Half-Life 2 DirectX Comparison

[Chris D]

The good guys over at IGN Gear have posted up a great article that will really show you the difference between running Half-Life 2 with a card that supports DirectX 7.0 and a card that supports DirectX 9.0. It should really help those of you make that decision on whether or not to upgrade:[br]

[br]From left to right: DirectX 7.0, DirectX 8.0, DirectX 9.0​

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So, go over there and give it a read right here.

 

[sKuNx]

Well, I'll stay on dx9.

 

[Krusty]

I must I'm impressed with how good the game still looks on DX7 and 8.
Glad I've got my 9800 Pro though

Valve really know their onions eh?

 

[The Dark Elf]

DX7 does look very nice, surprised they pulled that off tbh, the DX9 touches does make a big difference though.

 

[Asuka]

Cool article.

 

[hOgTied]

sucks for people with directX 6

 

[LucaZone]

Hmmm I need to look at my hardware drivers then, because ive got a Dx8 card....that registers Dx8 in HL2 and ive got Dx9c installed, but my water looks like Dx7 from those comparisons.

 

[Ecthe|ioN]

They all look nice, but I'll stick with my dx9 gpu though

 

[[Matt]]

I know DX8 and DX9 are similar but im suprised how little difference there is between them. In some cases they're almost identical.

 

[Lightning_Fire]

I've got a GeForce FX 5200, what should I be running?

I don't seem to get very good FPS in CS:S so I dunno what to do.

Help?

 

[dogboy73]

DX7 does look very nice, surprised they pulled that off tbh, the DX9 touches does make a big difference though.

It is surprising how good it can still look on older cards. Saying that some of us are having problems running the game even on very high end systems with X800/6800 DX9 cards (See 'stutter' problem thread on here + 50 page thread on Steam forums!) so how good it looks is all a bit irrelevant at present


BTW, Is that Jordan Capri you have for your avatar? :thumbs:

 

[palmboy5]

Is there some big difference between DX8.1 and DX8? because that water in DX8 looks really bad... mine looks closer to the DX9 :hmph:

 

[Mountain Man]

Depends on whether or not you're running an nVidia card. Valve developed a hybrid DirectX 8/DirectX 9 render path just for us.

 

[SimonomiS]

Bah, my 330 MMX Geforce, Directx 7 is pwned by those Directx 8 and 9 shots. Still looks pretty amazing though, main difference is the water ;(

 

[Max Payne]

It is *not* surprising that the game still looks good on older videocards. The only difference is the pixel shader support. They used pixel shaders for the water effects (and probably a few other places as well), but they are all things you can live without. What mostly makes the beauty of the game is the actual scenery and all the detail they put into it.

Most of the techniques used in the game (lightmapping for static lighting, stencil buffer shadows) have been around for quite a while (Quake 2 had those features). What actually makes the most difference in terms of graphics is simply the number of polygons and higher resolution textures.

 

[Gothax?]

That is cool how HL2 still looks very nice even within the different, less advantaged DirectX Versions. Even though I would like to play HL2 in DirectX9, due to my computer, I am going to have to tone it down to 7-8, even though I think it would do O.K. in 9. Cool, this really helps

 

[Alig]

Its just my opinion but i think DX8 water looks better than DX9 water. I've got an x800pro none the less so i'll be using DX9 for its other better features.

 

[tommycat]

Interesting thing to note:

DX7 makes it real hard to hide in the water. DX9 gives the possibility to hide in water. so if you're playing multiplayer, the DX7 gamers have an advantage over the DX9 players. Single player: DX9, Multiplayer: DX7

 

[ukfluke]

i have to say the water is orgasmic in dx9

 

[JinkyWilliams]

The water freaking ROCKS in dx9! I mean... man! And "holy crap"! And "sweet Mother of Ghandi!" and lots of other things.

The water in HL2 is The Man.

And infinite supplies of Ant Lion cannon fodder is nice, too.

 

[Ansur]

i have to say the water is orgasmic in dx9

Thats... nice to know

 

[Rebel Racer]

WOW the water looks awesome in DX9.. but still doesn't look that bad under DX7.. it really sucks for me that I only have the standard 64 mb video card that came with my pc, i don't have $500 to shell out on a new ATI Radeon x800...

 

[zer0kewl]

damn that dx7 water is't worst @ all
really looks good still

 

[Megalomaniac]

I've got the Dx7 card, surprised me when I started playing how good it looked on mid settings

 

[johnnypoopoopant]

dx 7 aint that shabby

lots of gamers with low end systems can play on it

 

[sublidieminal]

Whats the command to change DX mode??

 

[fakeemail420214]

I wonder if I can play the game under DirectX 7 in CS:S so I can use it as a cheat. if someone is hiding under the water. lol

 

[Kouch]

Wtf, I can't see any pictures at all in that article. Tried both firefox and IE???

 

[Alec_85]

Whats the command to change DX mode??

mat_dxlevel *number* (70, 80, 81, 90)

 

[dleidlein]

mat_dxlevel *number* (70, 80, 81, 90)

WOAH! Are you serious? That's cool, I scrolled through every command in the console but I must have overlooked that one.

One question though, my 5700Ultra should be DX9 correct? Because it shows up as DX8.1 in game and the selection box is greyed out.. I know other people have that issue, does this fix it at a major performance hit? I will obviously try it and post my results but am at work ATM.

THANKS and man, Valva rocks

 

[Monder]

Most of the techniques used in the game (lightmapping for static lighting, stencil buffer shadows) have been around for quite a while (Quake 2 had those features).

I'm rather sure HL2 uses shadow mapping actually which is why you get a blob type thing in DX 7. If HL2 were using stencil shadows they'd still work fine in DX 7. I've also noted aliasing on shadows which you wouldn't get with stencil shadows.

Oh and are you sure Q2 had stencil shadows?