Halflife 2 Performance Revealed

[SuperFat]

Whatever, there will never be no competition in life.


Er.... Always will be?

 

[Northwood83]

Originally posted by DigiQ8
Dammit i got Geforce FX 5200

Edit : THIS IS WILL BE THE LAST TIME I BUY NIVIDA CARD !!!
ATI ALL THE WAY !

Dont blame Nvidia for you're poor purchase decision. If you looked things up then you would not be in this predicament..Anyone anticipating HL2 and wanting the best performance should have done the smart thing and waited for benchmarks before buying any hardware.

 

[shapeshifter]

they are making the game playable all the way back to a tnt2 so they say, eye candy just needs to be pushed down the less stealer your card is, valve are not gods, they can't make the game run on something that can't do (dx9) features properally, so stop complaing, blame Nvidia. or sell your card and buy ATI

 

[SuperFat]

Originally posted by Northwood83
Dont blame Nvidia for you're poor purchase decision. If you looked things up then you would not be in this predicament..

Well I bought my card before a single preview for hl2 came out...so......
Was I magically supposed to know? At the time nvidia was doing better than ati..

 

[philterlecki]

I OWN A 9800 PRO!!!:cheers: :cheers:

 

[Chris D]

Another thing SuperFat is the fact that really it's nobody's fault other than nVidia that people are going to have bad support for their cards in the latest games. I've read everywhere that not only is the performance of the fx 5xxx series dramatically unsubstantial in change from the higher level ti4x00 series but it's DX9 performance is really poor. It's nVidia's fault for releasing a series of cards that doesn't seem to have much benefits against their much cheaper and rather respectable ti4xxx series.

9700 Pros are more than I thought, I may get a 9600 Pro instead and beef up the RAM as the card is £110 cheaper than the 9700.

 

[FoB_Ed]

awww now I feel sorry for you Nvidia guys

*pats Nvidia owners on the back*

 

[Feath]

Originally posted by FoB_Ed
awww now I feel sorry for you Nvidia guys

*pats Nvidia owners on the back*

It's not like it won't run on NVidia cards. Just it won't run as well.

 

[Murray_H]

Originally posted by SuperFat
Well I bought my card before a single preview for hl2 came out...so......
Was I magically supposed to know? At the time nvidia was doing better than ati..

Oh yeah i forgot, HL2 is the first game that will be used for benchmarking, i have never ever seen a benchmark for a graphics card before.

 

[Northwood83]

Originally posted by SuperFat
Well I bought my card before a single preview for hl2 came out...so......
Was I magically supposed to know? At the time nvidia was doing better than ati..

Why on earth would you buy such a low end card if you play high end games like HL2?

Oh yeah i forgot, HL2 is the first game that will be used for benchmarking, i have never ever seen a benchmark for a graphics card before.

I totally agree murray. He should have done his homework.

 

[FoB_Ed]

9700 Pros are more than I thought, I may get a 9600 Pro instead and beef up the RAM as the card is £110 cheaper than the 9700

sounds like a good move....RAM is just as important if not more important than a good video card, good luck with it

 

[SuperFat]

Originally posted by Northwood83
Why on earth would you buy such a low end card if you play high end games like HL2?

1. I have a ti4800 8x it was the best nvidia card at the time, and it's still almost one of the best
2. Hl2 isn't out yet?

 

[DigiQ8]

Originally posted by Northwood83
Dont blame Nvidia for you're poor purchase decision. If you looked things up then you would not be in this predicament..Anyone anticipating HL2 and wanting the best performance should have done the smart thing and waited for benchmarks before buying any hardware.

Stupid Me ! :flame:

 

[SuperFat]

I agree with that chris.

And I did look at the graphics card benchmarks which is how I came to the choice of buying my card? Haha, you silly bumpkins make no sense.

 

[shapeshifter]

yes long before hl2 previews were out there were syntetic Dx9 benches, and guess what? nvidia did poor in them, ati did fine. but all the fan boys started yelling that they werent real games, they didnt count. then the Tomb raider bench came, it showed the same thing, all the fan boys started yelling "its a poorly made game, you can't use that" halo beta comes along, "its only a beat you can't use that" Half life 2 comes along.... wonder what there going to start yelling? OH I already know, Ive seen it around, hell look at anadtechs fourms

""Valve insists that they have not optimized the game specifically for any vendor."


cough*** BULLSHIT***cough


The whole part about them "insisting" just shows they are guilty of it.




They are a co-advertiser; they are even packaging their merchandise in the SAME bundle as a sales promotion. Yeah, no optimizations happened there "

 

[Northwood83]

Originally posted by SuperFat
1. I have a ti4800 8x it was the best nvidia card at the time, and it's still almost one of the best
2. Hl2 isn't out yet?

