Half-Life 2 DirectX 9 Performance

[Curator]

There seems to be alot of confusion here. Half Life 2 has been designed to run on a 9800 Pro. There currently isn't anything faster than that other than workstation graphics cards which aren't optimized to run games. That said, Valve would not make a game that only runs at 30 fps with max settings on the fastest available hardware as that would just be absurd; it will more than likely be around 100 fps.

The fact of the matter is that the 9800 Pro is a better card than the 5900 Ultra. In the majority of the benchamarks conducted by various sites all over the net, the 9800 comes out on top in almost evey test. The only time you would see otherwise is if the review used optimized versions of the detonators along with unpatched versions of 3DMark03 which allowed nvidia to cheat by decreasing the level of image quality (among other things). Nvidia knew their cards had problems so in order to mask these problems and still make some money they withdrew from the partnership with Futuremark and made false accusations against them. The massive failure of the 5800 Ultra should have tipped most people off right away. Even Gabe has admitted to owning 9800's over the competition citing the pure facts.

The reason why the 5900 Ultra does better in Doom 3 is because nvidia has grinded id software for a partnership (and payed a hefty sum I might add) in order to optimize for them. The 5900 also has a special engine designed to run dynamic shadows (which D3 uses heavily) more efficiently. And on top of that ATI has not yet done anything to it's drivers for Doom 3 optimization.

The next ATI card is labeled the R420, not R400 and is supposed to be twice as fast as the 9800 Pro. It won't be out until beginning next year. Same goes for the NV40.

 

[dawdler]

There seems to be alot of confusion here. Half Life 2 has been designed to run on a 9800 Pro

Couldnt have
The 9800 wasnt out when the HL2 engine coding began. Hell, even the 9700/9500 wasnt out. Though they had been out far longer, so my guess is that about 90% of the codings/testing/design on the DX9 part was done on a 9700, then they jumped to the 9800 (Pro doesnt matter).

 

[OCybrManO]

My guess is that nVidia is falling behind ATI and DX9 sucks on the FX series cards.

 

[Tyl3n0L]

Originally posted by Curator
The next ATI card is labeled the R420, not R400 and is supposed to be twice as fast as the 9800 Pro. It won't be out until beginning next year. Same goes for the NV40.

Not true... the next ATi card is the R360 a.k.a 9900 ... It's a "overclocked" 9800 , like the 9800 is an "overclocked" 9700.
ATi said the card is coming in september/october

And the next Nvidia cards are the NV36 and NV38. Coming this year too.

 

[dawdler]

And dont forget, its not R420, its Loki... Much cooler, both ATI and Nvidia should learn from 3DFX

 

[Curator]

Couldnt have
The 9800 wasnt out when the HL2 engine coding began. Hell, even the 9700/9500 wasnt out. Though they had been out far longer, so my guess is that about 90% of the codings/testing/design on the DX9 part was done on a 9700, then they jumped to the 9800 (Pro doesnt matter).

According to your argument 90% of the game was not made using a 9700 as the game has been in development for 5 years. The 9700 only came out about a year ago. My original point was that the developers always push for the best graphics possible and then compensate based on the available hardware at the time of completion. So, if they were to have released HL2 a year ago it would not have had as many graphical features as is possible now. And since the 9800 was available before the game's released, valve has made the necessary adjustments so that the game can run optimally on a 9800. Get my drift?

Not true... the next ATi card is the R360 a.k.a 9900 ... It's a "overclocked" 9800 , like the 9800 is an "overclocked" 9700.
ATi said the card is coming in september/october

Yes, you are correct on the part of the next card to be released. But in my view it's just a business tactic to squeeze out every last drop from the R300 core. The next real release is the R420.

And dont forget, its not R420, its Loki

Actually, it is the R420 as that is the official technical name for it. Loki is just a code name.

 

[dawdler]

Originally posted by Curator
According to your argument 90% of the game was not made using a 9700 as the game has been in development for 5 years. The 9700 only came out about a year ago. My original point was that the developers always push for the best graphics possible and then compensate based on the available hardware at the time of completion. So, if they were to have released HL2 a year ago it would not have had as many graphical features as is possible now. And since the 9800 was available before the game's released, valve has made the necessary adjustments so that the game can run optimally on a 9800. Get my drift?

I said the DX9 part, not the entire engine. You only need to test the DX9 rendering code with it. As soon as the 9700 came out I guess Valve was all over its PS 2.0. (or before with cooperation with ATI)
The 9800 hardware wise isnt that much different to the 9700. Its basicly the same, the 9800 is just faster (updated smoothvision and hyperz and all that, which can actually be done on the 9700 with hacked drivers). If they would have released it a year ago, and fully using the 9700, it would have been just as good looking as on a 9800, just some 15 fps slower.

 

[Curator]

Yes, you are correct about the 9800 just being a revised 9700. However, if they would have released it a year ago they would not have had the opportunity to adjust game code since the 9700 was coming out at the same time. So it would have been optimized for a ti4600 instead.

Anyways, it doesn't matter.