For everyone wanting to play HL2/D3 (video related)

[anomaly]

Just some info.
HL2 will have environment based on real-time Sub D. Meaning everything can be deformed and changed in real-time. No cards on the market, read 9800 Pro/5900 Ultra, are able to do this well. It's going to be insanely hard to do.
D3 will have real-time lighting. Which while easier to rend then real-time Sub D, is still going to be VERY taxing.
The reason I bring these 2 things up is I see alot of questions about 'will X card play hl2/d3 well?' The answer is, sort of. No one knows for ceartin how they will play as both are still in alpha stages. The engines will take more tweaking, and both the 9800P/5900U are fairly new cards so their driver sets will mature.

 

[ironique]

Apparently, 650MB leaked HL2 vid that was on the net some time back was run on a dell XPS system - 3.0C + 9800Pro. It seemed to play pretty smoothly! However I notice that Aniso was either not enabled or was set to a very low value, coz in the driving section using the buggy, the road appears blurry further away in the distance. I wonder what rez it was being played at? Oh well, only time will tell what it plays like.

 

[Schadenfroh]

this is why i am waiting to upgrade my video card the same day Doom3 comes out. will nv40 be out in time for doom3?

 

[ironique]

Possibly Schad, rumours are that its taped out already. If that's the case, then it may be in stores for Christmas, but I don't know about Doom3. I did read at tomshardware that id software will be releasing demos for both doom3 and Quake4 at QuakeCon 2003 in August. I wouldn't side with any GPU manufacturer just yet. There's stillplenty of time to develope drivers and better GPU acrhitectures to handle upcoming games. Though nVidia cards may be outperformaing ATI cards in Doom3 Alpha benches right now, things could easilychange in a matter of months. Which, of course, is better for only one person - the consumer! ATI cards are often better priced.

 

[Confused]

Just think, how long did it take for graphics cards to take full advantage of all the features and be able to run at 16x12 with 4xAA 16xAF for Quake 3?

I'm sure you can find many reviews of Quake3 when it came out which showed the top of the line cards then struggling at high resolutions and details, and that's without even thinking of AA/AF!

It took at least a few generations of cards, and we have only seen in the last year or so cards that can do that at a speed which people want, which is not dropping below a certain FPS, such as 85FPS.


I reckon it will be at least 2-3 years before people can play HL2 and D3 in these kind of settings. The top of the line cards now are fast, there's no denying it, but you will have to turn some of the details and the resolution down.


Confused

 

[FluxCap]

I think the 5900 Ultra and 9800 Pro will run Half Life 2 very, very smoothly. If not, you will have a lot of pissed off people. I think with my 9800 Pro I should be able to run all options on and 1280 res with 60+ frames per second.

 

[kylebisme]

the whole games are still alpha but the engines are bound to be pretty well polished at this point and both companies are intelgent enough to avoid relaseing a poorly preforming game. granted no one is going to be able to crank everything in game and drivers to high for a while, but i would lay money down that even a geforce3 could pull reasonably above 30fp at 1024x768 and default/medum detail.

 

[FluxCap]

Yeah, Valve is a lot smarter than that. I doubt they would claim it could run on a 700mhz like they have and have it run poorly. Not going to happen.

Also, in case some of you have forgotten Half Life will be out in 83 days, that isn't long at all !!!

 

[NicColt]

Though nVidia cards may be outperformaing ATI cards in Doom3 Alpha benches right now

c'mon this is bs you didn't need to say that.... nvidia was basically allowed to cheat... eh I mean "optimize" their drivers on the only recent official D3 demo for which ATI was not even invited to nor didn't even have access to, numbers published on a website that's obviously full of pork and beans. So please avoid the fud packing until independent trusted websites can have an unbiased crack at it.

 

[Corporate Thug]

ID and whoever makes HL2 (sierra??) whould be REAL stupid to release a game that people with 9800/5900 can run. thats what, 5% of the market at best? i'm willing to wager that by the time the two game hit the shelves, anyone with a 9500 pro or better w/ a 2.0Ghz processor will be able to run them quite easily

 

[rbV5]

HL2 will have environment based on real-time Sub D. Meaning everything can be deformed and changed in real-time. No cards on the market, read 9800 Pro/5900 Ultra, are able to do this well

Hmmmm...
The game is powered by Valve's in-house developed graphics engine, called Source. The specs of the graphics engine sound very impressive, and Half-Life 2 is sure to give Doom 3 a run for its money. Even more impressive is the scalability of this engine - while to take full advantage of it an Athlon 2Ghz with a GeForce 4 will be needed, the game will be able to run on a P3-700 powered by a DX6 compatible video card.
Link
With all of these considerable graphical upgrades, we were pleased to hear that the minimum system specs are currently targeted at a 700 MHz PC with 128 MB RAM and a DX6-level video card, meaning you won't need a NASA supercomputer to run Half-Life 2. Of course, you'll want to have something better to fully reap the benefits of the new tech, but gamers who haven't upgraded in a while shouldn't have to worry about breaking their budget.
Link

Requirements seem pretty straight forward to me.

