Is half-life 2 at par with Doom3 and farcry...graphically?

Rhalle said:
I played the demo of FC and couldn't see what all the fuss what about, as it looked, sounded, and played like crap to me. It surely looked like next-generation--next generation plastic. It was popular because everything was so bright and shiny, and it had palm trees.
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Far Cry is terrible if you insist playing it on a res higher than your card can take because the engine seems to do OK, but it's really sacrificing your control responsiveness to reduce instances of chopiness. This makes the game extremely frustrating because you keep over- and under- aiming. The game gave me a much better impression when I got my x800xt (I almost pulled off a decent framerate on that jeep drive over the volcano at 1600! :eek: ). Still, like Doom3, it didn't focus on the things it did best. If only the designers could take their finished product and instantly correct all their then clearly apparant mistakes.
 
Vash63 said:
" walk, scary sound, monster jumps out.. hold down fire button.. reached boss, hold down fire button..."

Um, well there are only like 4 bosses in the game, and it's a very long game....and most of the bosses aren't just 'hold down fire button' (Guardian has seekers you must kill first, etc.). How far have you gotten in DOOM?
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Are you quoting someone? Use the quote feature so we know whom you're talking to.

And yeah, a few more bosses would have helped.
 
lans said:
Indeed, games like HL2 and D3 both look great in motion. I'll agree, however the D3 screenshots were always taken in good res with AA and AF and everything maxed out. Only yesterday did we finally got to see hi-res screens from valve WITH AA and AF and they looked plain gorgeous. So both these devs want to to underwhelm us on purpose so that we get extremely impressed with the end and final result, as per on our settings.
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Yes, the screens were high quality--the vids weren't. I'm just really excited about what others will do with the doom3 engine. BTW, what developers are using it other than Raven for Quake IV?
 
I honestly don't see what all the fuss about Doom 3 is. The graphics aren't that good, it's all about great textures and darkness to hide crappy character models. The game could do with a ton more polygon's, everyone has a triangular peaked head in it, quite a lot or circular objects are octangonal. They didn't use the real-time shadows as well as they could've, there was only once in the game where I was actually scared of a huge shadow coming down the corridor, only for it to be a little imp. Other than that, I'd ever go as far at to say Far Cry is technically superior to Doom 3, and Half-Life is gonna be better than both in terms or realism, interaction and overall quality.

Yes, I've completed Doom 3 running at 1024 x 768 with other settings maxed. Also the game does get boring.
 
Hl2 does NOT have bad outdated graphics. What makes us feel a game has good graphics? 1. Texture quality 2. Character/environment models 3. Lighting.

HL2 has great texture quality. The engine, like it's contemporaries, is capable of having very high resolution textures.

The character models are brilliant, needless to say. The faces are modelled very well, good lip-syncing too. And it's not just the player models. The props are also modelled extremely well. Things like keyboards, cpu cabinets and other very random map props have been made suprisingly well. It's not like the polycount is insanely high, by it sure as hell isn't low. They've put alot of work in this field, that's for sure.

The lighting is probably why people say HL2 has "bad graphics". Just because the designers choose not to use a Doom 3 like dynamics lighting system all the time, people tend to think the graphics suck. I feel the lighting is fine, no need or point in having all-round dynamic lighting. However, I do feel the glitches with the lighting (shadow anomalies) need some attention.

People talk as if HL2 looks like pac-man or summin. The graphics are NOT bad :mad:. Sure, it could be better ... but with the current generation of hardware ... not much better.
 
Also think about the fact Half-Life 2 is an expansive city and it seems like a fair bit of the game will be outside too. Doom 3 is corridor after corridor of scripted madness, graphical flaws hidden by darkness. Half-Life 2 more than holds it's own. The texture quality in HL2 is also superb by the looks of it. Them spider like creatures in the new screens looks amazing, 10x more detailed than the spiders things in Doom 3.
 
Anybody who tries to say Doom 3's graphics are bad is just being a Half-Life 2 fanboy. The fact is, Doom 3 looks phenomenal. That doesn't mean that Half-Life 2 looks bad, but it's stilly to try and downplay Doom 3's exceptional visual quality in order to prop Half-Life 2 up a little higher.

Don't worry, Half-Life 2 will still slaughter the competition when it comes to gameplay and innovation.
 
