Day of Defeat: Source! Awesome graphics! HDR and all

[Stretchman]

I've been playing DoD on and off for a few years.

I played source today and what can I say....It's good to be back, baby!

Great graphics, sounds, off the wall physics. Very nicely balanced weapons with some new additions. A much need facelift for a venerable engine. So far i'm very impressed and feel it was well worth the wait. Also having a great time with the Call of Duty 2 demo.

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid=33&threadid=1698487

 

[Avalon]

Need more reviews on how fun the game is, less on how good it looks.

 

[Polish3d]

It is fun, it's also hard ... really the graphics should be enjoyed as something truly beyond anything else seen so far imo.

Compared to BF2?

Well, tough to say... after getting into DOD-S, BF2 is not as fun and feels much less visceral. (When you get shot in DOD-S you fking feel it.)

But BF2 is still pretty damn fun, not sure if DOD-S beats it since you can use vehicles and the maps are much bigger. I wish the maps in DOD-S were bigger but I also prefer the large maps in BF2 to the urban ones.

 

[Avalon]

I went and loaded up DoD:S just to give it a peek. A little Plan of Attack experiences meant I could actually kill things! Not bad. The game runs amazingly smooth on my 6600 @ 350/625 with all details high at 10x7 2xAF w/HDR. At least, I think HDR was on. It was certainly enabled in my options menu. This reminds me of how low my 6600 is clocked. I should push it further for giggles.

 

[nombrecinq]

Hmm so an x800xl is pretty wimpy now? I have one I just bought but haven't used yet. Maybe I'll eBay it and get a newer ATI card? Whadda ya think?

 

[Avalon]

Originally posted by: nombrecinq
Hmm so an x800xl is pretty wimpy now? I have one I just bought but haven't used yet. Maybe I'll eBay it and get a newer ATI card? Whadda ya think?

Nothing better for you to buy at the moment, unless you want to fork over an extra $100-$150 for 10% performance increases you'll find in the X850XT. I'd keep it. It's a great card. If you really want something better, sell the XL and buy a 7800GT for $350. Sure, it'll be as much as a difference as the X850XT, but it will be a much better card.

 

[nombrecinq]

Yeah but what about the new ATI cards coming out?

 

[Polish3d]

No one knows, wait and see they'll be here soon

 

[dvinnen]

Amazing game. Just got done playing for a few hours. Game was is easly best looking on the market with HDR (turned everything to high and made a server). For online play I turned everything to low (have a 9700pro, my x800xt arrives in 2 days) and it still looked great and got a smooth 65 FPS. As a counter-strike player regular DoD always frustrated me (to much camping) but the changes they made seem to speed up the game. Only complant is the k98 is hard as hell to kill with now. No longer 1 shot kill and no side arm to finish them off. Not that it would matter, your better off shoveling someone then try and hit them with the crappy pistols.

Anyways, fun fast paced game which easly has the best graphics on the market. Might finally found game to replace 1.6.

 

[Polish3d]

Agreed, I still think Valve raises the bar for what should be expected from game developers... no more half assed 'rely-on-hardware to make it look good' release early 50 patches short crap...

A good engine is just as good as having a good video card in terms of the end result

 

[5150Joker]

Ok the OP was way over exaggerating when he said the graphics are better than BF2. First of all, CoD 2 kills this game in graphics, scenery, gameplay and effects; the same is true for BF2. This game is nice but it's just like CSS except based on WWII weapons with some abysmal looking HDR thrown in.

 

[M0RPH]

I've only seen the screenshots that someone linked to earlier, but if that's a good indication of what the graphics look like then I have to agree with Joker. They are not as detailed as BF2. Especially the character models.

 

[Polish3d]

Originally posted by: 5150Joker
Ok the OP was way over exaggerating when he said the graphics are better than BF2. First of all, CoD 2 kills this game in graphics, scenery, gameplay and effects; the same is true for BF2. This game is nice but it's just like CSS except based on WWII weapons with some abysmal looking HDR thrown in.

Hahahaha

Whatever man, its your opinion then just as my post is mine.

