I'm confused re: the benchmark.

[Spiffae]

Now I know I don't get confused much, and I'm sure this is very shocking for the children in the audience, but yes, i'm confused. About the benchmark.

Now here is what I understand:
1. Valve is making a stand-alone benchmark for HL2 to be released before hl2.
2. It will comprehensively test your system for it's ability to play Half-Life 2.
3. It will be free.

Are those right?

What I don't understand is that if this is the case, will Valve be releasing a sort of source tech-demo with it? We've never seen source in action. We've seen videos, and we've seen screenshots, but will we now be able to see source doing realtime rendering on our systems before HL2 comes out? Will they use a game scene? will they make their own scene? I guess i just feel like with all this secrecy, a benchmark that comes out before the game would kind of be an anticlimax. Also, i think that modders and their ilk woudl just rip it apart.

 

[scribblehead]

as far as i can tell what valve has told us, then-

yes
yes
yes

I'm gonna assume it won't show/have anything game related, atleast to HL2....its likely that it will feature the map, that was showed as the Tech demo video...

 

[Fjolle]

actually i thought that it analysed your hardware, and recommended what you needed to upgrade...

but your idea sounds interesting

 

[Mackan]

well i think it just either check your system, or you type in what you have, and then it tells you if its alright or not..
nothing fancy

 

[scribblehead]

Originally posted by Mackan
well i think it just either check your system, or you type in what you have, and then it tells you if its alright or not..
nothing fancy

No it will not, if you would take the time to substanciate your claims, you would have found this link on the forums---somewhat proving it'll be running realtime tech/demo.

http://www.hardocp.com/index.html#8157-1

http://hardocp.com/files/BenchmarkingFuture.pdf

 

[dawdler]

And considering that we know that its a "real" benchmark, we can guess how it will be too. My guess is that it has a few custom built levels, that stresses parts of the gcard. Levels concentration in pixel shaded waters, normal mapping, high poly counts, etc... And a quick run through a average HL2 level. But that's just a guess... Another one is a single level, with a set camera path, that simply moves through it all and grabs average fps through certain areas. In these areas one have various levels of detail and activity. Its easy to try different settings then, one could have a simple slider that alters amount of object/enemies/graphics settings from 1 to 100%. (besides the specific settings).

The third and best guess I have, its nothing like anything I guess

 

[Mountain Man]

Originally posted by Fjolle
actually i thought that it analysed your hardware, and recommended what you needed to upgrade...

In that case, it'll probably be a simple flash movie advertising ATI products.

 

[Mackan]

Originally posted by scribblehead
No it will not, if you would take the time to substanciate your claims, you would have found this link on the forums---somewhat proving it'll be running realtime tech/demo.

http://www.hardocp.com/index.html#8157-1

http://hardocp.com/files/BenchmarkingFuture.pdf

well i have a hard time believing there will be a benchmark with levels from the game.. that would be like releasing a demo, something valve have said many times they wont do
perhaps theres gonna be some form of simple hl2-like rendering to check cpu and gpu capabilitys, but i dont think it will be in the source engine

just my thoughts, i could very well be wrong

 

[Nuclear_Gerber]

When will it be released anyway?
on the 30th too?

 

[Spiffae]

aparently it will be released before the game. i'm guessing it comes out at the same time or soon after the gold announcement. no sense in benchmarking in less-than-final code.

 

[MoJo|Night]

I should imagine it will be something along the lines of 3dmark or other benchamarking software that will run a series of scenarios through involving gfx and sound on your system, and have some physics test on there and come up with a range of scores for parts of your system and then give you a final performance rating and recommended settings for play.

I have very little to back it up but that's what I'm expecting.

 

[meninblck]

well it would definately explain why they didn release the tech demo video on steam! they might be holding it for the benchmark!??

