6/24/05 Steam News!

hool10

hool10

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Friday, June 24 2005

We're getting much closer to having Lost Coast ready to release. Originally planned as a section of the Highway 17 chapter of Half-Life 2, Lost Coast is a playable technology showcase that introduces High Dynamic Range lighting to the Source engine.

Once Lost Coast is released, we will include HDR in our future product releases. For instance, Day of Defeat: Source will feature HDR lighting for all of its levels the day it is released.

One of the fundamental pieces of HDR rendering lies in "dynamic tonemapping." In the Source engine, by varying the exposure of a scene based on how much light is visible, we can accurately simulate a range of brightness that is beyond what a computer monitor is physically capable of displaying. A real-world example of this effect happens every time you walk from a very dark room to an outdoor area with very bright sunlight -- your eye takes a few moments to adjust to the variance in the amount of light hitting the retina. If you have a video card that supports HDR, you'll be able to see this in the engine when Lost Coast is released.

Static screenshots of HDR fail to capture this effect, but if you click on this image you can watch it happen in a scene from the Lost Coast. Note that the left-hand side of the screen is running in Fixed Aperture (non-HDR) mode, and the right-hand side with High Dynamic Range. W00t W00t! A video! :bounce: :bounce: That vid shows the sailor guy in it. The full news link is here http://www.steampowered.com/Steam/Marketing/June24.2005/?l=english
 
For all of the newbies out there:
For instance, Day of Defeat: Source will feature HDR lighting for all of its levels the day it is released.
Click to expand...

DOES NOT IN ANY WAY MEAN THAT DOD:S WILL BE HDR ONLY AND THAT YOU WILL NEED A BAD ASS VIDEO CARD TO GET OVER 10FPS ON IT! IT JUST MEANS THAT YOU CAN HAVE HDR LIGHTING IF YOU WANT TO ENABLE IT

*cough*


Oh, and can I add this bit in too?

You WILL NEED a high quality video card to run this level! I know you people out there are going "Can my 9800 do it?", and NO it cannot, it will likely get a choppy low-teens framerate at the lowest settings!! Valve means it when they say that the demo is for high end cards ONLY. That means X700/6600 and up will basically be the only cards capable of running it

I apologize, I just get really frustrated by so many questions regarding lost coast...
 
finally i can test my geforce 6800 ultra.......:p
 
I knew it! I knew DoD: Src had HDR! I even posted a thread on it on the DoD: Src forum :p
 
Now this is the kind of Friday Update I LIKE to see.

If we can finally get a release date for LC out of Valve next week, everything will finally be right with the cosmos.
 
everyones going on that 'only' high end cards can run HDR well, but arnt the HDR settings adjustable...? optimisable for your machine, they should be, if not then i dont know what's going on, people with 9800's will beable to run it with some decent frame rates im sure, it'll probably just mean you'll have to downgrade the HDR lighting quality... if no adjustable options come with the level.. then i dont know what valve are thinking.
 
Wow that was disappointing

I was hoping for pics from DOD Source or HL1 Dm Source or new info

Why do they keep telling us stuff we have know since about april and posting videos that are about 5 weeks old

Sorry to be so negative, but after last weeks good update we are back to rehashing the lost coast speech again, this is about the 4th time, we do get HDR now Valve!
 
clarky003 said:
everyones going on that 'only' high end cards can run HDR well, but arnt the HDR settings adjustable...? optimisable for your machine, they should be, if not then i dont know what's going on, people with 9800's will beable to run it with some decent frame rates im sure, it'll probably just mean you'll have to downgrade the HDR lighting quality... if no adjustable options come with the level.. then i dont know what valve are thinking.
Click to expand...

Say that to tell yourself as often as you want, but it will not be true. HDR is very expensive on the GPU, and 9800-generation cards are not up to snuff. If you've tried running the RTHDRIBL program, you'll likely find that on low settings you get a good framerate. That's before having to include extra CPU time on physics, scenegraphs, AI, etc. and is also for fairly low polygon artwork with minimal material effects on it.

Trust me, YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO PLAY THE LEVEL DECENTLY AND VALVE IS DEAD SERIOUS WHEN THEY SAY HIGH END CARDS ONLY
 
Cypher, what's your problem? Your're way to into this "let's slam everybody with 9800s."

Anyways, i really do hope that HDR will have performance impacting tweaks that you can perform. Even if i only get 17fps, I'M STILL PLAYING THE LOST CAOST! I must experience every part of HL2, not matter what the cost is...
 
I think we'll just have to let the level do the explaining, settings will be there to make 9800 cards quite playable, and If you have a powerful proccessor along with it all the better. I very much doubt that it will be decently playable to soley people who can splash out on the top end cards.. higher framerates and maximum HDR settings yes. But HDR still looks good at moderate to lower settings.
 
The problem with Lost Coast is that when it is released, we're gonna have to deal with about a million and one threads like "LOW FPS! HELP!" Morons.

It's seriously gonna suck. Whatever, I'll be off playing the fabulousness that is LC with HDR!
 
hool10300 said:
We're getting much closer to having Lost Coast ready to release.
Click to expand...

they have been saying this for a while now , nothing new :sniper:
 
Where did you buy your card Arial? I wanna find the cheapest price on a RADEON X800 256MB XT PLATINUM EDITION. And when are the prices gonna come down?
 
