HL2 Video Stress Test

priyajeet · Aug 25, 2004

3 more gameplays have been released. these were this years E3 demos. Must have seen them before, but these are high quality and pretty good. Now i wonder why Doom 3 missed out on gameplay points !

<A HREF="http://www.filerush.com/torrents/03_HL2-Tenements.exe.torrent" target="_new">Half-Life 2 Tenements (99 MB) TORRENT</A>

<A HREF="http://www.filerush.com/torrents/05_HL2-Ravenholm.exe.torrent" target="_new">Half-Life 2 Ravenholm (205.7MB) TORRENT</A>

<A HREF="http://us.rd.yahoo.com/games/buzz/content/p/halflife_2/yahoo_hl2-trainstation.exe_39190/SIG=13e7ni9er/*http%3A//us.games2.yimg.com/download.games.yahoo.com/games/buzz/content/p/0/39190/yahoo_hl2-trainstation.exe" target="_new">another here</A>

 :evil:

Futile is resistance, assimilate you we will. :evil:

Hard work has a future payoff. Laziness pays off now.Edited by priyajeet on 08/25/04 02:46 AM.

pauldh · Aug 25, 2004

Remember once FarCry was studied well, we found out that it uses DX9 for less than we had originally thought too.

ABIT IS7, P4 2.6C, 1GB Corsair XMS 4000 Pro Series, Radeon 9800 Pro, Santa Cruz, TruePower 430watt

priyajeet · Aug 25, 2004

<A HREF="http://articles.thewavelength.net/324/" target="_new">This</A> is a HL2 FAQ, an year old, so maybe some of you have already read.

(old)new things I came to know:

"Everything looks DX9 across the board. DX9 cards will have more goodies in-game."

Distributed computing is harder than Hyper-Threading, but achieves overall better results. While Hyper-Threading produces a 30% gain in speed, Distributed computing can increase the speed upto 8X. We're looking into 64-bit as well." (Xeen will luv this)

"Yes, there will be Dynamic shadows, with a different approach than Doom 3."

 :evil:

Futile is resistance, assimilate you we will. :evil:

Hard work has a future payoff. Laziness pays off now.

pauldh · Aug 25, 2004

Ravenholm looks like fun. Ah, the flames.

Those Bing Videos look amazing don't they.

ABIT IS7, P4 2.6C, 1GB Corsair XMS 4000 Pro Series, Radeon 9800 Pro, Santa Cruz, TruePower 430wattEdited by Pauldh on 08/25/04 02:47 PM.

priyajeet · Aug 26, 2004

This is a shift from graphic cards. Have posted this in the audio section, but this board is more popular so posting here too. ALso tests involves FPS calculations etc, so graphics are affected too.

<A HREF="http://techreport.com/etc/2004q3/cssource-audio/index.x?pg=1" target="_new">This page</A> does audio benchamrking for SOURCE engine.

"Unlike the DOOM 3 engine, which currently processes positional audio on the CPU, the Source engine appears to take advantage of hardware 3D audio acceleration. In theory, leveraging sound card resources to crunch positional audio calculations should free up CPU resources and improve overall performance, but is there really much of a performance difference between audio implementations? We've rounded up nine different sound cards to find out."

 :evil:

Futile is resistance, assimilate you we will. :evil:

Hard work has a future payoff. Laziness pays off now.

pauldh · Aug 26, 2004

Go Creative!

ABIT IS7, P4 2.6C, 1GB Corsair XMS 4000 Pro Series, Radeon 9800 Pro, Santa Cruz, TruePower 430watt

priyajeet · Aug 26, 2004

<A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2182" target="_new">Anandtech</A> are out with their SOURCE test, where THG on this ? THG's doom 3 review sucked apart from the "quotes."

Well in any case the 2nd parah in the intro page says

"......remarks made by Valve's Gabe Newell about the ability of Valve's programmers to come up with code that ran as fast on NVIDIA's hardware as it did on ATI's (and putting the blame for this square on NVIDIA's shoulders)....."

