Half-life 2 is out (and CS:Source)

[GoOB 0]

Oh, and I have a confession to make... I'm starting to like CS:S! Too bad it's the same maps as the original CS though! I really love rushing with my entire team as CT in CS_Office.

It's not CS2. It's exactly what it says it is - Counter Strike using the Source engine.

Kinda threw me off too. I'm waiting for DoD2 now.

Yes, I know this. Never claimed it to be anything else than that either But what one would THINK that something as insignificant (yet quite significant in terms of extended gameplay value) as a new map or two could have been made by Valve. I guess community made maps will become more popular, however.

One thing about CS:S though, it fails to intrigue me for more than 30 minutes at a time. Which is about two maps, or one sometimes.

EDIT: Yes, DoD2 would be sweet! Something like RO in the Source engine would be extremly cool! Imagine being able to pile up things to make cover in open streets and setting up MG nests.

[brgnorway 0]

Hmm...what kind of system do you guys run Half-life 2 on?

[drow 0]

Commodor 64

[brgnorway 0]

Commodor 64  

.......you don't say - and all the time I believed I had to get hold of an old Atari?

Never mind - I can find it out myself!

[Milkman 1]

Hmm...what kind of system do you guys run Half-life 2 on?

Athlon XP2600+

Radeon 9800pro 256mb

1GB DDR400 RAM

Gigabyte GA-7N400Pro

120GB Western Digital HD 7200rpm

Windows 2000 SP4

Running Highest Quality on everything, 25-60fps ingame.

Quote[/b] ]Interesting read. Contains Spoilers:

Colossus kind of beat you to it by... five posts.

But yeah. It's a good read.

Meh I should pay attention more.

[Baphomet 0]

Halflife 2 needs singleplayer svencoop style grunt spawn maps.

The kind that have no real specific goal. They're more or less a grunt killing fest that you can jump right into.

I've become quite engrossed in the HL2 single player game, however I really would like to see some quick and simple maps that you can jump right into and start shooting. Especially now with the improved ai. It should make things a lot more interesting.

Being as that halflife 2 is so new and there are so many features that haven't been used to their fullest potential. It's really got me interested to see how creative people will get.

Personally I'd love to see a crow hunting map. Or a starship troopers style antlion invasion.

Hm. I found an interesting article that provides sigificant proof that Valve didn't simply optimize Halflife 2 for ATI cards. They actually crippled Nvidia functionality to give a percieved advantage. Valve is becoming more and more a shady ass company.

I hope BIS never sinks to this level.

http://www.hardforum.com/showthr....=838630

The defence

Quote[/b] ]The problem is that DX9 requires FP24. Since the FX can do 16 or 32, it has to do 32, which kills the performance. The hack makes the Source engine render in FP16 which is not DX9 spec. Complaining that Valve stuck to the DX9 spec and saying they suck is stupid. The problem is not with Valve. It is with the hardware of the FX cards. Same goes with the D3 engine on ATi cards.

The rebuttal

Quote[/b] ]Uh, actually DX9 does allow FP16 as part of the spec for PS2.0 (_pp = partial precision, which is what 3D-Analyze is forcing): http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/d...iers_ps_2_0.asp

nvidia will probably just force the option in future drivers anyways through app detection. Nice trick to see though and interesting that Valve intentionally tanked performance.

Good to see there's some quick witted minds at work ready to debunk unjustified arrogance on the behalf of elitist Radeon-heads.

Quote[/b] ]I stand corrected.

Goddamnright biyatch.

[bonko the sane 2]

i tried those fixes and must have done something wrong as i suffered extreme fps loss, so ill stick to my average 30\60 fps, more than enough really.

btw: just played a manic HL2 MP game, beats CS:S hands down, and its really funny to have duels with the gravity gun

i never imagined i would enjoy mindless DM's (which i really dont like in OFP)

[NeMeSiS 11]

i tried those fixes and must have done something wrong as i suffered extreme fps loss, so ill stick to my average 30\60 fps, more than enough really.

yea, my FPS went from +-25 to 7

[shadow 6]

I wonder where this so-called ATI-optimization in this engine really is apart from the FP24-issue

X800 and 6800 cards perform rather identical in this game as far as I can tell.

I wonder if 6800 based cards could completely outperform the X800 series if they supported 24bit FP considering 24bit is alot less strain than 32bit.

As for the quote that it was the other way around for Doom3 is pure BS, because D3 is just OGL and ATI happen to suck at OGL-support.

This makes me think less and less of ATI and more and more of Nvidia.

Ofcourse I can't critisize ATI as I've never owned any of their products

[hellfish6 7]

I hate my FX5600 card, but it does run HL2 very well. I get great performance.

[S_Z 0]

I wonder where this so-called ATI-optimization in this engine really is apart from the FP24-issue  

X800 and 6800 cards perform rather identical in this game as far as I can tell.

I wonder if 6800 based cards could completely outperform the X800 series if they supported 24bit FP considering 24bit is alot less strain than 32bit.

As for the quote that it was the other way around for Doom3 is pure BS, because D3 is just OGL and ATI happen to suck at OGL-support.

