Gabe: "Our Customers will be PISSED"

[Skullhair]

Well here we go. I know the code got stolen and being a network administrator, I know very well the potential army of zombies PCs if the code was not re written for security purposes. However, in seeing that Valve in its emails in answering questions that HL2 is was and still is a work in progress. It is absolutely apparent that HL2 was not anywhere near completion in September 2003. I find a very big problem.

When Gabe lambasted NVidia for its sub-par drivers and hardware, he stated that if HL2 were optimized for NVidia dragging it down, "Valve's customers would be Pissed." He also went on about current hardware, implying that we should buy into the current ATI Radeon series and what not.

Many of us gamers bought into Gabe's hype and went out and bought new Video cards for the new Half-Life Game. Most of us went with ATI Radeon products. We all expected that the wait would not be for long. Now it will not be out until next summer. Those of us last fall bought new hardware that is even now a lot cheaper, and will be much cheaper next summer and will be at that point OLD News. My Radeon card has already dropped about $50 and I didn't really have a need to purchase a card besides for HL2 at that point and that was before the HL2 coupon bundle. :flame:

Many of us will probably will buy another card this summer or when HL2 does come out so we can have the top of the line graphics again.

You gotta wonder if Gabe and his crew all had stock in ATI or something with the way he hyped it. Maybe CNN should sniff around...

Guess what Gabe, Many of your customers are PISSED..... :flame:

Hey dude, go jump off the Golden Gate Bridge, there's GOLD at the bottom!

 

[zdub]

I don't remember Gabe, or anyone at VALVe, telling people "HL2 is coming out in x days. Go upgrade your system, otherwise you'll be missing out."

Point being, you chose to upgrade, as did alot of people. VALVe never told you, or forced you to upgrade. Also, some people HAVEN'T upgraded, and decided to wait until HL2, D3, FC, STALKER, etc. are closer to release. Alot of people also decided to wait for the next crop of hardware coming in spring.

You upgraded, VALVe didn't make you do it, it was your decision.

i do. Gabe has always made sure to mention ATI over Nvidia and hinted at them in alot of his interviews and whatnot....I agree with the first poster. Gabe played people for ATI. i think its despicable (sp?) and i will get my revenge when the game comes out on bittorrent.

 

[Dagobert]

Here's an idea. Wait until you have an official gold annoucement before you upgrade. Especially if you are talking about a developer who is always late.

I think most of the people that upgraded were probably quite young/naive.

 

[Brian Damage]

I've upgraded... but not for HL2. At least, not particularly.

I had a celeron 400 with a GeForce 2 MX... I think I really needed to upgrade...

Now I can actually play modern games :E.

 

[mbrithoms]

I don't remember Gabe, or anyone at VALVe, telling people "HL2 is coming out in x days. Go upgrade your system, otherwise you'll be missing out."

Point being, you chose to upgrade, as did alot of people. VALVe never told you, or forced you to upgrade. Also, some people HAVEN'T upgraded, and decided to wait until HL2, D3, FC, STALKER, etc. are closer to release. Alot of people also decided to wait for the next crop of hardware coming in spring.

You upgraded, VALVe didn't make you do it, it was your decision.

dont be so friggin nieve son, they are not going to put swirly contact lenses on and stand infront of the Tv and say' go buy radeon now' but what they did was the equivelent. they dissed Nvidia and applauded radeon, coupled with the release date(s) people were obviously going to go out and buy decent ATI hardware so they could play HL2. ATI must me laughing all the way to the very large bank at this moment, they dont give a sh*t if HL2 comes out despite all this coupon mess, all they care about is last holiday season having a 64% increase in sales mostly due to HL2 bullsh*t, personally I hope ATI start some major sh*t with Valve for not completing and messing up ATI's financial situation when hl2 is released

 