Now does this mean Valve is determined to make the game run equally fast on Nvidia as ATI. If they do (seen in the source beta test of Anadtech with all the 3 NV top dogs occupying positions 2,3,4 right after the X800XT PE in the AA/AF section) where ids determination of the similar kind !

 :evil:

Futile is resistance, assimilate you we will. :evil:

Hard work has a future payoff. Laziness pays off now.

priyajeet · Aug 26, 2004

I dont remember but someone had told me that Blizzards online gameplay is pretty pirate proof. Not full proof, but its very good.

Steam has just started their approach
<A HREF="http://www.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=121263&perpage=15&pagenumber=1" target="_new">http://www.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=121263&perpage=15&pagenumber=1</A>

 :evil:

Futile is resistance, assimilate you we will. :evil:

Hard work has a future payoff. Laziness pays off now.

priyajeet · Aug 26, 2004

this is funny

quote:
----------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by Paulianer
Yes, let's hope they don't start it like Blizzard, where some accounts where disabled without any reason. I hope they are man enough to realize that it was a mistake in my case and that they reactivate it.
-----------------------------------------------------------

REPLY BY VALVE

Hmm, let's see:

7 attempts to use stolen or fake cd-keys
11 attempts to use an invalid credit-card number to purchase CZ

All from the Steam account w/ the same name as the email address you used to sign up on the forums with. All from the computer you are using to post on the forums with.

Can you point out the mistake we made?

<A HREF="http://www.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?s=a3b6d615bfd08d5f446c3ff8a551f964&threadid=121263&perpage=15&pagenumber=3" target="_new">http://www.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?s=a3b6d615bfd08d5f446c3ff8a551f964&threadid=121263&perpage=15&pagenumber=3</A>

 :evil:

Futile is resistance, assimilate you we will. :evil:

Hard work has a future payoff. Laziness pays off now.

pauldh · Aug 27, 2004

And he has the nerve to post many complaints. LOL, nice.

ABIT IS7, P4 2.6C, 1GB Corsair XMS 4000 Pro Series, Radeon 9800 Pro, Santa Cruz, TruePower 430watt

priyajeet · Aug 27, 2004

<A HREF="http://www.steampowered.com/marketing/hl2_preload/english.html" target="_new">Aprils fool in august !</A>

 :evil:

Futile is resistance, assimilate you we will. :evil:

Hard work has a future payoff. Laziness pays off now.

priyajeet · Aug 27, 2004

not aprils fools anymore

HL2 pre load has started finally...hopefully game shouldnt be far away.

 :evil:

Futile is resistance, assimilate you we will. :evil:

Hard work has a future payoff. Laziness pays off now.

pauldh · Aug 27, 2004

Still doesn't work for me.

ABIT IS7, P4 2.6C, 1GB Corsair XMS 4000 Pro Series, Radeon 9800 Pro, Santa Cruz, TruePower 430watt

priyajeet · Aug 27, 2004

hope u have steam.

once u start steam, there gonna be a popup. with that html screen. just click and u get started.

But i wonder, will it pre load on computer who havent bought it yet ? Most likely it will.

In anycase mine got pre-loaded 100%, i really dont know what it does mean ? is the game finished or still more to go before they release. I am hearing a lot of rumors for a sept 1st release.

 :evil:

Futile is resistance, assimilate you we will. :evil:

Hard work has a future payoff. Laziness pays off now.

DonnieDarko · Aug 27, 2004

The game is finished. What you preloaded is the finished product minus a few files that allow the program to run. When halflife2 is official released, if you have bought the game through the steam service it will download the files needed to play the game. If you don't plan on buying the game through steam then the preload is useless.

Watch out for the bloody Fanboys!