Mountain Man said:
Anybody who tries to say Doom 3's graphics are bad is just being a Half-Life 2 fanboy. The fact is, Doom 3 looks phenomenal. That doesn't mean that Half-Life 2 looks bad, but it's stilly to try and downplay Doom 3's exceptional visual quality in order to prop Half-Life 2 up a little higher.

Don't worry, Half-Life 2 will still slaughter the competition when it comes to gameplay and innovation.
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Ye I know that it's still the best out, but Far Cry does come close technically.
 
I actually found Doom3's shadows to be way too sharp... They dont even fade when they go to far out to be drawn... Stencil Shading (doom 3) is not good for rendering out door scenes... Pretty good for indoor although the Unreal 3 engine is an example of perfect lighting for indoor and outdoor scenes. Considering that the Unreal 3 engine does use ray tracing which is the most amazing lighting technique ever!

HL2's lighting I think is extreamly amazing with its softshadowing and specular normal mapping... The bad thing about it is the shadow calculation from light sources... Well since it is using projection shadowing thats alright, shadows do blur and fade as the shadow's light source decreases and sharpens when the light source increases...

All in all I think the Source engine has way more potential for Shadows and graphics compared to Doom 3's engine...
 
The HL2 tech demo (released a while back) rocks Doom3, IMO

(as pointed out by 'Bling' above^)
 
Alright, before I even start, let me just say that I am a complete and utter HL fanboy, Lord knows how many times I've played through HL and if you've ever seen me in the Rumors and Speculations board then you know I spend a lot of time trying to piece together the ecology of fictional alien species from a video game. :LOL: I'm absolutely devoted to HL, just thought I'd make that clear before I say what I'm about to say:

Half-Life 2's graphics are disappointing, to say the least.

Yes, you heard me. I'm not gonna come right out and say it looks like ass (even though I'd kinda like to), but believe me, people, some of you guys saying it's on par with Doom 3 and Far Cry on a graphical level need to get your eyes checked.
Here's the thing: even in the screenshots you can tell that HL2 is already showing its age. In those three new hi-res shots, in the antlion shot you can even see there's a clipping error; a horn or fang is going through one of their heads! Look at how drab some of those textures look, notably the ground texture and on the side of the ship, there. Not pretty.

But those are just screenshots, right? I'd probably have to see the game in motion to appreciate it. Well, my post might get deleted for saying this (which'd be kinda silly since I'm not spoiling anything and people have a right to know), but for whatever reason I decided to cave into my weakness and finally see the game for myself this morning.
Underwhelmed would be the most generous word I could use to describe my feelings for the graphics of this game. At 1280x1024 the textures (where they were applied, much of it was unfinished) were shoddy. There were some nice effects going on, mainly on brick/stone walls, but the textures were otherwise flat.

When it came to characters it was just...look they hadn't implemented the facial animations into every scene yet, even on the main characters, but woe to those who weren't main characters like Alyx, Barney, and Kleiner, 'cause those NPCs just looked awful. You could've drawn their faces on a flat texture and not come out too much the worse. Even the main characters could've used a lot of touching up, and where their facial animations and lip synching were applied, didn't make a whole helluva lot of difference and it's not even that noticeable.
Zombies looked like trash. Hell you don't even have to play the year-old, extremely unfinished and unpolished beta to see that. Go look at Gamespy, there's a semi-recent shot of a group of zombies that looks TERRIBLE! And that's a fairly new screen, April 15th of this year!

Y'know I realize the beta's old, unpolished and unfinished tech from last year, of course I do. It'd be idiotic to base my feelings on a game on something that old, and I'd love to give it the benefit of the doubt, but how much can they change, polygon-wise, in that period of time? Obviously not much judging by the new screens 'cause they're still unimpressive, especially now that I've played Doom 3.

Mind you, I hate Doom 3. The story didn't keep a hold of me, the gameplay was pretty much run into this scary room, get spooked by the atmosphere, then fight monsters that aren't scary looking at all but are very nicely detailed. Everything in the world had sort of a "hands-off" look to it too, nice and polished. But it was a gorgeous graphics engine, just gorgeous, nothing has touched it and nothing WILL touch it until the Unreal 3 engine game that's due out in 2006, barring some unforseeable showstopper that comes outta nowhere. Maybe Duke Nukem Forever, lol.
Doom 3 is beautiful to look at, and some things I couldn't even believe were polygons, I figured some of those machines moving in the background had to be some kinda trick, something prerendered maybe. Everything just moved so fluidly, great spooky atmosphere but the base got on my nerves fast. Uninstalled that thing without finishing it (took a look at Hell then decided it was time to stop playing this nonsense of defeating a wave of monsters and moving onto the next area). So was it gorgeous to look at? Yes. Worth my $54? Hell no.