 

[Corporate Thug]

Originally posted by: rbV5

HL2 will have environment based on real-time Sub D. Meaning everything can be deformed and changed in real-time. No cards on the market, read 9800 Pro/5900 Ultra, are able to do this well

Hmmmm...
The game is powered by Valve's in-house developed graphics engine, called Source. The specs of the graphics engine sound very impressive, and Half-Life 2 is sure to give Doom 3 a run for its money. Even more impressive is the scalability of this engine - while to take full advantage of it an Athlon 2Ghz with a GeForce 4 will be needed, the game will be able to run on a P3-700 powered by a DX6 compatible video card.
Link
With all of these considerable graphical upgrades, we were pleased to hear that the minimum system specs are currently targeted at a 700 MHz PC with 128 MB RAM and a DX6-level video card, meaning you won't need a NASA supercomputer to run Half-Life 2. Of course, you'll want to have something better to fully reap the benefits of the new tech, but gamers who haven't upgraded in a while shouldn't have to worry about breaking their budget.
Link

Requirements seem pretty straight forward to me.

that sounds much more realistic and a lot smarter

 

[Confused]

Quake 3:

Minimum System Requirements - PC.

* 3-D Hardware Accelerator with full OpenGL® support
* Pentium II® 300 Mhz or AMD® 350 Mhz K6®-2 processor or Athlon® processor
* Windows 95/98/ME/NT 4.0/2000 operating system
* 64 MB RAM
* 16 MB video card
* 440 MB of uncompressed hard disk space for each game
* 110MB of free hard drive space for the Windows swap file (in addition to install space)
* A 100% Windows® 95/98/ME/NT 4.0/2000-compatible computer system (including compatible 32-bit drivers for CD-ROM drive , video card, sound card and input devices)
* 100% DirectX 3.0 or higher compatible sound card
* 100% Microsof-compatible mouse and driver
* Quad-speed CD-ROM drive (600 K/sec. sustained transfer rate)


Yes, Quake3 will run on that rig. Will it be pretty? No. Will it be fast? No. Will you be able to have the details turned to high? No. Will you be able to run it at a higher res than 640x480? No.


That was their previous engine, and we all know that it took a LONG time before we had computers and graphics cards that could take full advantage of that engine. It would be stupid for id and Valve to make it run at full speed on today's latest hardware, as these are the game engines for the next 3-4 years. Games are what push computer speeds up, and if we have an engine that doesn't need newer cards/computers to play them faster, then I feel that this may be the end of needing faster graphics cards.


It is in our interests for these game engines from Valve and id to require the computer hardware to be pushed forward, so that we, the enthusiasts, will have better hardware for the future.

I personally hope that I can't play these at much more than 1024x768 with medium details on my rig (AXP @ 2.1GHz, GF4Ti4200) so that I can have something to look forward to in the future, which is hardware that I can increase the res and details and have it more playable.


Confused

 

[FluxCap]

Well, since I just purchased the highest end video card on the market with only 82 days before the game comes out I will be expecting a little more With the next generation of hardware I expect to hit higher than 1280 res. If I can only play HL2 in 1152 then that is still acceptable, but I will probably hope for no less than all the eye candy turned on.

 

[rbV5]

while to take full advantage of it an Athlon 2Ghz with a GeForce 4 will be needed

 

[ironique]

I think it will take a while for GPUs to fully utilize these new engines but I don't think it'll take as long as it took to fully utilize the potential in the Q3 engine. The rate at which GPU developement is moving right now is a lot faster than back then. I mean, the doom3 engine is a new engine, and already we have cards running this engine above the baseline 30fps @ 1280x1024 with AA & Aniso. Keeping in mind that it's an alpha version that isn't optimized, i'd say in under 2 years before we see fps' of 100 in games built on this engine. But thats just my opinion, and its subject to debate.

 

[BoomAM]

Originally posted by: anomaly
Just some info.
HL2 will have environment based on real-time Sub D. Meaning everything can be deformed and changed in real-time. No cards on the market, read 9800 Pro/5900 Ultra, are able to do this well. It's going to be insanely hard to do.
D3 will have real-time lighting. Which while easier to rend then real-time Sub D, is still going to be VERY taxing.
The reason I bring these 2 things up is I see alot of questions about 'will X card play hl2/d3 well?' The answer is, sort of. No one knows for ceartin how they will play as both are still in alpha stages. The engines will take more tweaking, and both the 9800P/5900U are fairly new cards so their driver sets will mature.

The version of HL2 run at E3 was ran on a 9800pro 256mb . And it seemed amazingly smooth.
Valve said that the game would scale well.
The Deformation effects, i got the impression that they were a key part of the gameplay, so considering that the game is ment to scale, it`ll run well on most systems.
There are several games that allow terrain deformation in real time at the moment and even todays "budget" cards run them fine.
I was under the impression that terrain deformation of that scale was done primarily by the host CPU, and not the video card.