AMD64 2800+ :: MSI Neo-Fis2r :: 512mb Kingmax ddr400 :: Sapphire 9800pro 128mb :: 10K WD Raptor

Addicted, finally.

priyajeet · Aug 27, 2004

actually the game is not finished.
the download was only ~500 MB. that cant be the game.

what i have heard only stuff that aint gonna change like levels,maps,textures,sounds are downloaded.

the SOURCE engine is still missing. they are still debigging it. like i myself have submitted 2-3 bugs in the last 3 days.

by the way ATI has got a few new shots of CS Source, not the de dust levels that we are allowed to play
<A HREF="http://www.ati.com/buy/promotions/cssource/index.html" target="_new">http://www.ati.com/buy/promotions/cssource/index.html</A>

And the original Half life 1 is also being wrapped in SOURCE. <A HREF="http://www.planethalflife.com/screenshot.asp?src=/images/screensnew/HL1Source_Ithy.jpg" target="_new">Heres</A> an official screenshot.

 :evil:

Futile is resistance, assimilate you we will. :evil:

Hard work has a future payoff. Laziness pays off now.Edited by priyajeet on 08/27/04 11:05 AM.

CaPtAiN_InSaNo · Aug 27, 2004

You know what i think may be happening here, is the same thing that happened in Far Cry with the GeForce6 cards. Since Nvidia's FX cards were "flawed" valve had to run special code paths or revert to DX8 to get acceptable FPS, same thing in Far Cry, the Radeon's completely domminated in every respect. Now, after the 6800's had actual drivers instead of bet crap and the Far Cry was patched (1.1 is the only one that worked right, lol) all cards saw an increas in performance, especially the GF6 cards because the game was running them on the FX code path before the patch. It seems that something similar has happened with the GF6 cards in HL2, i would expect the X800's to be faster, but not like some of the benchies are showing, first of the X800's really do perform the same as the GF6's in D3, the only reason the X800 Pro gets left in thedust is becase it only has 12 pipelines!!! If it had all 16 like the GT, it would be pretty close in performance, yet in HL2 source, the X800 Pro is leading the Ultra and GT by several FPS!!! Something here is wrong, Nvidia proved in 2 runing games that the GF6 acitecture is not screwed up like the FX and that it is just as fast as the x800's, so why now does it fall so far behind?? I think we shouldn't take the benchies seriously until the real game is out, in their article they even said that it is not really a representation of the game, more like 3D Mark 2003. And the fact that the game is still buggy and possibly running the GF6's on FX code paths. It just doesn't add up, unless the game was specifically designed to run on the R400 acitecture, which would be stupid becase they would loose half of the entire game population that have Nvidia cards.

P4 2.6c@3, OCZ DDR533
Abit IC7-Max3, BFG 6800 GT@391/1060
Baracuda 7200.7 120 GB SATA
Lian-Li PC-65 Case, SyncMaster 700nf
3DMark2003 Score - 11700

priyajeet · Aug 27, 2004

we cannot speculate anything yet. Those stress test will be pretty much the same as the final game. Reason of giving out earlier is for people to realize of what they can expect with their cards.

Apart from that, Anandtech shows a healthy competioin with the top3 Nvidia cards and the top 3 ATI cards. Valve may not be so biased after all, though they did blame Nvidia for creating shitty stuff in their 1st ever HL2 test where 9800 fu**ks the Nvidia counterparts. Also after that Valve had commneted on making the game faster on Nvidia. They still have forced FX users not to use DX9, but who knows the reason (perf might drop) but that can be overridden in the game.

 :evil:

Futile is resistance, assimilate you we will. :evil:

Hard work has a future payoff. Laziness pays off now.

eden · Aug 28, 2004

Dude PLEASE, PLEASE use more spacing in your "only" paragraph. Divide the whole thing when you write too much. That was bad on the eyes. 😱

--
<A HREF="http://www.lochel.com/THGC/album.php" target="_new">The THGC Photo Album revision Eden, faster updated than ever before!</A>

eden · Aug 28, 2004

where ids determination of the similar kind !

iD programmed with what was best out there. I still do think the NV40 is superior in technology over the X800, and iD's powerful programmers including Carmack probably did their very best in shadow occlusion/clipping. Unfortunately for ATi, the Ultra Shadow II technology is simply way too powerful a feature right now. I really wouldn't think iD's at fault here. Hell, Valve didn't really make sure nVidia or ATi had any advantage nor one ran better than the other. They said it before, Gabe hated writing specific codepaths to a product line (ex: NV30) and thus probably adopted a more general codepath.