Superfat, I hadn't quoted you. I was talking to DigiQ8. :dozey:

 

[SuperFat]

Originally posted by Northwood83
...You bought an FX5200 when you owned a Ti4800....wow..Thats all I gotta say is wow. Quite possibly the worst purchase decision I've seen in a long time. What on earth made you do a thing like that?

I didn't buy a 5200....
What I said before was the ti4800 that I owned was between a 5200 and 5600, as in performance wise, the ti4800 and the 5600 are nearly the same.
So maybe someone else didn't do their homework?

 

[Prince of China]

Originally posted by Tork
the Radeon 9600 Pro performs very well - it is a good competitor of the 5900 ultra;
:cheese:

That's good to hear, I have a 9600 Game Buster 128MB but it's recognized as a 9600 Pro

 

[Chris D]

I've never actually bothered to find out, but what kind of performance difference would I find between a 9800 and a 9800 Pro? Is a 9800 standard better than a 9700 PRO or 9600 PRO?

 

[shapeshifter]

a 9800 np is about the same as a 9700pro just about.

 

[Melon Farmer]

best card to buy has to be the 9800 non-pro (pref sapphire branded). The non-pro version is the EXACT same card as the pro, but they are just speed binned and have a different bios.

the sapphires are well made and have good quality samsung 3.3 ns ram and can easily be clocked to 9800 Pro speeds. you can even flash the bios so that your card IS a 9800 Pro. instructions can be found here

top of the line card for a very good price :cheers:

can't be beat IMO

 

[SirMcNugget]

The problem with Nvidia is just that they suck at DX9. If you have an older nVidia card with DX8 it isnt the same issue, though you wont have the DX9 features and the other obvious drawbacks of an older card. I have a TI4200, no biggy, Ill upgrade some day.

 

[SuperFat]

So, do you guys think valve purposely "rigged" hl2 for ati cards, isn't that like...illegal on zen or something.

 

[Northwood83]

Originally posted by SuperFat
So, do you guys think valve purposely "rigged" ati cards in their direction, isn't that like...illegal on zen or something.

No. ATI simply runs shaders a lot better than Nvidia. Now that DX9 games are coming out you're seeing the benefits of their shaders.

 

[shapeshifter]

what do you mean by "rigged" like "made them better" thought ahead to the future and put in what would be needed to RUN dx9 games and still get good performance? then yes.

 

[SuperFat]

Originally posted by Northwood83
No. ATI simply runs shaders a lot better than Nvidia. Now that DX9 games are coming out you're seeing the benefits of their shaders.

Yeah I agree with that, but I would think nvidia would stop sitting on their ass by then, and get some better cards out.

 

[SuperFat]

Originally posted by shapeshifter
what do you mean by "rigged" like "made them better" thought ahead to the future and put in what would be needed to RUN dx9 games and still get good performance? then yes.

No nevermind, it's a pointless arguement.

 

[Northwood83]

I Guarentee Nvidia will do something with their next card. Its illogical that they would continue to handicap their cards for future and current (soon) games. Personally Im waiting for the next line of cards to see how they stack up on HL2, DOOM 3, and Stalker. If their performance is nominal in comparison to the current generation of cards then it looks like Ill get a nice big fat price cut on em. :bounce:

 

[trantjd]

Originally posted by Chris_D
I've never actually bothered to find out, but what kind of performance difference would I find between a 9800 and a 9800 Pro? Is a 9800 standard better than a 9700 PRO or 9600 PRO?

The 9800 is supposed to be better than the 9700Pro that it is replacing. But from the non-DX9 benches I've seen, it's not by much. If you can find them for the same price, go 9800np, otherwise don't worry about going with the 9700 pro. As for your ABC post Chris, I'd go option C and eliminate any possible obvious bottlenecks.

On a side note, only one person mentioned this so far, but doesn't anyone see a correlation between Anandtech releasing their HL2 benchmark numbers tomorrow and Steam coming out tomorrow? I'm making a somewhat educated guess that we'll see the HL2 benchmark available over steam as soon as we all setup our accounts!

I wouldn't be surprised if that was part of the reason for the delay; That they're not just releasing Steam. That would also kind of explain Anandtech's preview of tomorrow's article, if they were originally planning on releasing it today and then had to push it to tomorrow when Steam got delayed. They decided to give their readers a taste of what they should have gotten today in it's entirety.

I have a feeling that this theory would explain a lot of things we've seen happening.

 

[Shockwave]

You guys gotta realize something though..

60fps in singleplayer will be 30-40fps in multiplayer. Then when mods come out and add even more detail to the source engine it will just get worse. Although valve did say that the game is dynamic FPS wise in multiplayer(when your fps drops the game adjust its settings to get you back up to what you set your maxfps at)

It just seems that everyone seems to forget that multiplayer requires 10x more of your system. Valve has said that it is toned down for multiplay but there will be a huge difference either way for all of going from single to multi fps wise. I dont know about you guys but 60fps is not acceptable to me(im not raggin on valve its just my preference). There is a huge difference between 99fps and 60 if you have played at 99 for awhile. Max detail and all that crap i never turn on even in games that my card can handle(9800pro) because i want the max steady fps. At first of course I will turn everything on to max detail but after about 5hrs i will turn it all to medium or normal settings.