[Shuzer]

dont be so friggin nieve son, they are not going to put swirly contact lenses on and stand infront of the Tv and say' go buy radeon now' but what they did was the equivelent. they dissed Nvidia and applauded radeon, coupled with the release date(s) people were obviously going to go out and buy decent ATI hardware so they could play HL2. ATI must me laughing all the way to the very large bank at this moment, they dont give a sh*t if HL2 comes out despite all this coupon mess, all they care about is last holiday season having a 64% increase in sales mostly due to HL2 bullsh*t, personally I hope ATI start some major sh*t with Valve for not completing and messing up ATI's financial situation when hl2 is released

Wow. Again, yes VALVe was pushing for ATi cards, and did pretty much advertise as ATi was/is superior (which is the case with the current generation cards). But, if someone was REALLY upgrading for HL2, they shouldn't have done it BEFORE they knew its definite date.


I don't understand what's so difficult to grasp here, half the community didn't upgrade because they knew it wasn't going to make its date. The other half either upgraded for HL2 or because it was time. Personally, I upgraded because it was time, my system will run HL2 fine when it comes out, no big deal. It's not like VALVe will have rewritten the entire game to only run well on the top-notch PCI Express/BTX motherboard/64 bit processor systems by summer.

 

[Wilco]

Games Developer supports Videocard manufacturer. World Shocked.

Yes Valve support ATi. ATi is (practically?) and official Partner to Valve. Valve did get help with ATi Cards, thus making them better than Nvidia. So What?

How many games out there have !"Nvidia, the way its meant to be played" logos at the start of them. Guess what, they had help from Nvidia aswell! Its not like it's Valve only.

Valve shouldnt have been pushing ATi Products.
Valve said that ATi cards play HL2 the best (at that time, omg what if they play better on Nviidia now, some of you will have a heart attack). That is a simple statement of fact, backed up by figures released by Valve.

Valve says you will need a DirectX9 Card to play HL2 well so people might want to look at getting on of the latest cards. Another Statement of fact, made when Valve thought that HL2 would be out in 2003, if not actually on Sept 30th, at the time that statement was true, and made perfect sense.

So currently have made two Statements of fact, which people have twisted into being subliminal messages to make them buy a graphics card. Yeah.

Also, another tidbit of information, Top of the Line ATI G-card at time of statement:
RADEON 9800

Current Top of the Line ATI G-card:
RADEON 9800 XT With a whole 2fps difference.

Projected Top of the Line ATI G-card during April-Summer:
RADEON 9800 XT With a whole 2fps difference.


SO WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU COMPLAINING ABOUT! YOU STILL HAVE A TOP OF THE LINE GRAPHICS CARD, AND YOU STILL WILL HAVE

as any fule kno, six months is a virtual lifetime in the graphics card business.

Yes, quite, see the FPS increases in the last 6 months.

That and they did pretty much say that thier game would run like crap on a non ATI card and that their game would need a new card to run stable

By this you mean they actually said "you willl need the latest DX9 G-Card to get the best effects but this game will run all the way down to Dx-7 if necessary" I think you paraphrased a bit too much there.


The last 6 months have seen no major new increases in G-card tech, yes theres now 64 bit processors, but HL2 isn't 64 bit anyway, so thats not a huge problem if you just bought your new PC for HL2, as people say.

Yes Valve hinted that you would need the latest Graphics card to play, but just because you went and bought one before the game was announced gold, or released, doesnt mean you can blame Valve. Unless you live in America, in which case you can probably win a couple of million off them.

 

[Shuzer]

Wilco, you're skipping the fact that the new technology is cropping up and will be available in the spring.

That's the main issue at hand, the NV40/R420 graphics cards are coming out very soon, which are supposedely going to be doubling FPS of the current cards, that and they'll be running under PCI Express.

As for HL2 not being 64bit, VALVe is going to be optimizing HL2 to run better on it. They already said so.

 

[Wilco]

Whats the current release schedule on the NV40 / R420? I cant find any information of them on the ATI / Nvidia websites, nor on TomsHardware. Usually you get quite a few months of hardware Showcase, Previews, Benchmarks Etc before you see new Graphics Card ranges, so Spring is looking a little hopeful.

