Elements of HL2

jabberwock95

jabberwock95

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Hi. I hope this hasn't beencovered before, I was just wondering what parts of your system handles different elements of HL2 (or any other game)? For example, does the processor handle physics? Does the graphics card handle resolution, AA and AF? So on and so forth. Just wondering as it may help decide how well half life 2 would run on different systems.
 
Do you really think a gfx card can calculate physics??

Someone plz squash this headcrab.
 
Excuse me, fellow headcrab, but those were just examples. Put your powerful brain to work instead of complaining and think of some other elements of HL2.
 
Originally posted by Sp00fman
Do you really think a gfx card can calculate physics??

Someone plz squash this headcrab.
Click to expand...

Wow your a dumbass!!! Calling someone a noob for something they dont know is so ****in retarded im tired of hearing "omg u stupid noob" we were all noobs at one time. At one time you were new to pcs and didnt know what a processor was. At one time you didnt know what AA stood for. At one time you were a headcrab on these forums. Oh wait you still are one...
 
Hey Sp00fman... it's not such a stupid question.
If you arn't gonna give a proper answer, why the hell answer at all!
If you're such a hardcore pro at this sh*t why havn't you read the community attitude sticky? Cause u'r the one breaking the rules!

btw, jabberwock, you pretty much answered your own questions :)
CPU = physics
fancy sh*t on screen = GPU

As for other aspects I think there is an interview with Gabe floating around here somewhere which discusses some of this stuff
 
hl2.net: What effects will this have on gameplay - say, if you jumped on a headcrab, would it squish?

Gabe Newell: Off-hand I don't remember how much of a force it takes to significantly damage a headcrab, but the point is that Gordon is no different than any other object with the same mass.
Click to expand...

Can i plz test this with by jumping on your head??
I'm very curiouse what will happen.
 
Graphics card = pictures on screen AA AF. res all that
CPU = Physics, game speed, how well it copes.
RAM = Load time and Helps with all the little bits
Sound Card = Sound, How well it gets produced through the Speakers
Monitor = well.. lol
Mouse = Movement of the Y and X Axis ( i could be wrong)
Keyboard = Movement
Beer = fun
 
Originally posted by Gordon'sFreeman
Graphics card = pictures on screen AA AF. res all that
CPU = Physics, game speed, how well it copes.
RAM = Load time and Helps with all the little bits
Sound Card = Sound, How well it gets produced through the Speakers
Monitor = well.. lol
Mouse = Movement of the Y and X Axis ( i could be wrong)
Keyboard = Movement
Beer = fun
Click to expand...

THANK YOU. Someone who can actually answer my question. BTW Sp00fman, this is a much better way to prove you're clever than NOT being able to answer the question but replying anyway.
 
Hey, just thought of something else. If you have slow gamespeed (from a slow processor) does it just produce the same effects as slow fps (from a bad graphics card)? eg: jerky movement, slow reactions to controls, etc. etc.

Please feel free to say 'well the answer is so obvious' or something like that, but only if you're going to go on and answer my question.
 
Originally posted by jabberwock95
Hey, just thought of something else. If you have slow gamespeed (from a slow processor) does it just produce the same effects as slow fps (from a bad graphics card)? eg: jerky movement, slow reactions to controls, etc. etc.

Please feel free to say 'well the answer is so obvious' or something like that, but only if you're going to go on and answer my question.
Click to expand...

Yes, a slow CPU with a good Graphics Card will still be jerkey.
I would say be greedy and get the whole lot like 3ghz ati 9800 pro and a 512 - 1g of RAM, spoil yaself :)
 
Lol. Yeah I would say that too if I had loads of money....
Seriously though would 1g of ram improve performance in games? Noticably? woah. I thought 512 was a good amount.

*sigh* the world is moving on again.

Thanks for answering my questions, anyway. :cheers:
 
And you all forgot AI.

AI and Phyiscs are the two most important things the CPU will do, that and basic geometry. Even with a T&L card the cpu still hands the very basics of drawing the geometry.
 
Gabe himself said the difference between 512 and 1gb of RAM is minimal. He said it only really helped them when they were loading it up every ten minutes or something...

Short answer, gameplay will be the same, but possibly quicker load times if you're using quick save/load function.

Thats the way i saw it anyway
 
Originally posted by pHATE1982
Gabe himself said the difference between 512 and 1gb of RAM is minimal. He said it only really helped them when they were loading it up every ten minutes or something...
Click to expand...
Are we talking about SD or DDR RAM here?
 
Yes, ram would improve on some areas of game play depending on what it is.

And your right wormstrangler, thats another this a CPU will do, but im happy i got me a monstor. :p

If i had a little amount of money and a slower PC like an 866 with 256mb ram and a GF4 Ti 4600 i would get ram (true story).
:)

Originally posted by Saltpeter
Are we talking about SD or DDR RAM here?
Click to expand...

I have RD :p
 
Who buys SDR RAM anyway?
Ofcourse it DDR - I think. Well, I dont see why theyd be talking about SDR.
 
Yeah I reckon Gabe would be on about DDR, not sure of the speed though!
 