Clothing on BF2 models are better, face is better in DOD-S

And the rest? I'm a huge Battlefield 2 fan but no way do the buildings, ground, water, foliage, smoke, etc etc look better in BF2... and I LOVE the HDR


And to say CoD kills in graphics is just stupid in my opinion.. I'd say CoD is about 80% as good

Play the game morph at full settings

 

[Polish3d]

Maybe you guys aren't running it right.

On my 2005FPW with all settings as high as they can go it looks like I'm in a damn moving photograph much of the time ... BF2 does not look like that almost ever

 

[M0RPH]

Screenshots of HDR off vs on.

Does anyone actually think the HDR shots look better? The blooming is overdone IMO.

 

[ITPaladin]

What is HDR?

 

[Powermoloch]

High dynamic range? Hot dirty rags? Heavenly disco rammers?

 

[MegaWorks]

I have HDR with my X800 Pro.

 

[MegaWorks]

Everything is at high.
HDR on.

1024X768

AA 4X, AF 16X

AMD Athlon XP T-Bred B DLT3C 1700+ @ 2300MHz
ABIT NF7-S V.2
512 MB of Corsair TwinX XMS 3200LL @ 2-3-2-6 (2.6v)
ATI Radeon X800 Pro 256MB
Western Digital WD Raptor 74.0 GB @ 10000 RPMS
17'' NEC MultiSync 77F

Result: ~30FPS

 

[Polish3d]

I think it looks great personally, you can't take the most dramatic and brightest HDR shots as an example anyway. And it has to be seen in motion to be appreciated and judged

 

[Polish3d]

Call of Duty II also is a really fine looking game, its not as complete DODS imo but there is a real cinematic quality about it when the battles are raging intensely

However, DOD-S again looks almost indistinguishable from a moving photograph very often, and incredible overall all the time. Never a cheesy texture or something fake looking, the only real weak point are the character models

But just explore one of the maps, its incredible

 

[Genx87]

Originally posted by: M0RPH
Screenshots of HDR off vs on.

Does anyone actually think the HDR shots look better? The blooming is overdone IMO.

It looks a little overdone on the first Anzio pic but otherwise not bad. Definately better than Farcry's implementation.

There is a fine line between not doing enough and overdoing HDR IMO.
From the screenshots I have seen so far. I would say Valve managed to find that fine line in 99% of situations.

I would have bought this lastnight but was watching the LSU\Tenn game and then went to bed. Ill try it out tonight. I have been playing Day of Defeat since the first beta. Fun game and it is really cool to see it evolve

 

[Crescent13]

Originally posted by: ViRGE
Humm, I can't get HDR to turn on for my X800 Pro.

The only cards that support HDR are the

6600
6600GT (mine)
6800
6800GT
6800Ultra
7800GT
78000GTX

 

[SynthDude2001]

Originally posted by: buck

Originally posted by: SynthDude2001

Originally posted by: buck
Im very bummed that my x800xl runs so crappy, i have to turn alot of stuff down and i still get crappy fps in all servers i have tried. 30 fps using the 1280xwhatever widescreen res.

I'm getting about 30fps (as far as I can tell...I haven't actually turned the fps counter on to be sure), but it's at 1680x1050, 4x/8x, full HDR, high everything...so it could be worse.

Edit: 6800GT @ Ultra speeds on a 2.4GHz AXP here.

Uhhgggg, lucky you. Are you satisfied with the FPS?

It's a lot lower than I get in HL2 I think, but the graphics are somewhat nicer so it's not too bad. It's playable, at least...I could probably tweak it more, but then again I like playing with all settings maxed out.

Edit: And I really do like the HDR effect...I don't think it's overdone either. It seems pretty realistic, as far as what your eyes might see when going between bright and dark areas. (Oh, and for what it's worth, I didn't see much of an FPS change when I enabled/disabled HDR. It seemed kinda choppy ~30fps even with HDR off...maybe I do need to take a look at why [/i])

 

[SynthDude2001]

Originally posted by: Crescent13

Originally posted by: ViRGE
Humm, I can't get HDR to turn on for my X800 Pro.

The only cards that support HDR are the

6600
6600GT (mine)
6800
6800GT
6800Ultra
7800GT
78000GTX

Those are the only cards that support "Full" HDR so far, yes. But I believe any DX9 card can do the simpler "Bloom" option.