I heard they would be optimising HL2 when Longhorn came about, or a 64 OS. But atm it doesnt make sense, though they might have changed that since I heard it.

Okay that post was hot-headed and immature, so I'll calm down and try and establish the facts


I have to say im waiting for 64 Bit Processors, BTX motherboards and PCI-Express before I look to upgrading, but thats for another forum.

 

[mortiz]

A lot of people are also missing the fact that if there isn't new hardware by the summer, the current Hardware will certainly be a lot cheaper by the time the next wave of fully DX9 games hit us.

 

[Wilco]

how much did a 9800 set you back in Sept? its currently £200, so possibly I can agree with you there, but these people would have just bought a 9800XT for £300 now anyway, so wouldn't have saved any money, but would have 2fps more.

 

[Zakat]

*Smooches his Radoen 9800XT 256MB "I love you baby"*

Personally I didn't buy ATI Radeon 9800XT for HL2, Simply, Before I had 9800XT, I had 9600, I felt "Hey, it's time to upgrade" and I simply bought it, and I was very PLEASED with the fact that the Source engine is being optimized to run on ATI cards imho :F

Btw, it's true, 9800XT will be old in some months, but it'll still run most of the games that comes in 2004 pretty well, I think ATI are 'releasing' a new graphic chip this summer.. what was it.. R420 or something like that, so I guess, in June or something we'll see the first 9900 card.

Oh and about upgrading for HL2, as people have said, it's not like Valve FORCES you to UPGRADE, it's your OWN ****ing choice, so you can't blame Valve on upgrading your system.

 

[Sprafa]

I've got my comp with a 9700pro since 2002's X-mas.

Probably will replace it for one of the new ones when they come out (since FC UH settings have some slowdowns)

Never did shit for HL2 and you know why?
I knew I was going to run HL2 choppy in M settings but...I just didn't cared that much. Neitherr sholud anyone.

 

[Shuzer]

I've got my comp with a 9700pro since 2002's X-mas.

Probably will replace it for one of the new ones when they come out (since FC UH settings have some slowdowns)

Never did shit for HL2 and you know why?
I knew I was going to run HL2 choppy in M settings but...I just didn't cared that much. Neitherr sholud anyone.

First off, don't upgrade for FC. FC is poorly optimized at the moment, some people get high FPS on Very High, others with similar systems get substantially lower. The developers already said it's not fully optimized, but will be before the release.

As for HL2, VALVe already said a 2GHz system with Radeon 9700+ will run fine at max settings (this was awhile ago, some e-mail)

 

[Sprafa]

As for HL2, VALVe already said a 2GHz system with Radeon 9700+ will run fine at max settings (this was awhile ago, some e-mail)

:rolling:

So my
2.5 GHz P4
9700pro
513 333ram
80gig HD

Will run fine with HL2?
Thats weird.....Mafia ran choppy.....

 

[mjrhzrd]

more info

The Flames, they burn, they burn!.

Wow I did not expect such a big thread.

For those who missed the point entirely.

Valve went to great lengths to the point of nearly being sued by Nvidia. Valve's PR machine went into overdrive in setting the gaming community on fire over HL2 and its hardware requirements.
It could not seem to control itself. When Valve shut down into silence mode, it was like a lawyer told them to shut up.
Valve is NOT a bad company. I did not say that. However they were a little too successful with their PR. But in reading all the material in emails that have popped up on the forums and completely ignoring the Hacked Beta info, it is undeniable that Half-Life 2 was not ready in September 2003.

What they should not have done was pumped the community on the Hardware side until they were in Gold mode. Particularly when it was apparent that HL2 would be more than 6 months away on shipping. I have been playing HL1 SP, MP and CS since 12/98. My WON id is in the 160K and I did not register it online for some months. I started a players group in 5/2000 that still plays CS.

I just think that Valve has tarnished its image of "By Gamers for Gamers". It used to be all about the game. Now it is really gotten into the big business arena and has forgotten its beginnings and the almighty buck is now beginning to take over. A business is a business after all, but that is not what they have portrayed themselves over the years as.

