DX8 vs DX9?

[howierd]

Ok, uh, my old geforce4 ti4200 doesnt seem to make HL2 look as nice as the tech demos that had displacement normal maps, specularity, etc...

What kind of card do I need and whats the cheapest?

Im going to be miffed If I have to blow $300 on a card just to make this game look good.
Doom3 played FINE on my older card and had everything turned up.

Hl2 to me looks much flatter, dont get me wrong it still looks REALLY great, the facial animation, etc...but the faces dont seem to be actually lit by real light sources like in doom, and Im pretty sure theres no normal mapping going on...I mean in doom, you looked closlely at someones face and you could see pock marks lit by the lights as the walked through the light....in HL2 I cant see any real details being lit, everything looks like a flat texturemap....

thanks for any info!
I really hope for like $100 I can get a card that will utilize all the cool effects i saw in the HL2 Demo last year!

 

[ahardy668]

Chances are you won't find one for $100 but a 9800 PRO works great and can be had for less than $200.

 

[howierd]

Thanks!

Ok, can someone please tell me or show me a link that compares the dx8 to dx9 versions?

Will I get normal mapped walls, etc, that pop out, will the faces have more details?
All the screengrabs ive seen basically look flat too...

where aer all the hightech effects, such as one polygon wall that looks like 1000?
again will a dx9 card fix these issues? or will i just waste money?

Do the walls, like a brick wall actually have depth or are they just textures?

Thanks!

 

[3mRy^]

You wont be able to get everything tuned up with a 9800Pro. for that you need atlest a Geforce 6800GT. i have a X800XT PE and the only thing that is busting me is my 512mb DDR RAM which is pretty annoying sometime.

But i would as howierd recommend buying a 9800pro. a really good card.