HALF LIFE 2 CONSOLIDATION THREAD

[AssyrianKing]

Athlon 64 3500+ (2.2ghz, 0.13nm)
ASUS A8V Deluxe
1GB DDR PC3700 OCZ EB DC Platinum (2x512)
GeForce 6800Ultra (425/1000, 66.93 Driver)

Everything on max settings with 4xAA + 8xAF @ 1280*1024

at_c17_12 = 60.94 fps 3.707 fps variability

at_canals_08 = 75.03 fps 6.046 fps variability

at_coast_05 = 87.43 fps 10.764 fps variability

at_coast_12 = 82.22 fps 7.258 fps variability

at_prison_05 = 88.93 fps 6.795 fps variability

overall average = 78.91

 

[Rent]

AMD64 3400 (currently @ 2.4ghz)
MSI K8N Neo Plat.
1gb Corsair XMS PC3200 (2.5-3-3-10)
BFG 6800Ultra (440/1.2) running 67.02 drivers, default settings

All demos were run at 1600x1200 0xAA/8xAF - Half-Life settings were all set to high using reflect all.

AT_C17_12 - 64.1 fps
AT_Coast_05 - 99.21 fps
AT_Coast_12 - 83.28 fps
AT_Canals_08 - 77.6 fps
AT_Prison_05 - 86.45 fps

For sh!ts and giggles, I ran the HardOCP timedemos as well (at above mentioned settings).

Hardocptimedemo_canals01 - 98.91 fps
Hardocptimedemo_coast03 - 85.91 fps

So all in all, I'm pretty happy. I'm bottlenecked by my CPU, but not terribly.

 

[Icepick]

Guys, I heard a rumour that Half Life 2 has been optimized for the ATI Radeon video cards (much like how Doom3 was optimized for nVidia). Futhermore, it is rumored that they are going to release additional levels for Half Life 2 that will ONLY be playable on ATI video cards? Can anyone confirm or deny this? Thanks!

 

[Keysplayr]

Originally posted by: icepik
Guys, I heard a rumour that Half Life 2 has been optimized for the ATI Radeon video cards (much like how Doom3 was optimized for nVidia). Futhermore, it is rumored that they are going to release additional levels for Half Life 2 that will ONLY be playable on ATI video cards? Can anyone confirm or deny this? Thanks!

The first part is true. However, the second part is absolute BS.

 

[LocutusX]

was it really "optimized" for ATI, or merely written to use extensive DX9 shaders which people seemed to equate to "optimizing for ATI" about a year or so ago?

 

[Keysplayr]

Originally posted by: LocutusX
was it really "optimized" for ATI, or merely written to use extensive DX9 shaders which people seemed to equate to "optimizing for ATI" about a year or so ago?

Do you really believe that? Or are you just playing devil's advocate?

The general concensus is that Doom3 was designed on and made to run like butter on Nvidia hardware.
The general concensus also says HL2 was designed to run better on ATI hardware. Judging from all of the Doom3 and HL2 benchmarks from tons of review sites, I would tend to agree with the general concensus and not dig any deeper for any hidden meaning of life.

 

[LocutusX]

For Doom3, you are probably right - also when considering various statements JC has made.

For HL2 OTOH, I think Valve just used ATI's "help" to create a DX9-compliant shader-based game... they fell into the habit of calling it "optimized for ATI" because they weren't expecting the GF 6800 (most of these statements were made before details of the NV40 were widely known, AFAIK?). Once the 6800 is released, they see they have a game which was originally "optimized for ATI" (on account of DX9 shaders) but also ends up playing very well on NV's current-gen part since it has excellent DX9 compliance and shader performance (relatively speaking). But various unknown-to-us business agreements require them to keep up their marketing line... does this make any sense?

 

[Keysplayr]

Originally posted by: LocutusX
For Doom3, you are probably right - also when considering various statements JC has made.

For HL2 OTOH, I think Valve just used ATI's "help" to create a DX9-compliant shader-based game... they fell into the habit of calling it "optimized for ATI" because they weren't expecting the GF 6800 (most of these statements were made before details of the NV40 were widely known, AFAIK?). Once the 6800 is released, they see they have a game which was originally "optimized for ATI" (on account of DX9 shaders) but also ends up playing very well on NV's current-gen part since it has excellent DX9 compliance and shader performance (relatively speaking). But various unknown-to-us business agreements require them to keep up their marketing line... does this make any sense?

It would make sense. But, the reality of it is, you could be right, or the general consensus could be right, or we all could be dead wrong about everything and not know what the heck we are talking about which is more likely. As soon as someone uses the words "I think", to me that's just speculative observation and that someone is trying to put together an answer by using dozens of pieces of information that may or may not be accurate. So to make this already long comment shorter, we don't really know squat except for what we are fed.

 

[LocutusX]

Yeah, pretty much. It's just a way to pass time.

But this rumor: "Futhermore, it is rumored that they are going to release additional levels for Half Life 2 that will ONLY be playable on ATI video cards? Can anyone confirm or deny this?"

That's like the tenth time I've heard it. Who started it? It's just so bizarre. How can you "lock" levels for a particular *video card*?

 

[JBT]

I just ran these demo's a few minutes ago
I'm using the 67.02 drivers
Force Trilinear Mips but the rest of the opts are on

1152 x 864 @ 4X AA, 8X AF High setting for everything, Reflect world

c17_12 65.86 FPS 4.090 var

The weird thing about this one is it was pegged at 66 pretty much the entire demo according to Net_graph 1

canals_08 96.81 FPS 8.769 var

coast_05 105.58 FPS 7.695 var

coast_12 93.45 FPS 6.37 var

prison_05 108.23 FPS 7.114 var

All done with the Rig in my sig.

EDIT: Decided to see how my system compared to Anand's using the same settings as he. 1280 x 1024 0XAA 0X AF with Trilinear for filtering

c17 65.44FPS 5.822 var hmm still that 66FPS bug....

canals_08 101.46 FPS 9.37 var

coast_05 103.31 FPS 9.156 var

coast_12 96.97 FPS 6.321 var

prison_05 111.35 FPS 8.118 var

All in all it seems like something is messed up with this benchmark... I can't get anything remotely close to his scores and these are barely at all highier than my other benchmarks with 4XAA and 8xAF even with the resolution turned down just a tad.... I'm not sure what is wrong but I don't think it was a PBCAK, it is a possibility though lol.

 

[JBT]

Originally posted by: LocutusX
Yeah, pretty much. It's just a way to pass time.

But this rumor: "Futhermore, it is rumored that they are going to release additional levels for Half Life 2 that will ONLY be playable on ATI video cards? Can anyone confirm or deny this?"

That's like the tenth time I've heard it. Who started it? It's just so bizarre. How can you "lock" levels for a particular *video card*?

I'm pretty sure it said HIGH END cards not JUST ATI's specifically and even IF they were to do this which they would be stupid to do someone should easily be able to crack them for NV cards.

 

[toNka64]

Where can i download these anandtech time demos?
the *.dem files?