What really was the purpose of the game hype and then hardware hype?

$50 depreciation is really nothing to me. But the point that Valve really did not have to do all the hype when they had to have known there would be a significant delay. What was the point?

I waited for DNF for years and I was looking forward to a HL2. But you all have to admit that after all the hype and letdown, you have to admit your disappointment.

I had expected more respect for the gaming community from Valve, not Microsoft-style tactics.

 

[clarky003]

So my
2.5 GHz P4
9700pro
513 333ram
80gig HD

Will run fine with HL2?
Thats weird.....Mafia ran choppy.....

Mafia's a choppy game

I had expected more respect for the gaming community from Valve, not Microsoft-style tactics.

I agree ;(

to be perefectly honest , I dont find any of these collaborations, to encourage favouritisim.. very amusing. I appreciate NVidia and ATI are in competition, but I find they treat us all like complete utter noncey idiots, and their marketing plans are near to manipulation! hype, and in any sane mans eyes seem illegal,,, simply because they cloud your judgement, completely sexing their product up so their wallets get fatter by the day, its dispicable. Makes me glad most children dont understand about big buisness.

PS . I hope Gates falls off the planet oneday :thumbs:

 

[Shuzer]

..VALVe nearly being sued by nVidia? Where'd you hear this?

 

[clarky003]

huh? did I say that ...??? im confused, u reckon they probably nearly did get sued for some reason???? or did?

 

[Asus]

I don't feel Gabe was pushing and advertising ATI as much as he was letting the community know the issues he has been dealing with on Nvidia cards.
He just wanted to show it by benchmarks.
Nvidia's FX hardware lacked the performance that HL2 requires since it is shader intensive.
He also backed up why he did not use Nvidia's (at the time) beta drivers because of quality loss.
He wanted the game to be shown the way he wanted (quality wise).
Think he just wanted to address a few issues with the hardware that the community uses to run his games and enlighten us.

The HL2 bundled with ATI cards was something ATI paid for. If Nvidia got the deal they would have paid for it.

Again I see no hype on the hardware except generated from the HL2 fans...

 

[Brian Damage]

He was referring to mjrhzrd's post, clarky, not yours.

 

[The Mullinator]

Both Nvidia and ATI were probably both desperately trying to get a deal with Valve on HL2. It would have been stupid to not pick either of them since the deal means more money, and its means more press. The smart move therefore is to take one of the deals, it just so happens that ATI probably had the best deal.

 

[DrEvil]

Valve doesn't have to come to our homes, put a gun to our heads and force us to buy the ATI video card. Of course we bought the cards ourselves. But Valve influenced the decision. During the drama about nVidia and ATI it also seemed like HalfLife2 was close to being done as well. They definetely are partly to blame in cases where people bought ATI cards after those ATI/Valve press conferences.

 

[Mountain Man]

I don't remember Gabe, or anyone at VALVe, telling people "HL2 is coming out in x days. Go upgrade your system, otherwise you'll be missing out."

You mean other than Valve saying, "Half-Life 2 will be released September 30, 2003 and you'll need an ATI board in order to enjoy the game to its fullest"? O.K., so they didn't say that exact phrase, but they did make repeated promises that the game would be available for purchase on September 30 of last year and they did their job pushing ATI cards.

Frankly, I still don't know why anybody bought the ATI thing as it was fairly obvious Gabe was in ATI's back pocket. Think about it: He lambasted ATI's biggest competitor at a press conference sponsored by ATI. Does the phrase "conflict of interest" ring any bells?

At the same time, nVidia very quickly addressed all of Gabe's concerns making his pro-ATI bias a moot point and all those suckers who bought into the marketing are now stuck with overpriced cards that aren't any better than the competition's.

 

[Shuzer]

At the same time, nVidia very quickly addressed all of Gabe's concerns making his pro-ATI bias a moot point and all those suckers who bought into the marketing are now stuck with overpriced cards that aren't any better than the competition's.