With that, both products can perform very well. Really, the only reason the FXs sucked in HL2 was because they had a problematic architecture in terms of decoding and executing. Give them proper execution of DX9 code, and they would likely run as fast as the R3xx serie. Hence why I think here Valve only programmed generally (and made sure they did it as compatible and efficient for both architectures as possible) and the result was a game that modern graphics cards from both manufacturers will run perfectly well and fairly equally.

--
<A HREF="http://www.lochel.com/THGC/album.php" target="_new">The THGC Photo Album revision Eden, faster updated than ever before!</A>Edited by Eden on 08/28/04 07:37 PM.

pauldh · Aug 30, 2004

FiringSquad now has their 5th HL2/SOurce article in recent days. I am totally impressed by how thorough they are with this. Lots more screenshots as well as HL2 & CS:Source benchies. Anyway, have a look-see <A HREF="http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/geforce_fx_half-life2/default.asp" target="_new">HERE</A>.

Valve has helped them in forcing the FX cards to run in DX9. And according to the screenshots of the rock walls, it definatelty worked.

So for all who didn't believe Valve's comments on abysmal FX performance in DX9 as reason for running them in DX8/8.1, read it and weep. The talks that Valve has poured more into optimizing for ATI cards is rediculous, as they have made it clear that extra time has been spent on the FX cards compared to ones that can run the standard DX9 codepath.

Note, the FX performance is cut in half going from DX8.1 to DX9. FX owners/fans should be extremely thankful for Valves extra time spent coding for, and in the end DX8 default settings as otherwise your gameplay would suck.

EDIT: Sorry just had to add fuel to the fire of recent FX5700U>R9600XT claims popping up. Note the R9600XT has 2-3 times the performance of the FX5700U in DX9, in both HL2 VST and CS:Source.

Can't ya just imagine NV's PR team brainstorming on official responses as we speak? Think they might switch talks to the 6800 and downplay the FX's?

ABIT IS7, P4 2.6C, 1GB Corsair XMS 4000 Pro Series, Radeon 9800 Pro, Santa Cruz, TruePower 430wattEdited by pauldh on 08/30/04 10:23 AM.

pauldh · Aug 30, 2004

One more thought to add. It seems that any review of HL2 once it's released, that includes last generation cards, MUST show performance in both DX8 and DX9 paths, or it will be a worthless review. Just running a handful of cards at default settings is missing the whole picture of what is going on. This will not be necessary for the X800/6800 battle (with a R9800XT for thrown in for reference). But put an GF FX in the review, prepare to spend alot more time running benchies and explaining screenies.

ABIT IS7, P4 2.6C, 1GB Corsair XMS 4000 Pro Series, Radeon 9800 Pro, Santa Cruz, TruePower 430watt

priyajeet · Aug 30, 2004

look at <A HREF="http://www.thankyouvalve.com/" target="_new">this</A>

let some geforce fx guys post there.

 :evil:

Futile is resistance, assimilate you we will. :evil:

Hard work has a future payoff. Laziness pays off now.Edited by priyajeet on 08/30/04 01:05 PM.

pauldh · Aug 31, 2004

They should. Imagine if their cards defaulted to DX9, and FX5950 owners were seeing 1/2 the framerates of Radeon 9600XT owners.

But, I'll hold my thanks off until the game is actually on the shelves.

ABIT IS7, P4 2.6C, 1GB Corsair XMS 4000 Pro Series, Radeon 9800 Pro, Santa Cruz, TruePower 430watt

priyajeet · Aug 31, 2004

A few goodies seen <A HREF="http://www.halflife2.net/forums/showthread.php?t=35325" target="_new">here</A>

 :evil:

Futile is resistance, assimilate you we will. :evil:

Hard work has a future payoff. Laziness pays off now.

HL2 Video Stress Test

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