BTW played FC demo, couldn't give two shits one way or another about that game, but it IS prettier than HL2.

So anyway, I admit I'm a graphics whore, HL2's graphics sadden me deeply in the state that I played them in, but that's not why people are really going to buy the game, is it? Storyline, immersiveness, an actual GAME, rather than a pretty ENGINE (like Doom 3). So buy it for that reason. Don't buy it 'cause you think its graphics are anywhere NEAR Doom 3, 'cause you're fooling yourself and you're just gonna get slapped in the face when you install it. Better that you know it looks like ass now, and concentrate on the fact that it'll be a bloody brilliant experience than a graphical masterpiece, because to be honest I'd rather look at Half-Life 1 than Half-Life 2. And that's the truth from a fanboy.
 
darkside - while you made points, saying hl2's graphics look like ass you might as well cut ur eyes out with a fork.
 
Envi_81 said:
I actually found Doom3's shadows to be way too sharp... They dont even fade when they go to far out to be drawn... Stencil Shading (doom 3) is not good for rendering out door scenes... Pretty good for indoor although the Unreal 3 engine is an example of perfect lighting for indoor and outdoor scenes. Considering that the Unreal 3 engine does use ray tracing which is the most amazing lighting technique ever!

HL2's lighting I think is extreamly amazing with its softshadowing and specular normal mapping... The bad thing about it is the shadow calculation from light sources... Well since it is using projection shadowing thats alright, shadows do blur and fade as the shadow's light source decreases and sharpens when the light source increases...

All in all I think the Source engine has way more potential for Shadows and graphics compared to Doom 3's engine...
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The Doom 3 engine *appears* to support soft shadows. Apparently they were not used for atmospheric and performance reasons.

The Unreal 3 engine does not use ray tracing. Ray tracing is still a good 10 years off.
 
Poseyjmac, yes, I am jaded. But I think all gamers are a little jaded, we all want to see good graphics, otherwise we'd still be back playing pong. Pong has GREAT gameplay, hehe. I still find time to play some Pong every now and then, but does that mean I'm in love with its graphics? Nope.
Like I said I'd rather play Half-Life, great game even if it does have dated graphics. Point I was trying to make was that HL2's about an experience rather than a look. I didn't say I'm not going to enjoy it. On the contrary, I had a lot of fun during my brief stint with it. But I tell ya I really, really disliked looking at it.

And Guinny, you can believe what you want dude. Truth be told I'd cut my own damn eyes out with a fork, I'd spoon them out myself, if HL2 didn't improve at least a little over this past year. You've got a fancy-ass box, dude; $700 processor and $500 video card. But your box ain't so fancy that it's gonna make HL2 look good, brother. Believe what you want. I've got a new rig too, and I called it how I saw it.

Actually that's part of the trouble...Valve made the thing scalable to appeal to a wider audience. They sacrificed some graphical things they could have done to make sure a lot of people could play it. Y'know I'm a poor guy...I only just built this computer I'm on right now a month or two ago, after 5 years of running on a 5-year-old Gateway. In retrospect I say Valve should've forgotten all those people with slow boxes and made something nicer looking, forget those other people. Leave them in the dark and if they wanted to play they can upgrade. I sure as hell did. Seems kinda unnecessary, now...
 
Well I didn't say my box was going to make hl2 look better. All the dx9 effects, bump mapping, specular maps, dynamic lighting, sharp textures (in most places), and un-plasticy look make hl2 look amazing. And clipping has nothing to do with graphics. I've found dozens of clipping issues in doom 3.
 
HL2 wins... seriously even if HL2 had quake 1 graphics the people in this forum would still say HL2 is better

:) <3
 
DOOM III doesn't really have any good outdoor scenes. HL2 manages better graphics when it actually comes to rendering something besides a dark hallway. Does anyone here know how good the source engine can render a simple dark corridoor? the answer is really well, most anything can really. we are talking about processing large outdoor areas and making it look good. If HL2 can render an outdoor location and make it look as good as doom III's dark corridoors than the game is incredible. have you ever wondered how good DOOM III can render an acre of detailed city? have you even seen those tall towers going way past the cloud cover??? it is a sight to behold. also ppl seem to miss out on the small details, did you see the bump-mapping on those tiles??? Each tile had it's own specular highlighting? comeone, you guys really think DOOM III is better?