 

[6iXx]

For all we know it could just be a text chart with "If you get xxx in 3D Mark, you will need to run at xxx setting" But I doubt it

 

[Wizzcat]

Originally posted by Mackan
well i have a hard time believing there will be a benchmark with levels from the game.. that would be like releasing a demo, something valve have said many times they wont do
perhaps theres gonna be some form of simple hl2-like rendering to check cpu and gpu capabilitys, but i dont think it will be in the source engine

just my thoughts, i could very well be wrong

Dude, you know what a benchmark is, right? The whole point of a benchmark is to test the performance in a given game. Making a hl2 benchmark that didn't use the source engine would be totally worthless since it wouldn't show you how your computer wold perform in hl2. I'm guessing that they won't be using content or maps from the game, but part of the point imo will be to show off the gfx in hl2. After seeing ingame source gfx, I think most people will be hard pressed to not drool over it.

It wouldn't really be a crisis if they used ingame content/levels tho. If it comes in week or two like it hopefully will, it should only be one or two weeks until retail, so imo it would only add fuel to the fire, far from an anticlimax. That is of course not that relevant tho, as gfx will be most important for the benchmark. Gimme some nice levels and some bouncing oil-drums and I'll be happy.

 

[dscowboy]

The term 'benchmark' denotes a static presentation. How could you compare one computer's scores against another if they aren't performing exactly the same tasks? Don't expect to be running around shooting things.

The hardocp link from above is probably accurate, the benchmark will probably include the Source engine and a demo file that runs on a sample map.

EDIT: Of course, this wouldn't preclude clever people from hacking it and making it interactive. But without any game code it probably wouldn't be much fun.

 

[Mackan]

Originally posted by Wizzcat
Dude, you know what a benchmark is, right? The whole point of a benchmark is to test the performance in a given game. Making a hl2 benchmark that didn't use the source engine would be totally worthless since it wouldn't show you how your computer wold perform in hl2. I'm guessing that they won't be using content or maps from the game, but part of the point imo will be to show off the gfx in hl2. After seeing ingame source gfx, I think most people will be hard pressed to not drool over it.

It wouldn't really be a crisis if they used ingame content/levels tho. If it comes in week or two like it hopefully will, it should only be one or two weeks until retail, so imo it would only add fuel to the fire, far from an anticlimax. That is of course not that relevant tho, as gfx will be most important for the benchmark. Gimme some nice levels and some bouncing oil-drums and I'll be happy.

yes i know what a benchmark is

it all depends on how accurate valve wants to be with it..
using a map in the source-engine that people can try and run around in is probably the optimum solution when it comes to testing your computer configuration, but i still think thats not the way vavle will go with..
im sure they are pretty prominent coders, so creating a simple testprogram that uses the same amount of cpu/gpu computing power as the source-engine should be a simple task

and say they used the source-engine and a simple testmap, dont you think that would be a pretty hefty download? compared to a program that draws some lines and such?

but as i said, i have no clue if im right.. it just sounds more probable to me

 

[dscowboy]

Nah, a benchmark that doesn't directly measure the performance of the Source engine would be useless. There are plenty of benchmarks out there that measure general system and graphics performance already. The purpose of Valve creating a benchmark would be specifically to measure how different hardware performed on their engine.

creating a simple testprogram that uses the same amount of cpu/gpu computing power as the source-engine should be a simple task

It's not simple at all. In order to approximate the GPU load of vertex transformation, dynamic lighting, texture blending, etc, you would need to write a full graphics engine that could DO vertex transformation, dynamic lighting, texture blending, etc. Why would they write a new graphics engine just to approixmate the hardware requirements of Source, when they already have Source itself?

You're probably thinking that the Source engine itself is bigger than it really is. Game engines are actually quite small, it's the art that takes up all the space on a game CD.

 

[Mackan]

yeah youre probably right
i better leave this discusion before i make me a bigger fool then i already am

 

[mrk]

I think it will "r0x my b0x" to be honest :afro: