Possible HL2 tweak for NVidiots

priyajeet

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This news can be found on steam forums and on [H].

<b><i><font color=blue>some guys on Guru3d figured out what Valve did to cripple nVidia cards.

First off, you need 3dAnalyze. I'm assuming everyone knows that you can force HL2 to run in DX9 mode on FX cards, right? Only, you get artifacts in the water and other areas?

Well, that's pretty easy to fix. Just have the 3dAnalyze util report your card as an ATI Radeon instead of a GeForce FX.

*taddah* All the artifacts go away, and you get true DX9 reflections!

Okay, but there IS a performance hit doing that. How to get around that?

Well, the funny thing is that Valve coded Half-Life 2 to use FP24 shaders all the time every time. And it's really not needed. Nope. In fact, FP16 seems to do the trick all the time - as seen in that above pic. FP16 and FP24 are indistinguishable in Half-Life 2.

Again, using 3dAnalyze you can test this. It is capable of forcing a card to use only FP16 shaders no matter what is requested. You'll see no image quality difference doing that - just a HUGE performance boost. Why? Well, because while FP16 is all that Half-Life 2 *needs*, if they let the GeForce FX cards do THAT, they might have been competitive! So, instead, they forced FP24 (unneeded), which caused the GF-FX cards to render the DX9 mode in FP32 all the time. With the obvious associated performance hit.</b></i></font color=blue>

<A HREF="http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=838630&page=1&pp=20" target="_new">http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=838630&page=1&pp=20</A>

:tongue: <A HREF="http://www.geocities.com/priyajeet/fing.jpg" target="_new"><i><font color=red>Very funny, Scotty.</font color=red><font color=blue> Now beam down my clothes.</font color=blue></i></A> :tongue:
 

davemar14

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Interesting. Well, Nvidia still conquered that with the GeForce6 series. So there is hope for those people who have 5950's Ultras and were hosed by performance.
 

priyajeet

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Nvidia still conquered that with the GeForce6 series.
conquered what ??

BTW, <A HREF="http://www.valvesoftware.com/C02-1683Z.htm" target="_new">Valve spanked Vivendi with a crowbar.</A> :smile:

<A HREF="http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/half-life-2/569229p1.html" target="_new">http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/half-life-2/569229p1.html</A>

:tongue: <A HREF="http://www.geocities.com/priyajeet/fing.jpg" target="_new"><i><font color=red>Very funny, Scotty.</font color=red><font color=blue> Now beam down my clothes.</font color=blue></i></A> :tongue:
 

addiarmadar

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This tweak should be usefull for the lower end cards like the 5900, 5800, and 5700 cards. The cards should already have this issues done however they still dont do as good as ATI cards.

<i><font color=red>Only an overclocker can make a computer into a convectional oven.</i></font color=red>
 

davemar14

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The GeForce6 series conquered the DirectX 9 problem that the FX series had. Although the 6 series don't beat the ATI's in HL2, they are a lot better. I would say they fixed the problem.
 

addiarmadar

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Is there an echo in here. Kinda swear that is what I posted here. ;-)

<i><font color=red>Only an overclocker can make a computer into a convectional oven.</i></font color=red>
 
PP is a tweak, but like I said in the other thread, I doubt the IQ is the same until someone really looks into it.

The PP fix in FartCry was said to be 'equal' the whole time that [H] had published their artifact list.

The author of that thread can blame valve all they want, but it's the FX that's at fault, and as they learned from Crytek, it doesn't pay to floptimize for the FXs at the expense of the new cards. Also why waste your time when it's simply a benchmarks FPS boost, not an image or gameplay boost?


- You need a licence to buy a gun, but they'll sell anyone a stamp <i>(or internet account)</i> ! - <font color=green>RED </font color=green> <font color=red> GREEN</font color=red> GA to SK :evil:
 

priyajeet

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huh ?
man, you gotta come here, we'll show u what partying is :tongue:

:tongue: <A HREF="http://www.geocities.com/priyajeet/fing.jpg" target="_new"><i><font color=red>Very funny, Scotty.</font color=red><font color=blue> Now beam down my clothes.</font color=blue></i></A> :tongue:
 

priyajeet

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well, i just liked the part where they fool the game to think its an ati card :lol: to get rid of the artifacts.