Also, what were seeing right now in HL2 is not the full power of the source engine. in a year or two we may see games using the source engine with much larger poly counts.
 
Darkside55 said:
Alright, before I even start, let me just say that I am a complete and utter HL fanboy, Lord knows how many times I've played through HL and if you've ever seen me in the Rumors and Speculations board then you know I spend a lot of time trying to piece together the ecology of fictional alien species from a video game. :LOL: I'm absolutely devoted to HL, just thought I'd make that clear before I say what I'm about to say:

Half-Life 2's graphics are disappointing, to say the least.

Yes, you heard me. I'm not gonna come right out and say it looks like ass (even though I'd kinda like to), but believe me, people, some of you guys saying it's on par with Doom 3 and Far Cry on a graphical level need to get your eyes checked.
Here's the thing: even in the screenshots you can tell that HL2 is already showing its age. In those three new hi-res shots, in the antlion shot you can even see there's a clipping error; a horn or fang is going through one of their heads! Look at how drab some of those textures look, notably the ground texture and on the side of the ship, there. Not pretty.

But those are just screenshots, right? I'd probably have to see the game in motion to appreciate it. Well, my post might get deleted for saying this (which'd be kinda silly since I'm not spoiling anything and people have a right to know), but for whatever reason I decided to cave into my weakness and finally see the game for myself this morning.
Underwhelmed would be the most generous word I could use to describe my feelings for the graphics of this game. At 1280x1024 the textures (where they were applied, much of it was unfinished) were shoddy. There were some nice effects going on, mainly on brick/stone walls, but the textures were otherwise flat.

When it came to characters it was just...look they hadn't implemented the facial animations into every scene yet, even on the main characters, but woe to those who weren't main characters like Alyx, Barney, and Kleiner, 'cause those NPCs just looked awful. You could've drawn their faces on a flat texture and not come out too much the worse. Even the main characters could've used a lot of touching up, and where their facial animations and lip synching were applied, didn't make a whole helluva lot of difference and it's not even that noticeable.
Zombies looked like trash. Hell you don't even have to play the year-old, extremely unfinished and unpolished beta to see that. Go look at Gamespy, there's a semi-recent shot of a group of zombies that looks TERRIBLE! And that's a fairly new screen, April 15th of this year!

Y'know I realize the beta's old, unpolished and unfinished tech from last year, of course I do. It'd be idiotic to base my feelings on a game on something that old, and I'd love to give it the benefit of the doubt, but how much can they change, polygon-wise, in that period of time? Obviously not much judging by the new screens 'cause they're still unimpressive, especially now that I've played Doom 3.

Mind you, I hate Doom 3. The story didn't keep a hold of me, the gameplay was pretty much run into this scary room, get spooked by the atmosphere, then fight monsters that aren't scary looking at all but are very nicely detailed. Everything in the world had sort of a "hands-off" look to it too, nice and polished. But it was a gorgeous graphics engine, just gorgeous, nothing has touched it and nothing WILL touch it until the Unreal 3 engine game that's due out in 2006, barring some unforseeable showstopper that comes outta nowhere. Maybe Duke Nukem Forever, lol.
Doom 3 is beautiful to look at, and some things I couldn't even believe were polygons, I figured some of those machines moving in the background had to be some kinda trick, something prerendered maybe. Everything just moved so fluidly, great spooky atmosphere but the base got on my nerves fast. Uninstalled that thing without finishing it (took a look at Hell then decided it was time to stop playing this nonsense of defeating a wave of monsters and moving onto the next area). So was it gorgeous to look at? Yes. Worth my $54? Hell no.

BTW played FC demo, couldn't give two shits one way or another about that game, but it IS prettier than HL2.

