Weekly Steam Announcement

[wiReZ]

acidsnow wrote..

No one going to edit this kids shameless self advertisement?

its not an ad, i always put my web address in my posts.

[xlokix]

FLeK0 wrote..

None of the current ATi cards can run HDR, only the 6800's. You can play this in low quality, with a fake hdr-bloom effect.

ATi cards can run HDR.. Valve has been showing off HDR effects using Radeon cards for a while. In fact Radeon cards have better quality/performance ratio while viewing HDR effects than most Nvidia cards.



Besides, we all know ATi and Valve have had a "partnership" since HL2 was announced (or possibly earlier). So I'd trust ATi cards with better performance for HL2, then again that's just me.

[haGGard04]

No ATI card on the market today has Pixel Shader 3...

[ultracooldom]

to me, that screenshot looks no different to any of the other screenshots i seen of half life 2, apart from the different location.



whats so special?

[Syx]

You need SM3.0 to get the full HDR effects

[wolf8218]

i dont think thats true....

as some one stated earlier, ati is partnered with valve so they would need to show something to promote the current ATI hardware.



plus, i dont think HDR has much to do with pixel shaders...

[Syx]

ATi and VALVe's "partnership" is called marketing. The reason they chose ATi back in 2003 is because they had the upperhand since nVidia's FX series failed due to their FP16 DX9 path.

I don't know what is needed for real HDR but what I do know is that there haven't been any games with HDR that didn't need SM3.0. Like someone said most likely the "low" quality will just be post-processed bloom which requires SM2.0, and "high" quality will be the real dynamic HDR.

[-:Nighthawk:-]

Rather than merely voicing what I think is or is not required, allow me to quote this CSN newspost from 5/9/05.

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.

And now from the linked article:

All current Shader Model 2.0 hardware will be able to use the lower quality HDR setting, but we are unsure as to whether it is a real implementation of HDR rendering, as it looks more like a common bloom post processing effect with a 16-bit Fixed Point lightmap.

Now a quote from their source:

In both cases the lighting informations are stored in textures with higher range (FX16 for lower; FP16 for best) Best will use FP16 targets, too.



IMHO I am still not sure if I want to call the "Lower Quality" Mode a HDR Mode. It looks more like a common bloom postprocessing with a FX16 lightmap.

So it sounds like a "HDR" option is available for all newish cards, whether from nVIDIA or ATi, but only the GeForce 6 series (and ATi's upcoming card, it's rumored) will be able to do the true, high-quality effect.



Now, that should end the debate. :P

[Spookie4551]

-:Nighthawk:- wrote..

Now, that should end the debate. :P

But you know it won't ;D

[kyleb]

Syx wrote..

I don't know what is needed for real HDR but what I do know is that there haven't been any games with HDR that didn't need SM3.0.

Acutally, Far Cry's HDR works with SM2.

[abysmal]

xlokix wrote..

Besides, we all know ATi and Valve have had a "partnership" since HL2 was announced (or possibly earlier). So I'd trust ATi cards with better performance for HL2, then again that's just me.

Nah, Valve endorsed ATI cards at the time as they offered superior performance compared to nvidia's FX range. Now though, GF6 series cards are as good as their ATI counterparts in HL2.

[rizzuh]

If we're going to talk motives, I have to say that I doubt Valve is even considering which card is the "best" with this demo. Wouldn't the HDR demo really be most important to companies interested in licensing the Source engine?

[The_Spaniard]

Walker is a nice guy, talked with him a bit and he was able to point me in the direction of Lombardi who I had buisness with.



Oh, and to those that say it looks exactly the same, you would have had to be there because they ocasionally split the screen with before and after effects. There was a huge difference.

[Haklin]

damn i hope my gf2 32meg supports hdr, at least i have 512 sd ram to power all that power hl2 needs.

[haGGard04]

I can quite safely guarantee you, that your GeForce 2 will not support the HDR required in Lost Coast :P