Also that 60fps is probably with no FSAA or AF enabled. Id rather use AA and AF at 4x/16x and have HL2 on low quality settings because it would look better than max settings with no FSAA and AF.

plz flame me for my opinion.

 

[Chris D]

you can even flash the bios so that your card IS a 9800 Pro. instructions can be found here

Shame I don't have a floppy disk drive! Unless you can use CDs as boot disks nowadays, I dunno. Not used a boot disk since Windows 95


EDIT: Yes, I should have quoted the top sentence. Don't sue me for plagerism.

 

[shapeshifter]

yes im sure they will do something with their next card, just like ati is doing with the r420.

 

[CyanEyed]

Originally posted by Northwood83
Dont blame Nvidia for you're poor purchase decision. If you looked things up then you would not be in this predicament..Anyone anticipating HL2 and wanting the best performance should have done the smart thing and waited for benchmarks before buying any hardware.

lol i just bought a 98 pro cuz i like ati, lucky me , u can never go wrong with ati, at least not horribly wrong.

 

[Jackl]

Wow, Radeons beating FXs in DX9 features....


This is suprising how?

 

[trantjd]

Originally posted by Chris_D
you can even flash the bios so that your card IS a 9800 Pro. instructions can be found here

Shame I don't have a floppy disk drive! Unless you can use CDs as boot disks nowadays, I dunno. Not used a boot disk since Windows 95

There are bootable USB thumb drives coming out these days I've heard...but there are definitely ways to boot from a cd...all Windows install CDs do it!

 

[manny_c44]

"- even with the special NV3x codepath, ATI is the clear performance leader under Half-Life 2 with the Radeon 9800 Pro hitting around 60 fps at 10x7"

Does 10x7 mean 1024 x 768 or something else.


And I have a feeling this is fake just from the "valve recommends people with FX5200 and FX5600 to run on DX-8 mode for playable Framerates."

First of all, this really just doesn't sound like Valve or any other self-respecting company trying to sell a product. They alienate a huge section of gamers by basically mocking the FX line. Either the site took the remark out of context or this is just a big fat fake.

And why would they give the benchmark to the site early, also very unlike valve. Its all a lie.

 

[Northwood83]

Originally posted by manny_c44
"- even with the special NV3x codepath, ATI is the clear performance leader under Half-Life 2 with the Radeon 9800 Pro hitting around 60 fps at 10x7"

Does 10x7 mean 1024 x 768 or something else.


And I have a feeling this is fake just from the "valve recommends people with FX5200 and FX5600 to run on DX-8 mode for playable Framerates."

First of all, this really just doesn't sound like Valve or any other self-respecting company trying to sell a product. They alienate a huge section of gamers by basically mocking the FX line. Either the site took the remark out of context or this is just a big fat fake.

And why would they give the benchmark to the site early, also very unlike valve. Its all a lie.

10x7 means 1024x768, yes.
Its not fake, anandtech is a very ruputable site.

 

[Piecemak3r]

I love laughing at all of the band wagon jumpers. One post claims nvidia is better all nvidia owners are like MY CARD OWNZ JOO. Next post says ati is on top and all nvidia owners feel the need to compensate for their small wee wee and say they are going to buy a new ati and get rid of their "p.o.s." nvidia card, (that they just were bragging about 5 posts ago) let me make this simple for you all JUST WAIT AND SEE WHICH IS BETTER, IF IT IS ATI THEN BUY ONE, IF IT ISNT THEN KEEPS YOURS, BUT QUIT YOUR FACKING WHINING!

<just venting.

 

[trantjd]

Originally posted by manny_c44
"- even with the special NV3x codepath, ATI is the clear performance leader under Half-Life 2 with the Radeon 9800 Pro hitting around 60 fps at 10x7"

Does 10x7 mean 1024 x 768 or something else.


And I have a feeling this is fake just from the "valve recommends people with FX5200 and FX5600 to run on DX-8 mode for playable Framerates."

First of all, this really just doesn't sound like Valve or any other self-respecting company trying to sell a product. They alienate a huge section of gamers by basically mocking the FX line. Either the site took the remark out of context or this is just a big fat fake.

And why would they give the benchmark to the site early, also very unlike valve. Its all a lie.

I've been a very long-time reader of Anandtech and I have found them to be one of the most professional sites around. Go back and read some of their reviews and you'll see what I mean. They are a great site and are definitely a likely candidate for Valve to approach for the first benchmark articles.

 

[Shockwave]

The FX line isnt based on DX9 if i am correct, they are based on DX8.

If you have a 5200 in no way possible should you even think that you will get decent framerates. A geforce 3 ti500 beats out a 5200, the 5200 cant even beat out the ti4200.