So anyway, I admit I'm a graphics whore, HL2's graphics sadden me deeply in the state that I played them in, but that's not why people are really going to buy the game, is it? Storyline, immersiveness, an actual GAME, rather than a pretty ENGINE (like Doom 3). So buy it for that reason. Don't buy it 'cause you think its graphics are anywhere NEAR Doom 3, 'cause you're fooling yourself and you're just gonna get slapped in the face when you install it. Better that you know it looks like ass now, and concentrate on the fact that it'll be a bloody brilliant experience than a graphical masterpiece, because to be honest I'd rather look at Half-Life 1 than Half-Life 2. And that's the truth from a fanboy.
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Everyone whose playtested the game and spoken on these forums (EatFresh, merc and one or two others) still thinks Half-Life 2 can definately hold its own in terms of graphics. Also i agree, the screenshots aren't as pretty as Doom 3 or Far Cry but based on what those two guys said i wouldn't count on Half-Life 2's graphics being sub-par
 
In reply to darkside55 we really don't need you on our forums, you are a stain on our community. You are NOT a half-Life fan, you give in and download a half-textured, half-animated, peice of half-done half-life 2 (thats a mouthfull) and you think you can call yourslef a part of this community??? NO! NO! NO!

Maybe you should actually download a video, you know those moving screenshots of ACTUALL gameplay and tell us if you think it compares to DOOM III. because i have watched videos of doom III and i have watched videos of HL2 and there is no comparison. HL2 is by far more impressive. I'll also have you know that FarCry only looks good because it cheats by using graphical tricks. Like spraying massive amounts of vegitation to impress ppl and by creating some fancy water effects. It doesn't do anything, you can tell farcry is really not that good.

HL2 is the best. Does anyone hear disagree? I think not!
 
FreemanHL2 said:
HL2 is the best. Does anyone hear disagree? I think not!
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we are in a halflife2 fansite. there can be no non-biased discussion of game comparisons.
 
I don't like how Doom 3 and FarCry looked. They shared this... I can't describe it. Look at the people. They look like barbies and kens... I don't know if I'm making sense. The environments were beautiful (when they weren't pitch black and covered in blood, ala Doom 3), but that's the high point. I didn't much like the actual character look. Like I said, too plastic.

Now, HL2? It looks... good. Really good. The environments are fantastic. They have this washed out look that I find very appealing. The people themselves are so perfectly done (except the awkward running of the guys in City 17, but that's minor, and just a personal preference), and the weapons show just as not, if not more detail than they do in D3/FC. So yes, I think it can stand up to them both.
 
FreemanHL2 said:
In reply to darkside55 we really don't need you on our forums, you are a stain on our community. You are NOT a half-Life fan, you give in and download a half-textured, half-animated, peice of half-done half-life 2 (thats a mouthfull) and you think you can call yourslef a part of this community??? NO! NO! NO!

Maybe you should actually download a video, you know those moving screenshots of ACTUALL gameplay and tell us if you think it compares to DOOM III. because i have watched videos of doom III and i have watched videos of HL2 and there is no comparison. HL2 is by far more impressive. I'll also have you know that FarCry only looks good because it cheats by using graphical tricks. Like spraying massive amounts of vegitation to impress ppl and by creating some fancy water effects. It doesn't do anything, you can tell farcry is really not that good.

HL2 is the best. Does anyone hear disagree? I think not!
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Whoa, my fanboy meter just blew up.

Jeez man, he likes HL2 just as much as the rest of us, he's entitled to his opinion just like the rest of us. I wish people would at least act mature on these forums, there are those that do but there's an overwhelming amount of people that don't
 
Yeah, he made it clear that the graphics are the only point he's let down on.

It's the angry flames that cause the real damage to the forums.
 
FreemanHL2 said:
LOL internet
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First off, I'm just going to say that I don't believe that I am my postcount; a newbie could say something profoundly insightful and he or she having one post wouldn't make it any less so than if he/she had said it with 1,000 posts under his or her belt. That said, I suggest that you LURK MORE. I've been here for quite awhile, and lurking for way longer than I've been posting, and you've been here how long? I'm not going to say that doesn't make you part of this community but it sure as hell doesn't give you the right to tell other people to get out of it. You wanna do that, you can go set up your own forum or your own little community in some pocket of the intarweb and put up a sign that reads, "No Darksides allowed!!1!1!eleven"

Let me just make it clear again that I AM a fan, that I WILL be buying HL2, that Valve WILL likely be making $200 off me all told...I figure $60 for the HL2 collector's edition, $40 for the Prima art book and making a mod guide (provided that they aren't included with the CE...which would be great if they were), $50 for TF2 which I've been waiting for for a loooooooooooooooooooong time, and another $50 for the Alyx expansion pack. This isn't even including whatever else they're going to come out with, and as Valve said, they're very good at creating content.