This makes me think less and less of ATI and more and more of Nvidia.

Ofcourse I can't critisize ATI as I've never owned any of their products  

Im not surprised at all by this. Valve said about a year ago that they would write an mixed mode for the FX serie since they could not handle full precision shaders (32-bit in FX case). Later they decided to drop that and treat FX like a DX8 card instead, most likely because they wanted to get the game out as soon as possible. The mixed mode was not the only thing that didn’t make it in the retail version, HDR that was shown in a demo and ATIs texture compression technique 3Dc didn’t make it either. This should not affect the 6800 too much since it run full precision almost as good as partial precision.  

About what Id did with doom3, well it’s not completely BS in my opinion. It’s pretty much the same thing to me. Carmack used an old technique that didn’t work very well on ATI cards. It took about a day or to for a guy who call him-self Humus (and now work for ATI) to change the shader so it performed much better and gave the same visual result. Carmack could easily done the same if he wanted. “Humus fix†is now part of the optimizations for Doom3 in ATIs drivers. Now the X800XT PE is only a few fps slower than the Ultra in Doom3.

Regarding HL2 performance I wouldn’t say they are identical. The GT and X800Pro performance is close but XT and XT PE is pulling ahead of the Ultra in high res with AA/AF. Especially when water shaders are used, then the performance difference is quite big as you can see here:

http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=93&type=expert&pid=6

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/half-life_7.html

[Supah 0]

I hate my FX5600 card, but it does run HL2 very well. I get great performance.

What do you hate about it?

[hellfish6 7]

It crashes OFP (though only during MP) and Falcon 4 pretty regularly. I've eliminated all other possible reasons for the crashes.

Otherwise, it's a fine card, I just have trouble playing my favorite games on it.

[Supah 0]

It crashes OFP (though only during MP) and Falcon 4 pretty regularly. I've eliminated all other possible reasons for the crashes.

Otherwise, it's a fine card, I just have trouble playing my favorite games on it.  

Hmm I never had those problems, sorry I cant helpt Tried updating your drivers and updating to the latest version of directx? That might help

[GoOB 0]

Hmm...what kind of system do you guys run Half-life 2 on?

P4 @ 2.4 GHz

512 MB SDRAM

ATI 9700pro 128 mb

Runs extremly smooth with everything on high, I only get sluggish performance when I am fighting combine with a small army of antlions backing me up. But even then, it is hardly noticeable.

[dm 9]

I hate my FX5600 card...

It crashes OFP (though only during MP) and Falcon 4 pretty regularly. I've eliminated all other possible reasons for the crashes.

Otherwise, it's a fine card, I just have trouble playing my favorite games on it.

Join that club, thats why I've replaced (well, am replacing) it with an ATI 9800 Pro.

2 of my mates here at uni run identical rigs to what I will have once the 9800 Pro is in, and they have NO problems with OFP, HalfLife, F4, or anything really.

I used to be an nVidia fanboy, but I think I'm slowly swinging over to the other side.

To keep this OT, I tried HL2 on my 5600, and yes it DID give good performance, but just like Hellfish, I experienced regular crashes (even with older games and OFP) which can be due to nothing else but the 5600.

[bonko the sane 2]

dunno about that, i have a 5600 and my crashes are soundblaster related, or poor MP code

[hellfish6 7]

It crashes OFP (though only during MP) and Falcon 4 pretty regularly. I've eliminated all other possible reasons for the crashes.

Otherwise, it's a fine card, I just have trouble playing my favorite games on it.

Hmm I never had those problems, sorry I cant helpt Tried updating your drivers and updating to the latest version of directx? That might help

I'm not a total n00b - that was the first thing I did. Then someone suggested that the problem was related to XP SP2, but that patch didn't fix anything either.

[Baphomet 0]

that's weird, I have a 5600 in my new PC and I've not had any problems with it. I haven't run half life 2 on it but I know others who own 5600's and run halflife just fine...'

As far as I know SP2 was just choke full of problems. So I haven't updated to it.

[Colossus 2]

Hmm...what kind of system do you guys run Half-life 2 on?

The performance thread

My graphic card maybe needs a change soon

As far as I know SP2 was just choke full of problems. So I haven't updated to it.

I will advice all gamers not to upgrade to SP2, it's a gamers nightmare

[Milkman 1]

As far as I know SP2 was just choke full of problems. So I haven't updated to it.

I will advice all gamers not to upgrade to SP2, it's a gamers nightmare

Tehee I use Windows 2000, no problems here!

[ExtracTioN 0]

I bought Half-Life2 and installing now  

I got a question I saw you can't install it without Steam and you must be connected to internet but how is it when my connection is lost over a few weeks am I than unable to play it

Also I selected CS too with installation can I delete only CS after install is complete

[Milkman 1]

I bought Half-Life2 and installing now

I got a question I saw you can't install it without Steam and you must be connected to internet but how is it when my connection is lost over a few weeks am I than unable to play it

No, Steam must be running in the background for you to be able to access the game.

[ExtracTioN 0]

So that means when my internet connection is having problems I am unable to play

[Gollum1 0]

No, then Steam will give you the option to run in offline mode.