Think my 6600gt + AMD 64 3000+ can run it on low settings? I hope :(
 
I hope so too, I've got a 64 3200+ and a 6600gt.
 
I can see what y'all mean. Lost Coast isn't even out and the crap is already starting. Why don't people just wait and see; nobody really knows anyway.
 
605Scorpion said:
I can see what y'all mean. Lost Coast isn't even out and the crap is already starting. Why don't people just wait and see; nobody really knows anyway.
Click to expand...

People have to complain since they have nothing better to do, didn't you know that? ;)
 
Cypher19 said:
Say that to tell yourself as often as you want, but it will not be true. HDR is very expensive on the GPU, and 9800-generation cards are not up to snuff. If you've tried running the RTHDRIBL program, you'll likely find that on low settings you get a good framerate. That's before having to include extra CPU time on physics, scenegraphs, AI, etc. and is also for fairly low polygon artwork with minimal material effects on it.

Trust me, YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO PLAY THE LEVEL DECENTLY AND VALVE IS DEAD SERIOUS WHEN THEY SAY HIGH END CARDS ONLY
Click to expand...
Theres a way to get your point across and thats wasn't the best.

No one actually knows including yourself, so don't make it look like you know for sure as if you are working with valve on this. As Clarky said you will be able to run HDR on 9800 cards, to which standard is debateable, however its highly likely you will be able. 9600 series is pushing it too far i'd reckon. As valve said the 'recommended' specs is a high end card for the best performance. They also deviate from 3ghz processor (recommended) and 2ghz (minimum) and 1 gb of RAM (recommended) and 512mb (minimum), so as you see the variability will suggest theres a range, as there will be with the cards. I'm sure Valve WANT more people to be able to play the Lost Coast including all its fancy features, rather than narrow it down to those just with x850XT platinums or 6800GT / Ultras or 7800GTX's. Broadening your market = ker-ching.
 
DarkStar said:
The problem with Lost Coast is that when it is released, we're gonna have to deal with about a million and one threads like "LOW FPS! HELP!" Morons.

It's seriously gonna suck. Whatever, I'll be off playing the fabulousness that is LC with HDR!
Click to expand...

Oh come on, you've been here as long as me - you should know by now that when something new about HL2/CSS/DoD is released, you avoid the forums like a plague :p
 
Actually that video made me think.

A fixed apeture version playing along side the HDR version. Now if it can run in an old non-HDR way, there might actually be an option to turn the HDR off. I mean the levels obviously will run without it, as shown in the video. Whether this is given as an option we won't know until it is released.

Although by that time I will have had an upgrade (I hope) and should be able to run it on a X800 XL. I hope. :)
 
Has there been any indication that it can be played without HDR and in the fixed apeture way? I never saw any of the interviews where he said you need top-o-the line cards, so did he say anything like "You will need a high end card to play Lost Coast", or did he say "You will need a high end card to play lost coast with the new technology"?
 
If you are asking the question "does my card support HDR?", then you need to ask "does my card support SM3?".
 
I believe I recall Doug saying you need the absolute latest Nvidia/ATi cards to play lost coast. Bit of a bummer but that's the way it is. Alls I know is, I've got a 9800 and playing G-mod with bloom on f*cks my shit up. Playing a whole level like that? No thanks.
 
It is more than likely you will be able to play lost coast without HDR so calm down. HDR will just be an option you can check when Lost Coast is released.
 
It is more than likely you will be able to play lost coast without HDR so calm down. HDR will just be an option you can check when Lost Coast is released.
Click to expand...
That was never confirmed with the lost coast, only with DoD and Aftermath I believe.

If you are asking the question "does my card support HDR?", then you need to ask "does my card support SM3?".
Click to expand...
Not for HL2's HDR. They already stated that. They arn't using SM3..infact I don't even know if Source will take Advantage of SM3 at all.
 
Thanks for the info Minerel, but your statement is in direct contrast to the answers that I recieved when I asked that exact question in the following thread:
Click to expand...
A month ago we didn't exactly know, and just used what we thought.
I know there was something about Dynamic Tonemapping..hold on.

Anyway Shens thx for that link.
This is the thing we need to know out of it:
OK, here we go.

This informations are from Gary McTaggart (senior software engineer at Valve) and part of a Q&A for the german PC Games Hardware magazin.

There will be two new modes that kann be used with the "Lost Coast" Level: Best Quality and Lower Quality.

For Best Quality you will need a chip with:
- FP16 filtered textures
- FP16 targets with alpha blend support.
- SM 3.0

For Lower Quality:
- FX16 filtered textures
- SM 2.0

In both cases the lighting informations are stored in textures with higher range (FX16 for lower; FP16 for best) Best will use FP16 targets, too.


IMHO I am still not sure if I want to call the "Lower Quality" Mode a HDR Mode. It looks more like a common bloom postprocessing with a FX16 lightmap.
Click to expand...
 
Hmm... Will my RivaTNT2 handle HDR? ^^ Hehe, i have 9800xt on my never pc... gotta test it with that...
 
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