You say you've seen videos of Doom 3 and tell me to see videos of HL2. Seen them. All of them. And I can tell you I used to sit back and be like, "Man Doom 3 isn't anything, Doom 3 can't hold a candle to HL2." Believe me. Based on videos and screenshots alone, believe that. But I spent time with them both and I'm not so blindly devoted that I can't tell that there is a glaring difference between them. And it still stands that I would rather look at HL1 than HL2, that's just how I feel. It's such a letdown to me now to say that but...
Hey I'm still willing to give Valve the benefit of the doubt that it'll wow me with graphical additions in the final release. Not everything was implemented of course, and I noticed they fixed the flashlight, hehe. In the beta you turn the flashlight on a character and all the color just drains from them, they light up so bright that it looked like the sun exploded on their face. Especially in the case of Judith Mossman. All you could see were her eyes on blinding white.

So am I looking forward to the game less? Yes, unfortunately. But I also went snooping around in folders I wasn't supposed to, and I'll just say that Marc Laidlaw's still one of my favorite writers. That gives me hope. The game's still going to immerse me (hoping), it's still going to draw me in, and at the end of the day I can probably sit back and say, "That was ballsy." But the graphics do disappoint me, I can't turn a blind eye to it and pretend like it's ok. Just can't. If you can, great for you. I can't, but the story's what's going to carry me through this game, not the graphics. That, and the physics were pretty fun, albeit a little exaggerated at the stage the game was in at the time. :)

BTW Guinny just to be clear I wasn't like, ragging on your comp or anything. I know you didn't say that you thought it would make HL2 godlike but I just noticed your sig, thought I'd throw that in there. It's a very nice box. :cheers:
 
Well, that was four paragraphs worth of pwnt.

But still, you've gotta admit that the new magnum screen is great. Doom 3 has great normal maps on the surfaces, but their actual textures are somewhat blurry and monochrome. I find they only look good from far away. HL2 textures are undeniably sharper.

And remember that Valve will continuously update the game over steam. I'm sure they'll toss a few graphical upgrades as time progresses and hardware improves.
 
Not to bash you Darkside (as we are all HL fans here), but it seems to me like you are just comparing model poly counts...

If HL2 was set in narrow hallways, I'm sure the character & monster poly counts would be much higher.

[Engine Rant]
In terms of the scope and versatility of the engines, the Source engine wins. It scales down to a TNT (D3 engine is GF2? 3?) and it renders outdoor & indoor scenes in a balanced way so that they are both of equal quality (D3 does outdoor scenes horribly).

The D3 engine was designed to work well for small indoor environments, which makes it very good at doing them, but that limits its quality when it does outdoor/large indoor environments.
 
Here's the archvile skin.

I'm actually a little surprised the res was so small. I guess i was expecting a slight advancement in texture sizes over what we have now.

There's also a DoD player model texture just to see how little things have changed over the years.

Of course the Doom 3 models have bump mapping and other nice things but the base texturing is still pretty primitive and cause for a lot of the "bad texturing up close" complaints
 
Obviously Half-Life 2 is on par or better, with Doom graphically speaking.

One look at this HL2 screenshot should say it all.
 
Graphics are one thing, but dont always compare how good they are, compare how they run. On most average peoples computer, ur not gunna have SUPER computers, except u n3rds, anywayz, HL2 will run better then Doom 3, so HL2 gets my vote
 
Red Dragon said:
Graphics are one thing, but dont always compare how good they are, compare how they run. On most average peoples computer, ur not gunna have SUPER computers, except u n3rds, anywayz, HL2 will run better then Doom 3, so HL2 gets my vote
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Uh, how do you know this? Have you seen an official HL2 benchmark? Have you played the game? No?
 
Mechagodzilla said:
Well, that was four paragraphs worth of pwnt.

But still, you've gotta admit that the new magnum screen is great. Doom 3 has great normal maps on the surfaces, but their actual textures are somewhat blurry and monochrome. I find they only look good from far away. HL2 textures are undeniably sharper.

And remember that Valve will continuously update the game over steam. I'm sure they'll toss a few graphical upgrades as time progresses and hardware improves.
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I agree, D3 textures were ... not so good a bit close up. No game has good textures very close up, but still... According to playtesters HL2 won't be like that. And the HDR demo looks amazing anyways. So real. :p My friend has DOOM3 and I do too, both of us agree that HL2 will look better.