It's been proven time and time again that what Gabe said holds true. ATi does have better shader performance than nVidia's cards. Have you looked at actual benchmark numbers, not just the ATi shader day ones?

 

[Ahnteis]

So let's see - you all believe that Valve's marketting plan should be... don't say anything until the game is on shelves? Yes. That would be an *excellent* marketting plan.

Welcome to the world of gaming. In this world, games nearly always are delayed. We all had high hopes that HL2 would be different since their strategy of not saying anything for *years* about HL2 was decidedly different. Unfortunately it was still delayed.

Now - here's the "tricky" part. Don't upgrade for a specific game until you either HAVE THE GAME or HAVE A DEMO. How else are you going to know how your current hardware will run it?

If you're upgrading just because your computer is old or you want new, cooler toys, then go ahead; but if you are upgrading just for one game, you need to have a very concrete target to aim for.

 

[Mountain Man]

It's been proven time and time again that what Gabe said holds true. ATi does have better shader performance than nVidia's cards. Have you looked at actual benchmark numbers, not just the ATi shader day ones?

According to benchmarks that measure down to the frame, yes, ATI does have a small advantage over nVidia, but it's not nearly enough that anybody should fret over it let alone run out and buy a brand spankin' new card at an outrageous price.

Personally, I think what Gabe did was very unprofessional. Rather than work with nVidia and help them resolve the issues (which they did and very quickly, too. The latest FX cards are great performers) Gabe went out and ran his mouth about how terrible nVidia cards were and how great ATI was.

Make no mistake, Gabe's motives were to 1) Promote Half-Life 2; and 2) Help ATI move a shit-load of product. And it's no coincidence that Half-Life 2 just happened to favor ATI boards over the competition.

 

[Ahnteis]

Gabe reporting things like enhanced screenshot IQ (while lowering it ingame) etc made nvidia shape up. They aren't exactly going out of business as a result - there are still plenty of fans. However, those fans now get better quality. Who's the losers here? Only the folks who were soaking up profits while insisting on cutting every corner to save a buck / sell a card.

 

[CrazyHarij]

Damn right we'll be pissed, Gabe.

EDIT: Woo, 800 postz0rs! I love this forum!

 

[Lavrik]

Refering to first post.
Some people agree and some don't it happens everywhere but think about this many countrys use propaganda on there citizens through TV and whatnot and many people blame the country for that propaganda because it made citizens believe in a cause.So how is this different?Do you have to blame the people who bought the propaganda or the people who made it? You can be judge of that.

Sorry if my english sucks but its not my launguage :-/.

 

[clarky003]

I think the fact that alot of people are quite sheepish anyway, and ATI knowing fully that this is quite the case in scociety's, have then gone on to fully exploited that. On average its really quite funny how high end ATI owners will support the claims that the card is really much better than the GeForce cards, when we havnt even seen them in testing. I bet the difference is negleigable, as I have heard proffesional reviewed comparisions state the same words, ATI's ability to handle shaders better must be true , they wouldnt state it otherwise, but I doubt its handling over the GeForce cards is as massive as we are led to believe. and soon we will find out

 

[Kadayi]

As far as the best cards to run HL² on debate runs, for the time being those cards are ATI. This have nothing to do with code optimisations or any of that BS. The simple fact of the matter is that the Nvidia FX range of Cards are shitty cards, because Nvidia, didn't get the tech right.

When Microsoft were developing DX 9 they asked Nvidia and ATi to assist in the process. Nvidia opted out at some point (probably because they weren't getting 'their' way) and subsequently they totally fubared their chip design, because they worked on gestimates as to the DX9 specs, and fell well short.

Until Nvidia develop a new chipset, nothing is going to alter the fact that their cards aren't as efficent as the ATi series at handling DX9 instructions (not even the detonator drivers).

 

[mjrhzrd]

Sigh,
Summer, EH?

There goes my LAN party too! Another thing to burn about. :flame:

You guys will probably flame me for that too. LOL ;-)

And why does Valve information seem more and more like it is coming from the desk of the Iraqi Minister of DisInformation.