Bottlenecks can come from anywhere: CPU, RAM (size and speed), harddrive (though nothing major if you have enough RAM)--your video card is just the end of the line. I think what you're assuming is that the CPU and GPU work independently, but the GPU can't run off and do its own thing without constant updates from the CPU. Also, the CPU does all logic operations, not just physics. While it's conceivable that one day when physics calculations are essential and sucking up all the cpu's time, we may have specialized hardware to handle that aspect (though I'm not sure it makes sense to hand the job to the GPU).

It's a little more complicated though, for physics and AI routines could be made into clients: when you play a game online, other players (other clients) make their own decisions and their actions are sent to you, (a client) through the server. Some games virtualize this arrangement such that even in single player games, your machine runs a 'sever' on which you play a 'client'. Bots in UT2003 I know use this arrangement: you and all the bots are 'clients' playing on a 'server' even though there's really only your one computer. Using this virtualization of the client/server model found in actual networked games makes for robust reuse of code.

If you have trouble parsing my words, contrast what I described with that robot thingy that Nintendo packaged with the original Nintendo to convince people it was a toy, not a video game system. 'Robby' (I think that's the name) was just a piece of plastic with a cheap electric battery that made him randomly move from side to side; he held the second controler in his hand to give the illusion that you were playing against him; of course, the computer actually controlled your opponent, not Robby.

The point is that the computer's AI routines probably directly controlled the player, they didn't go through the code that the computer uses to receive input from the player: clinet/server AI's may not actually push buttons and move a mouse, but from a code perspective it's as if they do. It's a minor difference when talking about programs as simple as early Nintendo games, but it's a paradigm shift with today's games, especially as it concerns latency. *My God! I've actually steered this to a relevant point!*

[Let me continue this in a second post in a minute here]
 
Well, you actually can do large part of the physics on a gpu with vertex shaders 2.0. I'm doing dx9 programming at the university with it.
 
The whole point of client/server models is to cope with latency and make usable imperfect data transmission. If you remember Quake1 before Quakeworld, all players connected to a game were treated as equal: the program on each computer attempted to resolve data sent from one player as perfectly as possible; it sent exactly what your opponents did (how they moved, exactly when and in what direction they shot). Now that would be great, except that when things get behind due to bandwidth inadequacy, players warp all over the place because their computer decides they're in one place while other computers see them in another because they didn't get all the data perfectly. That and all sorts of unpleasantness.

In client/server arrangements, the server has final say about what actually hapens. If you get shot by another player while you lag out to the server, you die, no matter if you thought you had run away, or hit him first, or whatever. The clients attempt to resolve the imperfect info about other players they receive by using prediction. The client even defers your own actions to the servers judgement [that one's really annoying when it happens].

Now imagine a situation in which the physics behaviors of objects are handled by a client, either on your own system or on a computer networked to yours. The advantage here is a little different than above because the issue is not bandwidth unpredictability, but processing power. Because a client doesn't need or expect perfect detail about what happened when you set the plinko machine going, the complexity of the calculations can dynamically vary. If the physics client doesn't send adequate data to the server for a few ticks, then the player's client can use prediction (presumably much simplified physics calculations of its own) to compensate for the lack of detail.

So my whole point is that physics implementations may or may not require perfect execution for the next frame to be rendered. If not, then the strain of physics calcs on your system would be steady, even when everything goes pel mel. There's an analogy here between lossy and lossless compression which I don't care to elaborate on now.

I don't know how Source works, even whether it uses anything like this at all. I don't know if the client/server model would work well for physics, especially for objects that affect gameplay. It would, though, certainly be a help for physical simulations that are mostly decorative, but I don't think we're there yet.

*collapses*

[excuse me: *crumbles*]
 
Neutron, you're never gonna become anything other than headcrab if your posts are as long as that :)

Your fingers will fall off first!

A headcrab with knowledge, I like it!
 
Originally posted by pHATE1982
A headcrab with knowledge, I like it!
Click to expand...
That probably means he's headcrabbed someone already. That makes him a Zombie!
 
I aprove neutron... though I think worm strangler here thought you'd died or something, so had to finish you off :-P

U'll be next level in no time at this rate!
 
"Bottlenecks can come from anywhere: CPU, RAM (size and speed), harddrive (though nothing major if you have enough RAM)"

thats shit tbh if u had 512mb pc 2700 ram oced u would still have bad load times if you got a bad hhd.


i had 2 30gb 5200 hhd 512mb ram and they sucked ass BF1942 would take ...... 8 min to load no bs 8 min fs

got a WD 120gb 8mb cache hhd now it takes about less then 45 secs to load...

so all of u going out anf geting new GPU and CPU and still using bad old hhd and hope to run hl2 good u are joking your selfs.
 
Notice how that dick sp00fman didn't come back to respond... Must've scared him off with 'words' and 'knowledge' eh
 
Fair point Frizz but there will be minimal HDD access once a level is loaded, assuming you have enough RAM.
If i had to make the choice and could choose one or the other it would still be a GPU/CPU as my choice...
 
I was talking about rendering performance. Actually, BF1942 is an extreme case with loads: it even loads faster with 1 gig versus 768.

And I have a WD xJB drive too. Heartily recommend that series.
 
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