Speculation like this is pointless. You are bacing the performance of a game on the deformation capibilites of an engine that we`ve never seen running propely. From what ive seen off the 600mb E3 video, the deformation effects are scripted. The terrain ones anyway, and they are the ones that you say are hard to render. And why would they be hard to render, its just a few hundred polygons raising up or down. Practically every video card today is capible of shifting polygons in the hundreds of millions.

 

[Regs]

anomaly, you do not make a game that only works on 1 video card. These games are still beta and nothing has been optimized. If HL2 is taxing on a 9800 pro, then I don't imagine many people buying this game. It doesn't sound logical, more like another rumor by tech geeks who always have to have super computers.

 

[BoomAM]

Originally posted by: FluxCap
I think the 5900 Ultra and 9800 Pro will run Half Life 2 very, very smoothly. If not, you will have a lot of pissed off people. I think with my 9800 Pro I should be able to run all options on and 1280 res with 60+ frames per second.

Im hoping that it does. IMO, i think it will, cos it doesnt look the most complex of games.

Originally posted by: shady06
ID and whoever makes HL2 (sierra??) whould be REAL stupid to release a game that people with 9800/5900 can run. thats what, 5% of the market at best? i'm willing to wager that by the time the two game hit the shelves, anyone with a 9500 pro or better w/ a 2.0Ghz processor will be able to run them quite easily

Valve makes HL2. I`d say thats a good estimate, and thats probably for 1024x768@max, at least, and with a bit of AF.

Originally posted by: rbV5

HL2 will have environment based on real-time Sub D. Meaning everything can be deformed and changed in real-time. No cards on the market, read 9800 Pro/5900 Ultra, are able to do this well

Hmmmm...
The game is powered by Valve's in-house developed graphics engine, called Source. The specs of the graphics engine sound very impressive, and Half-Life 2 is sure to give Doom 3 a run for its money. Even more impressive is the scalability of this engine - while to take full advantage of it an Athlon 2Ghz with a GeForce 4 will be needed, the game will be able to run on a P3-700 powered by a DX6 compatible video card.
Link
With all of these considerable graphical upgrades, we were pleased to hear that the minimum system specs are currently targeted at a 700 MHz PC with 128 MB RAM and a DX6-level video card, meaning you won't need a NASA supercomputer to run Half-Life 2. Of course, you'll want to have something better to fully reap the benefits of the new tech, but gamers who haven't upgraded in a while shouldn't have to worry about breaking their budget.
Link

Requirements seem pretty straight forward to me.

The performance killer for every graphics card today, is complex shadowing. Practically every card out can deform terrain without slowdown, its the shadows that gfx cards struggle with, thats why Doom3 will be far more intensive than HL2 on gfx cards.

 

[Regs]

The performance killer for every graphics card today, is complex shadowing. Practically every card out can deform terrain without slowdown, its the shadows that gfx cards struggle with, thats why Doom3 will be far more intensive than HL2 on gfx cards

Maybe Doom 3 will have shawdow detail options like MOHAA or even C&C generals?

 

[FluxCap]

Maybe Doom 3 will have shawdow detail options like MOHAA or even C&C generals?

Speaking of Generals, I now can run it in 1280x960 with full details and it is like watching a mini-war from a chopper

I like this card more and more every day.

 

[anomaly]

If you look at what I originally said, I said it will run, but it remains to be seen on how good. All of my friends who work in rendering/pixle shading say the games are going to be very very hard on even the best computers. Im sure the games will run on the lowest system specs, but they will be at 640x480 and low everything.

 

[BoomAM]

Originally posted by: anomaly
If you look at what I originally said, I said it will run, but it remains to be seen on how good. All of my friends who work in rendering/pixle shading say the games are going to be very very hard on even the best computers. Im sure the games will run on the lowest system specs, but they will be at 640x480 and low everything.

If they are into "industry" rendering and shading, then that is significantly different to game rendering/shading. The type of rendering/shading that your friends probably do is vastly different to a computer games way of doing it. They probably have to render/shade it, and then that gets made into a presentation video or something, where as rendering/shading in a computer game has to be scaleable and have different settings. There is a vast difference between the two.
You are trying to make out that it`ll run like sh1t, when it wont. They said it will be scaleable. And none of us here, apart from you, doubt this.
I think that there is a very good chance that it`ll be like HL1, performance wise, it`ll run on practically every reasonably modern system out.

 

[Regs]

Originally posted by: FluxCap

Maybe Doom 3 will have shawdow detail options like MOHAA or even C&C generals?

Speaking of Generals, I now can run it in 1280x960 with full details and it is like watching a mini-war from a chopper

I like this card more and more every day.

Generals was taxing on my video card lol . I may have some software related issues, but units easily get stuck in spots making the game lag to hell and gone.