And you know what? In the end it's *always* gameplay that matters. People still love Super Mario Bros., I love Morrowind. :p

I just watched the HDR demo, it's saved on my computer, graphics are so far superior to DOOM3 it's not even funny. Textures are extremely sharp, the ant lion looks far more realistic than those fireball wielding monsters.

Just watch it, watch it over and over and over again until you notice things you didn't. 80 times better than D3. Does that mean the gameplay will be amazing? We don't know yet. You can't say the GFX are worse than Doom or that they didn't meet your expectations just because you played an unfinished game. :rolleyes:
 
Neutrino said:
Uh, how do you know this? Have you seen an official HL2 benchmark? Have you played the game? No?
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6xAA on a 9800 Pro? How does that do for you? :p
 
Darkside55 said:
First off, I'm just going to say that I don't believe that I am my postcount; a newbie could say something profoundly insightful and he or she having one post wouldn't make it any less so than if he/she had said it with 1,000 posts under his or her belt. That said, I suggest that you LURK MORE. I've been here for quite awhile, and lurking for way longer than I've been posting, and you've been here how long? I'm not going to say that doesn't make you part of this community but it sure as hell doesn't give you the right to tell other people to get out of it. You wanna do that, you can go set up your own forum or your own little community in some pocket of the intarweb and put up a sign that reads, "No Darksides allowed!!1!1!eleven"

Let me just make it clear again that I AM a fan, that I WILL be buying HL2, that Valve WILL likely be making $200 off me all told...I figure $60 for the HL2 collector's edition, $40 for the Prima art book and making a mod guide (provided that they aren't included with the CE...which would be great if they were), $50 for TF2 which I've been waiting for for a loooooooooooooooooooong time, and another $50 for the Alyx expansion pack. This isn't even including whatever else they're going to come out with, and as Valve said, they're very good at creating content.

You say you've seen videos of Doom 3 and tell me to see videos of HL2. Seen them. All of them. And I can tell you I used to sit back and be like, "Man Doom 3 isn't anything, Doom 3 can't hold a candle to HL2." Believe me. Based on videos and screenshots alone, believe that. But I spent time with them both and I'm not so blindly devoted that I can't tell that there is a glaring difference between them. And it still stands that I would rather look at HL1 than HL2, that's just how I feel. It's such a letdown to me now to say that but...
Hey I'm still willing to give Valve the benefit of the doubt that it'll wow me with graphical additions in the final release. Not everything was implemented of course, and I noticed they fixed the flashlight, hehe. In the beta you turn the flashlight on a character and all the color just drains from them, they light up so bright that it looked like the sun exploded on their face. Especially in the case of Judith Mossman. All you could see were her eyes on blinding white.

So am I looking forward to the game less? Yes, unfortunately. But I also went snooping around in folders I wasn't supposed to, and I'll just say that Marc Laidlaw's still one of my favorite writers. That gives me hope. The game's still going to immerse me (hoping), it's still going to draw me in, and at the end of the day I can probably sit back and say, "That was ballsy." But the graphics do disappoint me, I can't turn a blind eye to it and pretend like it's ok. Just can't. If you can, great for you. I can't, but the story's what's going to carry me through this game, not the graphics. That, and the physics were pretty fun, albeit a little exaggerated at the stage the game was in at the time. :)

BTW Guinny just to be clear I wasn't like, ragging on your comp or anything. I know you didn't say that you thought it would make HL2 godlike but I just noticed your sig, thought I'd throw that in there. It's a very nice box. :cheers:
Click to expand...

Theres no reason to be disapointed with the graphics, just because Doom 3s' graphics are better doesnt make HL2s' suck. HL2 graphically is on the level of Stalker, but above Farcry. Its engine will probably be able to do things the Stalker engine cant do, so when rendering a huge map, HL2 might get the lead.

The serious serious problem I have with ID is the implementation of their graphics. Their engines are always good, but their level design is always horrible.

I remember reading that JC had said the big problem with Q3 was that the PCs' at the time couldnt render large maps so they had to keep everything small which hurt the game. But from Doom 3 theyve done the exact same thing, large maps but small areas. No variety, no outdoor stuff. This is the exact reason people even consider HL2 looking better then Doom3. Honestly, ID hasnt created a great game since Q2 for the simple reason their levels and models always suck, but team up their engine and a good game making company like Raven and your in for a treat. Doom3 engine with some large maps and better models, thats what im waiting for. :thumbs:

IMO :cool:
 
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