0 is definitely more advanced than 2.0, but you're often talking about subtle differences, mainly with displacement mapping. Another aspect is the complexity of shader programs -- SM2.0 hardware has to be able to do 96 (64 math, 32 texture) instructions, whereas SM3.0 hardware must be able to do 512 instructions. This allows for far more advanced shaders to be used, so long as the graphics card can process them fast enough.



There are a few minor quality improvements with anti-aliasing that SM3.0 allows and such, but you're also looking at efficiency and speed-enhancement options that allow for complex shaders to be simplified when the extra complexity is unneeded. Only other cool stuff about it I could find is some motion-blur abilities, and some HDR rendering quality improvements over SM2.0 code.



Far Cry was the first game to impliment SM3.0 afaik, and it really varied from place to place whether you could tell the difference, though the speed boost that also came with the incorporation of SM3.0 (on supported hardware) was pretty decent.



So in your average scene, you probably won't notice major differences in quality between SM2.0 and SM3.0 for most things. In my (limited) experience, the main differences come when you get close to an object. With SM2.0, you often end up with a smooth, almost glossy but somewhat flat/blurry look to the object, where as with SM3.0 you often get a far more detailed, rough surface... assuming the artist took advantage of SM3.0's features.



Aside from that, it looks mainly like just the HDR rendering will be affected, but that's the tech they're trying to showcase anyway, right?

[xlokix]

-:Nighthawk:- wrote..

First off, I should state that quality comparison pictures should never be jpeg files, seeing as that format has quality loss.

If .001% of pixel loss isn't enough to see the differences between SM 2.0 and SM 3.0, I don't know what is. When Nvidia took screenshots in FarCry, they showed SM 3.0 using jpg screenshots. You can go find the article yourself if you don't believe me.



Let me also make this an opportunity to tell you that not all JPG files have the same quality as well.



I conclude by stating that the remaining part to your paragraph of "shader knowledge" be completely ignored (mainly because I don't want to read it).

[peagle]

Decent explanation of the differences here: http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=895240



Farcry is not a good/fair example of SM 3.0.

[-:Nighthawk:-]

xlokix wrote..

If .001% of pixel loss isn't enough to see the differences between SM 2.0 and SM 3.0, I don't know what is. When Nvidia took screenshots in FarCry, they showed SM 3.0 using jpg screenshots. You can go find the article yourself if you don't believe me.

When nVIDIA showed off SM3.0 in FarCry, they compared it to SM1.1 not SM2.0 so the visual differences between the two were amazing. SM1.1 is far, far less advanced than 2.0, and even further behind 3.0--so a jpeg file will showcase major differences in quality.



When you talk about anti-aliasing quality differences and other often somewhat subtle differences, the loss factor of jpeg files becomes increasingly important. I dunno where you came up with your .001% statistic, but I'd assert you pulled it out of a place none of us wish to see.



Yes, there are different compression factors, but none of the jpeg formats are lossless. Respectable comparisons for image quality ideally should be done using something like PNG files for lossless compression, or bmp files if you really don't care about the bandwidth. Maybe it doesn't make enough of a difference for you to care about the quality, but some of us do.

[Gpig]

I dunno where you came up with your .001% statistic, but I'd assert you pulled it out of a place none of us wish to see.

OH SNAP

[xlokix]

-:Nighthawk:- wrote..

I dunno where you came up with your .001% statistic, but I'd assert you pulled it out of a place none of us wish to see.

You're obviously not too bright if you believed .001% was a statistic. I've been quite known for not caring to throw things in peoples faces to make it more obvious for them. Nonetheless, another boring and overused joke places you 3 steps below Chevy Chase.

[ma_cherie]

Take a flashlight in real life and run it over some grass at night.



Check out that bump-mapping, holy shit.