 

[OCybrManO]

If you did the same performance hacks in ATI drivers as nVidia did since they found out their cards were, in some cases, performing at about 50% of the speed of ATI cards in shader performance then the ATI cards would easily outperform the nVidia cards again.

nVidia cards were designed for 32-bit shaders (as that was initially what DX9 was planned to use, but went to 24-bit instead) because nVidia didn't build their cards to the official DX9 specs as outlined by Microsoft. ATI designed their DX9 cards for 24-bit shaders (the official standard of DX9). nVidia has to either cut a lot of corners in other areas or drop the precision of their shaders to 16-bit to keep up with ATI cards.

If Microsoft had stuck with 32-bit shaders it might be a different story, but since they didn't (as the extra precision didn't do much for shader quality) and since nVidia didn't change to 24-bit... ATI made a superior card in terms of DX9 performance. Hopefully nVidia learned their lesson and will pay closer attention to the development of DX10.

 

[Kadayi]

If you did the same performance hacks in ATI drivers as nVidia did since they found out their cards were, in some cases, performing at about 50% of the speed of ATI cards in shader performance then the ATI cards would easily outperform the nVidia cards again.

nVidia cards were designed for 32-bit shaders (as that was initially what DX9 was planned to use, but went to 24-bit instead) because nVidia didn't build their cards to the official DX9 specs as outlined by Microsoft. ATI designed their DX9 cards for 24-bit shaders (the official standard of DX9). nVidia has to either cut a lot of corners in other areas or drop the precision of their shaders to 16-bit to keep up with ATI cards.

If Microsoft had stuck with 32-bit shaders it might be a different story, but since they didn't (and since nVidia didn't change to 24-bit) ATI made a superior card in terms of DX9 performance. Hopefully nVidia learned their lesson and will pay closer attention to the specifications of DX10.

Let's hope so.

 

[Asus]

The shader performance was said to be a lot higher on ATI cards than Nvidia's FX cards.
That is true. Granted you may not see a huge difference in a lot of games that are rather light on DX9 features but HL2 is very very heavy on shaders and shader performance will make a big difference.

Nvidia of course cut corners while ATI does not have to. Like OC said, if ATI cut those same corners they would be way up there.

That very same shader performance is used to help with AF in Half-Life 2 because they were not satisfied with how the artifacts appeared when that was in use. They use shader bandwidth to fix the artifacts. Nvidia should take a big hit in performance with AF enabled since they have such poor shader performance as it is.

Nvidia's new card coming ~March is said to have twice the shader performance of the FX.
So basicly they are just now passing or matching the 9800's shader performance with their new card.

Again I saw no advertising in the HL2 benchmarks. Just information like you would normally see in benchmarks for a card. I guess its all on your prospective. If you buy the card because "Gabe said it was best" or if you buy the card because of the card, its performance and what it offers over the competitors.

 

[Styloid]

I don't see what people are really whining about. Valve never went out of their way to say 'buy ATI'. Most of the time they were answering questions, your (the community's) questions. Would you rather they answer "they are equally good" and then go out and get a video card that gives you under 30fps? Should the lie just so they can say the are 'impartial'?
Don't forget that Valve have spent more time optimizing for Nvidia than for ATI.
It's also not uncommon for developers to work with hardware companies to take advantage of hardware the best they can.
There probably is a monetary aspect to the partnership but don't blow it out of proportion.
Don't start any small-time slandering when we all know so little about what is actually happening.

 

[Asus]

These were benchmarks done this year (2004).
Valve didn't say "Buy ATI".
The performance did.
1024x768 (AF)
1280x1024 (AF)
1600x1200 (AF)
1024x768 (AF+AA)

 

[Xenome]

Jesus the topicstarter doesn't even know what he's talking about, is this worth making a thread about...?

 

[X-FacToR]

Not like your radeon is gunna suddenly suck by the time hl2 is released its allready been said the game will run good on the cards quit flipping out like a noob.