:tongue: <A HREF="http://www.geocities.com/priyajeet/fing.jpg" target="_new"><i><font color=red>Very funny, Scotty.</font color=red><font color=blue> Now beam down my clothes.</font color=blue></i></A> :tongue:
 
Yeah now that would be interesting to look at.

I wonder if this has to do with the way they coded HL2 to run better on the FX and that it was causing artifacts itself, and when making the device ID a DX8 ATI card, it simply stopped trying to give any DX9 effects to the cards.

I'd love to see computerbase, 3Dcentre, extremetech or the TechReport look into that. They love doing things like this.


- You need a licence to buy a gun, but they'll sell anyone a stamp <i>(or internet account)</i> ! - <font color=green>RED </font color=green> <font color=red> GREEN</font color=red> GA to SK :evil:
 

priyajeet

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Well, ATI did invest $$$ (9-11 million for that coupon deal) in HL2. I was looking at the credits in HL2. special thanks to: DELL, ATi, Alienware, Falcon.

I bet each one of them sent free machines/samples. Falcon still hasnt got that approval yet to sell those sexy looking machines with HL2 artwork.

:tongue: <A HREF="http://www.geocities.com/priyajeet/fing.jpg" target="_new"><i><font color=red>Very funny, Scotty.</font color=red><font color=blue> Now beam down my clothes.</font color=blue></i></A> :tongue:
 

eden

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They can fix the HL2 problem all they want for the FXs, but the fact is, DX 9 HAS problems on the NV3Xs. Look at Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness or any DX9 game running some nice effects. It had been proven too many times the FXs lose easily in DX9 games.

--
<font color=blue>Ede</font color=blue>
 

tennen

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I just read this in an other thread somewere else.
I think the cause for the low performance on the fx5xxx models is that the card use fp16 or fp32. ATI use fp24 and that is what HL2 is supporting. So the fx5 series automatically use fp32 if they should be able to use dx9 mode. That is slower and still not making any diff on the IQ cause HL2 just can handle up to fp24. GF6 series are faster and use the fp32 i a better way. But still thats more than HL2 needs. That is why ATI perform better than Nvidia in HL2. Nvidia has to process more information than is needed for the game.
 

Acert93

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Hi priyajeet.

Some guys on the HL2 forums showed pics of this with serious artifacting. Also a pic on beyond3d.com. While this hack does not ruin the game, it does not seem to give a speed bump over 8.1, only an IQ difference. So the question FX card owners need to ask is can they deal with the artifacting.

Btw, I found the threads on halflife2.net sad... a ton of people slamming Valve saying they intentionally crippled FX cards. :/ The FX cards do 32bit fp slowly, this was well known. If Valve went with "full percision" DX9 (24bit fp) for HL2, it makes sense that the FX cards would have to run in DX8.1. They "could" have used partial percision, but the artifacting is a good indication of why they did not. I do hope more tweaks like this come out for FX users though... they spent good money on their cards.
 
Nvidia has to process more information than is needed for the game.
And same can be argued for D3 if you look as uncritically.

The Fix isn't just FP16, it's also FX12, so I doubt it will look the same to critical eyes. You may think so, but it doesn't mean everyone will think so, and as FartCry proved, not everyone will pick up on the issues until someone like [H] says, hey wait a minute, no it's not the same, looke here.

I don't rely on general impression statement like, it's good enough, or there's no apparent difference, I'll take the Image difference shots for people trying to be critical. This was built with the ATI strengths in mind, just as D3 was built with nV strengths in mind. That FP24 is good enough has almost always been the case, that FP16 is not is also pretty much the case. Whether you buy that or not depends on your personal preferences. FP32 may or may not be overkill, but Valve obviously made their decisions, and like has been said, it's good there's a tweak for nV cards, but it's not a conspiracy, and I doubt it's equal, so benchmarking isn't going to give the results as Valve has decided to set things.


- You need a licence to buy a gun, but they'll sell anyone a stamp <i>(or internet account)</i> ! - <font color=green>RED </font color=green> <font color=red> GREEN</font color=red> GA to SK :evil: